Israel attacked Iran’s highly protected nuclear facilities with drones and warplanes in mid-June, aiming to prevent the regime in Tehran from building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. initially sought to stay out of the conflict, but waded into the fighting a week later by bombing key Iranian nuclear sites.
The strikes have triggered counterattacks by Iran on Israeli cities and an American airbase in Qatar, although U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week.
Questions remain over whether Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium prior to the strikes, and whether centrifuges remain intact at nuclear sites.
Grossi said the IAEA is not present in Iran, and so unable to make any direct evaluations of the damage. But according to available intelligence reports, “it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage,” Grossi said.
Some stockpiles of enriched uranium could have been moved by Iran before the strikes, but the IAEA doesn’t “know where this material could be,” Grossi said.
“Some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. So there has to be at some point a clarification. If we don’t get that clarification, this will continue to be hanging, you know, over our heads as a potential problem,” he said, according to a transcript of the CBS interview.
