NPR’s Inskeep: Saying Iran Nuke Program Suffered ‘Severe and Significant Damage’ Doesn’t Contradict DIA Report

On Friday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” co-host Steve Inskeep argued that the DIA’s assessment in low confidence that NPR and other outlets reported on isn’t contradicted by the characterization that Iran’s nuclear program was damaged severely and significantly.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) stated that while details are still emerging, “severe and significant damage would be the fair way to characterize this.”

Inskeep then said, “I appreciate that, and that doesn’t seem inconsistent with the Defense Intelligence Agency report that NPR has reported on and others have reported on that said, with low confidence, as they put it, that the military hit Fordow, that they did some damage, but that the Iranians might have moved uranium elsewhere just in time. Is that report that the White House has criticized, in fact, a decent bottom line for what the government knows at this point?”

Kaine responded, “Steve, again, that report is classified. I read it in a classified setting, and I don’t really want to talk about it. But let me just put it in this kind of a context: If the president, on Saturday night, had said, we have taken this action and we’ve caused severe and significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program, you wouldn’t have seen all this damage control over the damage for the last few days. The president overstated it, in all likelihood.”

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