Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is accusing Donald Trump and his administration of “deliberately misleading the public” about the impact of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend.
“To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months,” Murphy told reporters after leaving a classified briefing by the Trump administration, according to Mediaite. “There’s no doubt there was damage done to the program, but the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason.”
“I just do not think the president was telling the truth when he said this program was obliterated. There was certainly damaged done to the program, but there’s still significant remaining capability,” he continued. “I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that that we have not obliterated the program. The president was deliberately misleading the public.”
According to a preliminary report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, several people who were brief on the report told CNN.
The Trump administration pushed back on the report insisting that the sites were “obliterated” and Tehran’s nuclear program was set back “basically decades.”
Other Democrats also questioned the Trump administration’s characterization after Thursday’s briefing.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested that the Trump administration jumped to a conclusion too soon, according to CBS News.
“Listen, I hope that is the final assessment,” Warner said. “But if not, does that end up providing a false sense of comfort to the American people?”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the Trump administration’s answers about whether Iran’s nuclear stockpile was obliterated were inadequate.
“What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy, no end game, no plan, no specific, no detailed plan on how Iran does not attain a nuclear weapon,” Schumer said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said only a final battle damage assessment confirming the assertions “would enable us to be comfortable or complacent about what has been done.”
“The point is, we don’t know. Anybody who says we know with certainty is making it up because we don’t have a final battle damage assessment,” he said. “I think ‘obliterated’ is much too strong of word because it implies that it couldn’t be reconstituted or somehow it was completely eliminated.”
