Nuclear Watchdog Honcho Declares Iranian Nuclear Site ‘No Longer Operational’ After Sustaining ‘Significant Physical Damage’

(AP Photo)

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declared that the centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow are “no longer operational” on Thursday, backing up President Donald Trump’s claim that the attack he ordered on Fordow and two other sites last weekend was successful in the face of a disappointing assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Grossi told Radio France Internationale that based on satellite imagery and what the IAEA knows about the Fordow facility and the bombs dropped on it, “we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational.”

“There was no escaping significant physical damage. So we can come to a fairly accurate technical conclusion,” said Grossi.

Grossi’s evaluation comes amidst debate over the extent to which the U.S. operation impacted the Iranian nuclear program. While Trump has claimed that the attack resulted in the “TOTAL OBLITERATION” the facilities in question, the leaked DIA report suggested that the damage to them was not what he had asserted, and that it may have only set the rogue regime’s nuclear program back by a few months.

Trump’s case, meanwhile, has been buoyed by both Grossi’s comments and an Israeli intelligence assessment that the attack has done “many years” worth of damage to the Iranians’ nuclear infrastructure.