Middle East Crisis USA vs Iran

CIA: All indications are that the facilities were damaged

All evidence indicates that the Iranian nuclear facilities were severely damaged in the US attacks. This is what CIA Director John Ratcliffe wrote in a statement, referring to “a range of credible intelligence”.

“Among other things, new intelligence from a historically credible source/method indicates that several key facilities were destroyed and will take years to rebuild,” Ratcliffe wrote without going into details.

There have been a variety of assessments – both official and source information – from the US, Israel and Iran about the effectiveness of the attacks. Iran says the facilities were severely damaged, but because it has broken with the UN atomic energy agency IAEA, it is unlikely that an independent expert review will be carried out on site.

Senator: Iranian facilities were hardly destroyed

There is an “incredibly small chance” that Trump is right that Iran’s nuclear facilities were completely destroyed. This is what Democratic Senator Mark Kelly told Sky News.

Kelly is a war veteran with 39 flight missions in the Gulf War behind him, and currently sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Destroying facilities deep underground is enormously difficult, he says, adding that he believes Trump immediately declared success to control the narrative.

– He said it the same night the attack was carried out. Without satellite images and without any information about what happened under 60 meters of rock and granite.

Trump: Will meet with Iran – does not think a deal is necessary

Representatives of the US and Iran will meet next week and discuss a potential nuclear deal, Donald Trump says according to CNN.

However, he adds that he does not see a deal as “particularly necessary”.

– I mean, they had a war, they fought, now they're going back to their own world. I don't care if we have a deal or not.

As a reason, Trump states that the US has completely destroyed Iran's ability to build nuclear weapons. However, this has not been proven – the assessments that have come, both official and source information, spread in different directions.