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Oops...article was obviously TLDR for Blake and he didn't make it past the first paragraph. Typical Blake
"The recent assessment is a snapshot of the damage U.S. strikes inflicted amid an intelligence-gathering process that administration officials have said is expected to continue for months. Assessments of Iran’s nuclear program after the U.S. strikes are expected to change over time, and according to two of the current officials, as the process progresses, the findings suggest more damage than previous assessments revealed."
"The U.S. strikes targeted three enrichment sites in Iran: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. U.S. officials believe the attack on Fordo, which has long been viewed as a critical component of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, was successful in setting back Iranian enrichment capabilities at that site by as much as two years, according to two of the current officials."
"A U.S. official pointed NBC News to a closed-door briefing conducted in late June by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who told lawmakers that Iran’s nuclear program was “severely damaged” and that several key nuclear facilities were “completely destroyed,” according to an administration official’s description of the briefing. Ratcliffe said the only metal conversion facility at Natanz, required for nuclear enrichment, was destroyed to the point that it would take “years to rebuild,” according to the official, who was authorized to describe some contents of the classified briefing.
Ratcliffe also said that the intelligence community believes the strikes buried the vast majority of enriched uranium at Isfahan and Fordo and that thus it would be extremely difficult for the Iranians to extract it to resume enrichment, according to the official. The United States has not seen indications that Iran is trying to dig out the facilities, two officials said.
As NBC News has reported, the Israeli government believes at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium remains intact but buried beneath the Isfahan facility, according to a senior Israeli government official who briefed reporters in Washington last week. The official said, however, that Israel considers the material effectively unreachable, because it is watching and will conduct new strikes if it believes Iran is trying to dig up the uranium. The official also said Israel believes Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by up to two years."
"Iran’s air defenses have been largely destroyed, making it all but impossible for Iran to defend against further strikes on facilities in the future, the U.S. official said.
“It was made clear that Iran no longer has any more [air defenses], so the idea that they can easily rebuild anything is ludicrous,” the official said."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...ran-rcna218761
