Former US official: Assessing the strikes on Iran

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00:00OK, just before we cross to you, we were speaking to John Bolton, former U.S. National Security

00:05Advisor, and we were talking about how President Trump has once again been saying, you know,

00:10the Iranian nuclear facilities have been, quote, obliterated. I'm wondering if you're as sure

00:16as President Trump is about that. Well, that certainly isn't a term that the military uses

00:22when it comes to conducting battle damage assessments. It's generally degraded or destroyed.

00:28Destroyed would be the closest, I imagine, to obliterated. But the way battle damage

00:33assessments work, especially something as significant as these strikes, is as more information

00:38comes over time, when people start being sloppy and talking on phones, for example, or human

00:45assets can get into places, it changes. So right now, just based on the modeling, the strikes probably

00:52cause significant damage to the infrastructure. Obviously, the centrifuges that couldn't be moved,

00:59particularly in Nantanz and Fordow, were likely destroyed or at least significantly damaged. The

01:06question really is, where is the highly enriched uranium? Was it in the facility or was it moved?

01:14And if it was moved, where is it? So this is a two part to the intelligence community task. One is to

01:21keep determining just how effective these strikes were. And if they weren't effective, that needs to

01:26be said. It's not it's not a political issue. It's a intelligence and military issue.