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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Iran is "much further away from a nuclear weapon" following recent U.S. military strikes, even as intelligence reports suggest three key nuclear facilities sustained limited damage in the operation.
Speaking at the NATO summit to Politico's Dasha Burns, Rubio offered a more measured assessment than President Donald Trump, who has claimed the nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan were "completely destroyed."
"The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action," Rubio told Politico. "That's the most important thing to understand— significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we're just learning more about it."
The strikes targeted Iran's nuclear infrastructure using bunker-buster bombs dropped from B-2 stealth bombers at the Fordo and Natanz facilities, according to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, who briefed reporters Sunday. More than two dozen submarine-launched cruise missiles hit the Isfahan site, he added.
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However, a preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the strikes delayed Iran's nuclear program by only a few months, CNN reported. The U.S. intelligence community is expected to release additional evaluations in the coming days and weeks, though different intelligence agencies commonly reach varying conclusions in their analyses, according to Politico.
Rubio dismissed media reports about the limited impact as "false," saying they failed to capture the full scope of the operation's effects.
"I hate commenting on these stories, because often the first story is wrong and the person putting it out there has an agenda," he said. "That story is a false story, and it's one that really shouldn't be rereported because it doesn't accurately reflect what's happening."
Trump has maintained that the sites "were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it."
"It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!" he said on social media Tuesday.
The U.S. strikes followed an Israeli air campaign that began on June 13, targeting several of the same Iranian military and nuclear facilities that were later hit by American forces on Sunday. The coordinated nature of the operations suggests close cooperation between the two allies in their approach to dismantling Iran's nuclear capabilities.
The differing public assessments between Trump's definitive claims of complete destruction and Rubio's more cautious characterization add to the ongoing evaluation process within the administration as officials work to determine the full extent of damage inflicted on Iran's nuclear program.
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