Khaberni - The "Wall Street Journal" reported, citing US officials and experts, that Iran, after five weeks of war, still retains its uranium stockpile and other nuclear components needed to make a nuclear bomb.
The newspaper reported from its sources that Iran still stores most of the elements needed to manufacture a nuclear weapon, including "about 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to a degree close to military-grade."
According to those sources, retaining this stockpile has given Tehran leverage in negotiations with the United States, which concluded its first round today in Pakistan without reaching an agreement.
In this context, US Vice President JD Vance said today, Sunday, at a press conference in Islamabad that the United States has not reached an agreement with Iran after it rejected the American conditions, including the commitment not to seek to possess nuclear weapons.
Since the war began on February 28, the United States and Israel have sought to bomb and destroy nuclear reactors and laboratories and research centers that Iran was using in activities related to nuclear weapons development.
Significant Damage
The United States and Israel have inflicted damages on the Iranian enrichment program, including the destruction of a site for producing what is known as "yellowcake," which is the raw material that can be converted into enriched uranium.
The Iranian nuclear program also suffered damage during the war that lasted 12 days in June last year, with the United States using bunker-busting bombs to target the sites of Fordow and Natanz, while targeting facilities linked to the program in Bushehr and Isfahan.
Israeli officials also said they struck several sites believed to be involved in nuclear weapons-related activities, including laboratories, a university, and a facility near Tehran and a building at the Parchin military site (southeast of Tehran) where explosive experiments were conducted. They also targeted Iranian nuclear scientists.
Despite the extent of the damage, the newspaper quoted its sources as saying that Iran is likely still retaining centrifuges and a fortified underground site that could enable it to continue enriching uranium.
More importantly, Iran has retained its stockpile of about 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to a level close to military use, half of which is stored in containers inside a deep tunnel underneath the site at Isfahan, according to what the newspaper quoted from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Eric Brewer, a former White House official who worked on the Iran file during the first Trump administration, told the newspaper, "Iran will not easily relinquish these materials, and its demands will be higher than in previous negotiations."
Experts believe that Iran has never built a nuclear warhead, explaining that doing so now would be difficult without detection, given the penetration of American and Israeli intelligence into its nuclear file.
The extent of the damage inflicted on Iran's ability to develop a nuclear warhead remains unclear, a complex process that requires experienced scientists to convert fissile materials into uranium metal and embed them in a warhead, the newspaper said.
