Satellites present injury to Iran’s nuclear program, however consultants say it is not destroyed : NPR

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U.S. officers say that strikes performed on three key Iranian nuclear websites have devastated its nuclear program, however impartial consultants analyzing business satellite tv for pc imagery say the nation’s long-running nuclear enterprise is much from destroyed.

“On the finish of the day there are some actually vital issues that have not been hit,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a professor on the Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey, who tracks Iran’s nuclear amenities. “If this ends right here, it is a actually incomplete strike.”

Specifically Lewis says the strike would not appear to have touched Iran’s shares of extremely enriched uranium.

“As we speak, it nonetheless has that materials and we nonetheless do not know the place it’s,” he says.

“I believe it’s important to assume that vital quantities of this enriched uranium nonetheless exist, so this isn’t over by any means,” agrees David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and Worldwide Safety, which has carefully tracked Iran’s nuclear program for years.

The impartial assessments stand in stark distinction to congratulatory statements from the Trump Administration within the wake of the strikes.

The U.S. army carried out its assault towards Iran’s nuclear program early on Sunday, native time. Code-named “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the mission concerned seven B-2 Spirit bombers carrying huge 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs often called Large Ordinance Penetrators.

It seems that a dozen of the bombs had been used to strike Iran’s deeply buried enrichment website at Fordo. Two weapons had been additionally used to strike an underground centrifuge facility at Iran’s predominant enrichment website in Natanz.

Concurrent with the bombings, a U.S. submarine launched greater than two dozen cruise missiles. These weapons hit buildings and tunnel entrances at a 3rd nuclear website at Isfahan.


A satellite image shows damaged buildings at the Isfahan nuclear site. The site was struck by cruise missiles launched from a U.S. submarine.

A satellite tv for pc picture reveals broken buildings on the Isfahan nuclear website. The location was struck by cruise missiles launched from a U.S. submarine.

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©2025 Maxar Applied sciences

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated,” Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth stated throughout a Pentagon press convention on Sunday. “The operation President Trump deliberate was daring and it was sensible.”

Each Lewis and Albright say that the strikes themselves could properly have been efficient, though it’s tough to say for positive. Satellite tv for pc imagery reveals six deep holes within the floor round Fordo, and ashy particles over a lot of the positioning. Albright believes that bunker-busters had been used to attempt to strike on the enrichment facility’s air flow system, together with the primary corridor the place uranium-enriching centrifuges had been saved.

“I believe the aim of the assault was to take out centrifuges and infrastructure and so they really feel they completed that,” Albright says.

However as proof that the strikes could have missed the uranium shares, each Albright and Lewis level to business satellite tv for pc imagery from the times earlier than the strike. The photographs present vans at two key websites — Isfahan and Fordo. The vans look like sealing tunnels that function entrances to underground amenities used to retailer uranium, probably in anticipation of an American assault.


An image supplied by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey shows trucks at the entrance of the Fordo enrichment facility the day before a U.S. strike on the site. Experts believe Iran could have spirited away its supply of highly enriched uranium in advance of the attacks.

A picture provided by the Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey reveals vans on the entrance of the Fordo enrichment facility the day earlier than a U.S. strike on the positioning. Specialists consider Iran may have spirited away its provide of extremely enriched uranium upfront of the assaults.

Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey/Airbus House and Protection


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Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey/Airbus House and Protection

Each consultants consider Iranians may have additionally moved their enriched uranium out of the websites within the run-up to the U.S. strikes.

“There have been vans seen in imagery apparently hauling stuff away,” Albright says. “One would assume that any enriched uranium shares had been hauled away.”

The Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company had assessed that Iran has greater than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium 235 — sufficient for round ten bombs, in keeping with impartial consultants. That 60% enriched uranium is carried in comparatively small containers that might match simply into automobiles, says Albright.

Though Albright believes this system has been considerably set again, he thinks it may nonetheless be reconstituted.

Albright says Iran can also have 1000’s of uranium-enriching centrifuges that had been by no means put in in Natanz and Fordo. It may be attainable to maneuver the uranium to a different, covert facility, the place it might be enriched to the required 90% for a nuclear weapon in a comparatively quick time frame. Even then, Iran must take additional steps to vogue the uranium right into a weapon.

“This system has been severely set again, however there’s plenty of odds and ends,” Albright says. Finally he thinks the one option to really finish Iran’s nuclear program is thru further nuclear inspections by worldwide screens and cooperation from the Iranian regime, in all probability although some type of diplomatic settlement.

Lewis agrees: “Even essentially the most sensible bombing marketing campaign, in all probability will not be going to get us the place we need to be,” he says.



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