US intelligence: Iran’s nuclear program damaged, not destroyed

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran’s nuclear program has been significantly damaged but not eliminated by American airstrikes carried out last June, even as President Donald Trump renews threats of further military action and considers another pre-emptive strike, The New York Times reports.

When announcing the strikes last summer, Trump said their aim was to ensure Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon, warning that if Tehran did not “make peace,” “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.” He reiterated that threat this week, despite assessments by US and European officials and independent monitoring groups that Iran’s nuclear program poses little immediate danger to the United States or the Middle East.

Intelligence collected over the past six months paints an ambiguous picture. According to people briefed on US and Israeli assessments, enriched uranium buried at three sites struck in June — material closest to bomb-grade — remains intact and inaccessible. Without that stockpile, much of it stored at a facility in Isfahan, Iran would struggle to produce even a crude nuclear weapon.

Satellite imagery, communications intercepts and human intelligence show that Iran is working at existing nuclear sites, digging deeper underground to place facilities beyond the reach of the most powerful US conventional weapon, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. However, Western intelligence agencies have not detected signs of high-level uranium enrichment or steps toward producing a warhead.

Iran has not constructed new nuclear sites, intelligence officials say, though activity has been observed at two previously known but unfinished locations near Natanz and Isfahan that were not hit in last year’s attacks. US government assessments contrast with the president’s public claims. While Trump reiterated in November that the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s enrichment capacity, the National Security Strategy said the campaign, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, had “significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.”

There is little dispute that the damage was substantial. Centrifuges at the heavily fortified Fordo site remain inoperable, with international inspectors concluding that shockwaves from bunker-busting bombs likely destroyed their delicate internal mechanisms. US officials say Iran is exploring whether replacements are possible.

Some intelligence analysts estimate that if Iran recovered its buried fuel and restored facilities, it could return to pre-strike enrichment levels within two months, though building a bomb would take much longer. For now, Iranian leaders appear constrained by fears that any nuclear revival would be quickly detected and trigger another strike — a prospect both Washington and Israel describe as “mowing the lawn.”

By Vafa Guliyeva