WASHINGTON, Jun 27 :U.S. President Donald Trump has refuted leaked reports from his own Defence Intelligence Agency that the American bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities this past weekend had done only minimal damage, and that the Iranians had been able to move uranium from the sites before the strikes.
\n\u201cNothing was taken out of [the] facility,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, adding it \u201cwould take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!\u201d
\nThis followed a statement late Wednesday by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who said \u201ccredible intelligence\u201d showed Iran\u2019s nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan had been severely damaged and that it would take years \u2014 not months \u2014 to rebuild several key facilities.
\nRatcliffe\u2019s statement, which he said was partially based on new intelligence from a \u201chistorically reliable and accurate source,\u201d was the latest drop of information meant to bolster the U.S. argument that the airstrikes have crippled Iran\u2019s ability to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
In a live address to the nation on Saturday in the immediate aftermath of the strikes, Trump proclaimed Iran\u2019s key nuclear enrichment facilities were \u201ccompletely and totally obliterated.\u201d
\nU.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said at a press conference Thursday that President Trump\u2019s \u2018decisive military action\u2019 ended the \u201912-day war\u2019 between Israel and Iran. The conference followed reports suggesting the damage was not as extensive as the Trump administration had been claiming.
\nIn the confusing, tumultuous debate around the extent of the damage to the nuclear sites, a larger question looms: just where is Iran\u2019s enriched uranium now?, It was pointed out.
\nGaukhar Mukhatzhanova, a programme director at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, says it\u2019s unclear what has become of Iran\u2019s 400 kilograms of uranium enriched at 60 per cent.
\n\u201cWe really don\u2019t know where that material is,\u201d she told CBC News via Zoom. \u201cDid all of it survive the attacks? Did some of it survive the attacks? We don\u2019t know, and right now, Iran is not providing that information.\u201d
\nIran, which acknowledges that its nuclear installations were \u201cbadly damaged,\u201d claims to have moved its enriched uranium ahead of the U.S. strikes on the weekend.
\nSatellite imagery shows that on June 19, 16 cargo trucks were at the entrance of the deeply buried Fordow nuclear site. Three days later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, it was hit with multiple bombs, called Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each of which weighed 13,000 kilograms.
\nBefore the U.S. became directly involved in the strikes, Israel says it had been targeting Iran\u2019s military and nuclear infrastructure, along with security officials and scientists, since June 13.
\nRafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says Iran told the UN nuclear agency it had taken special measures to protect its stockpile.
\nHe also said, \u201cGiven the power of these devices and the technical characteristics of a centrifuge, we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational, because they are fairly precise machines: there are rotors, and the vibrations [from the bombs] have completely destroyed them.\u201d Still, there have been conflicting reports about just how much damage was sustained by Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.
\nThe Financial Times on Thursday published a report saying European governments had assessed that Iran\u2019s uranium stockpile had been redistributed to sites outside of Fordow before the attack.
\nIn his first public comments since the war began, Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also said on Thursday that Trump overstated the results of the strikes.
\n\u201cThe American president exaggerated events in unusual ways,\u201d Khamenei said, adding that the US \u201cgained nothing from this war\u201d.
\nBy his account, the US bombing campaign \u201cdid nothing significant\u201d to Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities.
\nWhile Thursday\u2019s briefing with Hegseth offered details about the weaponry used in the June 22 attacks, analysts say it lacked evidence to justify the Trump administration\u2019s assertions.
\n\u201cThe presser on US strikes on Iran was an orchestrated narrative, very much focused on the storytelling,\u201d Al Jazeera TV remarked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, Jun 27 :U.S. President Donald Trump has refuted leaked reports from his own Defence Intelligence Agency that the American bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities this past weekend had done only minimal damage, and that the Iranians had been able to move uranium from the […]<\/p>\n
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