Vice President JD Vance raised major questions about the success of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities after suggesting that Tehran’s near-bomb-grade uranium was moved before the attacks.
Israeli sources were quoted as saying that Iran moved as much as 880 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity from a secure nuclear storage plant in the ancient city of Isfahan.
“Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material,” Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told CNN. Grossi added that his inspectors had not been able to visit the Iranian sites since the U.S. bombings.
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Announcing the raids, the president said the nuclear sites at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz were “completely and fully obliterated.”
While Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also maintained on Monday that the administration had a “high degree of confidence” that Saturday night’s bombings took out Iran’s uranium stockpile, Vance seemed to suggest the opposite.
“We are going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel, and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about,” he told ABC News’ This Week.
There has been widespread speculation since the bombings that Trump’s threats on social media, including one post calling for Tehran to be evacuated, telegraphed the strikes to the Iranians and allowed them to take precautions to protect uranium stocks.
According to The New York Times, the batch of uranium is enough to make nine or 10 atomic bombs and could be transferred in casks in about ten cars.
Satellite images taken of the mountain nuclear sites outside Tehran showed 16 trucks parked near an entrance in the days before the U.S. attacks, although there was no confirmation that any uranium was moved.
Vance insisted that Tehran had been prevented from creating weapons-grade uranium. “And that was really the goal here,” he added.
