No known intelligence that Iran moved uranium, U.S. defense chief says
By Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear program during the weekend.
U.S. military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities early Sunday local time using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
The results of the strikes are being closely watched to see how far they may have set back Iran's nuclear program.
"I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise," Hegseth told an often fiery news conference.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who watched the exchange with reporters, echoed his defense secretary, saying it would have taken too long to remove anything.
"The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of (the) facility," Trump wrote on his social media platform, without providing evidence.
Several experts have cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes, and could be hiding it in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors.
They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance to the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the 60% highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the attack.
WHEREABOUTS OF URANIUM
The Financial Times, citing European intelligence assessments, reported that Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact since it was not concentrated at Fordow.
Hegseth's comments denying such claims came at the news briefing where he also accused journalists of downplaying the success of the U.S. strikes following a leaked preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggesting they may have only set back Iran by months.
He said the assessment was low confidence, and, citing comments from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, said it had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged and would take years to rebuild.
Ratcliffe, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a classified briefing on the strikes on Thursday for all 100 members of the U.S. Senate.
Tulsi Gabbard, who normally would conduct such briefings as director of national intelligence, was not scheduled to participate. Trump said last week that she was wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran was building a nuclear weapon.
The Senate briefing had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed. Senators are expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval for strikes against Iran, although the measure is not expected to be enacted.
At the Pentagon news conference, Hegseth described the strikes as "historically successful." His comments came after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday Iran would respond to any future U.S. attack by striking American military bases in the Middle East.
Khamenei claimed victory after 12 days of war, and promised Iran would not surrender despite Trump's calls.
MEDIA 'HATRED'
During the news conference, Hegseth criticized the media, without evidence, for having an anti-Trump bias.
"It's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad," Hegseth said.
"There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that ... because of the hatred of this press corps, are undermined," he said.
Trump praised Hegseth's news conference as: "One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!"
On X, Hegseth thanked Trump for his praise.
During the press conference, Caine, the top U.S. general largely stuck to technical details, outlining the history of the bunker-busting bombs used. Caine showed a video testing the bombs on a bunker like the ones struck on Sunday.
Caine declined to provide his own assessment of the strike and deferred to the intelligence community. He denied being under any pressure to change his assessment to present a more optimistic view of the U.S. strikes.
He also said he would not change his assessment due to politics. Uniformed military officials are supposed to remain apolitical and provide their best military advice.
"I've never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking, and that's exactly what I've done," he said.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
6 hours ago
U.N. Chief Guterres to Visit Japan to Attend TICAD 9
News from Japan World Aug 16, 2025 13:00 (JST) New York, Aug. 15 (Jiji Press)--U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Japan to attend the upcoming Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD 9, the United Nations said Friday. Guterres will underscore the importance of TICAD, according to Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the U.N. leader. In his address at the opening ceremony for TICAD 9, to be held in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, for three days from Wednesday, Guterres will say that TICAD is a forum to highlight Africa's potential, such as having the youngest population in the world and abundant natural resources, Dujarric said. After attending the conference, Guterres is slated to visit the ongoing World Exposition in the western Japan city of Osaka. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
The Mainichi
7 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Ukraine's Zelenskyy to meet Trump after US-Russia summit secured no peace agreement
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he plans to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington next week after Trump's summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin ended without an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy said he held a "long and substantive" conversation with Trump on Saturday after the U.S. leader met Putin in Alaska. He thanked Trump for an invitation to meet in person in Washington on Monday and said they would "discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war." Trump rolled out the red carpet on Friday for Putin, who was in the U.S. for the first time in a decade. But he gave little concrete detail afterward of what was discussed, and little was known as the two leaders parted about what would come next. 'Positive' US signals on security guarantees Zelenskyy reiterated the importance of involving Europe -- which, like the Ukrainian leader, wasn't at the table at Friday's summit. "It is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America," he said. "We also discussed positive signals from the American side regarding participation in guaranteeing Ukraine's security." He didn't elaborate, but Zelenskyy previously has said that European partners put on hold a proposal to establish a foreign troop presence in Ukraine as a deterrence against future Russian aggression because it lacked an American backstop. Zelenskyy said he spoke to Trump one-on-one and then in a call with other European leaders. In total the conversations lasted over an hour and a half. 'No deal until there's a deal' Trump said in Alaska that "there's no deal until there's a deal," after Putin claimed the two leaders had hammered out an "understanding" on Ukraine and warned Europe not to "torpedo the nascent progress." During an interview with Fox News Channel before heading back to Washington, Trump insisted that the onus going forward might be on Zelenskyy "to get it done," but said there would also be some involvement from European nations. Trump did not speak to reporters on his flight back to Washington. When his plane landed, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was on the phone with NATO leaders after a lengthy call with Zelenskyy. Trump then disembarked Air Force One without speaking to reporters. He didn't respond to shouted questions about the phone calls as he climbed into his limousine. Trump spoke with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta said. She gave no details of the conversation. Hopes for a three-way meeting Zelenskyy voiced support for Trump's proposal for a trilateral meeting with the U.S. and Russia. He said that "key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this." But Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Russian state television Saturday that a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy has not been raised in U.S.-Russia discussions. "The topic has not been touched upon yet," Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Russian officials and media struck a largely positive tone, with some describing Friday's meeting as a symbolic end to Putin's isolation in the West. Russia's former President Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the country's Security Council, praised the Alaska summit as a breakthrough in restoring high-level dialogue between Moscow and Washington, describing the talks as "calm, without ultimatums and threats." Russian attacks on Ukraine continued overnight, using one ballistic missile and 85 Shahed drones, 61 of which were shot down, Ukraine's Air Force said. Front-line areas of Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Chernihiv were attacked.
Nikkei Asia
8 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
Trump says no summit deal with Putin, but talks were 'very productive'
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) -- A highly anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday yielded no agreement to resolve or pause Moscow's war in Ukraine, though both leaders described the talks as productive. During a brief appearance before the media following the nearly three-hour meeting in Alaska, the two leaders said they had made progress on unspecified issues. But they offered no details and took no questions, with the normally loquacious Trump ignoring shouted questions from reporters. "There were many, many points that we agreed on. I would say a couple of big ones that we haven't quite got there, but we've made some headway," Trump said, standing in front of a backdrop that read, "Pursuing Peace." "There's no deal until there's a deal," he added. The talks did not initially appear to have produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years - or toward a subsequent meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, both goals Trump had set ahead of the summit. Putin said he expected Ukraine and its European allies to accept the results of the U.S.-Russia negotiation constructively and not try to "disrupt the emerging progress." "I expect that today's agreements will become a reference point, not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also launch the restoration of business-like, pragmatic relations between Russia and the United States," Putin said. But Putin also repeated Moscow's long-held position that what Russia claims to be the "root causes" of the conflict must be eliminated to reach a long-term peace, a sign he remains resistant to a ceasefire. As the two leaders were talking, the war raged on, with most eastern Ukrainian regions under air raid alerts. Governors of Russia's Rostov and Bryansk regions reported that some of their territories were under Ukrainian drone attacks. Zelenskyy has ruled out formally handing Moscow any territory and is also seeking a security guarantee backed by the United States. Trump said he would call Zelenskyy and NATO leaders to update them on the Alaska talks. There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the summit. Ukraine's opposition lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on the Telegram messaging app, "It seems Putin has bought himself more time. No ceasefire or de-escalation has been agreed upon." Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in a statement that he welcomed Trump's efforts but doubted Putin's interest in a deal. "If Putin were serious about negotiating peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today," he said. The anticlimactic end to the closely watched summit was in stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance with which it began. When Putin arrived at an Air Force base in Alaska, a red carpet awaited him, where Trump greeted Putin warmly as U.S. military aircraft flew overhead. Trump hopes a truce in the 3-1/2-year-old war that Putin started will bring peace to the region as well as bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. For Putin, the summit -- the first between him and a U.S. president since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 -- was already a big win, regardless of its outcome. He can portray the meeting as evidence that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow is retaking its rightful place at the high table of international diplomacy. Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia denies the allegations, and the Kremlin has dismissed the ICC warrant as null and void. Russia and the United States are not members of the court. Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in the war. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority Ukrainian, and the war has killed or injured well over a million people from both sides. Trump has threatened sanctions on Moscow and secondary sanctions on countries that buy its oil, primarily India and China, if no moves are made to end the war in Ukraine. Thus far, however, Trump has not followed through despite having set a deadline for Putin to agree to a ceasefire earlier this month. The day before the summit, Putin held out the prospect of something Trump wants -- a new nuclear arms control agreement to replace the last surviving one, which is due to expire in February. It was unclear if the issue was discussed on Friday. Zelenskyy, who was not invited to Alaska, and his European allies had feared Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict and recognizing -- if only informally - Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine. Trump had sought to assuage such concerns on Friday ahead of the talks, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial concessions. "I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I'm here to get them at a table," he said. Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: "I want to see a ceasefire rapidly ... I'm not going to be happy if it's not today ... I want the killing to stop." The meeting also included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Trump's special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff; Russian foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov; and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Trump, who said during his presidential campaign that he would end Russia's war in Ukraine within 24 hours, conceded on Thursday it had proven a tougher task than he had expected. He had said if Friday's talks went well, quickly arranging a second, three-way summit with Zelenskyy would be more important than his encounter with Putin. Trump ended his remarks on Friday by telling Putin, "I'd like to thank you very much, and we'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon." "Next time in Moscow," Putin responded. Trump said he might "get a little heat on that one" but that he could "possibly see it happening." Zelenskyy said ahead of Friday's summit that the meeting should open the way for a "just peace" and three-way talks that included him, but added that Russia was continuing to wage war. "It's time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
