A week after President Donald Trump ordered an American attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, the explanations and descriptions of what happened expressed by him, the best assistants and early intelligence reports paint contrasting images of the scope of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program.
While the president and defense secretary Pete Hegesh repeatedly affirmed that Iran’s nuclear program has been “erased”, preliminary evaluations, even the intelligence wing of the Pentagon, painted an evolving image as the week progressed.
President Donald Trump leaves after speaking during “one, great, beautiful event” in the east room of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Images
Trump said he ordered that the attack on June 21 attacked a uranium enrichment site located in 300 feet deep in a mountain in Fordo in the northwest of Iran, a uranium enrichment site in Natanz and the ISFAHAN nuclear technology center after reports that Iranian officials did not comply with international nuclear regulations.
And as these early damage evaluations question the extent that Iran’s nuclear program was paralyzed, several of Trump’s main assistants and allied legislators also seemed to climb the declared objectives of the attack.
These are some of the accounts and characterizations during the last week.
Officials label the mission a success, but provide few details to begin
On Sunday morning, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegesh, echoed the Trump statement on Saturday night, just after the attacks, which the sites had been “erased.”
“It was clear that we devastated the Iranian nuclear program,” he added.
The president of the joint bosses, General Dan Caine, refused to go so far, saying that he would take longer to evaluate the scope of the damage done.
Hegseth acknowledged that the damage evaluation was ongoing but stuck by the description he and Trump were using.
“All our precision ammunition hit where we wanted them to hit and had the desired effect, which means especially the main objective here, we believe we achieved the destruction of the abilities there,” he said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a ceremony of the Medal of Honor for Veterans of the Army Rangers of World War II in Capitol in Washington, on June 26, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz/EPA/Shuttersock
Pentagon’s initial damage report leaks
Officials and inspectors from Iran have not been able to obtain direct access to the bombed sites to perform a first -hand evaluation.
Trump’s officials had a more nuanced shot after news reports arose on Tuesday about an initial evaluation of the defense intelligence agency that said the attack backed Iran’s nuclear program only for months.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the leaks of the military report, but did not go so far as to affirm that the sites were erased.
On the other hand, he insisted that “very significant and substantial damage was done to the key components of the Iran’s nuclear program,” and we are learning more about it. “
At the same time, Rubio provided more details about the attack, including that bunker-buuster bombs were dropped into the ventilation axes that lead at the bottom of the very fortified installation of Fordo: buried, officials and experts said from 200 to 300 feet inside a mountain.
Finally, he acknowledged that it was difficult to obtain a reading about the damage inflicted to Fordo at this point, but said that “the final result was made real damage.”
That same day, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement that the three facilities were destroyed.
The general director of the UN Nuclear Supervision Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said Wednesday that he believed that part of Iran’s enriched uranium had been transferred from the sites before the attacks.
Trump refuted that analysis.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, attends an event to promote the internal policy and budget agenda of President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House, on June 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, DC
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
“I would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it is very difficult to eliminate that type of material, very hard and very dangerous. In addition, they knew we were going, and if they know we will come, they will not be there,” he said on Wednesday.
Trump reiterated that the sites and uranium were buried under debris and inaccessible, adding that trucks seen in satellite images on the plant before the attack, which some speculated could have been used to move the nuclear material, construction vehicles were used to cover the openings of the ventilation axis with protective concrete.
According to the two people familiar with the classified report of the day, the bombing sealed the entries to two of the three nuclear sites directed in the attack, but most of the damage was caused to the structures on the ground, leaving the lower structures intact.
The evaluation also found that at least one enriched uranium remained, possibly moved from nuclear sites before explosions.
The next day, on Thursday, Hegseth held a press conference in which he criticized the media for reports, but did not make the same evaluation of nuclear materials.
He asked twice during the informative session if it could be more definitive about whether enriched uranium moved before the attack, Hegseth said the Pentagon was “observing all aspects.”
The president of the personnel bosses personnel, the General of the Air Force, Dan Caine, turns to watch a video of a bombing test of the Mass Artillery GBU-57A/B penetrator used in the attack on the Fuel Enrichment Plant of Iranian Bordeni during a press conference in the Pentagon, on June 26, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
In that same informative session on Thursday, Caine noticed that it is not his work to evaluate the damage, saying: “We do not qualify our own task.”
Destruction of the installation minimized by the officials, the fire emphasized
Hegesh also highlighted what seemed to be a different goal of the mission, arguing that the attack had been successful because it led to stop the fighting between Iran and Israel, instead of the destruction of the facilities because it destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.
“We obtained that peace, that high fire, that option due to force, due to [Trump’s] The will to use US military power that no one else on the planet can do with the type of planners and operators that the president has just presented, “he said.
Then, on Friday, Trump echoed that feeling.
“They put that fire once that happened, once those bombs dropped, that war was over,” he said.
Even so, the president said again that the sites were erased during a press conference.
“We finished them,” he said, adding: “I don’t think they return to nuclear in the short term.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the Democratic Republic of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Congo, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rwanda, Olivier Nduhungyrehe, at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on June 27, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP through Getty Images
Abbas Araghchi, Iranian Foreign Minister, said Thursday on Iranian state television, the facilities were not destroyed and his country will have influence on negotiations.
The fate of enriched uranium
On Thursday in Capitol Hill, after administration officials gave legislators classified information about strikes, Republican legislators acknowledged that US strikes may not have destroyed Iran’s enriched uranium cache. But they said that was not part of the mission.
“The purpose of the mission was to eliminate certain particular aspects of their nuclear program. They were eliminated. To get rid of the nuclear material it was not part of the mission,” representative Greg Murphy, RN.C.
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said that “the program was erased in those three places,” but added: “I don’t know where there is the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. But it was not part of the objectives there.”
