Grossi told CNN host Fareed Zakaria that Iran’s nuclear ambitions have suffered major setbacks but have not been completely eliminated. “There was enormous damage, in particular during the 12-Day War last year, at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow,” he said, referencing Iran’s three main uranium enrichment sites.
Grossi said the month-long Operation Epic Fury has included “targets and objectives that go far beyond the range of the nuclear field,” but even combined with the damage from last year’s strikes, “not everything was destroyed.” Grossi also agreed with Zakaria’s observation that one “cannot bomb the knowledge away,” or eliminate Iran’s intellectual progress toward nuclear weapons with an aerial bombing campaign. “Don’t forget that this activity of uranium enrichment, which is rather complex, is not something that is impossible to do. The methodology is quite sophisticated. The centrifuges that spin at high velocity, to separate the isotope of uranium which is interesting from the one which is not – all of these things Iran has mastered over the years,” he said.
Grossi noted that uranium enrichment is “not, per se, a nuclear activity,” and if the Iranians are patient enough, it can be conducted in small-scale operations that would be difficult to hunt down and destroy. “You may have, in Iran, thousands – or perhaps more – of workshops, or small factories, where they could reproduce these capacities,” he said. Grossi agreed with U.S. intelligence estimates that the U.S. stealth-bomber strikes against Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow inflicted “very considerable” damage, pushing Iran’s nuclear program back for years, but he said “there are things that remain.” (Read More)
