A preliminary US intelligence assessment said the US's recent airstrikes against Iran have not dismantled its nuclear infrastructure but have only delayed its progress by a few months, reports Reuters.
The assessment comes as a ceasefire between Iran and Israel mediated by President Donald Trump takes hold.
Earlier on Tuesday, both Iran and Israel signalled that the air war between the two nations had ended, at least for now, after Trump publicly scolded them for violating a ceasefire he announced at 0500 GMT.
As the two countries lifted civilian restrictions after 12 days of war, which the US joined with an attack on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities, each sought to claim victory.
Trump said over the weekend that the US deployment of 30,000-pound bombs had obliterated Iran's nuclear program. But that claim appeared to be contradicted by an initial assessment by one of his administration's intelligence agencies, according to three people familiar with the matter.
One of the sources said Iran's enriched uranium stocks had not been eliminated, and the country's nuclear programme, much of which is buried deep underground, may have been set back only a month or two. Iran says its nuclear research is for civilian energy production.
The White House said the intelligence assessment was flat out wrong. According to the report, which was produced by the Defence Intelligence Agency, the strikes sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities, but did not collapse underground buildings, said one of the people familiar with its findings.
Some centrifuges remained intact after the attacks, the Washington Post said, citing an unnamed person familiar with the report.
Trump's administration told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that its weekend strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities had degraded Iran's nuclear program, short of Trump's earlier assertion that the facilities had been obliterated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the attack on Iran had removed the threat of nuclear annihilation and was determined to thwart any attempt by Tehran to revive its weapons program.
"We have removed two immediate existential threats to us: the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles," Netanyahu said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country had successfully ended the war in what he called a great victory, according to Iranian media. Pezeshkian also told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that Tehran was ready to resolve differences with the US, according to the official news agency IRNA.
Israel launched the surprise air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran, which denies trying to build nuclear weapons, retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites and cities.
Great Victory
Israel's military lifted restrictions on activity across the country at 8:00pm local time, and officials said Ben Gurion Airport, the country's main airport near Tel Aviv, had reopened. Iran's airspace likewise will be reopened, state-affiliated Nournews reported.
A White House official said Trump brokered the ceasefire deal with Netanyahu, and other administration officials were in touch with the Iranian government.
The truce appeared fragile. Both Israel and Iran took hours to acknowledge they had accepted the ceasefire and accused each other of violating it.
Trump scolded both sides but aimed especially stinging criticism at Israel, telling the close US ally to calm down. He later said Israel called off further attacks at his command.
Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said he told his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, that his country would respect the ceasefire unless Iran violated it. Pezeshkian likewise said Iran would honour the ceasefire as long as Israel did, according to Iranian media.
Whether the Israel-Iran truce can hold is a major question given the deep mistrust between the two foes. But Trump's ability to broker a ceasefire showed Washington retains some leverage in the volatile region.
Israeli armed forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir said a significant chapter of the conflict had concluded, but the campaign against Iran was not over. He said the military would refocus on its war against Iran-backed Hamas militants in Gaza.
Iran's military command also warned Israel and the US to learn from the crushing blows it delivered during the conflict.
Iranian authorities said 610 people were killed in their country by Israeli strikes and 4,746 were injured. Iran's retaliatory bombardment killed 28 people in Israel, the first time its air defences were penetrated by large numbers of Iranian missiles.
Oil prices plunged and stock markets rallied worldwide in a sign of confidence inspired by the ceasefire, which allayed fears of disruption to critical oil supplies from the Gulf.
Ceasefire Violations?
Earlier in the day, Trump admonished Israel with an obscenity in an extraordinary outburst at an ally whose air war he had joined two days before by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on Iran's underground nuclear sites.
Before departing the White House en route to a NATO summit in Europe, Trump told reporters he was unhappy with both sides for the ceasefire breach but particularly frustrated with Israel, which he said had unloaded shortly after agreeing to the deal.
"I've got to get Israel to calm down now," Trump said. Iran and Israel had been fighting "so long and so hard that they don't know what the f@#k they're doing."
Netanyahu's office acknowledged Israel bombed a radar site near Tehran in what it said was retaliation for Iranian missiles fired three-and-a-half hours after the ceasefire was due to begin.
It did not explicitly say whether the strike on the radar site took place before or after they spoke.
The Islamic Republic denied launching any missiles and said Israel's attacks had continued for an hour-and-a-half beyond the time the truce was meant to start.
"Who mediated or how it happened doesn't matter," said Reza Sharifi, 38, heading back to Tehran from Rasht on the Caspian Sea, where he had fled with his family. "The war is over. It never should have started in the first place."
Comments