Leavitt: ‘High degree of confidence' strikes hit Iran's stored enriched uranium
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday the Trump administration has a 'high degree of confidence' that its strikes against Iran hit locations where enriched uranium was being stored amid questions about whether officials in Tehran had relocated the nation's stockpile.
'We are confident, yes, that Iran's nuclear sites were completely and totally obliterated, as the president said in his address to the nation on Saturday night,' Leavitt said on ABC.
'And we have a high degree of confidence that where those strikes took place is where Iran's enriched uranium was stored,' she added. 'The president wouldn't have launched the strikes if we weren't confident in that. So this operation was a resounding success.'
The U.S. on Saturday struck three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. President Trump described them in an address to the nation as 'completely and totally obliterated,' something he reiterated in a social media post late Sunday.
But experts have acknowledged it would take time to determine the extent of the damage from U.S. strikes, and some reports raising the possibility that Iran moved some of its enriched uranium away from those sites ahead of the attack.
'Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,' Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said Sunday.
The New York Times reported that there was evidence Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the Fordow site in recent days, citing two Israeli officials. The Times also cited text messages from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency indicating Iran had moved its uranium stockpile.
Trump administration officials have maintained that the purpose of the strikes was to decimate Iran's nuclear program and severely curtail Tehran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
'We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program,' Vice President Vance said Sunday on NBC News's 'Meet the Press.'
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