International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Thursday that Iran’s heavily-fortified uranium enrichment plant at Fordow is “no longer operational” after a massive U.S. airstrike.
Grossi told Radio France International (RFI) that he thought “destroyed” or “annihilated” might be a bit “too much” to describe the current state of Iran’s nuclear program, but “it has suffered enormous damage.”
“The attacks that began on June 13 caused very significant physical damage at three sites: Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow, where Iran had concentrated most of its uranium enrichment and conversion abilities,” he said.
“There are other nuclear sites in Iran that have not been hit,” he added. “I know there is much debate about the degree of annihilation, total destruction, etc. What I can tell you, and I think everyone agrees on this, is that very considerable damage has been caused.”
Grossi said his inspectors have not yet gained access to the damaged Iranian sites, but “we know these facilities inside out,” so “we can draw fairly accurate conclusions by looking at satellite images and so on about the type of damage and the consequences of what happened.”
Grossi described the main enrichment site at Fordow as exaggerated and theatrical in its dimensions, akin to a super-villain lair or a “movie set.” Despite its formidable appearance, he strongly doubted it could have protected Iran’s delicate uranium centrifuges from the massive penetration bombs deployed by American B-2 stealth bombers on Saturday.
“Given the power of these devices and the technical characteristics of a centrifuge, these centrifuges are no longer operational because they are quite precise machines. There must have been significant physical damage. So technically, I’d say we can reach a fairly accurate conclusion,” he said.
Grossi repeated his statement that the IAEA does not know the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile. He said he has strongly urged Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to disclose the location of the uranium and allow the IAEA to inspect it, as demanded by Iran’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but Araghchi has not yet responded.
“Iran is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, therefore, must have an inspection system, and this can’t be unilaterally suspended, so I hope that’s not the case — because, if it were, we would be on the brink of a new crisis,” he said.
Grossi insisted that while Iran had enough enriched uranium, and the “related technologies and developments” necessary, to “produce perhaps a dozen” nuclear warheads, he was confident it has not taken that fateful final step.
The IAEA director was the latest in a series of international experts and intelligence officials to debunk a frantic left-wing media narrative in the United States that President Donald Trump’s airstrikes inflicted no real damage upon the Iranian nuclear program.
The media spun this narrative entirely out of a single low-confidence preliminary intelligence assessment, leaked to partisan media operatives by a yet-unknown source, suggesting the airstrikes were minimally effective and only set the Iranian nuclear weapons agenda back by a matter of months.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a report on Wednesday that substantially agreed with White House and Department of Defense estimates — and now with the IAEA director’s opinion — by describing the Fordow facility as “inoperable.”
“We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said.
