Trump, White House deny report questioning Iran nuclear strike success, slam media leak
US President Donald Trump dismissed an intelligence report suggesting Iran’s nuclear program remains largely intact, calling it “fake news.” The White House and Trump officials criticized CNN and The New York Times, calling the leak “treasonous” and reaffirming the strike's success.
Washington: US President Donald Trump strongly rejected a recent intelligence report which challenged the administration’s claim that US strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
The report by the US Defence Intelligence Agency disclosed by two American media outlets CNN and New York Times mentioned that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have delayed the nuclear programme only by a few months, while much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes.
“Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both the Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public,” Trump said on Truth Social on Wednesday slamming both media outlets.
During an interview with American media outlet Fox News Steve Witkoff, the US President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East called the leaking of the report “treasonous” stating that that it needs to be investigated
“Well, it goes without saying that leaking that type of information — whatever the information, whatever side it comes out on — is outrageous. It’s treasonous, “So, it ought to be investigated, and whoever did it — whoever’s responsible for it — should be held accountable. It could hurt lives in the future. Leaking is a completely unacceptable thing,” said Witkoff
“We put 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordow. There’s no doubt that it breached the canopy…and there’s no doubt that it was OBLITERATED. So, the reporting out there that in some way suggests that we did not achieve the objective is just completely preposterous!” he added.
Meanwhile, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement to CNN labelled the report as ‘flat-out wrong’.
“This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she stated.
