Is It Good That the Same Intelligence Briefing Creates Two Versions of Reality

By Dave Levitan | June 27, 2025 | 8:37am

Screenshot via C-Span

Congress Iran War

Is It Good That the Same Intelligence Briefing Creates Two Versions of Reality

“Months” or “years”? “Obliterated” or “damaged”? “Answered a lot of questions” or “currently unanswered questions”? Such are the dichotomies coming out of US Senators’ mouths after hearing a classified intelligence briefing on Thursday regarding the Trump administration’s surprise strikes on Iran last week; not that it’s new, but when it comes to starting wars it might be nice if the two parties did not live in two completely distinct realities when confronted with the same set of facts.

“To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months,” said Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, after the briefing given by Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and director of the CIA John Ratcliffe. But what if you ask South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham about Iran’s nuclear sites? “They were obliterated. Nobody can use them anytime soon.” Hm. Okay.

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Virginia’s Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed that damage had clearly been inflicted upon those sites. “It is going to take time to get a final assessment of how much damage,” he said. Delaware’s Chris Coons agreed, saying that even those privy to the classified results of the campaign “do not have a complete assessment yet of the strikes of last week.” When we do, he added, “I think that will answer a lot of currently unanswered questions.”

That was after those Democrats emerged from the very same briefing that Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton sat through, which somehow led him to conclude: “I believe that this mission was a tremendous success and that we have effectively destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.”

That conclusion, of course, flies in the face of the early intelligence report leaked after the bombing, which suggested relatively minimal damage had been done. Trump and Hegseth lashed out like reprimanded children about that report, with the president insisting over and over that the facilities had been completely destroyed. What does Florida Republican Rick Scott think about the idea that the sites had been “obliterated”?

“It’s all in your definition.” Indeed.