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<\/p>\nEnergy Secretary Chris Wright warned on Wednesday that Iran is \u201cfrighteningly close\u201d to obtaining a nuclear weapon, nearly three months after the United States launched a war to irrevocably halt the Islamic Republic from crossing that ominous Rubicon.<\/p>\n
Wright, referring to Iran\u2019s current stock of nuclear material, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, \u201cThey are weeks \u2014 a small number of weeks \u2014 away to enrich that to weapons-grade uranium.” But the energy secretary added that a months-long weaponization process would still be required beyond that point.<\/p>\n
Iranian nuclear activity steadily increased in the years since President Donald Trump abrogated the Obama-era accord in his first term. Nuclear analysts contend this decision removed key guardrails and freed the regime to enrich uranium at higher levels, expand production, and develop more advanced centrifuges. <\/p>\n
Tehran is estimated to have amassed approximately 12 tons of uranium at varying degrees of purity. <\/p>\n
Uranium is generally said to be of \u201cweapons-grade\u201d when it is enriched to 90% purity or higher. At present, Iran is believed to have come close to this threshold but not reached it. <\/p>\n
The Islamic Republic\u2019s leadership has long insisted it does not intend to develop a nuclear weapon and instead wants to keep enhancing its fissile technology for peaceful purposes. These protestations are widely dismissed by the nation\u2019s many adversaries, including the U.S. <\/p>\n
Wright, in an exchange with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said that roughly a ton of Iran\u2019s 60% uranium is \u201conly weeks away\u201d from weapons-grade level, with the remaining 11 tons of 20% material just a few weeks behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnenriched uranium, it\u2019s a long process to get it to weapons-grade,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut when you\u2019re at 60%, although the numbers don\u2019t sound that way, you\u2019re way more than 90% of the way there for the enrichment necessary for weapons-grade uranium. Very close. Twenty percent uranium, which they also have a lot of, is far along as well.\u201d <\/p>\n
Wright concluded: \u201cIt\u2019s very concerning.\u201d <\/p>\n
RELATED<\/p>\n
Much of the material is believed to be entombed within fortified tunnels near the Isfahan nuclear facility, which survived last June\u2019s Operation Midnight Hammer. The U.S.-led raid involved more than 125 U.S. military aircraft, including seven B-2 stealth bombers that dropped 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators on deeply buried targets.<\/p>\n
Trump repeatedly claimed the relatively brief air campaign \u201cobliterated\u201d the sites, but intelligence assessments concluded that while Midnight Hammer severely set back Iran\u2019s capabilities, it did not destroy them. <\/p>\n
The Trump administration has since invoked Iran\u2019s purportedly imminent nuclear threat as the premise for the military action that began at the end of February, dubbed Operation Epic Fury. <\/p>\n
Matthew Bunn, professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard University, told Military Times that Iran still retains enough highly enriched uranium to proceed swiftly toward making more than a dozen nuclear bombs. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey could move fairly quickly to build nuclear weapons should they choose to do so,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reason they haven\u2019t done so, in part, is because they feared exactly what happened: if their facilities were detected, they would get blasted before they could finish.\u201d <\/p>\n
Senior Trump administration officials have publicly weighed deploying forces deep inside Iran to seize the Iranian stockpiles by force. <\/p>\n
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