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CIA director John Ratcliffe said in a statement Wednesday that the agency has “gained credible evidence that Iran’s nuclear program has been seriously damaged” due to the recent strike.
Without providing details, Ratcliffe said the CIA evidence “contains new information from historically reliable sources/methods.
It was not clear whether Ratcliffe was offering an official institutional assessment or an opinion of his intelligence.
The statement came the day after the initial analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which Saturday suggested that the US would not destroy some key elements of Iran’s nuclear program.
The White House pushed back that rating. This raises doubts about President Donald Trump’s claims, claiming that the strike “eliminates” Iran’s ability to produce weapons, calling it “wrong.”
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard also posted on Wednesday that the “New Intelligence News” supported the notion that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “destroyed” on strike.
“New Intelligence confirms what @Potus has said many times: Iran’s nuclear facility has been destroyed,” Gabbard posted without providing evidence. “If Iranians choose to rebuild, they will need to completely rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan).
It is not uncommon for intelligence agencies to oppose them in subtle ways when determining how to interpret live reports. While it is not yet clear that additional collection and analysis is underway beyond the efforts of the CIA and DIA, other agencies, including the Pentagon division, which is responsible for satellite image analysis, are almost certainly scrutinizing the impact of the strike on Iran’s nuclear program.
The final US military “combat damage assessment” by DIA may take days or weeks.
According to one of the sources, the initial DIA analysis was generated just 24 hours after attack. The decision was “low confidence,” the source said, as it was just a preliminary analysis. US officials acknowledged that it has not been coordinated with the broader intelligence reporting agency, and the document itself may take weeks to produce a final assessment.
When the military implements BDA, it usually follows three prohibited phases. Phase I assesses physical damage inflicted on the target site. Phase II assesses functional impact on the target. Phase III zooms out to cover all the intelligence that the US had to evaluate, in this case, Iran’s nuclear program.
The assessment of DIA reported by CNN and other outlets was a phase III analysis. However, it was just the first report based on about 24 hours of intelligence collection. As time passes and more intelligence becomes available, the military repeats this process before completing the judgment.
Trump on Wednesday admitted that in his first US intelligence report assessment there was damage caused by the “potentially restricted” of US bombers.
“We said this document could be very serious damage,” Trump said, referring to the DIA assessment. “They said it could be restricted or it could be very serious. They really didn’t know that it could be really very serious other than saying it could be restricted.”
Trump said the US had “gathered additional information” and spoke to people who “see the site.”
The first findings questioned Trump’s claim that Saturday’s strike “eliminates” Iran’s nuclear capabilities and suggests he made the claim before the military and the US intelligence agency had enough information to properly assess the impact. The best officials, including allies and senior officials, are trying to support the president’s views.
The president is trying to characterize it as a one-off strike designed to make it impossible for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, but experts said a single operation would not be enough to achieve that goal.
In particular, questions have swirled around the extent of damage to one of the facilities, Iran is believed to be storing high-strength uranium underground.
US officials believe Iran is not targeting strikes and is also maintaining secret nuclear facilities that continue to remain operational.
“I have been described in the past, but never completely destroying nuclear facilities, but not causing any serious damage,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Republican Chairman Michael McCall told CNN on Tuesday, referring to a US military plan to attack Iran’s nuclear function. “But it was always known to be a temporary setback.”
Another important question, according to a senior US lawmaker, is whether Iran had already moved highly enriched uranium stockpiles from the facility in question by the time the US dropped the bomb on them. Trump had made publicly public that he was prominently overwhelmed at least one site, Fold and “Iranians are not stupid,” the person said.
The final phase III BDA traditionally includes recommendations on whether additional military strikes are required to achieve the commander’s objectives. According to two sources familiar with the document, the preliminary report did not include such recommendations.
Initial assessments, such as those generated by the DIA, are often often based at least in part on technical modelling of the impact that this type of bomb has on the best map of the facility, experts say.
And these ratings can change dramatically over time.
“This problem occurred in 1999,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms expert and professor at the Middlebury International Institute. “The first BDA on bombing against Yugoslavia was a very high level of success based on modelling,” he recalls. However, there was time and more analysis, and ground surveys recognized much of the fact that authorities evaluated them as successful targets to be decoys. “BDA has collapsed.”
In this example, it is not clear that US officials can physically inspect the site.
This allows intelligence analysts to rely on satellite imagery, intercepted communications, and intelligence shared by allies like Israel to piece together what happened.