UN nuclear chief: Iran could resume uranium enrichment within months

Iran will have the capacity to start enriching uranium again within "a few months," the UN nuclear watchdog said.

Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that the US strikes on three countries a week ago had caused “serious damage” but not “total.”
Mr. Grossi told CBS News: “The capabilities they have are there. They could have, you know, within a few months, I would say, several cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that.

"But like I said, honestly, you can't pretend that everything is gone and there's nothing there."

Iran still has "industrial and technological capabilities... so if they want, they will be able to start doing this again," he added, Sky News reports. 

Iranian nuclear and military sites were attacked by Israel on June 13, with the claim that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.

The US then carried out its attacks on June 22, hitting Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, as part of Operation Midnight Hammer.

Iran has insisted that its nuclear research is for civilian energy production purposes.

US President Donald Trump said last weekend that the US deployment of 30,000-pound "bunker-busting" bombs had "destroyed" Iran's nuclear program.

But this claim appears to have been contradicted by an initial assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

One source said Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium had not been eliminated and the country's nuclear program, much of which is buried deep underground, may have been delayed by only a month or two.
Mr. Trump has rejected any suggestion that the damage to the countries was not as profound as he has said.

He stated that he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to worrying levels.

At a press conference Thursday alongside US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters that the GBU-57 bunker buster bombs were designed in some secrecy with precisely this type of target in mind. 

The CIA chief has also said that a "credible body of intelligence" indicates that Iran's nuclear program has been "severely damaged."

Director John Ratcliffe revealed that information from a "historically reliable and accurate source" suggests that several key sites were destroyed - and will take years to rebuild.