Trump says damage from Iran strikes severe despite ‘inconclusive’ intelligence

THE HAGUE – US President Donald Trump said on June 25 that the damage to Iranian nuclear sites from American missile strikes over the weekend was severe, even as he acknowledged that the available intelligence on the matter was inconclusive.

His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on June 24 revealing that the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) had assessed that the strikes had

set back Iran’s nuclear programme by just a few months

, despite administration officials saying the programme had been obliterated.

“The intelligence was... very inconclusive,” Mr Trump told reporters while meeting Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.

“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know. It could’ve been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence suggests. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know’. It was very severe. It was obliteration,” he added.

Later, during the same round of comments, Mr Trump argued that Iran’s nuclear deal had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again”.

The US President, who arrived in the Netherlands late on June 24 for Nato’s annual leaders’ summit, was sitting beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who both also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA assessment.

Mr Rubio said the US was opening an investigation into the leak of the DIA report. He also suggested the report’s contents had been misrepresented in the media.

At the summit, Nato member states are set to announce their joint intention to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product.

While some countries have suggested that they may not in fact reach that threshold, the Trump administration has pointed to the expected commitment as a significant foreign policy victory. REUTERS