{"id":25960,"date":"2025-06-30T02:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T02:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25960\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T02:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T02:02:09","slug":"cia-chief-told-lawmakers-iran-nuclear-program-set-back-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25960\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA chief told lawmakers Iran nuclear program set back years"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CIA Director John Ratcliffe told skeptical U.S. lawmakers that American military strikes<\/a> destroyed Iran\u2019s lone metal conversion facility and in the process delivered a monumental setback to Tehran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a> that would take years to overcome, a U.S. official said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence, said Ratcliffe laid out the importance of the strikes on the metal conversion facility during a classified hearing for U.S. lawmakers<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

Details about the private briefings surfaced as President Donald Trump<\/a> and his administration keep pushing back on questions<\/a> from Democratic lawmakers and others about how far Iran was set back by the strikes before last Tuesday\u2019s ceasefire with Israel took hold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was obliterating like nobody\u2019s ever seen before,\u201d Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cSunday Morning Futures.\u201d \u201dAnd that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that the intelligence community assessed<\/a> the vast majority of Iran\u2019s amassed enriched uranium likely remains buried under the rubble at Isfahan and Fordo, two of the three key nuclear facilities targeted by U.S. strikes.<\/p>\n

But even if the uranium remains intact, the loss of its metal conversion facility effectively has taken away Tehran\u2019s ability to build a bomb for years to come, the official said. <\/p>\n

Rafael Grossi<\/a>, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Sunday on CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d that the three Iranian sites with \u201ccapabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree.\u201d <\/p>\n

But, he added, \u201csome is still standing\u201d and that because capabilities remain, \u201cif they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.\u201d He said assessing the full damage comes down to Iran allowing in inspectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared, and there is nothing there,\u201d Grossi said.<\/p>\n

Trump has insisted from just hours after three key targets were struck by U.S. bunker-buster bombs<\/a> and Tomahawk missiles that Iran\u2019s nuclear program was \u201cobliterated.\u201d <\/p>\n

His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said they were \u201cdestroyed.\u201d<\/a> A preliminary report issued by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, said the strikes did significant damage<\/a> to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities.<\/p>\n

As a result of Israeli and U.S. strikes, Grossi says that \u201cit is clear that there has been severe damage, but it\u2019s not total damage.\u201d Israel claims it has set back Iran\u2019s nuclear program by \u201cmany years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The metal conversion facility that Ratcliffe said was destroyed was located at the Isfahan nuclear facility. The process of transforming enriched uranium gas into dense metal, or metallization, is a key step in building the explosive core of a bomb.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in comments at the NATO summit<\/a> last week also suggested that it was likely the U.S. strikes had destroyed the metal conversion facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cWe can\u2019t even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. You can\u2019t even find where it used to be because the whole thing is just blackened out. It\u2019s gone. It\u2019s wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CIA director also stressed to lawmakers during the congressional briefing that Iran\u2019s air defense was shattered during the 12-day assault. As a result, any attempt by Iran to rebuild its nuclear program could now easily be thwarted by Israeli strikes that Iran currently has little wherewithal to defend against, the official said.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe\u2019s briefing to lawmakers on the U.S. findings appeared to mesh with some of Israeli officials\u2019 battle damage assessments.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have determined that Iran\u2019s ability to enrich uranium to a weapons-grade level was neutralized for a prolonged period, according to a senior Israeli military official who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter. <\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s nuclear program also was significantly damaged by the strikes killing key scientists<\/a>, damage to Iran\u2019s missile production industry and the battering of Iran\u2019s aerial defense system, according to the Israeli\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n

Grossi, and some Democrats, note that Iran still has the know-how.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have,\u201d Grossi said, emphasizing the need to come to a diplomatic deal on the country\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CIA Director John Ratcliffe told skeptical U.S. lawmakers that American military strikes destroyed Iran\u2019s lone…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[396,15533,69,57,2055,83,3461,3462,6112,22940,410,3463,8132,50,375,6986,80,3490,22941,67,370,132,68,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-25960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-bombings","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-government-and-politics","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-iran-government","16":"tag-israel-government","17":"tag-israel-iran-war","18":"tag-john-ratcliffe","19":"tag-marco-rubio","20":"tag-mideast-wars","21":"tag-military-and-defense","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-nuclear-weapons","24":"tag-pete-hegseth","25":"tag-politics","26":"tag-rafael-grossi","27":"tag-u-s-central-intelligence-agency","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-government","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-washington-news","33":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114769857471791129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}