The effort to undermine Donald Trump's claims that three Iranian nuclear facilities were "obliterated" continued this past week when anonymous sources told NBC News that just one of the three nuclear sites was destroyed, while the other two were heavily damaged but could resume enrichment activities in a few months.
That analysis comes from "five current and former U.S. officials familiar with the assessment," reports NBC.
The report claims that the uranium enrichment facility at Fordow was completely destroyed, while the Natanz and Isfahan sites were damaged but could resume operations in a few months if the Iranians desired.
The report was shared with allies and some members of Congress. It flies in the face of an analysis of the damage by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which claimed that most of the 18,000 centrifuges operated by Iran to enrich uranium were destroyed either in bomb blasts or when the very sensitive machines lost power. Restoring Iran's enrichment capability will "require the construction of entirely new facilities, rather than simply repairing existing ones," according to the IAEA.
Institute for Science and International Security founder David Albright called the new damage assessment "hyped-up nonsense."
Whoever wrote or leaked this is muddled, and the @NBCNews headline is hyped up nonsense. Esfahan is not an enrichment site. Two GBU-57’s were dropped on the Natanz underground enrichment plant. Could be that the original muddler is actually talking about the mountain complex at…
— David Albright (@DAVIDHALBRIGHT1) July 17, 2025
Albright, a scientist who has been spot on with his analysis of Iran's nuclear program in the past, believes the assessment may be alluding to tunnels at the Isfahan complex, where Iran is suspected to have hidden highly enriched uranium up to 60%. Initial reports indicated that those tunnels were blocked by tens of thousands of tons of rock and would take many months to clear to get at whatever was stored in the labs.
The report claims that Mr. Trump rejected a Pentagon plan for more sustained strikes than Operation Midnight Hammer’s one-night hit. On the one hand, that seems to denigrate the president’s resolve. On the other hand, it also might prompt him to renew the bombing. Israel, for one, is saying that if its intelligence were to detect resumption of nuclear activities, it would immediately dispatch its fighter jets and drones to Iran. Mr. Trump agrees.
Jerusalem and Washington are, at least for now, hoping that their joint military action would force Iran to agree on a diplomatic pact that, unlike the 2015 nuclear deal, would truly block a path to a bomb. Would the NBC leak help such a deal, or could it convince Tehran that America and Israel are paper tigers? The latter could stiffen the mullahs’ resolve. They’re already boasting of a “victory” in the June war. Will they now buy their own propaganda?
These "assessments" don't tell the whole story. The biggest question facing the U.S. and Israel is how badly was the entire Iranian nuclear weapon enterprise set back. They were potentially two weeks or less away from being able to build a bomb before the strikes. If most of their centrifuges were destroyed, it may have set Iran's bomb program back by a year or more.
More importantly, if they try to reestablish a nuclear enrichment capability that could spin uranium up to near bomb-grade level, Israel will likely strike again. Also, Britain, France, and Germany have all agreed — reluctantly — that unless a new nuclear deal is agreed to by Iran and the West before the end of August, the ruinous sanctions in place before the 2015 nuclear deal will "snap back" into place.
Trying to discredit Donald Trump on the U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is a useless partisan exercise. The real questions about how far back Iran's nuclear breakout was pushed are all that matters. And all indications are that Iran's ability to construct a nuclear weapon is once again years away.
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