The intelligence about the U.S. strikes on Iranian targets can’t be conclusive and inconclusive at the same time.
As Donald Trump arrived in the Netherlands this week for an annual NATO summit, the American president reportedly hoped to take a victory lap of sorts, celebrating the success of the preemptive military strikes he approved targeting Iranian nuclear sites. As is often the case with the Republican, reality quickly got in the way.
On Tuesday, the world learned of a preliminary intelligence assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which jolted the public and political debate. As NBC News confirmed, the initial assessment concluded that the U.S. airstrikes “were not as effective” as Trump claimed, and the mission set Iran’s nuclear program “back by only three to six months.”
Looney bird Trump is in denial:
Pressed on the efficacy of the mission and the accuracy of the intelligence, Trump said, “The intelligence was very inconclusive. 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.”
Or put another way, according to the American president, U.S. intelligence officials don’t know, but he does know.
