Fate of Iran’s Enriched Uranium Is a Mystery

After days of debate over how severely U.S. strikes had damaged three nuclear facilities in Iran, the fate of the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium remains a bigger mystery.

Over the years, as Iran built up its underground nuclear facilities and centrifuges, it amassed a large, 880-pound stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent, near bomb grade.

While U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Iran had not decided whether to make a bomb, they noted that Iran was only a few steps away from being able to turn its uranium into a weapon given the size of that stockpile.

There is little doubt that Iran’s entire nuclear program was substantially diminished by U.S. and Israeli strikes, and that it would struggle to quickly produce additional nuclear fuel.

But U.S. intelligence agencies had long assessed that, faced with the possibility of an attack on its nuclear facilities, Iran would try to move its stockpile of enriched uranium, either to keep as leverage in diplomatic negotiations or to use in a race to build a bomb.

In an interview on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance said U.S. officials wanted to talk to Iran about the stockpile. But on Thursday, the Trump administration pushed back on the idea that Iran had been able to move its enriched uranium before the U.S. strike.