WASHINGTON — US intelligence assessments indicate Iran retains significant missile capabilities despite repeated claims by the Trump administration that Tehran’s military had been “shattered,” according to The New York Times.
The report said intelligence findings from early May show Iran has regained operational access to most of its missile sites, including 30 of the 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz.
Citing people familiar with the assessments, the newspaper said Iran still possesses roughly 70% of its prewar missile stockpile and mobile launchers.
The assessments also found that nearly 90% of Iran’s underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide are now “partially or fully operational.”
Asked about the intelligence assessments, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales repeated Trump’s previous assertions that Iran’s military had been “crushed.”
Iran’s government knows that its “current reality is not sustainable” and that anyone who “thinks Iran has reconstituted its military is either delusional or a mouthpiece” for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Wales was quoted as saying.
Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, responded to questions about the intelligence by criticizing news coverage of the war.
“It is so disgraceful that The New York Times and others are acting as public relations agents for the Iranian regime in order to paint Operation Epic Fury as anything other than a historic accomplishment,” he said in a statement.
People with knowledge of the intelligence assessments said they show that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the Hormuz Strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.
The findings undercut months of public assurances from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have told Americans that the Iranian military was “decimated” and “no longer” a threat.
The new intelligence assessments suggest that Trump and his military advisers overestimated the damage that the US military could inflict on Iranian missile sites, and underestimated Iran’s resilience and ability to bounce back.
The Washington Post reported last week on US intelligence showing that Iran retained about 75 percent of its mobile missile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.
The findings underscore the dilemma Trump would face if the fragile month-old ceasefire in the conflict collapses and full-scale fighting resumes.
The US military has already depleted its stocks of many critical munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptor missiles, and Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, and yet the intelligence suggests that Iran retains considerable military capability, including around the vital Strait of Hormuz.
As The New York Times previously reported, the United States expended roughly 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles in the war — close to the total supply that remains in the American stockpile. The military also fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, 10 times the number the Pentagon procures in a year.
And it used more than 1,300 Patriot interceptor missiles during the war, which accounts for more than two years of production at 2025 rates. Replenishing those stockpiles will take years, not months.
If Trump ordered commanders to launch more strikes to take out or diminishthose Iranian capabilities, then the US military would have to dig even deeper into stocks of critical munitions. Doing so would further undercut US stockpiles at a time when the Pentagon and the major arms makers are already struggling to find the industrial capacity to replenish American reserves.
Trump and his advisers have repeatedly denied that US munitions stocks have been drained to dangerously low levels. In private, Pentagon officials have offered similar assurances to anxious European allies.
In testimony on Tuesday to a House appropriations subcommittee, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “We have sufficient munitions for what we’re tasked to do right now.”
The joint assault on Iran by the United States and Israel inflicted considerable damage on Iran’s defenses and damaged or destroyed many strategic sites aroundthe country. Many of Iran’s seniorleaders have been killed, and its economy is staggering under the pressures of the war, leaving questions about how long it can sustain its hard line on a negotiated end to the conflict and the halt on nearly all oil tanker traffic and other shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The passageway carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption, and the US Navy now maintains a near-continuous presence transiting and patrolling it.
The US military’s Central Command said in a social media post on Sunday that more than 20 American warships were enforcing the blockade against Iran.
But Iran’s apparent ability to retain substantial military capacity has exacerbated concerns among US allies about the wisdom of the war and generated criticism among Trump’s anti-interventionist supporters who opposed getting into the conflict in the first place.
Source: Saudi Gazette