Now, CIA chief says Iran's nuclear program severely damaged by US strikes

Iran's nuclear program has been severely damaged and set back by weekend US strikes on three of its nuclear sites, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency said on Wednesday.

"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 Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.

His assessment echoes earlier statements by US President Donald Trump and his administration, saying the Iranian nuclear program was completely destroyed.

However, a preliminary assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which was leaked to the media on Tuesday, suggested the strikes only set Iran's program back by a few months.

The White House sharply denied this, with Trump branding it "fake news."