‘Far too confident': Nuclear experts dispute Donald Trump's claim that Iran's weapons program has been ‘obliterated'

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Donald Trump claims to have fatally crippled Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. But doubts remain about the true extent of the damage wrought on its nuclear program.
The US President announced a tentative ceasefire between Iran and Israel today, saying he expected it to endure 'forever'. The two countries had been bombing each other sporadically since Israel's initial air strikes, targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, on June 13.
'There will be a complete and total ceasefire,' Mr Trump said, adding that he expected both sides to remain 'peaceful and respectful'.
So, the doomsday scenario of a full-scale conflagration in the Middle East appears to have been averted.
But have the Israeli and American strikes actually achieved their goal? Has the Iranian regime's capacity to develop nuclear weapons really been kneecapped? Or is Mr Trump being a touch too optimistic?
US President Donald Trump. Picture: Tom Williams via Getty Images
'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,' the President said in his speech immediately after America bombed three different sites in Iran, including the Fordow facility deep underground.
According to General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the targets all sustained 'extremely severe damage and destruction'. Though Gen Caine did stress that a full assessment of the operation's effectiveness would 'take some time'.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the strikes 'took away Iran's ability to create a nuclear bomb'.
'They no longer have the capability to build this nuclear weapon,' she said.
And Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed 'Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated'.
Not much ambiguity there.
The extent to which the strikes actually set back Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, however, is nowhere near as clear as Ms Leavitt or her boss suggested.
A before-and-after image of the Iranians' Isfahan nuclear enrichment site. Picture: Maxar Technologies/AFP
James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the claims from Mr Trump and other officials in the US government were 'far too confident'.
'In reality, Iran can likely reconstitute its program rapidly, perhaps in a year or so,' Dr Acton wrote for Politico.
'What's more: after the US strikes, there is also now a real danger that Tehran will make the decision to go further than enriching and amassing uranium and actually build a bomb.
'Iran probably retains highly enriched uranium, centrifuge components and expertise – a triad that will allow it to reconstitute its program rapidly.'
Dr Acton pointed to an assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had amassed 900 pounds of uranium, enriched to 60 per cent, in mid-May.
'That's enough for a handful of nuclear weapons after further enrichment,' he said, adding that 'some or all of this material' seemed to have been moved away from the locations struck by America and Israel.
'Iran has a decent shot at keeping that highly enriched uranium safe and secret,' he said.
Another of the nuclear sites hit by the US. Picture: Maxar Technologies/AFP
In addition, Iran likely retains the equipment, scientists and technicians it would need to develop a bomb.
'Starting with uranium enriched to 60 per cent and just 100 or 200 operating centrifuges, they could likely produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in just a few weeks.'
Dr Acton went on to speculate that the attacks on Iran 'may have increased' the regime's 'resolve' to seek nuclear weapons.
'I want to be wrong. I hope that Iran will now accept a comprehensive, verifiable and permanent denuclearisation agreement. Better still, I hope that the current regime is replaced by a liberal, transparent, Western-oriented democracy,' he wrote.
'Yet these outcomes seem unlikely ... President Trump's declaration of victory risks becoming a 'mission accomplished' moment.'
That is a reference to then-president George W. Bush's infamous speech aboard an American aircraft carrier in May of 2003, under a banner which read: 'Mission Accomplished.'
'Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed,' Mr Bush said at the time.
The Iraq War was, of course, far from over, and US forces remained mired there for another eight years before being withdrawn in the early 2010s.
Former US president George W. Bush in front of the infamous 'Mission Accomplished' banner. Picture: Stephen Jaffe/AFP
Nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, voiced similar fears during an interview with SiriuxXM radio host Dan Abrams in the United States.
'If Iran were to further enrich (its existing) material, which would not take very long – a month, or two, or three, depending on how many centrifuges they have left available to them – that would be enough for about ten weapons,' Dr Lewis said.
'So if everything goes badly, if Iran has retained as much capability as I worry they might, you could see Iran with an arsenal of something like ten weapons inside a year.
'That may not happen, but it's plausible.'
'To be clear, you fear that Iran still, today, maintains the capability to create up to ten nuclear weapons within a year?' Mr Abrams asked.
'I don't fear it. I know it. I mean, it's just a fact,' said Dr Lewis.
'They have the material. They have at least one enrichment facility that we haven't bombed. And they have the underground production line to produce more centrifuges.
'So yes, these strikes have destroyed a number of centrifuges, and yes, (they) have killed something like a dozen nuclear scientists, but that is part of the program. It is not the whole program.
'And if you don't get the whole program, then what was the point of doing any of this?
'This is a pretty tough thing that the Israelis and US have embarked on.'
Dr Lewis did acknowledge that destroying nuclear facilities would let Israel and the US 'buy time', setting back Iran's development of weapons by months or years.
However Iran has the capacity to rebuild them, meaning similar strikes would be necessary in perpetuity.
He described it as being 'like mowing the lawn'.
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and US President Donald Trump. Picture: Atta Kenare and Charly Triballeau/AFP
In a separate interview with British newspaper The Independent, Dr Lewis stressed that 'technically (an Iranian nuke) is probably slightly further away, but politically it's much more imminent'.
'Iran has been a few months away from a nuclear weapon since about 2007. It's clear that the thing that keeps them a few months away is not their technical capacity, it's their political will. And I think whatever loss in technical capacity they have suffered, it is more than compensated for by an increase in political will,' he said.
US officials, while acknowledging the uncertainty involved, have disputed the idea that Iran managed to move its enriched uranium stocks before the strikes on Saturday.
'I doubt they moved it,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC's current affairs show Meet the Press today.
'They can't move anything right now inside of Iran. I mean, the minute a truck starts driving somewhere, the Israelis have seen it, and they've targeted it and taken it out.'
Mr Rubio suggested much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was being held in the Isfahan facility when it was bombed.
Meanwhile Brett McGurk, a top national security official under four previous presidents, including Mr Trump during his first term, has praised the President's handling of the situation in the Middle East.
'This is about the best place we can be,' Mr McGurk told CNN today.
'I give extremely high marks to this national security team and President Trump for managing this crisis and getting where we are.
'There's a chance for diplomacy here, not only on the Iran side, but also in Gaza.
'You can come out of this in a place that is far better than we would have anticipated ten nights ago.'
Originally published as 'Far too confident': Nuclear experts dispute Donald Trump's claim that Iran's weapons program has been fatally crippled