Satellite imagery shows damage to Iran’s nuclear program, but experts say it’s not destroyed: “Iran had more than 600 kilograms of enriched uranium,” says Albright

“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.

The International Atomic Energy Agency had assessed that Iran has more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium 235 — enough for around ten bombs, according to independent experts. Albright says that small containers that could fit into a car are where the 60% enriched uranium is taken.

But as evidence that the strikes may have missed the uranium stocks, both Albright and Lewis point to commercial satellite imagery from the days before the strike. The images show trucks at two key sites — Isfahan and Fordo. It is possible that the sealed tunnels serve as entrances to underground facilities used to store atomic bomb material in the event of an American attack.

Both Lewis and Albright say that the strikes themselves may well have been effective, although it is difficult to say for sure. Satellite imagery shows holes around Fordo, and ashy debris over the entire site. Albright believes that bunker-busters were used to try and strike at the enrichment facility’s ventilation system, along with the main hall where uranium-enriching centrifuges were kept.

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

U.S. bombing attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities are not going to stop the invasion of Iran, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency

“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 bold and it was brilliant.”

The U.S. launched two dozen missiles at the same time as the bombings. Those weapons hit buildings and tunnel entrances at a third nuclear site at Isfahan.

“At the end of the day there are some really important things that haven’t been hit,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who tracks Iran’s nuclear facilities. This is an 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.”

According to the agency, the sites hit by the US bombs contained nuclear material which was enriched to different levels. At least, that’s the most recent information it had verified “before the attacks on Iran began on 13 June.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. says that the types of radioactivity found at this type of facility are at the lowest level of 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.

Earlier this month, when an attack by Israel damaged the aboveground portion of the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant, the level of radioactivity outside the site “remained unchanged and at normal levels, indicating no external radiological impact to the population or the environment from this event,” the IAEA reported.

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.”

“Monitoring of the situation and its developments will continue through established surveillance and early warning systems,” the statement said, “and reports will be issued regularly.”