The White House slammed a Wednesday report by Bloomberg that claimed Iran was at a greater risk of obtaining a nuclear weapon than it was before the 2025 strikes destroyed Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.
“Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated during Operation Midnight Hammer, and the conventional shield intended to protect their nuclear program – comprised of their ballistic missiles, production facilities, and navy – is gone,” White House deputy spokeswoman Anna Kelly told The Post.
“Suggesting that Iran can more capably produce a nuclear weapon with no functioning nuclear enrichment facilities or military defenses is an indescribably stupid analysis by Bloomberg, which we would have shared had they reached out to us for comment,” she added.
Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, where multiple buildings were destroyed in June 2025 APThe Bloomberg report claimed Iran was at a greater risk of secretly developing a nuclear weapon since the international nuclear monitoring agency IAEA can no longer inspect the enriched uranium once held in the destroyed facilities.
The agency informed member nations last month that it “can’t draw any conclusion” regarding Iran’s 972 pounds of 60% enriched uranium (90% is considered weapons grade) and 9 tons of lower enriched material that was last seen at bombed-out sites in Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.
“This gives rise to a proliferation concern as this nuclear material, which the agency was not able to verify, includes a large amount of high-enriched uranium,” the IAEA stated in a document obtained by Bloomberg.
President Trump has said that while he would like to take possession of the so-called “nuclear dust,” recovering it would mostly be for “public relations” purposes because Tehran does not have the ability to access the material and Space Force is closely monitoring the damaged sites.
“The enriched material, sometimes referred to as ‘Nuclear Dust,’ which is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 Bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it, will be unearthed by the United States … in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED,” he wrote on Truth Social last week.
The president noted “it is agreed” that the US “is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability” of extracting the uranium.
Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nuclear nonproliferation program, told The Post that Bloomberg’s reporting “overstates the risk that Tehran can now build nuclear weapons.”
“[T]he material is effectively entombed in the destroyed sites and the U.S. and Israel are restricting access to it,” Stricker said. “Thus Iran would likely need to make new fuel for nuclear weapons from scratch, something it can’t now do because of the strikes.”
“It also lacks key weaponization facilities, equipment, and personnel after the strikes. It is likely about 2 1/2 years from nuclear weapons today, as opposed to six months before the strikes,” she added.
