The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has backed up Donald Trump’s comments that Iran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated” by American air and missile strikes. The agency’s director, John Ratcliffe, said: “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes. This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.

“CIA continues to collect additional reliably sourced information to keep appropriate decision-makers and oversight bodies fully informed. When possible, we will also provide updates and information to the American public, given the national importance of this matter and in every attempt to provide transparency.”

Earlier, Donald Trump erupted at media outlets during today’s NATO summit after they reported on a leaked intelligence assessment that suggested America’s military strikes on Iran would only delay Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.

The US President called them “disgusting” and “scum” for reporting on the assessment, describing them as “very unfair to the pilots, who risked their lives for our country.” He maintained that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated” by the attack.

The White House, looking to support Trump’s contention that Iran’s nuclear program was devastated by US airstrikes, distributed a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

The statement said: “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, have set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

The intelligence report issued by the Defence Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicted statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to two sources familiar with the matter, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorised to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the US strikes — and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities — could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon.

The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the US strikes and survived, and it found that Iran’s centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where US B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo.

Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold Tuesday on the 12th day of the war, told reporters at a NATO summit that he wasn’t particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran. Earlier in the day, an Iranian official questioned whether the United States could be trusted after its weekend attack.

“We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said. “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”

Iran has not acknowledged any talks taking place next week, though US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff has said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran had been scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was cancelled when Israel attacked Iran.