President Trump and Iran’s leaders have sent mixed signals on resuming nuclear talks, while new evidence called into further question Trump’s claims that U.S. strikes obliterated Iran’s nuclear threat.
Trump denied reports Monday that he is weighing a $30 billion deal with Iran that would allow for the development of civilian nuclear facilities.
The ceasefire came after a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which started when Israel launched an attack on Tehran in June that it said was meant to prevent the country from developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is not intended to produce a weapon.
Among the most headline-grabbing developments this week was the intercepted communication between senior Iranian government officials commenting that June’s U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites were less devastating than expected.
The Iranian officials in a phone call said the U.S. bombing of three nuclear facilities was not as damaging or extensive as had been expected, challenging Trump’s repeated assertions that the sites and Tehran’s nuclear program were “completely and totally obliterated.”
The call, first reported by The Washington Post, follows debate among the intelligence community as to how damaged the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites were after the strikes.
While Trump continues to insist the bombings destroyed all they targeted and sent Iran’s nuclear program back by years, a leaked summary from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency found that structures underneath Fordow and Natanz were still intact and Tehran was only set back by months, as it had likely moved a significant portion of enriched uranium prior to the strikes.
After classified briefings last week at the Capitol, Republican lawmakers have conceded that the strikes may not have wiped out all of Iran’s nuclear materials.
Trump administration officials have not denied the Iran call’s existence but have attacked the Post’s reporting.
Further contradicting Trump’s claims, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Sunday Iran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months.”
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that “one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there” when it comes to Iran’s capabilities.
“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi said on CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
