However, they appeared to remain divided on just how long it will take Iran to recover its nuclear progress.
WASHINGTON—Senators received a confidential briefing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; national security adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe on June 26 regarding the recent “Buster Bomb” strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The meeting came after what has been called a preliminary report credited to anonymous sources of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that was leaked to CNN, which stated that the strikes likely only set Iran back a couple of months, while an additional assessment was released by the CIA reporting that the Iranian facilities have been severely damaged and will take years to rebuild. President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials have dismissed the leaked report as false.
While the administration officials did not disclose any classified details to the press, and a final damage assessment has yet to be released, the lawmakers emerged from that meeting expressing differing opinions on just how much damage they felt the United States’ efforts had done to Iran’s facilities.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), for instance, appeared to side with the CIA’s assessment that the destruction set Iran’s program back at least a year, if not years.
“I think that’s a good documented source from the CIA that they’ve released publicly, that you could look at, and that they stand behind,” he told members of the media after the briefing. “That’s pretty firm.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) came out of the meeting affirming that the sites were, as Trump put it, “obliterated.” He did not say how long he thought it would take the Iranian regime to recover, but said that further military strikes against any rebuilt facilities needed to be on the table so long as the Islamic regime stands by its position to destroy Israel.
Others were not so convinced of the level of destruction. Democratic senators affirmed that the leaked assessment reported by CNN was a preliminary one, and significant damage was indeed done to the nuclear program. However, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) maintained the view that the damage only set the Islamic regime back a few months, and he and his fellow Democrats continued to criticize Trump for saying that the sites were “obliterated” before an assessment was released.
