Iran’s nuclear program is not destroyed: Satellite evidence of damage to the Iranian nuclear program, but experts say it’s not destroyed

“I think you have to assume that significant amounts of this enriched uranium still exist, so this is not over by any means,” agrees David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which has closely tracked Iran’s nuclear program for years.

Albright says Iran may have more than the two Natanz and Fordo installations. It’s possible that the nuclear material could be moved to another covert facility within a few minutes, where it can be enriched to 90 percent for use in a nuclear weapon. Iran will have to take steps to fashion the uranium into a weapon after that.

Albright says that trucks were seen in imagery hauling stuff away. “One would assume that any enriched uranium stocks were hauled away.”

The strikes themselves seem to have been effective according to Lewis and Albright. Satellite imagery shows several holes in the ground, ashy debris, and many other signs of the site. The main hall of the enrichment facility, along with the ventilation system, were believed to be used to attempt to strike.

Source: Satellites show damage to Iran’s nuclear program, but experts say it’s not destroyed

Nuclear Attacks on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities: U.S. Air Forces and Nuclear Biological Resources, a Pentagon Press Release Says

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a Pentagon press conference on Sunday. The operation president Trump planned was brilliant.

Concurrent with the bombings, a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen cruise missiles. Those weapons hit buildings and tunnel entrances at a third nuclear site at Isfahan.

Jeffrey Lewis is a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Monterey who tracks Iran’s nuclear facilities and says there are some really important things that haven’t been hit. It’s a really incomplete strike if this ends here.

U.S. officials say that strikes conducted on three key Iranian nuclear sites have devastated its nuclear program, but independent experts analyzing commercial satellite imagery say the nation’s long-running nuclear enterprise is far from destroyed.

The statement was put out by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the agency’s Director General, said that “as of this time, we don’t expect that there will be any health consequences for people or the environment outside the targeted sites.”

The three sites hit by the U.S. bombs contained nuclear material enriched to different levels, according to the agency. The most recent information it has verified is when the attacks on Iran began.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is in Washington, D.C. and they say that the two major sorts of radioactive material found in the facility are not at high risk.

What’s more, these facilities would have mostly been working with uranium in the form of a gas called uranium hexafluoride. The molecules of this gas are big and heavy. That means when a container that holds this gas gets ruptured, the gas doesn’t travel far through the air, according to Emily Caffrey, a health physics expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The IAEA reported that the level of radioactivity outside the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant remained normal, and that there was no impact on the population or environment from the event.

In the past, the IAEA’s Director General has voiced his opposition to military attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, saying that “though they have not so far led to a radiological release affecting the public, there is a danger this could occur.”

Neighboring countries have been watching the situation closely, according to a statement put out by the government of Kuwait, which cited the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as saying on Sunday that “no abnormal radiation levels have been detected in any of the member states.”

“Early warning systems will be continually used to monitor the situation and its developments,” the statement said, “as reports will be issued regularly.”