Officials concede they don't know the fate of Iran's uranium stockpile

Boston Globe

10 hours ago

The Iranians have made it clear they are not interested in having conversations with the United States, accusing Washington of deceiving officials in the Iranian capital, 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.
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In a briefing for reporters Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the new chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, avoided 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 destroyed.
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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 Trump's repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60% purity. The level usually used in nuclear weapons is 90%.
The 60% enriched fuel had been stored deep inside another nuclear complex, near the ancient capital of Isfahan. Rafael Mariano Grossi, 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 Sunday on CNN, he said '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 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, as they also tried to harden the Fordo plant to protect what had to stay in place.
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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 what, if anything, was removed from the facility.
In fact, there was only so much the Iranians could save. The giant centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds, purifying uranium, are piped together and bolted to the cement floor. One U.S. official said it would have been unrealistic to completely move equipment out of Fordo after the conflict with Israel began.
The official added that historical documents about the nuclear program were buried in the bowels of the site, likely complicating any efforts in reconstituting it. In coming days, both the Iranians and intelligence agencies expect to learn more about the Natanz enrichment site, which is older, larger and less well protected than Fordo. It was struck by the Israelis repeatedly, and they destroyed an aboveground enrichment center and disrupted the electrical system. Grossi later said he believed the interruption of the electrical supply could have sent the centrifuges spinning out of control, probably destroying all of them.
How long it would take the Iranians to repair and replace that equipment is unknown; it would probably stretch for years. But Iran is also building a new, deep replacement for Natanz in the south of the city. Officials in Tehran have told the IAEA that they have not yet opened the plant, so there is nothing to see.
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If Iran is truly pursuing a nuclear weapon -- which it officially denies -- it is taking more time than any nuclear-armed nation in history. The United States developed the Manhattan Project in four years or so, developing the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. The Soviet Union conducted its first test in 1949, only four years later. India, Pakistan and Israel all sped the process.
The Iranians have been at it for more than 20 years, and an archive of data stolen from a Tehran warehouse by Israel a number of years ago showed that Iranian engineers were exploring nuclear triggers and other equipment that would only be used to detonate a weapon. That was around 2003, when, according to American intelligence, the engineers received instructions to halt work on weaponization.
Comments by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days suggest they believe that work has resumed, though no evidence to support the contention has been made public. If so, the strikes on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan may only reinforce the view among Iranian leaders that they need a weapon for survival of the government.
History also suggests that diplomacy has usually been more effective than sabotage or military attacks in providing assurances that a country does not pursue atomic weapons. More than 15 years ago, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Natanz, using a sophisticated cyber weapon, caused about one-fifth of the country's 5,000 or so centrifuges to blow up.
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But the Iranians not only rebuilt, they installed more sophisticated equipment. Before Israel's attack this month, they had roughly 19,000 centrifuges in operation.
It was only when the Obama administration struck the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the United States got a fuller picture of its capabilities, thanks to the work of inspectors. And those inspections were choked off -- and many security cameras disabled -- after Trump declared the nuclear accord a 'disaster' and withdrew from it.
Tehran's reaction was to scale up centrifuge production, enrich uranium at levels only weapons states need, and stonewall the IAEA.
Now, it is unclear whether the team of IAEA inspectors who were in the country when the conflict with Israel broke out will be permitted by the Iranian government to resume their inspections, which would include verifying the whereabouts and the safety of that near-bomb-grade uranium.
All international inspections have been suspended during wartime, Iranian officials have said. And even if they were to resume, it was unclear if the inspectors could physically gain access to the bombed Fordo underground plant, or the wreckage of the larger enrichment facility at Natanz.
Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration and a former CIA officer, said of the strike: 'With the type and amount of munitions used, it will likely set back the Iranian nuclear weapon program two to five years.'
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