IAEA chief skeptical Iran’s nuclear program can be eliminated with just military action

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said that he does not believe that Iran’s nuclear program can be eliminated solely by military action. 

“I would agree with that. Because this program is a very vast program. It’s a program that has been built throughout the years, decades of efforts, and it’s scattered across a number of places,” Grossi said when asked if Tehran’s nuclear program can be resolved militarily.

“Facilities, Universities, laboratories, with quite sophisticated scientific and technological and industrial base,” he said during a briefing with reporters Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.

Last June, the U.S. military struck three Iranian nuclear sites — in Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan — as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, with President Trump and other top U.S. officials saying that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “obliterated.” 

The U.S., along with Israel, launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28, with U.S. officials pointing to Iran’s nuclear ambitions as one of the factors that prompted negotiators to end diplomatic discussions with the Iranians. 

Grossi said the IAEA doesn’t know the status of the new enrichment facility in Isfahan, which Iran notified the U.N. atomic energy agency of in June. 

“It is underground, but we haven’t visited,” Grossi told reporters. 

The IAEA head said the inspectors were in Isfahan in June, but the visit was canceled after the Isfahan nuclear site was hit by the U.S. military. 

Grossi said since the visit fell through, the IAEA doesn’t know if it is “simply an empty hall, a hall with a complete cement platform space for cascades, or whether it has some already centrifuges, and in which state.” 

Tehran told the IAEA that Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant was hit on Tuesday, although no spill of nuclear material was reported. 

“The possibility of dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactivity is very high if you get to the core of the reactor. So this is why — this is the reddest line of all that you have in nuclear safety,” Grossi said.