Washington
CNN
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As the Trump administration is trying to quickly pivot from military strikes to diplomatic contracts on Iran’s nuclear programmes, the final military and intelligence report assessment of the recent US strike is important in informing us that the Trump administration needs to achieve in future Iranian negotiations.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, should use a detailed overview of facility damages and a final combat damage assessment, including a location of nuclear material.
“We won’t go to negotiations assuming the other side will tell you everything you need to know about the status of their program,” explained Pranay Vaddi, a former senior national security council non-proliferation official.
“We need a baseline established by the US intelligence reporting community before that,” Vaddi added. “If the Trump administration is still committed to some sort of deal – it makes a statement – they need to know what they can overcome military action, compared to what they need to get through the diplomatic process.”
President Donald Trump continues to argue that Iran’s nuclear program has been “completely wiped out,” which does not reflect an early assessment from the Defence Intelligence Agency, and therefore certifies that the attack did not destroy the core elements of the country’s nuclear program. Early assessments divide lawmakers into the effectiveness of strikes. And Trump’s absolutist declaration could complicate Witkov’s work, officials said.
Even if the facility itself was severely damaged, it doesn’t mean that the nuclear program itself was completely destroyed. Before the US strike, experts and former officials were skeptical of the idea that nuclear programs could be militarily destroyed, and pointed out that there are still people with knowledge to support it.
“The fundamental problem is that the equivalence between successful bombing and successful ending of the nuclear program is to put pressure on having this story of no threat,” said former Intelligence Director Beth Sanner. “If you think you’ve eliminated the nuclear program, you’re not dealing with the fact that there’s still the rest of the program.”
And while it is important to take into account the final battle damage assessment, future negotiations with Iran should prioritize bringing nuclear watchdogs with Iran back on the ground, according to a former official who worked on previous Iran negotiations.
“I don’t know there’s an assessment I think is completely feasible until there’s an inspector on the ground,” said a former U.S. official who worked on past Iran negotiations. “We have to replicate the types of intrusive verification and surveillance that were part of the 2015 deal.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) existed in Iran before the 2015 nuclear deal was signed during the Obama administration. This is a deal that led Trump to separate the US during his first term – but as a result of that contract, the presence of domestic IAEA inspectors has increased significantly.
“The deal meant there was an inspector on the ground 24/7, there was an electronic surveillance and a process that didn’t exist anywhere else in the world.
However, this week, the Iranian parliament has suspended its work with the IAEA this week due to the “disappointing role” played by the agency Chihrafaer Grossi, the Iranian foreign minister said. Iran accused Grossi of promoting the United States and promoting Israeli strikes, citing an IAEA report a day before the Israeli strike.
The move follows years of Iran, which has restricted monitoring of the agency’s programme. For example, in 2022, Iran responded by removing surveillance cameras from major sites after the IAEA denounced Iran more than uranium particles found at undeclared sites.
Measures that must be taken as part of a verifiable transaction regarding Iran’s nuclear program include destroying elements of the program that still exist, monitoring further activity, blending highly enriched uranium, and declaring some of the programs in use.
A former official stated that inspectors on the ground would be essential to prepare for these measures.
“When it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, I think it’s been a long time since the US Intelligence Evaluation was accepted worldwide as authoritative about Iran’s nuclear program. They’re certainly going to be challenged by Iran.
“The IAEA is necessary to develop a new baseline of exactly what Iran has, where it is, what it is, and what its condition is, which takes time and is based on Iran’s cooperation,” added Holgate.
As IAEA access has declined over the years and virtually does not exist at this time, the world currently has a major gap in its knowledge of Iran’s nuclear inventory. This is especially true with regard to the location of Iran’s enriched uranium.
Trump administration officials recently said the stockpile was not moved before the US strike, but the IAEA said it could have put the enriched uranium out of the site before Iran was attacked. Vice President JD Vance said the day after the strike will be a priority for the US to tackle what to do with that fuel.
“We’ll work to ensure we’re going to use that fuel to do something in the coming weeks. That’s one of the things we’re talking to Iranians,” Vance said.
Republican Rep. Michael McCall, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, cited the importance of having a “full accounting” following an all-time classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week.
“There’s a wealth of uranium in the moving facilities, but that wasn’t an intention or a mission,” McColl said. “We need full accounting. So Iran has to come directly with us to the table, so the IAEA can explain every ounce of rich uranium there. I don’t think it’s out of the country, I think it’s in the facility.”
The US military’s final “combat damage assessment could take days or weeks to complete,” according to sources familiar with the Pentagon process, CNN said. CIA director John Ratcliffe said Wednesday that the agency emphasized that efforts by the broad intelligence news community were ongoing to determine the impact of the US strike on the three countries’ nuclear sites on Saturday.
The Trump administration had already worked on possible conditions to provide Iran to revert them to nuclear deal talks before the US military strike began. But if they can bring Iran back to the table, they will have to enter into much more technical consultations to carry out a legitimate and verifiable transaction.
“You want to attack while the iron is hot, try taking it to the table while they feel weak,” Sanner said. “One of the key requirements for negotiations is to establish mechanisms to catalogue Iran’s remaining capacity.