no, it's confirmed bullshit, the uranium is buried under a mountain of rubble and the equipment brought with the special forces (2 MC-130Js worth and ~100 soldiers) is not enough to retrieve anything. There are several tons of uranium buried under the mountain. Any operation to retrieve tons of buried uranium would require dozens of heavy vehicles and weeks to carry out.
the narrative exists for Iranian propaganda purposes because if you look at what happened (US forces set up a forward-operating-base deep within Iranian territory, held it for hours, found the airman, then left without casualties) it's very embarrassing for the Iranians.
According to multiple sources, the uranium of interest is under 500 kgs and easily transported using relatively light motor vehicles. Ted Postol of MIT has done multiple interviews explaining how it would have been managed.
Iran could have easily scattered the material over multiple locations well before the US/Israel hit the site.
Having said that, I find it incomprehensible that if Iran had the material, they didn't finish the task of building a working weapon. If you have resources the US wants to steal, and you have no nukes, you get attacked.
I replied with the enrichment numbers from 2025, where they reported over 9000kg of material, but it triggered some internal HN system and got auto-flagged. Likely due to content.
I agree that Iran had ample time to disperse and hide any material. Any operation with just 2 C130s with of equipment (about 6 humvees worth) is far to inadequate to find and remove it.
The 445kg number is what Prof Postol talks about, with a slide showing the cascades which should take it to weapons grade in a few weeks of work. In one interview he talked about the size of the canisters required to hold the material and how to transport it.
My SUV can easily carry 500kgs, and it's not even a big vehicle.
Fixating only on the ~500kg of 60% grade material is pointless because 1) nobody knows how much nuclear material Iran actually has, those are 2025 "reported" numbers and 2) nobody knows where it is.
It's speculated this material is buried under a mountain, but we have satellite evidence of Iran digging and transporting something out, so nobody knows for sure. Iran also has nuclear facilities that were never inspected by the IAEA. It's possible there's undocumented nuclear material there.
And only removing the 60% grade material without removing the rest is completely silly. Iran has enough centrifuges to convert its 20% grade material into weapons grade in 1-2 months. And has enough 5% material to convert into weapons grade in 8 months to a year. Removing only the 500kgs of 60% grade material would not solve the issue, Iran would be back to where it was in a few months, and doing so would only kick the can down the road.
That's why all (several tons) of the nuclear material needs to be found and removed.
the narrative exists for Iranian propaganda purposes because if you look at what happened (US forces set up a forward-operating-base deep within Iranian territory, held it for hours, found the airman, then left without casualties) it's very embarrassing for the Iranians.