US intelligence services concluded on Wednesday that Iran did not attempt to restart its uranium enrichment activities destroyed in the American-Israeli airstrikes in June 2025, contradicting a justification invoked by Donald Trump for the ongoing war against Iran.
„Following the ‘Midnight Hammer’ operation, the Iranian nuclear enrichment program was annihilated. Since then, no effort has been made to try to restore its uranium enrichment capabilities,” stated the Director of the US National Intelligence Services, Tulsi Gabbard, in a written material transmitted to the US Senate Intelligence Committee, which heard her on Wednesday.
In her statements to this committee, however, she avoided referring to this mention, reports AFP.
Tulsi Gabbard does not contest the services' evaluation
The "Midnight Hammer" operation refers to the US attack last June using GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on the main three Iranian uranium enrichment facilities.
Unlike the ongoing war, jointly conducted by the US and Israel through airstrikes against Iran, the 12-day war in June 2025 was solely led by Israel, but as it lacks sufficiently powerful bunker-busting weapons to strike those fortified Iranian underground installations, the United States intervened with a targeted attack on those facilities.
"The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed were covered with earth and sealed with cement," the document transmitted by Tulsi Gabbard to the Senate committee further specifies.
Asked why she did not talk about these details during her hearing before the committee, the head of the intelligence services responded by claiming that the limited time did not allow it, adding, however, that she does not question the evaluation mentioned in that document.
Another person from the Trump administration "moves to the front"
Through this evaluation, Tulsi Gabbard does not align with American President Donald Trump, who cited an "imminent nuclear threat" among his justifications for launching the current war against Iran, even though Trump himself contradicted this, stating last year after the June bombings that the Iranian nuclear program had been "destroyed."
Tulsi Gabbard's hearing in the Senate committee took place a day after the head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Joseph Kent, resigned stating that he cannot support the ongoing war "with a clear conscience."
"Iran does not pose an imminent threat to our country, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressures from Israel and its powerful lobby," noted Joseph Kent in a letter addressed to Trump and published on the X social network.
American intelligence services estimate that the Iranian government has suffered heavy losses and is "significantly weakened" following the ongoing American-Israeli attacks, but it remains "intact," despite the decimation of its political and military leadership, and will be able to rebuild its army and ballistic missile program if it survives the war, the Director of the National Intelligence Service also stated during her hearing before the US Senate Intelligence Committee.