New Assessment Finds Site at Focus of U.S. Strikes in Iran Badly Damaged

New York Times

3 days ago

Iran's deeply buried nuclear enrichment plant at Fordo was badly damaged, and potentially destroyed, by the 12 massive bombs that U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers dropped on it last month, according to a new American intelligence assessment.
Two other nuclear sites targeted in the U.S. attacks were not as badly damaged, but facilities at the sites that would be key to fabricating a nuclear weapon were destroyed and could take years to rebuild, U.S. officials said.
A senior Israeli official said last week that the strikes most likely did not eliminate the stockpile of near-bomb-grade fuel that could be used to produce upward of 10 nuclear weapons. But without the facilities to manufacture a weapon, U.S. officials insist, the fuel would be of little use even if the Iranians can dig it out of the rubble.
The new assessment helps create a clearer picture of what the combined Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran achieved. The bombings deeply damaged Fordo — considered by the Iranians to be their best-protected and most advanced nuclear enrichment site — probably crippling Iran's ability to make nuclear fuel for years to come.
Iran most likely still has a stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, which is just below level that is usually used in nuclear weapons, U.S. and Israeli officials say. But the officials believe it is buried under rubble, and Israeli officials believe that only the stockpile at Iran's nuclear laboratory at Isfahan is accessible despite the strikes on it.
The crucial question of how long the American strikes have set back either the overall Iranian nuclear program or Iran's ability to use its existing uranium to make a crude bomb continues to be debated within the U.S. government.
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