U.S. military strikes on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities in June likely set that program back by 1-2 years, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said Wednesday.
“We’re thinking probably closer to two years — like degraded their program by two years,” said Sean Parnell in his first standalone briefing.
Parnell’s assessment comes at a moment of confusion about the effect America’s massive airstrikes had on Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has repeatedly said that the attacks “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, a characterization Parnell himself repeated Wednesday.
But an early Defense Intelligence Agency review — first reported by CNN but later confirmed by the administration — estimated that the attacks had only delayed that program by a matter of months.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that the damage had been more severe in a separate briefing last week. Still, he didn’t offer his own estimated timeline and didn’t dispute that the intelligence review contained the reported findings — only that they were premature.
Parnell didn’t detail Wednesday what new intelligence resulted in his updated assessment.
“We believe that Iran’s nuclear capability has been severely degraded, perhaps even their ambition to build a bomb,” he said.
In late June, the U.S. military attacked Iran’s three main nuclear sites with an enormous number of precision weapons, including more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles and 14 bunker-busting bombs, which weigh 30,000 pounds each.
The strikes compounded damage already done by Israel, which had begun trading strikes with Iran little more than a week before but didn’t have the equipment necessary to threaten the heavily fortified facilities.
“The assessments are ongoing, and every day that goes by the intelligence picture that we have gets clearer,” Parnell said.
He promised to continue updating the press corps as more information becomes available.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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