THE HAGUE — President Donald Trump defended recent U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Wednesday, drawing a dramatic comparison to the end of World War II and insisting the damage was far greater than intelligence reports suggest.
Speaking at a NATO summit alongside Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump pushed back on assessments from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which concluded the strikes had only delayed Iran’s nuclear progress by a few months.
“The intelligence was … very inconclusive,” Trump said. “It says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ So I guess that’s correct. But I think we can take the ‘we don’t know’ and say — it was very severe. It was obliteration.”
Despite confirming the DIA assessment’s existence, Trump characterized it as “preliminary,” and suggested its conclusions were being used unfairly in the media.
At a later press conference marked by tense exchanges with journalists, Trump accused reporters of undermining the military personnel involved in the bombing missions. He asserted the strikes played a decisive role in ending hostilities between Israel and Iran.
“When you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, that ended a war, too,” Trump said, referring to the 1945 U.S. nuclear bombings that led to Japan’s surrender in World War II. “This ended a war in a different way.”
Strikes Under Political Microscope
The effectiveness of the Iran strikes has become a political flashpoint for Trump. While some of his right-wing supporters viewed the operation as contradicting his “America First” and anti-interventionist stance, Trump has maintained that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons justifies the action.
Flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump continued to dismiss the DIA report’s validity. Hegseth went further, accusing the media of politicizing a classified, low-confidence intelligence assessment.
“That report was preliminary, it was low-confidence, and top secret,” Hegseth said. “There’s a political motive here — and the FBI is now investigating the leak.”
Rubio also claimed the report had been “mischaracterized” by those who leaked it, stating, “This is the game they play.”
NATO Backs Defense Boost; Israel Backs U.S. Narrative
At the NATO summit, member nations agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP — a move the Trump administration touted as a major diplomatic win.
Capping the summit, Trump referenced a report from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which claimed the Iranian nuclear program had been pushed back by “many years.” The administration leaned on this assessment to reinforce its claim of mission success.
Trump added that the U.S. plans to meet with Iranian officials next week to discuss future nuclear policy, but signaled skepticism that Tehran would resume its nuclear ambitions.
“I don’t think they want to get back into the nuclear business,” Trump said.
