President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran’s underground nuclear facilities were devastated by recent strikes and argued that only the United States and China possess the specialized equipment necessary to reach any enriched uranium that may remain buried beneath the damaged sites.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump insisted the attacks had completely destroyed the targeted facilities.

“We attacked their nuclear sites and they were obliterated,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump also took aim at media reports that questioned the extent of the damage, specifically referencing coverage by CNN.

“It turned out that, you know, CNN was wrong. They said, ‘Well, maybe they weren’t hit that hard.’ They were hit so hard, nobody knows if you could even get it out,” he added.

The president maintained that even if enriched uranium remains beneath the sites, recovering it would be an enormous challenge and could only be attempted by a handful of countries.

“But the only ones that have the capability of getting it out are us and China,” Trump said.

According to Trump, the depth of the facilities and the scale of the destruction would require highly specialized machinery capable of penetrating deep into mountainous terrain.

“We’re the only ones with that kind of equipment that’s powerful enough to go down that deep into a mountain, but that mountain crushed it.”

He further emphasized the extent of the damage, saying the strikes caused a collapse that buried the facilities beneath the mountain itself.

“That mountain literally collapsed on top of it.”

Trump also cited assessments from the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying the organization’s findings support his view that access to the sites would be extremely difficult.

“And now the atomic energy, as you know, has backed us up on that. They think it’s a very, very hard thing to get to, but we’ll get it anyway. But we’re the only ones — and China, I believe, does, too — that have the capability,” he said.

{Matzav.com}