U.S. strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites - NBC News

Investing.com - Only one of the three Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities hit by U.S. aerial bombardments last month was destroyed, while the other two were not as badly damaged, NBC News has reported.

Citing current and former U.S. officials familiar with a fresh U.S. assessment, the news outlet said the U.S. strike on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site had successfully set back its enrichment capabilities by as much as two years.

However, it added that the two other sites may have only been degraded and could restart nuclear enrichment activities in the next several months should Iran wish to.

After the strikes were carried out in June, President Donald Trump touted them as a "spectacular military success" which had "totally obliterated" Iran’s key enrichment facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. In a statement to NBC News, spokespeople from the White House and the Pentagon reiterated this comment.

U.S. Central Command had also developed a more comprehensive plan that would have involved hitting three additional facilities over the course of several weeks, but Trump rejected the plan, NBC News reported.

A ceasefire in a multi-day air war between Israel and Iran, which had raised concerns over the threat of disruption to oil supply flows out of the Middle East, was reached in the days after the attacks.

The U.S. has said the strikes were part of a strategy to curb Iran’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran has said that its nuclear development program was for civilian purposes.

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A previous preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency had said the strikes may have have only dented Iran’s nuclear program by months, although Trump administration officials flagged low confidence in the assessment.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has said the strikes caused severe damage.

(Reuters contributed reporting.)

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