A nuclear expert's assessment of the Iran strikes

Politico

2 days ago

'CONFLICTING REPORTS' — In the four days since the U.S. dropped bunker-buster bombs on two nuclear facilities in Iran, one thorny question has occupied Washington's attention: Did the strikes work?
The Trump administration insists the answer is an unqualified yes — the nuclear sites were 'completely and totally obliterated,' according to President Donald Trump.
Yet questions remain about the efficacy of the attacks after an early intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that the strikes may have only set back Iran's nuclear program for months.
In response, the administration has furiously pushed back to counter media reports of the assessment. The Pentagon has launched an investigation into how the classified assessment reached the press. On Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued separate statements that Iran's nuclear facilities were 'destroyed.' President Donald Trump — who threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN for publishing articles about the preliminary report — personally excoriated a journalist who had reported on the government report, writing on Truth Social that 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog.'
At a press conference this morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities as 'historically successful' while also attacking reporters for distorting the findings. 'Because you cheer against Trump so hard — in your DNA and in your blood, 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.
The furor reflects not only the high stakes of the situation but also the fact that the outcome of the strikes remains unclear. With some of Iran's nuclear facilities located underground, and the Iranian government playing its own cards close to the vest, it's difficult to get a clear sense of what exactly was destroyed and what, if anything, remains of Iran's nuclear program.
To get a better understanding of the state of play, and how much we actually know at this moment, Nightly spoke with Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Israel targeted the Isfahan Nuclear Training Center and Natanz Nuclear Facility before the U.S. strikes on Saturday. What was the extent of the damage before the U.S. bombing?
Israel had targeted some of the surface level nuclear infrastructure within Iran. In Isfahan, there are a number of uranium conversion facilities. Israel was trying to target some of the conversion facilities to shut down the production of uranium hexafluoride from yellow cake in Iran. Not all of the conversion buildings had been destroyed, so when the U.S. got involved after the [Israeli] strikes on June 12, the U.S. took out one of the big uranium conversion hauls. But, there were other elements of uranium conversion in Isfahan that Israel had already blown up on the north and the eastern side of Isfahan.
The strikes that had occurred at Natanz were also on the surface, but there's an underground facility at Natanz. At Fordo, almost everything that is important at Fordo happens underground. So Israel doesn't really have the really large conventional bombs that enable them to create massive shock waves to destroy infrastructure buried deeply underground and underground facilities. That was a pretty exquisite capability that required the U.S. Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the really big bombs that we dropped on Saturday.
How does one assess damage after a strike, and what do you look for?
With satellite images — that's kind of the easiest thing to be able to assess damage early after a strike in the open source — we're looking to see how extensive the structural damage of the surface buildings is. We're looking to see, if a uranium conversion facility is destroyed, are there other facilities that could rapidly sort of take its place and be constructed or exist elsewhere within Iran's nuclear infrastructure?
With underground facilities, it's quite difficult. I think we see right now conflicting reports about the efficacy of the recent strikes, because with satellite images — which is the first type of intelligence that we're really able to gather in the aftermath of some of these strikes — it's really difficult to be able to assess the structural damage, very deeply underground, when all you see is optical images.
I'm sure you've seen the news, there was a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report. I'd note that that report, at least from the reporting on CNN and the New York Times that I've seen, says that the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed with low confidence that the facility had not been completely destroyed. In 'intel speak,' low confidence — especially this rapidly after a significant event for a battle damage assessment — indicates that they only have one or a very limited number of intelligence sources. At this stage, likely that is satellite imagery, not just optical but probably also radar images, so they can assess ground subsidence, how much sort of ground moved after the attacks.
You mentioned the conflicting accounts in the media. What do we actually know so far about what was damaged during the strikes?
At Isfahan, it's pretty apparent that the uranium conversion facilities were pretty wiped out. The Iranians had only reported Isfahan as a uranium conversion facility. In Iran, they would have had to report all activity to the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the previous Iran deal. So the IAEA was monitoring, and per that deal, it is the only conversion facility.
The damage to the centrifuges is a little bit more complicated to assess at this stage. It is clear that both the underground facility at Natanz and Fordo suffered some damage. At least the entrance tunnels have collapsed, because you can tell with satellite images that the entrance tunnels have debris blocking them, and it has scattered rocks and dirt and sand out of the entrances, so clearly, they suffered some damage. It's tough to say how much the centrifuges inside of the facilities themselves have been destroyed. Either way, it's going to take a significant effort for Iran to be able to access those centrifuges and be able to get into the facility. It could take days. It's going to be a pretty big operation to bring in excavators and heavy equipment to try and dig out the tunnels.
Do you have a sense of what it would take for Iran to build back its nuclear program given this damage?
That's a bigger question than just the damage to the uranium enrichment and the uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities. Because a nuclear program, especially if you intend to develop a nuclear weapon, is a lot more than just those two very important, but two small pieces of a larger program.
Rafael Grossi, the Director General [of IAEA], had said that Iran has said that that third facility was somewhere outside of Isfahan or in Isfahan. We don't really know where that facility is exactly. There's some speculation that somewhere in Isfahan, there's an underground facility that may become an enrichment facility at some point in the near future. That probably implies that Iran had stockpiled some centrifuges somewhere.
And we know, from all of the reporting of the last few days, as well as from statements by JD Vance, that Iran still has 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. In order to build a nuclear bomb, you really want 90% enriched uranium. You can make do with less. You can build a bomb with a little bit lower enrichment levels. They need centrifuges to be able to spin it, to get it to a higher enrichment level, so that they can build a bomb, if they decide to. That 400 kilograms could build about 10 nuclear weapons if enriched to 90% uranium-235.
One other really core component here is the weaponization side of things. The attacks by Israel destroyed a significant scientific infrastructure within Iran. Many scientists were targeted through these last two weeks. It's really difficult to assess how much technical knowledge for actually pursuing weaponization currently exists in Iran. Also their missile stockpiles have been drastically depleted. So if Iran did build a bomb, it would be pretty hard for them to be able to deliver it. Their missile stockpiles have been pretty targeted by Israel's attacks. Also, many of their missiles have been launched. A lot of their launchers were destroyed. Israel Defense Forces destroyed about 30% of their launchers. So, I think their wider infrastructure is pretty destroyed after this.
What has Iran signaled thus far about its interest in rebuilding and how it plans to rebuild?
There have been conflicting reports on Iran's signals. I find it very difficult to believe that there is not greater political will that has been garnered through the last two weeks for Iran to march forward towards building a nuclear deterrent. Just because there's political will does not mean that the technical capacity is there.
As far as direct signals from Iran, I think they're keeping main diplomatic channels, track one channels, [and] public leadership messaging, a little bit quiet on this issue. I don't think that if they decide to pursue a nuclear weapon, they're probably not going to scream about it. [They will] try and keep it under wraps as much as possible, so that they don't draw as much attention to this issue, because obviously, Israel and the US would lose a lot of political capital at this point if Iran built a nuclear weapon rapidly.
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