Quote:three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
OK, so who were these "three sources"? What are their names and positions? How did they come into possession of the information that they claimed to possess? How did Reuters, CNN and the NYT come into possession of what is said to be classified information? What was the leaker's agenda and motivation for illegally making classified information public?
It all comes down to "you are just going to have to trust us, we are *professional journalists!*" (After the Russia collusion hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop lies, "sharp as a tack", the mysterious operators of the autopen, the border is secure, and a hundred other lies, "journalists" asking for the public's trust is asking for a lot.)
On the other hand, we have the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense, who we can justifiably assume are fully briefed and have seen all the classified assessments. I know who I consider more credible.
Personally, I'm not convinced that the intelligence community really knows how much damage the Air Force did to Fordow. They know the capabilities of the Massive Ordinance Penetrator bombs. They know the results of tests out in the American desert in Nevada or someplace. (That's all classified.) So all that the bomb damage assessments can do is hypothesize based on test data and on whatever other technical means (also classified) that they have available about the results of the strike. They have satellite intelligence. They probably have plenty of signals intelligence about what the Iranians were excitedly saying among themselves. Mossad probably has its own sources.
So I would guess that they have best-case and worst-case scenarios.
Trump prefers to emphasize the best-case scenarios where the enrichment centrifuges were largely destroyed. Taken along with the destruction at ground level to the nuclear weapons infrastructure and the Israelis killing many of Iran's nuclear scientists and engineers, and the best-case is that their nuclear weapons program was essentially set back to zero.
The worst-case scenarios would have most of Iran's enriched uranium having been moved to safe locations or at least buried but recoverable. That would include, worst-case, enough weapons grade uranium for several atom bombs plus enough technical talent to fashion it into weapons. And worst-case, many enrichment centrifuges might have survived that can raise the 60% enriched uranium that Iran was known to have up to 90%.
Assuming that what the "journalists" received was a real assessment, it was probably a worst case assessment provided to the opposition media by disloyal deep state employees in an attempt to cast shade on what has to be one of the Trump administration's biggest triumphs, with no concern whatsoever for what the assessment might also reveal about American capabilities. I hope that the investigative resources of the Defense and Justice Departments are seeking out those responsible for termination and/or prosecution.
Jun 25, 2025 05:37 AM
(This post was last modified: Jun 25, 2025 06:03 AM by Yazata.)
