Experts have raised major doubts about the impact of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, with intelligence indicating large amounts of enriched uranium were moved ahead of time.
President Trump has claimed the strikes caused “monumental” damage to the nuclear sites, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “very close” to eliminating the nuclear program.
The US was the only country with weapons capable of destroying Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which is built 80 to 90 metres under a mountain.
Satellite imagery of the site shows six large holes where B2 stealth bombers dropped 14 massive bunker buster bombs – each weighing 13.6 tonnes and capable of penetrating 18 metres into concrete and 61 metres into earth.
But satellite imagery expert Decker Eveleth, an associate researcher with the CNA Corporation, said the hall containing hundreds of centrifuges is “too deeply buried for us to evaluate the level of damage based on satellite imagery”.
Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors.
They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed “unusual activity” at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a line of 13 cargo trucks waiting outside an entrance of the facility.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60 per cent highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.
The New York Times has also reported that Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence believe Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days, including 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity.
This was confirmed by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who told the Times Iran had “made no secret” of the fact they had moved the materials.
US Vice President JD Vance has also admitted the White House does not know the fate of the enriched uranium.
The uranium would need to be enriched to around 90 per cent purity to be used in a weapon, but it is reportedly enough to make nine or 10 atomic bombs.
Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey said there were “almost certainly facilities that we don’t know about” and the strikes have likely only set back Iran’s nuclear program “by maybe a few years”.
US Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona and a member of the Senate intelligence committee who said he had been reviewing intelligence every day, expressed the same concern.
“My big fear right now is that they take this entire program underground, not physically underground, but under the radar,” he told NBC News.
“Where we tried to stop it, there is a possibility that this could accelerate it.”
Iran lashed out at the US after the attacks, accusing it of crossing a “very big red line” by striking the nation’s “peaceful” nuclear facilities. The nation’s foreign minister also hinted that Iran may withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – which Iran’s parliament began preperations after Israel launched its first strikes
“It cannot be emphasised enough how much of a devastating blow that the US, a permanent member of the Security Council, dealt to the global Non-Proliferation regime,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference in Turkey.
According to Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball, “the world is going to be in the dark about what Iran may be doing”.
Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer who served in the Pentagon during Trump’s first term, told the New York Times the US strike would “likely set back the Iranian nuclear weapon program two to five years”.
-With Reuters
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