White House pushes back on CNN's report of initial intelligence on bombing of Iranian nuclear sites

The White House on Wednesday pushed back on CNN's report of the initial intelligence on the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.

The official statement follows President Donald Trump earlier in the day, at the NATO summit in the Netherlands, downplaying the leaked intelligence report on the U.S. strikes – comparing them to the United States' Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on Japan that brought an end to World War II.

Multiple media outlets reported on Tuesday that the intelligence report, by the Defense Intelligence Agency, concluded the strikes had only set back Iran's nuclear program by a few months and that Iran had moved much of its enriched uranium before the strikes.

"The intelligence was ... very inconclusive," Trump told reporters in The Hague while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Reuters reported.

"The intelligence says, 'We don't know, it could have been very severe.' That's what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct, but I think we can take the 'we don't know'. It was very severe. It was obliteration," Trump added.

"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 that war. This ended the war," he said.

Trump claimed that Iran's nuclear program had been set back "basically decades, because I don't think they'll ever do it again."

The White House later said the DIA intel assessment was "leaked from someone clearly trying to undermine the President," and "was based on intel from ONE DAY after the strike."

The assessment notes that it wasn't coordinated with the intel community and was a low-confidence level report with missing information.

The CNN reporter who wrote the story, Natasha Bertrand, "is the SAME reporter who wrote the original story alleging the Hunter Biden laptop was 'Russian Disinformation,'" the White House added.

The DIA said in a statement, "This is a preliminary, low confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available. We are working with the appropriate authorities to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said: “I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, and I can also say that we set it back by years, I repeat, years,” The Times of Israel reported.

 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told CNN: "Based on everything we have seen – and I’ve seen it all – our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.

"Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission."

Regarding the report, Trump said, “They really don’t know. I think Israel is gonna be telling us very soon because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] is going to have people involved in that whole situation.”

“This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius people in the military, and they’re not being given credit for it because we have scum that’s in this room. And not all of you are… CNN is scum. MSDNC [sic] is scum. The New York Times is scum. They’re bad people. They’re sick,” Trump added. “And what they’ve done is they’re trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less.”