Former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz told Newsmax that the U.S. military strikes on Iran's nuclear program were devastating.
He told "American Agenda" on Monday that the flip-flops of so many getting media attention are telling.
"Isn't it amazing that all the people who said Iran didn't have a nuclear program are now saying Iran's going to get a bomb because Trump didn't destroy their nuclear facilities enough?" he said.
Fleitz said he's convinced Iran's nuclear program was significantly damaged.
"I think enormous damage was done to these facilities. Billions of dollars of centrifuges were destroyed." He added that the "equipment they need to turn the output of these centrifuges into uranium metal for a bomb, we know that was destroyed."
President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to strike Iran's nuclear program sites on Saturday, June 21.
Trump waited just over a week after Israel launched strikes on the nuclear program, after negotiations over Iran's nuclear weapons program hit a standstill.
Two days after the U.S. strikes, Trump announced Iran had agreed to a ceasefire agreement.
Critics have claimed the strikes did not "obliterate" the sites as claimed by Trump. Since then, Iran has claimed it would find a way to resume its nuclear program, and a top Iranian cleric has ordered all Iranians to embark on a mission to attack and destroy Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On the question of whether Iran can resume its nuclear program, Fleitz said it is a qualified yes.
"Can Iran enrich again? It probably can," he said. "It won't be anywhere near the scale it can right now. It doesn't have the equipment to go forward. I think they could be behind at least five years, maybe more than that."
Joining the segment was former Marine intelligence officer Hal Kempfer. He said the follow-up questions should be asked. "The question is, Do they have uranium stored somewhere else? Do they have some sort of centrifuge enrichment capabilities somewhere else? Could they do that? They're going to try and obviously recover whatever they can from the Fordo facility."
But Kempfer described the impact of the strikes as "stunning" and said the likelihood of much that is usable remaining intact is very low.
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Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
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