By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

On Wednesday, Trump lashed out at the media, though he maintained the strikes put Iran’s nuclear ambitions back decades. Still, the US president acknowledged the intelligence was “inconclusive” and preliminary, and suggested Israel would provide a fuller picture shortly with its findings.

Maxar Technologies confirmed capturing this and other images at Iran's Fordo fuel enrichment plant on June 19 and 20, 2025. Social media users posted various conjectures as to what the trucks were doing, including claiming they were moving nuclear materials to another location to protect them from destruction. As of this writing, the exact purpose of the trucks remains unconfirmed.

In mid-June 2025, escalating conflict between Israel and Iran culminated in U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. A satellite image purporting to show Iranian preparations at the Fordo fuel enrichment plant before these strikes took place circulated widely on social media, with claims that it provided evidence Iran moved nuclear materials to avoid destruction.

For example, one X account posted (archived) the image with the caption "MAJOR BREAKING: CBS has obtained aerial photos of the Fordow nuclear site before the bombings and claims it shows evidence that Iran REMOVED its nuclear material beforehand. 16 trucks were spotted moving material," receiving more than 604,900 views within hours. There were several other posts on X with the image attached.

 

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On Reddit, one account posted (archived) the image with the caption "Iran 'enriched uranium moved before U.S. strikes' to secret location," receiving 17,000 reactions within hours.

 

What We Know

The satellite image was authentic. Maxar Technologies, an American space technology company specializing in geospatial intelligence, captured the image on June 19, 2025. According to Maxar’s caption (archived) on Getty Images, the satellite imagery revealed "16 cargo trucks lined along the main road approaching the underground tunnel entrance of the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Facility. The unexpected presence of these trucks may indicate significant movement or logistics activity before military action."

 

Strikes on Iran only set Back the Nuclear Program By Months

An initial classified US assessment of Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend says they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report.

The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency – the intelligence arm of the Pentagon – and first reported by CNN, concluded key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges and enriched uranium, were capable of being restarted within months.

The report also found that much of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be put to use for a possible nuclear weapon was moved before the strikes and may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran.

The findings by the DIA, which were based on a preliminary battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, suggest Trump’s declaration about the sites being “obliterated” may be overstated.

Trump had said in his televised address on Saturday night , immediately after the operation, that the US had destroyed Iran’s enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow, the facility buried deep underground, and at Esfahan, where enrichment was being stored.

“The strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” Trump said in his address from the White House.

While the DIA report was only an initial assessment, one of the people said that if the intelligence on the ground was already finding within days that Fordow in particular was not destroyed, later assessments could suggest even less damage might have been inflicted.

Fordow in particular was not destroyed; later assessments could suggest even less damage might have been inflicted.

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites before the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said it disagreed with it.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “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.”

Trump, who’s in the Netherlands attending this week’s NATO summit, pushed back on CNN’s report in a Truth Social post. “One of the most successful military strikes in history,” Trump wrote in the all-caps post adding, “The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!”

Hegseth, who is also at the NATO summit, said Wednesday the assessment was “a top secret report; it was preliminary; it was low confidence;” adding that there were political motives behind leaking it and that an FBI investigation was underway to identify the leaker.

The US military has said the operation went as planned and that it was an “overwhelming success.”

It is still early for the US to have a comprehensive picture of the impact of the strikes, and none of the sources described how the DIA assessment compares to the view of other agencies in the intelligence community. The US is continuing to pick up intelligence, including from within Iran as they assess the damage.

Israel had been carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities for days leading up to the US military operation but claimed to need the US’ 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs to finish the job. While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites’ centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment.

Instead, the impact to all three sites - Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan - was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites’ power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

The Israeli assessment of the impact of the US strikes also found less damage on Fordow than expected. However, Israeli officials believe the combination of US and Israeli military action on multiple nuclear sites set back the Iranian nuclear program by two years, assuming they are able to rebuild it unimpeded which Israel would not allow. But Israel had also stated publicly before the US military operation that Iran’s program had been set back by two years.

Hegseth also told CNN, “Based on everything we have seen - and I’ve seen it all - our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission.“

On Tuesday morning, Trump repeated his belief the damage from the strikes was significant.

“I think it’s been completely demolished,” he said, adding, “Those pilots hit their targets. Those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit.”

Asked about the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program, Trump responded, “That place is under rock. That place is demolished.”

On Wednesday, Trump lashed out at the media, including CNN, though he maintained the strikes put Iran’s nuclear ambitions back decades. Still, the US president acknowledged the intelligence was “inconclusive” and preliminary, and suggested Israel would provide a fuller picture shortly with its own findings.

“The intelligence was very inconclusive,” Trump said at the sidelines of the NATO summit in the Hague. “The intelligence says we don’t know. It could have been very severe.”

 

 

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