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Donald Trump has compared the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the second world war bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as he dismissed an intelligence leak that suggested the impact was limited.
Describing the weekend’s assault as “obliterating” the sites, the US president said that it had brought the conflict between Iran and Israel to a swift conclusion and likened the strikes to nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing — that ended a war,” Trump said at a Nato summit in The Hague on Wednesday.
“This ended [the Israel-Iran] war. If we didn’t take [out the nuclear facilities], they would be fighting right now,” he added.
Trump said that the intelligence leaked on Tuesday, which said the US strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear programme only by a few months, was inconclusive.
He added the damage to the sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan could not be fully ascertained until Israel delivered an assessment.
Trump said that the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which put together the report on Fordow, “really don’t know” about the damage, adding: “I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday that the country’s atomic energy commission had said the US strikes on Fordow had “rendered the enrichment facility inoperable”.
It added that the combined US and Israeli assault on Tehran’s nuclear sites had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years”.
Trump, defence secretary Pete Hegseth and secretary of state Marco Rubio insisted that Fordow was “obliterated”, with the US president saying at the Nato summit that Iran’s nuclear programme has been set back “decades”.
But General Dan Caine, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was more measured on Sunday, saying that while the initial evaluation suggested the three sites “sustained extremely severe damage and destruction”, final assessments “would take some time”.
Hegseth said the Pentagon was investigating the leak of the report alongside the FBI.
Trump’s appearance at the Nato summit comes a day after a tentative ceasefire between Iran and Israel took hold following 12 days of war.
The president had scolded both sides on Tuesday for alleged breaches of the US-brokered truce, saying he was “really unhappy” with Israel in particular.
But in The Hague, he said he was “so proud” of Israel for limiting its retaliation to an alleged breach of the ceasefire by Tehran, adding: “Netanyahu should be very proud of himself.”
Trump said that he believed that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity would have been hit by the US strikes at the weekend.
“I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out [of the facilities] . . . It’s very hard to remove that kind of material,” he said.
“I think we’ll end up having somewhat of a relationship with Iran,” the US president added, saying “the last thing” Tehran wants is to continue with its nuclear enrichment programme.
Asked if the US could strike Iran again if the Islamic republic redeveloped its nuclear infrastructure in the future, Trump said: “Sure.”
