Without inspection, Trump’s hunt for Iran’s uranium becomes a game in the dark

The United States says it knows where Iran’s most sensitive nuclear material is buried — and how to recover it. International inspectors who last saw this enriched uranium say this is far from certain.

With much of the world’s attention focused on the Strait of Hormuz and the fragile ceasefire that has largely been maintained over the past 48 hours, this mismatch exposes Washington’s changing priorities in the war it started: no one can today verify the location or condition of Iran’s entire stockpile of highly enriched uranium — material that could be used in a weapon in a matter of days if subjected to additional processing.

Before inspections were disrupted by the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had checked about 441 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in the country. But since then, inspectors have stopped having high confidence that they know where all this material is.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States would work with Tehran to “unearth and remove” what he described as deeply buried nuclear material, saying it remains untouched since the American strikes and under constant satellite surveillance. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth went further, suggesting that US forces could seize the material: “We’re going to get it. We’re going to take it — we’re going to get it out of there.”

But diplomats familiar with confidential IAEA assessments paint a very different picture. Inspectors were not informed of any joint U.S.-Iran plan to recover the uranium, according to two Vienna-based officials familiar with the agency’s work who requested anonymity because they were dealing with sensitive information.

The relationship between Iran and the IAEA, meanwhile, has deteriorated to a new low since the most recent round of attacks, which began on February 28, they said, with virtually no possibility of restoring monitoring access in the near term.

This leaves the global nuclear body — and, by extension, the US itself — without a clear line of sight over one of the world’s most dangerous stockpiles.

While Trump and Hegseth have suggested the entire stockpile is concentrated in tunnels near the Isfahan nuclear complex, diplomats have said only about half are believed to be located there.

The rest are probably dispersed in facilities like Natanz or Fordow — or in other unknown locations. Iran warned the IAEA a year ago that it could remove containers of material to an undeclared location if it felt threatened.

“Satellite imagery is of absolutely no use when it comes to verifying the location of Iran’s uranium inventory,” said Robert Kelley, a U.S. nuclear weapons engineer and former director of the IAEA. “The only reason the government knows anything about the number of containers is because the IAEA told them.”

The challenge goes far beyond the already known stock. Iran possesses more than 8,000 kilograms of uranium enriched at different levels — material that would also need to be accounted for in any future agreement. Even if Washington and Tehran were to reach an understanding to cooperate, diplomats say reconstructing a verifiable picture of Iran’s program could take years.

This is because the infrastructure that supported decades of monitoring was damaged or destroyed. Centrifuge facilities were hit, IAEA seals were broken, and the chain of custody that allowed inspectors to track the material over time virtually collapsed. Some of the uranium may also have been released into the environment after the attacks, further complicating attempts to measure and recover the material.

In practice, inspectors would have to reconstruct two decades of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear activities — a process that cannot be accelerated by political statements.

Complicated effort

The uncertainty also complicates any possible U.S. effort to physically seize the material.

Hegseth raised the possibility of special operations forces recovering the uranium, echoing past missions that targeted sensitive assets. But without accurate and independently verified intelligence, such operations would carry significant risks.

For troops on the ground, Kelley said, the task could come down to counting containers rather than confirming their contents — a crucial distinction when dealing with material that can be quickly repurposed. “It is material for direct use,” he stated. “It’s a five-alarm fire. It can be converted into hours or days.”

The lack of clarity about location increases the possibility that any operation will end up leaving part of the inventory out, leaving residual material untracked — and potentially accessible.

For Iran, this ambiguity could be an advantage.

“The Iranians largely have the upper hand in the situation,” said James Acton, a physicist and director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. With uncertainty surrounding the stockpile, Tehran retains bargaining power in any negotiations, especially as U.S. priorities appear to shift.

No clear setback

The broader question—whether the use of military force actually significantly slowed Iran’s nuclear ambitions—remains unanswered.

Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the attacks never had much chance of eliminating the program entirely.

“Iran’s nuclear program would never be eliminated by military means,” he said. “We just don’t know what the damage was. We haven’t seen any reliable damage assessment.”

Although the infrastructure has almost certainly been degraded, the base capacity—which includes technical knowledge and remaining material—remains. In some respects, she said, the conflict may have reinforced Iran’s incentive to maintain or expand that capability.

“If anything, it was a complication of the picture, by changing strategic thinking in Tehran,” Dolzikova said.

© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.