Iran Officials Mock Trump’s Ineffective Bombs, Damning New Report Says

Even the Iranians are surprised by how little damage Donald Trump’s bombs apparently did.

An intercepted communication between Iranian officials indicated that the nuclear facility airstrike had not achieved the level of damage touted by the Trump administration, reported The Washington Post, which spoke with four sources familiar with the classified material.

The president’s attack, conducted earlier this month without the express approval of Congress, damaged facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. Trump celebrated that the attack had “completely and totally obliterated” the three sites in the immediate aftermath, but intelligence assessments have suggested otherwise.

A battle damage assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm determined that the missile barrage only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months, rather than the “years” that Trump had advertised.

As with the Pentagon assessment, the White House did not dispute that the Iranian call had taken place, but fervently rejected its findings.

“It’s shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over.”

Whether the sites had been hit by 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs was not in doubt, but the exact extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program has been heavily debated since the attack took place.

One Trump administration official brushed off the leaked call details, telling the Post that the Iranians were “wrong” because “we’ve destroyed their metal conversion facility.”

Senior U.S. intelligence officials warned that intercepted phone calls can only relay some information as they lack critical context.

“A single phone call between unnamed Iranians is not the same as an intelligence assessment, which takes into account a body of evidence, with multiple sources and methods,” one official told the Post.

Before the attacks took place, Iran had argued that it was seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The nation has undergone years of nuclear site inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and as of two weeks ago was allowing IAEA inspectors to remain in the country, according to the United Nations entity.

Trump has been irate over the coverage of the bombings, insisting that journalists who reported on the Pentagon leak should be fired. Last week, Leavitt took that to a new level, using two minutes out of the White House press briefing to singularly lambast CNN reporter Natasha Bertand.