Airstrikes crippled Iran’s ability to weaponize uranium – report

Analysts say bombing of Isfahan nuclear facility likely shattered Iran’s hopes of weaponizing uranium – regardless of the fate of its enriched uranium stockpile.

By World Israel News Staff

Airstrikes on a key Iranian nuclear facility have likely destroyed Iran’s ability to weaponize uranium and create atomic bombs, analysts claim, regardless of the fate of the Islamic republic’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Both the United States and Israel bombed Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility at Isfahan, devastating the site.

While the facility’s declared capabilities revolve primarily around converting uranium oxide, known as yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride gas, a key step before enrichment, it is believed that the facility is also capable of metallizing the gas after enrichment.

Metallization of the refined uranium from uranium hexafluoride is one of the final stages in weaponizing uranium.

According to a report published by The New York Times on Saturday, analysts argue that the destruction of equipment at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) – which is almost certain, given the heavy damage to the site, probably stripped Iran’s nuclear program of its ability to metallize – and thus weaponize – its uranium stockpile.

Iran’s existing stockpile, estimated by the International Atomic Energy Agency before the 12-day war to include some 900 pounds of 60% enriched uranium, has garnered much attention in the media since the US carried out a one-day air campaign on Iranian nuclear sites.

Reports that Iran may have relocated at least some of its enriched uranium stockpile before the bombings raised fears that the Israeli and American strikes failed to remove the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran.

However, without the metallization capabilities of Isfahan’s UCF, the Times reported, Iran has limited options for utilizing any enriched uranium that may have survived the bombings.

“It’s a bottleneck,” David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, told the Times. Without the Isfahan UCF, Iran will be unable to weaponize whatever enriched uranium it currently has or enriches in the future.

“They have to rebuild it.”