On April 19 (local time), CBS News quoted assessments from many experts as saying that Iran currently has enough uranium to make about 10 atomic bombs. However, international inspectors have not been able to verify this amount of uranium since June 2025, when the US and Israel attacked 3 Iranian nuclear facilities.
For many weeks, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly affirmed that the US will seek to take the remaining Iranian nuclear material, whether through negotiation or by military means.
To illustrate this possibility, experts recall Project Sapphire - a secret operation carried out by the US in 1994 to bring bomb-making uranium out of Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At that time, Mr. Andrew Weber, a US diplomat working in Kazakhstan, discovered that an old Soviet factory was storing about 600kg of uranium enriched to 90%, enough to make dozens of nuclear weapons.
After months of building relations with Kazakhstan, the US reached a secret agreement to transport all of this uranium back to the country to prevent countries like Iran or North Korea from accessing it.
The campaign lasted about 6 weeks with the participation of more than 30 experts from the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy. All materials were packaged in specialized boxes, transported by truck and then put on military aircraft to be transferred to Tennessee.
However, according to experts interviewed by CBS News, repeating a similar campaign in Iran today will be much more difficult.
Mr. Matthew Bunn, former White House nuclear advisor, said that airstrikes in 2025, although causing significant damage, cannot completely eradicate Iran's nuclear program. According to him, Iran currently still has about 970 pounds of uranium enriched at 60%, almost reaching the level for nuclear weapons.
From there, many experts believe that a military solution is unlikely to bring long-term results without cooperation from Iran.
Mr. Scott Roecker, former official of the US National Nuclear Security Agency, said that every previous campaign to remove nuclear material from a country required consent and coordination from the government of that country. No similar campaign has ever been successful without cooperation from the local side.
Meanwhile, former Deputy Commander of the US Central Command Robert Harward said that the US could completely carry out the operation in Iran, but this would be a high-risk mission, which could last weeks and require the participation of all military branches. He believes that the biggest threat to US forces on the ground will be counter-attacks by drones and missiles from Iran.
In general, experts all believe that if Tehran wants to control Iran's nuclear program in the long term, it must agree to abandon high-enriched uranium and allow extensive international monitoring.
However, the possibility of reaching such an agreement is currently assessed as very difficult.
