WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran was not able to evacuate nuclear materials from a deep underground site bombed by long-range US planes last week.
“Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, referring to the secretive Fordo site hit by B-2 bombers.
Trump said that satellite photos of a large number of trucks outside the site ahead of the US raid only showed crews attempting to protect Fordo with concrete “to cover up the top of the shafts”.
Also on Thursday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said some American TV channels were airing fabricated news about the failure of US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The critics do not want to see President Donald Trump to succeed, he added.
Read more: Hegseth rubbishes US TV channels’ claims of Iran strikes failure
Hegseth said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program over the weekend.
“I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise,” he told reporters.
On the other hand, Iran’s Guardian Council tasked with vetting legislation approved a bill to suspend cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday, citing recent US and Israeli strikes.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “nothing significant” occurred to nuclear sites struck by the United States earlier this week, during a war with Israel.
“They attacked our nuclear facilities, which of course would merit criminal prosecution in international courts, but they did nothing significant,” Khamenei said.
EU THINKS OTHERWISE
Meanwhile, there are people who doubt Trump’s claim.
In this connection, the Financial Times reported on Thursday that European capitals believe Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact following US strikes on its main nuclear sites.
The newspaper, citing two people briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments, said European capitals believe Iran’s stockpile of 408 kilogramme of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels was not concentrated in Fordow, one of its two main enrichment sites, at the time of last weekend’s attack.