A day after President Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated” by American bunker-busting bombs and a barrage of missiles, the actual state of the program seemed far more murky, with senior officials conceding they did not know the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
“We are going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about,” Vice President JD Vance told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, referring to a batch of uranium sufficient to make nine or 10 atomic weapons. Nonetheless, he contended that the country’s potential to weaponize that fuel had been set back substantially because it no longer had the equipment to turn that fuel into operative weapons.
The Iranians have made it clear they are not interested in having conversations with the United States, accusing Washington of deceiving Tehran during the last set of negotiations while planning the air attack. Moreover, that stockpile of fuel is now one of the few nuclear bargaining chips in Iranian hands.
In a briefing for reporters on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, avoided Mr. Trump’s maximalist claims of success. They said an initial battle-damage assessment of all three sites struck by Air Force B-2 bombers and Navy Tomahawk missiles showed “severe damage and destruction.”
Satellite photographs of the primary target, the Fordo uranium enrichment plant that Iran built under a mountain, showed several holes where a dozen 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators – one of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal – punched deep holes in the rock. The Israeli military’s initial analysis concluded that the site, the target of American and Israeli military planners for more than 26 years, sustained serious damage from the strike but had not been completely destroyed.
But there was also evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days. And there was growing evidence that the Iranians, attuned to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.
The 60-percent enriched fuel had been stored deep inside another nuclear complex, near the ancient capital of Isfahan. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said by text that the fuel had last been seen by his teams of United Nations inspectors about a week before Israel began its attacks on Iran. In an interview on CNN on Sunday he added that “Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material.”
Asked by text later in the day whether he meant that the fuel stockpile – which is stored in special casks small enough to fit in the trunks of about 10 cars – had been moved, he replied, “I do.” That appeared to be the mystery about the fuel’s fate that Mr. Vance was discussing.
If so, Isfahan would not be the only place where the custodians of the Iranian nuclear program – a subject of nationalistic pride and the symbol of Iran’s ability to defend itself – were trying to move equipment and material out of sight, and harden the Fordo plant to protect what had to stay in place.
My sense is this has always been one of the chief concerns for why 'deal' might be preferable over 'strike' – if you strike and miss, the uranium vanishes into the vastness of Iran until it reemerges as a successful nuclear test in 6 months, a year, two years.
— "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux (@BretDevereaux) June 23, 2025
Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies at the tunnels leading into the Fordo mountain, taken in the days before the American strike, show 16 cargo trucks positioned near an entrance. An analysis by the Open Source Centre in London suggested that Iran may have been preparing the site for a strike.
It is unclear exactly what, if anything, was removed from the facility.
Iran possesses the means of building IR-6 advanced centrifuges which can, in fairly small numbers and in s fairly short time, enrich 60% to 90% needed for a bomb.
About 41kg of 60% is needed for a bomb, so Iran has enough (in theory, if it's all been secured) for ten bombs. https://t.co/lAGZjsrrb1
— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) June 23, 2025
Source: The New York Times
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