As US President Donald Trump continues to claim ‘total obliteration’ of Iran’s nuclear sites, Iran has yet again downplayed the impact of the US strikes.
Washington Post reported on Sunday that the US has obtained an intercepted communication between Iranian senior officials stating the US’ attack was “less devastating” than expected.
The intercepted signal yet again indicates that the US strikes on Iran did not create the damage Trump and Israel have claimed.
As per Washington Post, the intercepted phone call cited the Iranian officials speculating as to why the strikes on the nuclear sites were “not as destructive and extensive” as Tehran anticipated.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the Washington Post report as “nonsense.”
“It’s shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks. The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over,” said Leavitt.
Last week, a leaked Pentagon intelligence report suggested that US had not caused much damage to Iran, opposing Trump’s claims of “complete and total obliteration.”
As per this leaked document, the US strikes had set the Iranian nuclear programme back by a “few months” and not “decades,” as Israel and Trump have claimed.
Trump doubles down on ‘devastating impact’
US President Donald Trump has continued to stand by his claim that the US has set back Iran’s nuclear programme by decades, despite intelligence documents stating otherwise.
Across a series of posts on Truth Social, the US president has called out media houses such as CNN, Washington Post and the New York Times for running “fake news.”
Iran has also stated that the US attack did not do much damage as nuclear supplies and the uranium stockpile had already been evacuated.
“They didn’t move anything…they didn’t think it was going to be actually doable, what we did,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.
The US launched strikes on Iran, targeting its nuclear facilities amid the war with Israel. The attack under ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ caused a major escalation in the conflict between Iran and Israel, bringing the Middle East at the brink of war.
However, Trump later announced he had negotiated for a ceasefire between Iran and Israel after Tehran launched strikes on a US military base on Qatar.
