His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets yesterday revealing that the US defence intelligence agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear programme by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated.
“The intelligence was… very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters while meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know’. It was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump added.
Success of Iran strikes crucial for Trump
Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him.
His right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump’s domestic-focused “Make America Great Again” agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.
Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon – a line that an accurate, decisive attack would support.
Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Tehran and compared them to the US’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which brought an end to World War II in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
Trump argued that Iran’s nuclear deal had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again” and he turned to top advisers to reinforce that message.
Hegseth and Rubio reinforce Trump’s message
Trump, who arrived in the Netherlands late yesterday for Nato’s annual 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.
“When you actually look at the report – by the way, it was a top secret report – it was preliminary, it was low-confidence,” Hegseth said.
“This is a political motive here.”
He said the FBI was investigating a potential leak.
Rubio suggested that those responsible for sharing the report had mischaracterised it, saying: “This is the game they play.”
All three men criticised media reports about the intelligence assessments.
At the summit, Nato member states were set to announce their joint intention to raise defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product.
While some countries have suggested they may not in fact reach that threshold, the Trump administration has pointed to the expected commitment as a significant foreign policy victory.