French intelligence: Israeli and American strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear program by several months… as fear from a covert action

The head of France’s foreign intelligence service, Nicolas Lerner, said Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back certainly by at least several months due to Israeli and US strikes.

Asked during an interview with the French channel LCI about the impact of the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Lerner, who heads the General Directorate for External Security, said, “Certainly, at least several months… There is no doubt that the program, in its industrial sense, has been delayed”.

Many questions are being raised about the status of Iran’s nuclear program following the Israeli and US strikes that targeted it in June.

Regarding the ability to enrich uranium, design a nuclear warhead, or load it into a missile, Lerner said, “Our assessment today is that each of these stages has been severely impacted and damaged, and that the Iranian nuclear program as we knew it has been significantly delayed”.

He pointed out that, “However, this remains a fact that requires further scrutiny”.

Lerner said he was “confident that there is no intelligence agency in the world that is capable, or was capable in the hours following those strikes, of conducting a full and comprehensive assessment of what happened”.

According to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, the US strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program “by at least one to two years,” a statement that contradicts the conclusions of a secret US intelligence report reported by US media outlets, which stated that the strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.

“There are two factors that call for caution,” Lerner said.

The fate of some of the highly enriched uranium stockpile and the risk that Tehran will continue to develop its nuclear program in secret.

He pointed out that there is consensus that the material, approximately 450 kilograms of enriched uranium, may have been destroyed in small quantities, but that this material remains in the regime’s possession.

He added, “We’re not in a position to track it with certainty… especially since the International Atomic Energy Agency hasn’t resumed its work, so this matter is very important”.

In early July, Iran officially suspended its cooperation with the agency.