Can Iran's nuclear know-how be destroyed?
In the early 2000s Seyed Hossein Mousavian was a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team and was the country's ambassador to Germany.
He speaks to David Speers.
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ABC News
39 minutes ago
- ABC News
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unleashes on the media as he defends US strikes on Iran
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has unleashed on journalists in a bizarre briefing at the Pentagon, saying their "hatred" of Donald Trump was behind efforts to verify the extent of the damage to the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran. Mr Hegseth appeared emotional over earlier reporting by CNN and the New York Times based on a leaked intelligence report that cast doubt on Mr Trump's assertion that Iran's nuclear facilities had been "obliterated". There had been hopes Mr Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine would provide evidence of the impact of the strikes. Since the attack on Saturday night, local time, media organisations across the world have been scrambling to verify claims from the White House that the site had been obliterated, using satellite imagery to get a sense of the visible damage as well as Iran's preparation. But in the press briefing, organised for 8am Thursday morning, local time, Mr Hegseth singled out the press corps, as well as individual reporters in the room. He even slammed Fox reporter Jennifer Griffin saying she had been "about the worst". "Specifically you the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump, because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes," he said. "You have to hope maybe they weren't effective, maybe the way the Trump administration has represented them isn't true. "There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that because of the hatred of this press corps are undermined because your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible." Several experts cautioned that Iran may have moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the US and UN nuclear inspectors. Mr Hegseth said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from the US strikes. "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," he said at the briefing. 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, local time, most of the near weapons-grade 60 per cent highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the attack. Head of the UN nuclear agency Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday, local time, his inspectors' top priority was returning to Iran's nuclear facilities to assess the impact of recent military strikes on Tehran's nuclear programme. The preliminary assessment, leaked to US press, reportedly found the weekend strikes only set back the country's nuclear program by a few months. Mr Hegseth said that leaked initial assessment was low confidence and said it had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged by the strikes and that it would take years to rebuild. "You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated, choose your word. This was a historically successful attack and we should celebrate it as Americans," he said. General Caine spoke at length about the crew involved in Operation Midnight Hammer and about the young team responsible for the protection of the US base in Qatar that was hit with retaliatory strikes. He talked about the experience of military members responsible for intercepting missiles inbound from Iran at the Al Udeid base, saying: "You know you're going to have approximately two minutes, 120 seconds either to succeed or fail." As well as the US air defender weapons, General Caine detailed the planning that went into the so-called "bunker busting bombs" that were dropped on Iran. He said In 2009 an officer was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran. "He was shown some photos and some highly classified intelligence of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran. He was tasked to study with this facility, work with the intelligence community to understand it. And he was soon joined by an additional teammate," General Caine said. "For more than 15 years this officer and his teammate lived and breathed this single target Fordow - a critical element of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program. "He studied the geology, he watched the Iranians dig it out, he watched the construction, the weather, the discard material ... where the materials came from, he looked at the vent shaft ... the environmental control systems, every nook, every crater, every piece of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out." General Caine said from the first days of their mission, the officers believed they knew with the facility was for: "You do not build a multi-layered underground bunker complex with centrifuges and other equipment in a mountain for any peaceful purpose." He said then, more than 15 years later, the president had been ready to use the weapon. General Caine was pressed on whether he agreed with Mr Trump's use of the word "obliterated" to describe the impact on Iran's nuclear facilities, but deferred, saying it was not his role to make that assessment. The operation has been widely reported as being a precision strike that was executed according to plan, including sophisticated aerial manoeuvres throughout the 18-hour flight from the Missouri base from where the B2 bombers launched to their targets over Iran. Members of the media have been seeking verification of the impact once the bombs were dropped. The American media's coverage of leaked assessment reports have said it was preliminary and a clear picture was yet to form. Mr Trump attacked CNN as "disgusting and incompetent" in a post on Truth Social overnight, Donald Trump said the press conference was designed to "fight for the dignity of the American pilots" involved in Operation Midnight Hammer. Afterwards he wrote that Mr Hegseth's performance at the press conference was "professional". "One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" the president wrote on social media," he wrote. "The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!" Mr Trump also emphasised his belief that Iran did not remove nuclear material from its facilities before the US attacked. "Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!" he wrote. ABC/Reuters
Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
'Nothing was taken': US President Donald Trump insists all Iranian nuclear materials destroyed, despite speculation some was moved
United States President Donald Trump has insisted "nothing" was removed from Iran's nuclear facilities prior to strikes from American bombers. Posting to social media following a fiery press conference by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, President Trump moved to shut down speculation nuclear materials had been taken from Iran's Fordow site prior the the attacks. "Nothing was taken out of (the) facility," he wrote. "Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!" The President and others in his administration have repeatedly insisted all of Iran's nuclear assets were "obliterated" by US strikes, although the International Atomic Energy Agency has raised concerns over almost half a tonne of enriched uranium it says remains unaccounted for. Watch all the live coverage and analysis from our hosts and experts amid the escalating Israel-Iran conflict with a Streaming Subscription.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Can Trump bomb Iran and still be 'America First'?
Sam Hawley: Donald Trump was elected on the promise of putting America first and staying out of foreign conflicts. So the US president's decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities caused the first and very public split among his Make America Great Again base with influential figures like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon leading the charge against it. Today, senior political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Molly Ball, on the fighting MAGA factions and what it means for Trump. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Molly, there has been a ceasefire in the Iran-Israel war this week. Just tell me, how big a win is that for Donald Trump? Is Donald Trump a peacemaker? Molly Ball: That is certainly the impression he would like everyone to take away from this episode. I think we are all waiting to learn more about the results of this American intervention in the conflict between Israel and Iran before we can say for sure that that's the case. But the case being made by the Trump administration is that this was an overwhelming victory, that the United States got involved in a very limited fashion and was able to deploy overwhelming force to bring the parties to heel, to bring everyone to the negotiating table and force a very quick end to this conflict in a way that leaves everyone better off and leaves the nuclear threat from Iran potentially permanently, or at least in the very long term, disabled. I think the caution is that there's still a lot that we don't know about what is left of Iran's nuclear capabilities and whether this ceasefire will hold. But for now, as Trump was boasting in the Netherlands, the administration would like this to be seen as an overwhelming success. Donald Trump, U.S President: That had ended the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended that with a war. If we didn't take that out, they'd be fighting right now. Sam Hawley: All right, well, let's unpack how this all played out for Donald Trump and his MAGA base, because there really is a fascinating backstory to this. To understand it, it's good to remember that the MAGA movement is all about isolationism, making America great again, America first. Molly Ball: Well, on the one hand, yes. Trump has distinguished himself among Republicans by being relatively skeptical of the use of military force, and in particular, being a very harsh critic of the wars that the US was still somewhat embroiled in when he began campaigning for president in 2015, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was very critical of the administration, former President George W. Bush, for going into Iraq under what he, and I think most people would term, false pretenses. Donald Trump, 2015: And I said, if you go after one or the other, in this case, Iraq, you're going to destabilize the Middle East. That's what's gonna happen. You're gonna destabilize the Middle East. And that's exactly what happened. We totally destabilized the Middle East. We have now migrations, largely because of what's happened afterwards. You know, Iraq was horrible. It was stupid to go in. We should have never gone in. Molly Ball: He also vowed to pull the United States out of Afghanistan, although it was his successor, Joe Biden, who ended up rather messily completing that task. And he has consistently said that he believes in peace. He doesn't believe in nation building or expending American resources on fighting other countries' battles abroad. I think he and many of his allies would argue that he is not an isolationist per se, but he stands for America first, which means that we only become involved when we see it in our clear national interest to do so. And there's a skepticism of multilateralism and of large-scale foreign alliances that of course we've seen play out over both of Trump's terms. Sam Hawley: Well, let's Molly, step through how all this played out. When Israel first started its strikes on Iran on the 13th of June, Donald Trump's administration was really like, we have nothing to do with this. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stressed that Israel was acting on its own. Just remind me about the initial response. Molly Ball: That's right. It was this very interesting dance that played out where at first it did appear that the administration wanted to separate itself from what was happening. And this came after some weeks, if not months, of Trump seeming to distance himself from Israel and from Prime Minister Netanyahu. Trump recently took his first foreign trip to the Middle East. He went to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, but he did not visit Israel, as is somewhat traditional for American presidents to do. So the initial impression of what was unfolding in the Middle East was that the administration was distant from this and was even potentially disapproving of it. We've subsequently reported that there was a lot of discussion and argument within the administration between different officials who had different views of the conflict. But it was only a matter of hours until Trump himself weighed in. And he seemed much more eager than his own Secretary of State to sort of take ownership of what was happening. He was saying no, no, that he had spoken to Netanyahu before this happened, that he approved of what was happening and viewed the US as much more of a partner in the conflict. So those early signals turned out to have been a bit of a red herring. Sam Hawley: So then Trump grows more publicly supportive of the Israeli strikes. And at that point, it becomes pretty clear, doesn't it, that there's a split emerging in the MAGA world. And there are these two factions. Just explain those. Molly Ball: You know, for many in Trump's political base, I'm thinking of extremely Trump loyal politicians, elected officials, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Congresswoman from Georgia. She spoke very strongly against any kind of American involvement. The media personality, podcaster Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, who of course is very close to Trump and introduced him at the Republican convention last summer, also spoke very strongly against what was happening as well as the sort of MAGA propagandist and former Trump White House strategist, Steve Bannon. So you did have these very prominent forces who are seen as sort of speaking for the populist nationalist Trump ideology, who were all counseling very strongly against any kind of American involvement. Sam Hawley: So these figures, Molly, they're going pretty hard against America getting involved in this conflict between Israel and Iran. You mentioned, of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a big supporter of Donald Trump's. She was on CNN. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican Congresswoman : The MAGA is not a cult and I'm entitled to my own opinion. I can support the president at the same time as I say, I don't think we should have foreign wars. Sam Hawley: And she also appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast, War Room. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican Congresswoman : Six months in, six months in, Steve, and here we are, turning back on the campaign promises and we bombed Iran on behalf of Israel. Yes, it was on behalf of Israel. And you wanna know the people that are cheering it on right now? Their tune is going to drastically change the minute we start seeing flag-draped coffins. Sam Hawley: And there was this exchange between Tucker Carlson on his podcast with the Republican Ted Cruz. Tucker Carlson, podcast host: How many people live in Iran, by the way? Ted Cruz, US Senator: I don't know the population. Tucker Carlson, podcast host: At all? Ted Cruz, US Senator: No, I don't know the population. Yeah, I- Tucker Carlson, podcast host: How could you not know that? Ted Cruz, US Senator: I don't sit around memorising population tables. Tucker Carlson, podcast host: Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government. Sam Hawley: They're really not holding back. Molly Ball: That's right. I think these are also voices that have tended to be a bit more skeptical of the American relationship with Israel than many in the Republican Party and on the right have traditionally been. On the other hand, you know, other voices both in the political movement and certainly in the administration were counseling that this was something that we should be involved in, you know, reminding Trump that he has always said for many years that for Iran to have a nuclear weapon would be bad for the United States, bad for Israel, and bad for the world. And this was invoked by Trump repeatedly as he began to accelerate his threats toward the Iranians, talking about the ultimatum that he had given for the negotiation of a new nuclear deal, which had elapsed and which he said was the reason that the Israeli strikes were happening when they did, and basically saying that if they weren't going to negotiate, this was going to be the consequence. And then there was this period of waiting where it wasn't at all clear what he was going to do. And he in fact came out and said, nobody knows what I'm going to do. And the world was sort of on tender hooks for about a week. Sam Hawley: So on the one side, there's these isolationists, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and then of course on the other side, there's this deeply pro-Israel camp. A fascinating split though, right, in the MAGA world. Molly Ball: It is a fascinating split, although in retrospect, it looks perhaps less significant if it does turn out to be the case that this was simply a matter of a limited strike and not, you know, a years-long American-involvement in a new war. I think it's a very interesting point. in terms of the American involvement in a new war. I think if that were what was happening, we would see much more dissent. If all it was was an airstrike, I think very few people would ever have argued that America first means that the United States never deploys any kind of military force. And indeed in Trump's first term, there were several occasions in which he deployed American military force, but the point is that there are not ground troops, there are not Americans dying in another country, and there is not a prolonged entanglement in a foreign conflict. So I think everyone's being cautious and wary and wants to see how this plays out, but if in fact that was the end of it, then I don't think there's a lot of hurt feelings on either side. Sam Hawley: Yeah, although there was a fair bit of concern, wasn't there, when Trump then went a bit further and started talking about the idea of regime change in Iran? Molly Ball: Well, regime change is very much what the America first movement is against. It's sort of a part and parcel of the nationalism that Trump and his allies believe in, that countries should look out for their own interests and should not be fighting the battles of others and recklessly spill American blood and treasure. I think if you did have the United States setting out to change the Iranian regime, you would likely have much more dissent from MAGA World. If he then embarked on something that looked similar to those regime change wars of the past, he would come in for quite a bit of criticism. Sam Hawley: All right, well, Molly, the MAGA base that supported his actions say he should get a Nobel Peace Prize. I think that's what Donald Trump would really like. But if the strikes didn't actually obliterate Iran's nuclear program and there is deep uncertainty over whether or not they did, there'd still be, wouldn't there, some seemingly unhappy people within MAGA? Or do they just let that go? Molly Ball: I think that remains to be seen. I think the lodestar of the MAGA movement is and will always be Donald Trump. His critics would call it a cult of personality, but they believe very deeply in his wisdom and his decision making. So there is a lot of trust in him. There is a lot of willingness to be guided by what he sees as best and by the arguments that he makes, even when they can sometimes be quite inconsistent. I think we're all waiting to learn more about what the end result of all this has been and how tenuous this momentary peace actually is. Trump has said many times that he wants and believes he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, whether that's because of the competitiveness that he feels with former President Obama or simply a manifestation of his rather sizable ego. But if it does turn out that this is the beginning of a lasting peace in the Middle East, it sounds far-fetched, but that would certainly be a remarkable thing if it were to happen. Sam Hawley: And what about those early critics, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Molly, we do know that Donald Trump likes to surround himself with true loyalists. So is he really going to keep them in the fold or would he prefer them not to be there anymore? What do you reckon? Molly Ball: I don't think anybody's getting exiled or kicked out of the movement for this. And I think a vigorous debate was had that was quite interesting and quite revealing about the sort of contours of the Trump movement. But at the end of the day, people come and go from Trump's orbit, but as long as he feels that they ultimately believe in what he believes in and have his sort of political best interests at heart, he doesn't tend to kick them out. Sam Hawley: Molly Ball is a senior political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.
