World leaders are arguing over the damage to Iran's nuclear sites. But where is its enriched uranium?
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U.S. President Donald Trump spent much of Wednesday and early Thursday morning refuting leaked reports from his own Defense Intelligence Agency that the U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities this past weekend had done only minimal damage, and that the Iranians had been able to move uranium from the sites before the strikes.
"Nothing was taken out of [the] facility," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, adding it "would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!"
This followed a statement late Wednesday by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who said "credible intelligence" showed Iran's nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan had been severely damaged and that it would take years — not months — to rebuild several key facilities.
Ratcliffe's statement, which he said was partially based on new intelligence from a "historically reliable and accurate source," was the latest drop of information meant to bolster the U.S. argument that the airstrikes have crippled Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon.
In a live address to the nation on Saturday in the immediate aftermath of the strikes, Trump proclaimed Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities were "completely and totally obliterated."
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In the confusing, tumultuous debate around the extent of the damage to the nuclear sites, a larger question looms: just where is Iran's enriched uranium now?
Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, a program director at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, says it's unclear what has become of Iran's 400 kilograms of uranium enriched at 60 per cent.
" We really don't know where that material is," she told CBC News via Zoom. "Did all of it survive the attacks? Did some of it survive the attacks? We don't know, and right now, Iran is not providing that information."
Iran, which acknowledges that its nuclear installations were "badly damaged," claims to have moved its enriched uranium ahead of the U.S. strikes on the weekend.
Satellite imagery shows that on June 19, 16 cargo trucks were at the entrance of the deeply buried Fordow nuclear site. Three days later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, it was hit with multiple bombs, called Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each of which weighed 13,000 kg.
Barring the IAEA
Before the U.S. became directly involved in the strikes, Israel says it had been targeting Iran's military and nuclear infrastructure, along with security officials and scientists, since June 13.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran told the UN nuclear agency it had taken special measures to protect its stockpile.
Grossi has asked Iran to allow IAEA inspectors in, but on Wednesday, the country's parliament voted to suspend co-operation with the UN agency. That step was approved by the country's Guardian Council on Thursday and will now be submitted to President Masoud Pezeshkian for final ratification. The bill would bar inspectors from accessing the sites until specific conditions are met.
Iran is still a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is legally required to co-operate with the IAEA; if it doesn't, it could be found in breach of its obligations. But Mukhatzhanova says there is little the IAEA can do to force Iran's co-operation.
The UN Security Council could take action, but Iran is already sanctioned, and Russia, which has a strategic partnership with Tehran, has a veto.
"So what's the plan, then — to have Israel and possibly the U.S. periodically bomb Iran into submission? That's not very sustainable," Mukhatzhanova said.
When asked on Wednesday if he would move to strike again if Iran rebuilt its nuclear enrichment program, Trump replied, "Sure."
Mukhatzhanova says because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2013 — colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal — was never properly enforced, there isn't a clear picture of Iran's stockpile of centrifuges.
The deal was enacted under U.S. president Barack Obama, but U.S. President Donald Trump called it "horrible" and "one-sided" and withdrew from it during his first term in office.
'A very sensitive situation now'
Hours before Israel started its airstrikes on Iran in mid-June, Tehran said it had built and would activate a third nuclear enrichment site. The announcement came after the IAEA had censured Iran for failing to comply with non-proliferation obligations and for providing "less than satisfactory" co-operation.
IAEA inspectors didn't have a chance to go to Iran's new enrichment site. Mukhatzhanova says it's unclear if Iran has centrifuges that can be installed and begin operating elsewhere.
"It won't take long to enrich the 60 per cent [uranium] further to 90 per cent, which is considered weapons-grade," she said. "It's a very sensitive situation now."
Some of Iran's media outlets seized on the coverage of a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment that appeared to contradict Trump's claims that the Fordow nuclear site was obliterated.
One outlet said that "Trump's lie had come to light," while another said this was becoming a big scandal for him.
In a statement posted to X on Thursday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard backed up Trump's claims, saying Iran's three nuclear facilities were destroyed and would take years to rebuild.
'A huge capacity loss'
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Mohammed Eslami, the head of its Atomic Energy Organization, have said Iran will revive its nuclear program.
Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow for the Project on Nuclear Issues at the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it's "unclear" what effect the Israeli-U.S. strikes have had "on the knowledge base of Iran's scientific leadership."
"Israel targeted many key leaders in the nuclear program, as well as the military programs, so that is a huge capacity loss."
A comprehensive assessment done by the Institute for Science and International Security, which analyzed satellite imagery of the attacks, concluded it will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere "near the capability" it had beforehand.
However, the report also said Iran could use the material and parts that weren't destroyed to produce weapons-grade uranium.
Laura Holgate, a former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told CBC News Network on Wednesday that if Iran could keep producing enriched uranium, it might only take weeks for it to have enough required for a nuclear weapon.
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But its ability to put that on a missile is not well understood, and that would be on a different timeline altogether.
"I'm definitely more worried than I was a week ago. This [enriched uranium] is not in normal status, so there's a potential that it could be stolen or somehow lost," Holgate said. "Even more worrying … is the potential for the IAEA to lose its access to the Iranian program."
Mukhatzhanova says the Israeli-U.S. action might end up having the opposite of its intended effect.
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