IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated on 18 March that military action cannot eliminate Iran's nuclear programme. "Most probably, at the end of this, the material will still be there and the enrichment capacities will be there," he said 1. The IAEA emergency centre has detected no radiation above background levels but "cannot rule out a possible radiological release with serious consequences."
Grossi's assessment directly contradicts the assertion that Gabbard's office prepared in writing but that she declined to deliver aloud — that Iran's enrichment programme was "obliterated." The IAEA is the only international body whose judgements on enrichment status rest on direct physical measurement: environmental sampling, centrifuge inventories, surveillance camera footage from inside facilities. When the IAEA and a national intelligence service disagree on a question of nuclear material, the agency's evidentiary basis is stronger because it does not depend on inference from satellite imagery or signals intercepts. IAEA safeguards assessments carry legal weight under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and can trigger Security Council referrals; a DNI's written testimony to a domestic committee does not.
The technical foundation of Grossi's position is well established. Iran enriched uranium to 60% purity before the war — a short technical step from the 90% required for a weapon. The GBU-72 bunker busters used against Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan in June 2025, and deployed this week against Hormuz coastal batteries, can collapse centrifuge halls and penetrate hardened mountain installations. They cannot eliminate the engineering knowledge held by Iran's nuclear workforce, destroy enriched material that may have been dispersed to undisclosed sites before or during the strikes, or prevent the manufacture of new centrifuges once hostilities end. The historical record is unambiguous on this point. Iraq's nuclear programme was more advanced in 1991 than it had been before the Israeli strike on Osirak in 1981 — the bombing accelerated rather than ended Baghdad's pursuit. Pakistan reached a weapon despite decades of sanctions and international isolation. North Korea's programme survived a famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Military strikes delay nuclear timelines; they do not close them when the political will to continue persists.
Grossi's radiological warning deserves closer attention than it has received. Strikes on facilities containing enriched uranium, spent fuel, or radioactive waste carry a non-zero probability of atmospheric dispersal. The IAEA's phrasing — unable to "rule out" a release with "serious consequences" — reflects reduced access to damaged sites, not a confirmed absence of contamination 2. Iran's major nuclear installations sit on the central plateau; prevailing winds carry material eastward toward western Afghanistan and southward toward the Persian Gulf littoral and southern Iraq. Populations in these areas have no voice in the decisions being made about strikes on nuclear facilities and no independent capacity to monitor what those strikes have released.
