STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have some follow-up news this morning on the U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. President Trump announced what he said was the result back in June.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.
INSKEEP: That was then. Now some time has passed. Satellite images and other information give the public a little better idea of the state of Iran's nuclear program. Joseph Rodgers co-authored an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which is an independent think tank here in Washington. Mr. Rodgers, good morning.
JOSEPH RODGERS: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What word would you use to describe the status of Iran's nuclear capabilities?
RODGERS: So for me, the top line is that the Iranian nuclear program appears to be in limbo without clear leadership guidance. We see some activity building new nuclear facilities nearby the facilities that the U.S. destroyed. And simultaneously, it appears that the three facilities that the U.S. struck there have been basically no attempts to rehabilitate whatsoever.
INSKEEP: This strikes me as important. You're saying that for all practical purposes, maybe the Fordo facility was completely and totally obliterated. They haven't tried to fire it back up. But you're telling me there's activity elsewhere?
RODGERS: Yes, indeed. So about a mile south of the Natanz enrichment facility, there's a site called Pickaxe Mountain that has been under construction since about 2020. But since June, construction has really been in an uptick. We see much more mining and drilling into the mountain, and we also see the construction of a huge security perimeter around the site.
INSKEEP: Was that already known as a nuclear site?
RODGERS: That's correct. So Pickaxe Mountain was declared in 2020 to be a site for the construction of centrifuges, which are required to enrich uranium. However, Iran has continued to deny the IAEA - the International Atomic Energy Agency - access to that site, which was a prerequisite under the Iran nuclear deal.
INSKEEP: So we don't know exactly what was being done there, and we don't know exactly what is being done there. But you're telling me the satellite imagery shows something is being done.
RODGERS: That's correct. And I think, you know, there's a few possible explanations for what's going on at Pickaxe Mountain. One is that the Iranians are doing exactly what they said - that they're preparing for a centrifuge assembly facility. A second explanation is that the activity inside of Pickaxe Mountain has been expanded to include some of the facilities and sort of the research and metallurgy that the U.S. destroyed at Isfahan. And a third explanation, which is the worst possible outcome, is that maybe this might be a future uranium enrichment site that Iran is building undeclared.
INSKEEP: I guess we should note - when you use the word centrifuge, you're talking about machinery that can be used to enrich uranium and get it closer to weapons-grade.
RODGERS: Correct.
INSKEEP: Did the nuclear agreement that just expired include extra inspections for Iran?
RODGERS: Yes. The Iran nuclear deal - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - included some pretty serious extra obligations for Iran under the sort of IAEA monitoring. So that included access to facilities that were going to construct centrifuges, like what they declared at Pickaxe Mountain, although Iran has not let the IAEA into those facilities.
INSKEEP: How worried are you about this?
RODGERS: I think that this is definitely something that we should monitor very closely. You know, Iran really needs to build a new enrichment facility if they want to sort of break out and build a bomb.
INSKEEP: Do they still have the expertise to do this, given that a lot of their scientists have been targeted? And I imagine people were killed in these strikes.
RODGERS: That's a really important piece of the picture. In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli Ambassador Zarka claimed that Israel had assassinated about 14 of the top, leading nuclear scientists in the Iranian nuclear program. And rebuilding buildings is hard. It's equally as hard to rebuild the social capital required for that level of deep expertise.
INSKEEP: What is your sense of who's left and whether they can work together?
RODGERS: I think it is really clear from the precision of the U.S. and the Israeli strikes that Mossad and U.S. intelligence agencies had deeply penetrated the Iranian program and selectively targeted scientists. Now, in the aftermath of the strikes, Iran has really cracked down. They've rounded up over 700 people and accused them of working with Mossad in some capacity, and so there's a lot of fear and speculation inside of the program about who's working for foreign intelligence assets. It has serious implications for the efficacy of any future program. If everyone is sort of looking around their back and deeply skeptical, then it's really hard to sort of sit down and get to work.
INSKEEP: Joseph Rodgers of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thanks for the update.
RODGERS: Great. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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