Iran admits serious damage to nuclear sites from U.S. airstrikes for the first time

The remarks came just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed an intelligence report that said the strikes had not damaged Iran’s key underground nuclear components.

Trump had earlier lashed out at CNN and the NYT on his TruthSocial platform, blasting their reporting that U.S. airstrikes had failed to fully destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Both CNN and the New York Times had reported that the U.S. strikes did not eliminate Tehran’s nuclear program. Citing U.S. intelligence, CNN said the attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites did not destroy the program’s core components. This stood in contrast to repeated claims by Trump that the nuclear program had been “wiped out.”

“Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, teamed up to downplay one of the most successful military strikes in history. Iran’s nuclear sites are totally destroyed,” Trump wrote.

On June 22, the United States launched airstrikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran — including the Fordow plant and sites in Natanz and Isfahan, where uranium enrichment takes place. Trump declared the targets had been destroyed and also announced that Iran had reached a ceasefire agreement with Israel.

On June 24, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called the end of the 12-day war with Israel a “historic victory” for his country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the war’s conclusion in the same terms — a “historic victory” for the Israeli people.

That same day, CNN, citing intelligence sources, reported that the U.S. airstrikes had not destroyed the key elements of Iran’s nuclear program but likely delayed it by several months.

On June 25, during a press briefing at the NATO summit in The Hague, President Trump compared the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.