A new U.S. intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after U.S. strikes, not “completely and totally obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said.
The assessment found that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was moved out of multiple sites before the U.S. strikes and survived, according to the people, and it also found that Iran’s centrifuges are largely intact.
At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, so that will take time to fix, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, according to one of the people. The person also said that previous assessments had warned of this outcome at Fordo.
The White House strongly pushed back on the assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.”
. . . “The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump
Gee, I wonder why it might be important to have working OPSEC in the highest levels of your strategic decision making. Well, that ship has sailed, and probably cannot come back.
(Not that I’m in favor of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, I’m just saying shit happens when you are incompetent. There is a deliberate confusion between saying “nuclear program” to mean nuclear activities like medicine which are perfectly normal and which lots of countries do, which is all Iran was doing with their uranium throughout all the middle of the 2010s, and nuclear activities trying to build a bomb. I don’t know how much of what they’re doing is the second thing, although it seems likely that it’s nonzero, but I know that some is the first thing and Obama was able to talk them out of all of the second thing, and they agreed.)
Obama was able to talk them out of all of the second thing, and they agreed.
Like so many other things, this could be a motivation for Trump to undo things, regardless of understanding any of it. It’s why he ran for President the first time, out of spite.
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH OCEANIA
Gee, I wonder why it might be important to have working OPSEC in the highest levels of your strategic decision making. Well, that ship has sailed, and probably cannot come back.
(Not that I’m in favor of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, I’m just saying shit happens when you are incompetent. There is a deliberate confusion between saying “nuclear program” to mean nuclear activities like medicine which are perfectly normal and which lots of countries do, which is all Iran was doing with their uranium throughout all the middle of the 2010s, and nuclear activities trying to build a bomb. I don’t know how much of what they’re doing is the second thing, although it seems likely that it’s nonzero, but I know that some is the first thing and Obama was able to talk them out of all of the second thing, and they agreed.)
Like so many other things, this could be a motivation for Trump to undo things, regardless of understanding any of it. It’s why he ran for President the first time, out of spite.