Classified Reports Shows Iran’s Weapons-Grade Uranium Could Be Recovered Despite Trump Claims Nuke Site Was Annihilated: NYT

FILE – In this April 9, 2009 file picture Iranian technicians work at a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor, just outside the city of Isfahan. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi,File)

U.S. intelligence believes Iran’s store of highly-enriched uranium — that kind used to manufacture nuclear weapons — could still be retrieved, despite President Donald Trump’s assertion that U.S. strikes wiped out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Times reporters spoke to “multiple officials familiar with the classified reports” who said Iran or “potentially another group” can still get to the uranium “through a very narrow access point,” even though the material was “entombed under the country’s nuclear site at Isfahan.”

“It is unclear how quickly Iran could move the uranium, which is in gas form and stored in canisters,” the report said.

Last June, Trump bragged that the U.S. did “monumental damage to all nuclear sites in Iran,” following strikes by bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.

“Obliteration is an accurate term!” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time. “The white structure shown is deeply imbedded into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level, and completely shielded from flame. The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!”

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi confirmed that Fordow suffered “direct kinetic impact,” but said the agency was still waiting for a full damage assessment.

The Times report continued, “U.S. officials have said that American spy agencies have constant surveillance of the Isfahan site and have a high degree of confidence they could detect — and react — to any attempt by the Iranian government or other groups to move it.”

The report said Trump “chose not to try to retrieve the uranium last year after the 12-day war” after determining “that doing so at that time would be too dangerous.”

Trump was asked Saturday on Air Force One if he would now consider sending in ground forces to secure the uranium.

Trump responded, “Right now we’re just decimating them, but we haven’t gone after it,” according to The Times. “But something we could do later on. We wouldn’t do it now.”

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