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US strikes on key nuclear facilities in Iran 10 days ago have pushed back Iran’s nuclear programme by up to two years, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said on Wednesday.
“We have degraded their programme by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the department assess that,” Parnell told reporters at a news briefing.
“All of the intelligence that we’ve seen led us to believe that Iran’s (facilities) have been completely obliterated,” Parnell said.
On 22 June, the US launched multiple joint attacks with Israel against three of Iran’s nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, using more than 30 13,500-kilogram bunker buster missiles and Tomahawk rockets.
Parnell’s statement on Wednesday offered a more cautious assessment than previous statements from Washington, while at the same time contradicting information released by UN’s nuclear watchdog.
In the aftermath of the strikes, US President Donald Trump had said the facilities were “totally obliterated” and the attacks had set Iran’s nuclear programme back “by decades”.
Meanwhile, over the weekend, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, said that Tehran might go back to producing enriched uranium within a few months.
“The capacities they have are there. They can have … in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium,” Grossi said in an interview with CBS News on Saturday.
“But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,” he added.
Other experts have also said that Iran likely moved the already-produced stock of highly enriched uranium — believed to be near-weapons grade — prior to the strikes on Fordow and other facilities to protect it from the strikes.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and other Washington officials said that existing intelligence showed no signs of such a move or claims that the stockpile has been hidden away at an unknown location, further contradicting other statements.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi previously said the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
“No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged,” Araghchi told CBS on Tuesday.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday ordered the country to halt its cooperation with the IAEA, according to state media.
Pezeshkian follows a law passed by Iran’s parliament last week to suspend that cooperation, as politicians unanimously supported the move against the IAEA. The bill was also backed by Iran’s Guardian Council.
