Secret US Intelligence Assessments Reveal Iran Retains Core Missile Capabilities Despite War

Classified reports contradict public declarations by President Trump, highlighting severe ammunition depletion within the Pentagon.

Classified US intelligence assessments have revealed that Iran retains a significant portion of its military and missile capabilities. The findings directly contradict repeated public statements from US President Donald Trump and top administration officials asserting that the Iranian military was entirely destroyed during the recent conflict.

According to secret documents reviewed by The New York Times, Iranian forces have successfully regained access to the vast majority of their underground missile launch sites and storage facilities, including strategic fortifications along the Strait of Hormuz. These installations had been heavily targeted during a massive joint US-Israeli military campaign code-named Operation "Epic Fury."

The intelligence findings reveal that Iran has restored full or partial operational status at 30 out of 33 primary missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. This rapid recovery has raised serious concerns within Washington security circles, given the immediate threat these remaining installations pose to US warships and commercial oil tankers navigating the vital maritime corridor.

Resilient Underground Infrastructure

US intelligence officials familiar with the assessments noted that while the structural damage varied across facilities, Iranian forces maintained the capability to deploy mobile missile launchers. Troops are reportedly moving functional hardware to alternative launching points or firing directly from within partially compromised underground bunkers.

The report concludes that only three missile installations were entirely neutralized, leaving the rest of the network functional. Nationally, Iran is estimated to retain roughly 70% of its mobile missile launch platforms and approximately 70% of its pre-war missile stockpiles. This remaining arsenal consists of regional ballistic missiles and a smaller reserve of short-range cruise missiles intended for naval and land targets.

Satellite imagery and advanced reconnaissance techniques further indicate that Iranian engineers have restored access to nearly 90% of the regime's deeply buried underground storage complexes.

A Stark Contrast to Official Rhetoric

These intelligence revelations challenge the narrative put forward by President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Speaking to CBS News on March 9, just ten days after hostilities commenced, President Trump declared that "Iran's missiles have been reduced to scattered shrapnel" and that the nation "had nothing left militarily." Similarly, Hegseth stated during a Pentagon briefing on April 8 that the military operation had "crushed the Iranian military, leaving it unable to fight for years."

The classified assessments, compiled less than a month after those briefings, present a completely different reality. In response to the leaked findings, White House press secretary Olivia Wells reiterated the administration's stance, calling the Iranian military "shattered" and dismissing reports of its recovery as "propaganda from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."

Pentagon Ammunition Bottlenecks

Beyond tracking Iranian resilience, the intelligence reports sound the alarm regarding a growing logistics crisis inside the US military. Should the current ceasefire collapse and hostilities resume under a potential follow-up operation code-named "Heavy Hammer," the Pentagon faces acute shortages of precision-guided munitions.

During the conflict, US forces expended roughly 1,100 low-observable long-range cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Tomahawk land-attack missiles—an expenditure rate representing ten times the Pentagon's annual procurement volume for these systems. Additionally, US air defense units fired more than 1,300 Patriot interceptor missiles, exhausting equivalent production capacities of over two full years based on 2025 manufacturing baselines.

Defensive industrial manufacturers warn that refilling these stockpiles will take years rather than months. The intelligence report reveals that US commanders were forced to make tactical trade-offs during the war, opting to seal the entrances of certain deeply buried Iranian bunkers using conventional ordnance rather than attempting total destruction with specialized bunker-buster bombs. The Pentagon intentionally rationed its ultra-heavy penetration munitions to preserve a reserve case for potential future confrontations in Asia involving China or North Korea.