Leaked Report Used to Destabilize Iran Peace Process
June 25—A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) preliminary damage assessment report suggests that the U.S. did not "obliterate" Iranian nuclear sites with its bunker buster bombs and other heavy precision munitions, as claimed by President Donald Trump and other Administration officials. The report, whose contents were leaked to the British/NATO propaganda machine press sewer, CNN, is being used to argue that the U.S. may have forced the Israelis to exit Iran too soon. Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons was set back, but not destroyed—putting pressure on for renewed bombing or even a ground invasion, the talk of which could destabilize the peace process put in motion by Trump and his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Military Setback vs. Diplomatic Strategy
While Trump and other Administration officials disputed the findings, sources close to the White House—some of whom are in Europe with the president at the NATO summit—say that both Trump and Putin recognize that there is no possibility of truly ending Iran's nuclear program militarily. The attacks on key Iranian sites, including last weekend's U.S. strike with B-2 bombers and massive 30,000-pound "bunker busting" bombs, were intended to degrade the program, making bomb development a much longer process. These sources say that when all intelligence is in, the effect of the attacks will be a lot closer to Israeli assessments (set back by a couple of years or more) than the DIA's (setback two months).
Ceasefire and Renewed Negotiations
More importantly, the end to the active fighting phase of the campaign will allow a return to the negotiating table by Iran, which will lead to a negotiated full-stop end to Iran's nuclear weapons program—an outcome actively pursued by Trump for over two months. Trump has ordered his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to take the steps necessary to restart the talks, which have taken place in Oman.
These and other sources say that the squeeze has been put on Iran to agree to a reasonable deal, the outlines of which were on the table before Israel launched its attacks on Iran June 13. Putin has applied pressure directly, as recently as in the June 23 talks with the Iranians in Moscow, which paved the way for the ceasefire. The Russian leader told the Iranian delegation—led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has also been Iran's chief negotiator in Oman—that Russia will not defend Iran's nuclear program and rejected requests for any military aid. He instead pledged to guarantee any peace deal that would end their aspirations to develop a bomb and would also work with them to assure that Iran was supplied with lower-than-weapon-grade enriched uranium for civilian use.
CNN Leak and Political Fallout
What was done in Moscow was shared with the Trump White House, which then issued the call for the ceasefire now in effect—ending the fighting before the messianic Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu could spin the crisis into a wider regional war against his biblical enemy.
It is to the unraveling of this peace mosaic—which has one other feature yet to be put in play—that the CNN leak is deployed. Trump reportedly has people working up huge development projects for the region, including the reconstruction of Gaza, as well as water development plans similar to the Schiller Institute's Oasis Plan, and he wants both Israel and Iran to participate in them.
Instead, the ever-shrill voices of the neo-cons are now demanding that the U.S. move in—and perhaps use tactical nuclear weapons—to "finish the job."
Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York said on X on Tuesday that “Trump just cancelled a classified House briefing on the Iran strikes with zero explanation. The real reason? He claims he destroyed ‘all nuclear facilities and capability;’ his team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS.”
The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”