By Sama Marwan,
The Washington Post reported that the United States intercepted communications among senior Iranian officials discussing the recent American military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program this month, which suggest the attack was less destructive than they had anticipated, according to four officials familiar with classified intelligence circulated within the U.S. government.
The newspaper noted that the communications, intended to remain private, involved four Iranian government officials speculating about why the strikes ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump were neither as devastating nor as extensive as they had expected.
According to the Washington Post, the intercepted intelligence offers a more complex picture than the one presented by Trump, who declared that the operation had completely and thoroughly destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.
The Trump administration did not deny the existence of the intercepted communications, which had not been previously disclosed. However, it strongly disagreed with the Iranian officials’ conclusions and cast doubt on their ability to assess the damage to the three nuclear facilities targeted in the U.S. operation.
White House spokesperson Caroline Leavitt said it was shameful for the Washington Post to aid “criminal actors” by publishing leaks out of context. She stated: “The suggestion that anonymous Iranian officials somehow know what’s happening hundreds of feet beneath tons of rubble is utter nonsense. Their nuclear program is finished.”
Analysts widely agree that the strikes involved American bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles, which severely damaged nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
However, the extent of the destruction and the time Iran might need to rebuild remain subjects of heated debate, amid reports that Iran had moved its stockpile of highly enriched uranium before the strike, and that the explosions sealed the entrances to two facilities but did not collapse the underground structures located dozens of meters below the surface.
