US did 'severe damage' in Iran, ex-CIA director says

(NewsNation) — Count former CIA Director David Petraeus among observers who think the U.S. military did significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program with last weekend’s stealth bombing raid.

The retired U.S. Army general shared his thoughts Wednesday as the Trump administration disputed a preliminary intelligence report suggesting the strikes may only have set Iran back months, rather than years, from being able to build nuclear weapons.

Petraeus noted that drafters of the initial assessment said they had “low confidence” in their report, which will be one of several moving forward. He said he agrees with a statement from his former agency that the U.S. inflicted “severe damage” to Iran’s nuclear program.

“That’s about where it should stay until you have the complete battle-damage assessment done,” Petraeus told “CUOMO” on Wednesday. “And that takes time. (There’s) no set limit for it.”

The former head of U.S. Central Command said the aerial photographs of “punched holes” at Iran’s Fordow stronghold suggest that bunker-busting bombs did the job they were supposed to.

“Each one of those culminates its descent with (an) explosion of 5,000 pounds of explosive. You do 12 of those, and it will have done enormous damage to any centrifuges that are in there.”

Petraeus said it’s still not clear whether any uranium had been removed from Fordow or if it’s buried in the rubble.

“And are there centrifuges that are elsewhere, as well?” he added. “And when that’s determined, either I think Iran will have to agree to dismantle its entire nuclear program … or Israel will bomb it again.”

A fragile ceasefire continued between Israel and Iran on Wednesday. Israel began striking targets in Iran earlier this month to eliminate what it said were Tehran's nearly realized plans to build nuclear weapons. The U.S. bombing at three sites Saturday was also conducted to slow or stop Iran's building of a nuclear bomb.