IAEA: Iran could enrich uranium 'within months'
The chief United Nations nuclear inspector, Rafael Grossi, says Iran could be enriching uranium again soon
What happened
The chief United Nations nuclear inspector, Rafael Grossi, told CBS News Sunday that Iran could be enriching uranium again in a "matter of months." President Donald Trump, meanwhile, repeated on Fox News his initial assertion that Tehran's nuclear program was "obliterated like nobody's ever seen before," arguing that the bunker-buster bomb strikes he had ordered a week earlier "meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time."
Who said what
Trump has been "furious about news coverage that has deviated from his claims about the bombing mission," especially reporting on a Defense Intelligence Agency initial damage verdict similar to Grossi's, The Washington Post said. In a new piece of "preliminary information" undercutting Trump's narrative, an intercepted communication recorded Iranian officials privately wondering why the U.S. attack was "not as destructive and extensive as they had anticipated," four U.S. officials familiar with the classified intelligence told the Post.
Former U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who helped negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal Trump scrapped, said Sunday that a new deal was critical. He said it was likely Iran still retained "some stockpiles of enriched uranium" and centrifuges and called for a "full battle-damage" assessment "unfiltered from political interference."
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What next?
Western governments are "scrambling to determine what's become" of Iran's supply of enriched uranium, Reuters said. Trump told Fox News he believed it was destroyed in the strike, while Grossi confirmed that Iran told his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors it had planned to safeguard some of its nuclear materials, presumably including highly enriched uranium, before the U.S. attack.
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