Does Iran really possess Nuclear weapons? Here's what we know so far

Iran Israel war started as Tel Aviv carried out attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. The exact status of various Iranian nuclear facilities and material since Israel's strikes is unclear. Iran had three operating enrichment facilities: an above-ground plant and a larger, underground one at its Natanz complex and another buried inside a mountain at Fordo. Only Fordo appears to have been spared damage, the IAEA has said. The above-ground plant has been destroyed and the underground one at Natanz has likely had its uranium-enriching centrifuges badly damaged or destroyed, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has said, as per a report.

Iran and its Nuclear Program

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said that while it cannot guarantee Iran's nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, it has "no credible indication" of an active, coordinated weapons programme either.


In a statement on Friday, when the attacks were launched, the Israel Defence Forces said they were revealing for the first time Iran's secret and accelerating plan for the development of a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been making similar accusations for years, even once presenting a cartoon of a bomb at the U.N. in 2012. Israel has not, however, produced proof that Iran is as close as it now alleges.

Iran's Uranium Stockpile

The 2015 deal introduced strict limits on Iran's atomic activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. It slashed Iran's stock of enriched uranium, leaving it only with a small amount enriched to up to 3.67 per cent purity, far from the roughly 90 per cent purity that is weapons grade.

In 2018, during his first term, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal, reimposing sanctions on Tehran that slashed its oil sales and battered its economy.

In 2019, Iran started breaching the restrictions on its nuclear activities and then pushed far beyond them. It went on to breach all the deal's key restrictions, including on where, with what machines and to what level it can enrich uranium, and how much material it can amass.

Iran's stock of enriched uranium, which was capped at 202.8 kg under the deal, was estimated at 9.2 tonnes in May, according to the latest quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency report.

At least until Israel's attacks, Iran was enriching uranium to up to 60 per cent purity and had enough material at that level for nine nuclear weapons if enriched further, according to a theoretical IAEA yardstick.

Nuclear Weapons in Iran

That means Iran's so-called "breakout time" - the time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb - was close to zero, likely a matter of days or little more than a week, analysts say.

Aside from uranium enrichment, there is the question of how long it would take Iran to produce the rest of a nuclear weapon and possibly make it small enough to put in a delivery system like a ballistic missile, should it choose to. This is much harder to estimate as it is less clear how much knowledge Iran has.

Estimates of how long Iran would need for weaponisation generally vary between months and about a year.

U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had a coordinated nuclear weapons programme that it halted in 2003. It worked on aspects of weaponisation and some work continued until as late as 2009, the IAEA found in a 2015 report. Grossi said this month its latest findings still broadly fit with that.

Iran denies ever having a nuclear weapons programme, though Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that if it wanted to world leaders "wouldn't be able to stop us".

The IAEA has said it has concerns about statements by former senior officials about Iran's ability to make a bomb.

Diplomats said those statements included a television interview by Iran's former nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi in which he likened producing a nuclear weapon to building a car, saying Iran knew how to make all the parts needed.

As a result of Iran ceasing to implement elements of the 2015 deal, the IAEA can no longer fully monitor Iran's production and inventory of centrifuges and it can no longer conduct snap inspections. That has prompted speculation about whether Iran could have set up a secret enrichment site, but there are no concrete indications of one.

FAQs

Q1. Who is Iran's Supreme Leader?
A1. Iran's Supreme Leader is Ali Khamenei.

Q2. What is full form of IAEA?
A2. IAEA stands for International Atomic Energy Agency.