At a press conference on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine presented the most detailed explanation yet of Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 22 strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites. Defending Trump’s claim that the operation “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, Hegseth cited CIA, Israeli, and international reports as proof the strikes “severely damaged” the program, setting it back by years. Caine struck a more apolitical tone, deferring to the intelligence community on the battle damage assessment.
Even as Trump officials project confidence, the intelligence picture remains fluid and contested. A leaked preliminary report by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessed the operation set Iran’s nuclear program back by mere months, according to several media reports, while CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have circulated statements suggesting more severe damage, citing “new intelligence” reporting. Evolving intelligence assessments are not unusual in the immediate aftermath of a military operation, as full battle damage assessments typically take weeks to produce, and the preliminary DIA report—made with “low confidence” within 24 hours of the strike—was not coordinated with the broader U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).
What is unusual, and deeply troubling, is the overt politicization of the intelligence process on a critical national security issue such as Iran. The Trump administration’s rapid efforts to discredit and sideline internal dissent, delay or restrict intelligence sharing with congressional oversight committees, and elevate favorable Israeli intelligence assessments signals a dangerous shift toward politicization under Trump. In a moment of heightened regional instability, the erosion of objectivity within the intelligence community undermines the integrity of U.S. decision making on Iran and puts broader national security interests at risk.
What We Know So Far
According to the New York Times, the leaked DIA assessment concluded the strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear program by fewer than six months, citing evidence that the strikes sealed off the entrance to two of the nuclear sites but did not collapse their underground buildings. The assessment also reportedly claimed Iran moved much of its uranium enrichment stockpile prior to the strike, suggesting it retains access to highly enriched nuclear material. Notably, the text of the leaked assessment has not been made public yet, and Trump’s personal attorney has disputed and threatened to sue the New York Times for libel over its characterization of the DIA assessment.
The CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have presented a starker picture, although one that is potentially not inconsistent with the initial DIA report. In a statement, Ratcliffe confirmed the CIA had new intelligence from a “historically reliable” source that “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.” It is not clear yet what he meant by “several facilities” and whether these are within the three nuclear sites that were struck. Gabbard similarly asserted new intelligence reporting indicates Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan were “severely damaged” and “would likely take years to rebuild.” Gabbard previously testified before Congress in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, but seemed to walk back that line after Trump publicly criticized her assessment as “wrong.”
Israeli and Iranian officials, for their part, have offered mixed damage assessments. On June 25, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gen. Eyal Zamir asserted Iran’s nuclear program had suffered “severe, extensive, and deep damage and has been set back by years.” In the first pre-recorded speech since the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed victory over the United States and Israel, echoing his earlier statement that Trump’s assessment of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program was “exaggerated.” The Supreme Leader’s remarks appeared in tension with previous statements from the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who said Iran’s nuclear installations were “badly damaged” in the U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Even if the United States did severely damage the three nuclear sites, it does not necessarily follow that they set Iran’s overall nuclear program back by years. It may indeed take Iran years to rebuild those facilities but, crucially, Iran does not need to rebuild all three to weaponize. Some Israeli officials assess Iran maintains small covert enrichment facilities that would allow it to continue its nuclear program in the event of an attack on its larger facilities, raising the prospect of Iran being able to construct a crude nuclear device. Striking nuclear facilities, or even nuclear scientists themselves, does not eliminate the knowledge Iran has already acquired of the weaponization process.
Irrespective of what the damage assessment ultimately says, there is no firm evidence yet that Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed. Gathering such evidence will take time, requiring inspections from IAEA monitors, should Iran allow them back in, or human intelligence sources of the ground. On Thursday, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi suggested it would be difficult to evaluate damage from the strikes based on satellite imagery alone, while confirming that centrifuges at Fordow were “no longer operational.” Preliminary intelligence assessments reportedly provided to European governments indicat Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact.
In the coming weeks, additional technical assessments will follow, with Ratcliffe pledging to “provide updates and information to the American people.” Even then, the ultimate effectiveness of the strikes will remain a matter of debate, as Iran could maintain covert enrichment facilities or uranium stockpiles that were either unknown to U.S. intelligence or moved before or after the strikes.
The U.S. IC now faces the difficult task of parsing through satellite imagery, signals intelligence, human intelligence, allied intelligence reports, and open source information to try to present policymakers with the fullest picture of the facts. This is never a straightforward process, as even Iranian decision makers may not yet understand the full extent of the damage, or might be misled by their own military officials seeking to downplay it. The risk of mis- and disinformation, as well as covert deception campaigns, is high. In the days ahead, the intelligence community must remain laser focused on presenting the facts with analytic integrity, a task made immeasurably more difficult by the increasing politicization of intelligence under Trump.
Growing Signs of Politicization
At the time of publication, the Senate is receiving a classified briefing that will be crucial to ascertaining the facts behind the Trump administration’s assertions concerning the strikes, with briefing for the House planned for tomorrow. Ratcliffe is representing the intelligence community, alongside Hegseth, Caine, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with Gabbard notably not attending. The White House previously postponed classified briefings on the operation required under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, prompting alarm among lawmakers. “I’m very concerned about [Trump] distorting, manipulating, and even lying about intelligence,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said. “We’ve been here before, We went to war in Iraq under false pretenses.”
The Trump administration has said it plans to limit intelligence sharing with Congress following the unauthorized disclosure of the DIA report, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized as “flat-out wrong” and leaked by a “low-level loser in the intelligence community.” The FBI has since opened an investigation into the source of the leaks.
In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration has promoted Israeli intelligence assessments and even selective Iranian statements to bolster its case on the effectiveness of the strikes. A White House statement entitled, “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — And Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News” cites the IDF Chief of Staff and Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, alongside U.S. officials.
The Iran strikes are not the first indication of growing politicization within the intelligence community. In May, Gabbard fired two senior officials at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) after the group produced a partially declassified intelligence assessment contradicting Trump’s rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. In emails obtained by the Times from DNI Chief of Staff Joe Kent to senior ODNI officials, Kent pushed for “some rewriting” so the NIC assessment “would not be used against the DNI or POTUS [President Trump].” That is after he had earlier pressed analysts to redo a Feb. 26 assessment of the Venezuelan matter. “Some intelligence officials took Mr. Kent’s intervention as an attempt to politicize the findings and push them in line with the Justice Department arguments and the Trump administration policy,” the Times reported.
More broadly, Gabbard has sought to consolidate control over the intelligence process by moving the NIC to ODNI headquarters and attempting to do the same with the office responsible for compiling the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). Since Trump returned to power, senior intelligence personnel have been removed or reassigned as part of a wider restructuring of the intelligence community.
What Congress Should Do Now
The increasing politicization of the IC on critical national security matters puts everyone at risk. But Congress is not powerless to act. Lawmakers can take a number of steps in the immediate and longer term to ensure that intelligence remains politically neutral.
First, Congress must press for the fullest possible picture of what happened during Operation Midnight Hammer. That begins with robust, closed-door briefings that feature career analysts alongside senior appointees, so lawmakers can hear the range of professional judgments and interrogate assumptions.
In the longer term, a careful, bipartisan review—akin to the Iraq or Afghanistan War Commision but on a smaller scale—would clarify the facts surrounding this strike and send a signal that intelligence must not be politicized as a matter of national security. As part of such a review, Congress should scrutinize the unusual prominence accorded to Israeli intelligence assessments to ensure that U.S. intelligence is not being sidelined. Allies provide invaluable insight, yet each has its own strategic calculus in doing so. Elevating any external narrative above the collective judgment of the U.S. intelligence community risks outsourcing American decision-making to Israel. The very creation of such a body can help insulate the intelligence community from political interference going forward. It would also send an important signal that, on this and other issues, there is a prospect of external review that can detect and deal with any politicization of intelligence work.
Alongside these actions, broader measures are urgently needed within the IC to protect whistleblowers, safeguard independent analysis, and ensure that leak investigations are not used as instruments of intimidation against dissenting analysis or inconvenient assessments. If career analysts believe they will face retribution for assessments that do not align with White House policy, the entire intelligence and decision-making process collapses. One step, as former senior CIA executive Brian O’Neil has proposed in these pages, would be for Congress to establish a standing analytic review board—independent of the ODNI—to adjudicate internal complaints about intelligence manipulation, coercion, or suppression. Other potential steps include establishing an analytic integrity review panel, modeled on the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee, which would serve as a neutral, public-facing check on institutional drift. Congress could require quarterly testimony from this review panel, as well as from the ODNI’s Analytic Ombuds Office and senior officials responsible for producing the PDB, to ensure political pressure or bias are not shaping intelligence analysis.
Finally, Congress should push the Trump administration to be transparent with the American people about the effectiveness of the strikes without delay. The administration can do this by declassifying intelligence assessments to the fullest extent possible, while protecting sources and methods.
By asserting rigorous oversight now, Congress can begin to repair the damage being done to the intelligence community. The goal of such oversight should not be to score shortsighted partisan victories, but rather to ensure that any future course of action on Iran and other matters is anchored in accurate, robust intelligence. Without that foundation, even the most decisive tactical successes ultimately risk becoming strategic liabilities.
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