We’ve been subjected to fake news about the intelligence report showing that President Trump’s air strikes on Iran were ineffectual in crippling its nuclear capabilities. It’s what liberals clung to like grim death in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer, a precision strike from our B-2 Bomber fleet that pounded the terror state. Key nuclear facilities were struck, but the media would have us believe nothing happened. Please. No one knew this operation was going to happen. There were no leaks, but somehow, we need to all believe this low-confidence, top-secret report that was leaked to the press.
CNN pimped this fake news story. After getting raked over the coals by the Trump administration, they’re circling the wagons around the fake news reporter who peddled this garbage. This liberal narrative hit another snag: UN’s nuclear watchdog chief said the air strikes severely derailed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure (via Washington Free Beacon):
The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities set back the Islamic Republic’s program "significantly," the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog organization said Tuesday.
"I think the Iranian nuclear program has been set back significantly, significantly," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi said in a Fox News interview. He noted that "it is clear that there is one Iran—before June 13, nuclear Iran—and one now," describing the difference as "night and day."
Just before the Tuesday afternoon interview, the IAEA revealed that it detected "extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran, including its uranium conversion and enrichment facilities." That damage caused a radioactive release, according to the organization.
"Our assessment is that there has been some localized radioactive as well as chemical release inside the affected facilities that contained nuclear material—mainly uranium enriched to varying degrees—but there has been no report of increased off-site radiation levels," Grossi said in the IAEA statement. The organization observed "two impact holes from the U.S. strikes" at Iran’s Natanz enrichment site above "the underground halls that had been used for enrichment as well as for storage," according to the statement, in which Grossi also said he saw "extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran, including its uranium conversion and enrichment facilities."
David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, meanwhile, released a post-attack battle damage assessment based on satellite imagery of the targeted Iranian facilities as well as reporting from the IAEA and Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He determined that the U.S. and Israeli strikes "effectively destroyed Iran's centrifuge enrichment program."
"It will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack," Albright's report states.
Is that good or bad, CNN? Your shoddy report just got slapped down, dare I say obliterated bunker buster-style.
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