Hegseth accused media outlets that reported accurately on an early DIA bombing assessment of trying “to find a way to spin it for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country.” (Fox photo)

Assessments of the damage caused by the recent U.S. airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites remained muddled Wednesday amid the growing debate over the effectiveness of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear program.

At a news conference in the Hague at the end of a NATO summit, President Trump and his top aides vigorously disputed a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysis that concluded the attacks had set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. An angry Trump repeatedly insisted that the airstrikes, in which B-2 bombers dropped more than a dozen 30,000-pound GBU-57 “bunker buster” bombs on the nuclear sites while a U.S. Navy submarine supplemented the attacks with dozens of cruise missiles, had “totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

The assertions have not been backed up yet by on-site observers, satellite photos or other kinds of intelligence methods that could confirm the extent of damage inside the nuclear facilities. 

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