A classified CIA report says Iran is capable of surviving three to four months under a US naval blockade, The Washington Post reports, citing four people familiar with the details of the document.
The report, which was delivered to policymakers in the administration this week, also says Iran still has about 75% of the mobile missile launchers it had before the war and about 70% of its ballistic missile stockpile.
It was previously reported that the gap between US and Israeli assessments stems from the fact that Israel subtracts from Iran's order of battle launchers located in missile cities whose entrances were bombed and blocked. In recent weeks, however, satellite images have documented extensive Iranian engineering work to clear debris around the entrances.
According to the report, the regime has managed to reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some of the damaged missiles and even complete the assembly of missiles that were in advanced stages of production when the war broke out.
The report also says Iran is taking several steps to soften the impact of the blockade, some of which were already known and have been verified by satellite images. For example, it is storing oil on tankers and using them as floating storage facilities, while slowing production at oil fields to preserve the long-term operation of the wells.
In addition, the report says intelligence officials fear Tehran is smuggling oil overland, including by rail through Central Asian countries, although this quantity is certainly significantly smaller, by several orders of magnitude, than what could be exported by sea. "It's not even close to the catastrophic level some are describing," said a US official familiar with the report.
