CIA, IAEA Say Iran’s Nuclear Program Took ‘Enormous’ Damage, But Not The ‘Obliteration’ Trump Claimed

Iran’s nuclear program is said to have suffered substantial damage due to the strikes by Israel and the U.S., according to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on Thursday said that while annihilation would be a stretch, Iran’s nuclear facilities sustained “enormous” damage due to the Israel-U.S. strikes, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

When asked if Iran’s nuclear program had been wiped out, as President Donald Trump indicated, Grossi said, “There is very, very, very considerable damage.”

Grossi’s analysis was echoed by the CIA, too, with Director John Ratcliffe stating that the Iranian nuclear program was “severely” damaged in the recent strikes.

“This includes new intelligence from an (sic) historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” Ratcliffe said in a post on X.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Donald Trump revealed that the U.S. and Iran are likely to meet next week to discuss a possible agreement.

“The only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, about [how] we want no nuclear,” President Trump said.

He also spoke about the leaked intelligence report, which allegedly pointed to limited success of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So, I guess, that’s correct. But I think that we can take the ‘We don’t know,’ it was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump told reporters, doubling down on his previous claims about the success of the operation.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities edged up on Thursday as Wall Street digested the early release of first-quarter GDP numbers and latest weekly jobless claims.

At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was up 0.28%, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) gained 0.18%. Stocktwits data shows retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF has been in the ‘extremely bearish’ territory over the past week.

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Also See: Trump Signals Possible Iran Talks Next Week, Defends Success Of Strikes Amid FBI Leak Probe