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A leaked report from the Defense Intelligence Agency has questioned President Donald Trump’s claim that recent US airstrikes “completely and completely wiped out” three Iranian nuclear facilities, and instead concluded the mission to retreat Iran’s program in a few months.
The report, published by CNN and The New York Times, comes days after Trump approved the strike amid growing tensions between Israel and Iran. In a national speech shortly after the surgery, Trump declared that the site would be “completely wiped out.”
Members of the Trump administration have fought new wars to trust the initial reports from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Reporting Agency, but several experts told Fox News Digital that there is too little information to determine exactly how much damage the strike has caused.
Connecting thorough intelligence ratings is complicated and time-consuming.
“They’re looking into Iran’s strike ledgers,” said Leavitt, FBI.
Trump said on Saturday that the US completed a “very successful” strike against Iranian nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, and that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been “eliminate.” (Fox News)
Dan Shapiro, previously serving as Secretary of Defense in the Middle East and Deputy Director of the Israeli Ambassador, said he didn’t stock much in both the overly pessimistic or overly optimistic ratings that appeared quickly, saying that the initial rating from the DIA is likely based solely on satellite status.
“This is one of the puzzles for how you really do this assessment,” Shapiro, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital. “We really need to test all other intelligence flows, from signal intelligence, human intelligence, site monitoring, potential visits by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the likelihood of visits by others.
“But if the ammunition is done as expected, it would likely cause serious damage and lead to a significant backward retreat of the program,” Shapiro said.
General Dan Kane, chairman of the Co-State Chief of Staff, said Sunday that the initial combat damage assessment suggested that “all three sites maintained very serious damage and destruction,” but he admitted that the final assessment would “take some time.”
Still, the media report based on the DIA report drew another picture, and CNN’s report on the first report cited the seven people described in the report, saying that the rich uranium stash of Iran was not destroyed in the strike. The findings were based on a combat damage rating from the US Central Command, according to CNN.
Other members of the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegses, have since pushed back the conclusions of the DIA report, claiming the report is labelled “unreliable.”
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses will speak in Washington at a press conference held at the Pentagon on Thursday, June 26th, 2025. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
Experts say the term is commonly used when labeling initial assessments and means that conclusions are based on limited data.
Retired Navy Rep. Mark Montgomery, who previously served as director of cross-border threats on former President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, said the low-trust explanation is commonly used in early assessments.
“Unreliable means that analysts are not sure the accuracy of the assessment,” said Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Washington Think Tank, who is now a Foundation for Democracy Defense. “This happens frequently when you’re looking at these 24-hour ratings quickly.”
Montgomery’s colleague Craig Singleton also said he is a senior fellow at the Democracy Foundation, saying the low confidence label is used in cases with thin evidence and serves as a warning to policymakers to seek additional information.
“The most important thing is that if the key facts have not yet been verified, a low confidence rating is usually issued. This certainly applies in this case,” Singleton said.
Rob Greenway, former assistant assistant to the former president of Trump’s National Security Council, told Fox News Digital it would take a month or two to get a more thorough rating with greater confidence.
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US President Donald Trump will hold a meeting with Vice President JD Vance in the White House situation room in Washington, DC on June 21, 2025 (White House via Reuters/handout)
Greenway also said the strike was designed to cause underground damage. This complicates the assessment of damage as it is not readily available and requires multiple sources, such as signals and human intelligence, to draw conclusions.
Israel had previously conducted a strike targeting the site, but added it to the web of analytics that must be evaluated, Greenway said.
“Each of these are one of the much bigger puzzles, trying to measure the ultimate effect of the entire puzzle, not just a particular strike,” says Greenway, now director of the Heritage Foundation’s National Security Center. “It all means it takes time to do it.”
Still, Greenway said the amount of weapons at the site, including over 14 30,000 pounds, has been reduced. Bombs – means targeted facilities are very heavy and compromised.
“We had twice the amount of weapons needed to achieve the desired effect to make sure we didn’t have to go back,” Greenway said.
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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) are sitting in the situation room as they monitored the mission that removed three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites at the White House in Washington, DC on June 21, 2025 (Daniel Trock/White House via Getty Images)
“There is virtually no mathematical probability that either facility could be used again by Iran for the intended purpose.
And Michael Allen, former senior director of the National Security Council of George W. Bush administration, said that the Intelligence News portrait will be “enricher” in the coming days, despite the fact that the final decision from the Intelligence News community is not immediately prepared.
“It’s pouring things in, and we’re gathering them. They’re trying to stomp it into the White House as soon as possible,” Allen, now managing director of Beacon Global Strategy, an advisory firm, told Fox News Digital.
White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that few people had access to the report, and those leaked to the media are responsible for the FBI’s investigation of people who shared the document.
“The person was irresponsible for that,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “And we need to get to that bottom, and we need to strengthen that process to protect national security and protect the American people.”
Diana Stancy is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, covering the White House.
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