The White House’s comments came days after President Trump’s aides said Iran was a week away from obtaining the materials for a nuclear bomb.
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Despite recent claims from senior US officials that Tehran was a week away from obtaining bomb-making materials, the White House claimed that last year’s attacks on Iran destroyed the country’s nuclear program.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that the June 2025 attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, was an “overwhelmingly successful mission.”
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The attack “actually destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Levitt said.
But just this weekend, President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff suggested that Iran was close to obtaining enough material to build a nuclear weapon.
“It will probably be a week before we have industrial bomb-making materials,” Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday.
Since the airstrike last June, President Trump has repeatedly praised the strike, claiming it eliminated Iran’s nuclear program and led to “peace” in the Middle East. Operation Midnight Hammer was carried out towards the end of the 12-day war that Israel began with Iran that month.
But eight months later, U.S. and Iranian officials are in talks again to reach a nuclear deal and avoid another war.
Uncertainty over Iran’s nuclear capabilities
Levitt said Tuesday that the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program has been “verified” by President Trump and the United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“That doesn’t mean Iran will never again try to establish a nuclear program that could directly threaten the United States or our allies abroad, and the president wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” she added.
Last year, after the US attack, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Iran could resume enriching uranium “within months.”
However, the UN agency’s inspectors have not been able to assess Iran’s nuclear facilities since the US attack.
The Pentagon’s official assessment was that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by one to two years.
There has been no official confirmation of US claims that Iran resumed nuclear enrichment after the attack.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States in December, President Trump renewed his threat to attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its nuclear and missile programs.
Tensions have escalated since then, with the US accumulating military assets near Iran.
Still, Iran and the United States plan to hold a third round of negotiations this year to advance the nuclear deal.
Iran denies developing nuclear weapons but has said it would agree to minimal uranium enrichment under strict IAEA supervision in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
However, President Trump has repeatedly emphasized that he is aiming for zero wealthy people.
Enrichment is the process of isolating and enriching rare variants, or isotopes, of uranium that can cause nuclear fission.
At low levels, enriched uranium can power power plants. If it is enriched to about 90%, it can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Before the June 2025 war, Iran was enriching uranium to 60 percent purity.
Iran had escalated its nuclear program since 2018, when President Trump, during his first term, abandoned a multilateral agreement that limited Iran’s enrichment to 3.67 percent. Instead, he began piling sanctions on Iran’s economy as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign.
The White House indicated Tuesday that military options against Iran remain on the table.
“President Trump’s first option is always diplomacy, but as he has shown, he is prepared to use lethal force if necessary,” Levitt said.
