‘No chance’ Iran moved uranium before US strikes on nuclear sites, says Donald Trump
Donald Trump has said there was ‘no chance’ Iran could have hidden its enriched uranium prior to US strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities.
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Speaking at a Nato summit in The Hague, the US president said: “We think we hit them so hard so fast they didn’t get a chance to move.
“Many people call it dust. It’s very heavy and hard to move and they were way down, 30 stories down underground, we think it’s covered with granite, concrete and steel.”
He went on to say the US ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear sites. A claim which has not yet been verified. Iran has said they were ‘badly damaged’. The true impact on Iran’s nuclear capabilities remains unclear.
Earlier Mr Trump claimed American strikes had set back the country’s nuclear programme by ‘decades’.
Nato chief Mark Rutte suggested Mr Trump dealt with Israel and Iran’s war in the Middle East like a ‘daddy’ stopping children fighting in a schoolyard.
During a press conference ahead of a NATO summit, Trump compared the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
“I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war,” Mr Trump said.
A row had erupted over the scale of damage done to Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities.
According to a leaked intelligence report, the US strikes only set Iran back by a matter of months. But Trump today insisted the attacks had set back the programme by ‘decades’.
Iran meanwhile simply said the sites had been ‘badly damaged’ but refused to elaborate further.
Esmail Baghaei, the ministry’s spokesman, speaking to Al Jazeera, refused to go into detail. “Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he said.
Speaking from the emergency Nato summit in The Hague, Mr Trump, sitting beside Mr Rutte, admitted the "last thing [Iran] want to do is enrich anything right now".
Hitting out at reports suggesting the strike was less successful than the White House claims, Mr Trump branded a host of US media outlets "scum" for their reporting.
Flanked by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the trio announced that a full FBI investigation into the leak would now take place.
Read more: Trump refuses to commit to NATO Article 5 as US piles pressure on allies to boost defence spending
It comes hours after the US President was seen to share fawning personal messages sent by the Nato Secretary-General publicly on social media.
“Mr President, dear Donald, Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer,” Mr Rutte wrote in the message.
That message was later posted by Donald Trump to his social media platform Truth Social.
“You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening,” he continued, as he elaborated on Nato nation's 5 per cent contributions.
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” he wrote.
“You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
The move, which many viewed as an over-share, spawned concerns over the private nature of messages among world leaders - despite Sir Keir Starmer telling LBC that the UK has "a very close relationship between the UK and the US" that will keep Brits safe.
Trump's arrival in the Netherlands followed a dramatic press conference on the White House lawn on Tuesday, with the US president furiously insisting both Israel and Iran have been fighting for so long they "don't know what the f**k they are doing".
As the public-facing meeting continued, Trump was seen to brand the Iran-Israel ceasefire a "very equal agreement" when asked by the media about the apparent collapse following strikes by both nations.
"They're not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich," Trump insisted of Iran, likening enrichment to "taking the carpet up".
Branding the ceasefire a "tremendous victory for everyone", Trump conceded Iran was aware of a US attack.
Despite admitting Israel's actions were "a little bit of a violation" following further missile strikes on Iran, Trump then told reporters he was "very proud of them".
"They knew we were coming," Trump admitted.
Overnight, Donald Trump refused to confirm the United States is committed to NATO’s Article Five, the alliance’s founding principle.
Every member of NATO must agree to the principle of collective and mutual defence - if one member state is attacked, the others come to its defence.
Known as Article Five, this is the founding principle of the NATO alliance.
But speaking on Tuesday as he travelled to the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Mr Trump refused to say he was “committed” to the principle.
“Depends on your definition,” he said from Air Force One.