US intelligence admits Iran repairs ‘missile bunkers’ within hours of attacks

File photo shows Iran's first underground military air base in an undisclosed location.

US intelligence agencies acknowledge that Iran is quickly repairing its “underground missile bunkers” and returning them to operation within hours.

The New York Times cited US intelligence reports as saying that Iranian operatives have been digging out the bunkers and silos struck by the US and Israeli airstrikes.

Since the US and Israel launched their joint military aggression against Iran on February 28, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed they have made “substantial progress” in weakening the country’s missile capabilities.

The Pentagon also claimed this week that it had struck 11,000 targets in Iran.

Iran, the reports said, retains the ability to use its remaining arsenal of ballistic missiles and missile launchers to attack Israel and US assets and military bases in the region.

The reports also said that it has been difficult to assess how many launchers may be in bunkers or caves struck by the US or Israeli airstrikes.

They said, “The underground bunkers, caves or silos can appear at first to be damaged; in reality, Iran has been able to quickly dig out the launchers and fire them again.”

The Israeli publication, Haaretz, reported earlier that Iran had used bulldozers to dig out missile launchers that had been buried under rubble.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed that a “severe diminishing” of Iran’s missile launch capability is one of the primary aims of the unprovoked war against Iran.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has also boasted repeatedly about “the declining numbers” of Iranian missile strikes.

“Yes, they will still shoot some missiles, but we will shoot them down,” Hegseth said on Monday.

Now intelligence reports cast doubt on the Trump administration's claim that the US is destroying Iran’s missile capability, a “key goal” it said it had set out to achieve in the war against the Islamic Republic.

Over the past five weeks, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ retaliatory missiles and drone strikes have caused billions of dollars in damage to the US assets in the region.

The unprovoked war, which has roiled energy and stock markets worldwide, disrupted shipping, and resulted in casualties among US troops across the region, has already brought Trump under growing pressure at home to end it.