Rubio says US knocked out key Iranian nuclear facility
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the case on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran were a clear success in part because they “wiped out” a nuclear conversion facility that is critical to building a weapon.
“Here’s a fact: The conversion facility, which you can’t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility, we can't even find where it is, where it used to be on a map. You can’t even find where it used to be,” Rubio told reporters during a NATO summit meeting alongside President Trump.
“It’s wiped out. Then we dropped 12 of the strongest bombs on the planet right down the hole in two places. Everything underneath that mountain is in bad shape,” Rubio continued, referring to Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility that was located under a mountainside.
“They are way behind where they were just seven days ago. Now, anything in the world can be rebuilt," Rubio said. "But now we know where it is. And if they try to rebuild it we’ll have options there as well.”
Rubio’s explanation came as top Trump administration officials have aggressively pushed back on reporting about an internal assessment that found U.S. strikes last Saturday delayed Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. Trump and others have referred to the sites as “obliterated” and argued they all but eliminated Iran’s ability to pursue a nuclear weapon.
The New York Times and others have reported that Iran had moved much of its enriched uranium before the strikes, according to multiple outlets, something Trump has disputed.
The president and his top officials have sought to discredit media reports around the internal assessment.
Trump also cited an assessment from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission about the success of the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities, which, together with Israeli strikes, set back Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon “by many years.”
Some Trump administration officials and experts have said it may take days for inspectors and intelligence officials to fully determine the extent of the damage caused by the U.S. strikes.