Breaking History - BONUS: David Albright and Eli Lake on Iran’s Nuclear Program

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Eli Lake and nuclear weapons expert David Albright discuss the Islamic Republic’s arsenal and whether or not Israel can destroy it on its own. This episode was originally a subscriber-only livestream. Livestreams are one of the many benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to The Free Press. (Thank you to everyone who joined us live!) Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep, delivered. Snacks, delivered. Fresh fruit, delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at PCExpress.ca. Hello listeners, this is Eli Lake. And we have another bonus for the Breaking History Feed.

On Wednesday, I sat down with the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright, a physicist and former weapons inspector, and we discussed how much progress Israel was making currently in its war to demolish Iran's nuclear program. It's a great conversation, and if you like this kind of content, we will be back with our normal Breaking history episodes in two weeks. I should also note that this was recorded as a free press live stream. To catch up on all of our live streams, subscribe to TheFP.com. Hello, David.

Hi, how are you? Very good. I just want to give our listeners and viewers just a quick, David Albright is probably sort of a legendary figure in terms of nuclear nonproliferation. He's a former weapons inspector. He is a physicist. And he heads, in my view, one of the most reliable think tanks

in terms of assessing things like Iran's nuclear program, which is the Institute for Science and International Security. So thank you so much for coming on the Free Press Live, David. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. Let's get into it. Yeah. Well, I want to start with a sort of macro question, which is we've heard that this is redux of the 2003 Iraq War, where we learned that the assessments

that the Bush administration had of the nuclear program for Saddam Hussein were wrong. You were one of those dissident voices at the time who was warning that the predictions of the Bush administration were off about the Iraqi nuclear program. Do you think that right now, 2025, we are seeing a kind of Iraq war redux when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program? Not at all. I mean, it, in fact, I remember while I was engaged in criticizing the Bush administration's assessments on Iraqi nuclear fantasies, essentially, I was working with my institute and we were

finding a vast enrichment plant that Iran had not declared, that it had hidden. And it is the Natanzan uranium enrichment plant. And so there's very concrete evidence that while there was nothing to be found with Iraq in 2002, 2003, there was a lot to be found in Iran. And after that revelation about the Natanzib Richmond plant, there were a whole rash of discoveries of secret activities that Iran was forced to admit to. Not everything was found by any means, which is even troubling us to this day. And in reality, what this situation reminds me of more is the Iraq in 1991. There was a war.

It was caused, it was done differently. It was Saddam had invaded Kuwait. He was kicked out and he was forced to accept a very intrusive inspection regime that had a mandate to dismantle his nuclear weapons programs along with the chemical weapons programs and other WMD programs. So that's more of what it reminds me of, that here you have a pretty large nuclear program, portions of which are secret and dedicated to being able to make nuclear weapons. And now there's a war where one side is clearly winning the battle. And now we do in the end have to face what is going to happen when the bombings stop.

– So let's get to those bombings right now. What would you say were the main nodes of the Iranian program before Thursday evening and now what remains in your view? Well, you have to think about it on two different tracks. One of which is widely discussed in the public and is known because of the work of the international inspectors is the effort to enrich uranium. And in particular, the decision of Iran to be increasing the enrichment level, in a sense, working up a ladder that would end at weapon-grade uranium, Iran stopped at 60%, but that's 99% of the way to the weapon-grade uranium. And for the last six months at this underground site, Fordow, it's been converting its stock of

20% into 60% as if it's priming itself to be able to rapidly make weapon-grade uranium as much quantity as it can in as few centrifuges. And that didn't escape people's attention. So it's a very provocative act and not something you would do in a civil program. The other track is much more secretive and harder to determine. And the IAEA spent six years trying to flush out some of it and it has to do with Iran's efforts to make the nuclear weapon itself. Iran's program has been around a long time and it's gone through ups and downs. For the last 15, 20 years, it's been, from our point of view at my institute, a program to prepare itself to build nuclear weapons. It's kind of a nuclear weaponry's point of view. If the leader said, we want to build a bomb, for whatever reason, you want to be prepared. It's a of a nuclear weaponry's point of view. If the leader said, we want to build a bomb for whatever reason, you want to be prepared.

And so it's a program that's been working while there's been no decision to build a bomb but working to shorten timeframes, overcome bottlenecks. And that program has been a target of the Israelis who show a remarkable ability to know what's going on in Iran. I mean, they surprise me almost every day with what they know about. Well, I want to kind of ask you about this because in March, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate and the House that there was, the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community was that there had not been a decision to go for a weapon. On the eve of this operation, this new war, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they saw

Netanyahu said that they saw unprecedented steps towards nuclearization. Can you just explain me, explain that discrepancy? Could both of them be right at various points that or, you know, how do you interpret that? They had, Iran had a very large crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s and they ended it, partly because the United States was next door and was saying that after we conquer Iraq, we're going to turn and go after Tehran. So if you remember, it was part of the axis of evil. And also Saddam was defeated and that motivation for nuclear weapons was gone. The inspectors were almost daily finding new sites and I think Iran was scared that if they found the weapon, this crashed nuclear weapons program, then they would get invaded. And so they shut it down, but they didn't end their nuclear weapons program and that's the discrepancy fundamentally.

The United States is an outlier. I mean, no other country believes this. Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, you know, I could go through all kinds, Japan, certainly Israel, but the United States locked itself into a what I would call a light switch model. It's either on or off. And if it's on, it's like it what it was in this crash program. Otherwise, it's off. And if it's on, it's like what it was in this crash program, otherwise, it's off. And that's not how it's been played out. If what the United States believed was true, then why did they spend all this time learning how to enrich into 60% and making weapon-grade

uranium? Their answer is, well, we don't consider that part of the weapons program, it's safeguarded. But pretty obviously it is. And so, I think the United States has had a very flawed analysis, at least the way they manifested publicly. I know behind the scenes, it's a much more robust debate. And people have been having assessments coming out recent days have contradicted that. There's been statements that Iran is shortening the steps to be able to build a nuclear weapon. And that's more in line with what we've been believing and other countries. That it is, yes, Iran hasn't made a decision to build a bomb, but it's shortening the steps to do that. And the most visible step is their effort to be able to make weapon-grade uranium, which is the long pole in the tent of making a nuclear weapon. During the crash program, they made tremendous progress on the weapon

itself, building the weapon itself. So that is their central challenge. Now, at some point you're preparing, and I think it's accepted in the US, I know has this information. The Iran accelerated its preparatory effort, as I'll call it. And- When did they do that? Starting about a year and a half ago,

and accelerated within the last half year to nine months. And at some point, and this is the dilemma Israel's facing is because it's their existence at stake. We live comfortably far away. Is that how can you tell the difference between a program for pairing and a program building when the territory program has shortened the timelines down to a matter of a couple months or three months or four months. And when it's down at that point, you have to worry, will you detect the decision to build the bomb in a timely manner or will it come after they're mostly done? So we're at a very tricky point.

And I think the public part of the intelligence community is really deeply flawed in what it says publicly. And Tulsi just epitomized why that assessment is so wrong and and and I would say misleading because I told you I agree We don't think Iran has made a decision to build nuclear weapons But that's almost irrelevant in in in trying to figure out what to do now because they are so close to being able to Make it. I'm sorry so close to having one after they make a decision to do so So, um, I mean, I don't know if you want to speculate as to why it was post-frying to... Was that putting a thumb on the scale? Was that an...

I mean, going back to 2003, it was very politicized intelligence that you helped expose. It's ironic that you're kind of exposing it, or not exposing it, but you're... Criticizing it. And I've been criticizing. I sat with one of a senior British official at a dinner the night. It goes back to a 2007 National Intelligence estimate that was made public. And again, just parts are made public. I have no idea of the maybe there's a very rich debate in the classified version. But I was sitting with a senior official who's fully read

in and he was just dismayed that the US government would come out and say that the program ended in 2003 and has not been restarted. I mean, yeah, so it's actually that's the problem that that's what's locked up the US intelligence to be this idea that has not been restarted until see was mimicking that kind of idea has not been restarted until C was mimicking that kind of incorrect assumption. And even the IA has criticized it. They're caught in a verbal struggle. They want to call the old program structured and they're not sure what to call the other one unstructured.

An unstructured nuclear weapons program is, I don't think they really want to be saying that. Okay. So David, I want to ask, um, maybe just explain what the day after looks like if Iran becomes a declared nuclear state. You mean if there was no attack? I'm saying, yeah, if there was no attack and Iran would say, okay, we have a weapon now maybe I mean, this is a very basic question, but like

You meant you kind of hinted at earlier. It's an existential question for Israel. But what does that mean? Like what are the implications of Iran? Getting a getting a bomb. Well, let me start by recounting what one of the founders of the nuclear weapons program recounting what one of the founders of the nuclear weapons program, Dr. Abbasi Devani, what he said on TV a couple of weeks ago. Okay. He said that, look, you don't need a missile delivered or a plane delivered

bomb to get it into your enemy's territory. And he was referring explicitly to Israel and by implication, the United States. And he also said in that interview that Iran can build a bomb and he would work on it if he was tasked or asked. So Iran could very well approach first trying to get what we'd call a non-missile deliverable weapon, but it could deliver it by unconventional means into into our country, or in Israel's country. And that's what they're thinking about. Abbasidavani is a very influential figure. And it's one of the reasons he was one of the ones killed.

I was gonna say, is he still alive? And he they tried to he there was an attempt to kill him back in about 20 I forget 2010 2012 and he by luck survived And the that's right. He was the one who understood he heard the click. That's right I got there's there's a the magnetic bomb is on my So that actually gets us into I mean, let's talk about the damage at this point what I mean we had hard solid information from Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, that's the International Atomic Energy Agency that it looks like Natanz is finished. Is that

correct? That's been a struggle to figure out. I mean, it turns out it's hard to find evidence of an earth penetrator. Because you don't know what happened underground. And so I know we, like the IA, looked at the satellite imagery, saw the electrical systems were taken out. The pilot enrichment plant has about 700 centrifuges and was making 60% enriched uranium too. That was destroyed. But it just looked like everything was normal above the underground side.

And it took a couple of days to actually, I remember finding, right, it was a tiny little thing that looked like a crater. And we were able to build from that, found three of those spots. And then there were rumors coming out of Israel that it had been destroyed. But I'll tell you, the rumors were aimed at how much damage has been done.

And it was clear the Israelis didn't know. So I think we're all in that position where it looks the underground halls were hit. We can identify three entrance, I don't know what to call them, entrance wounds. And but we don't really know what to call them, entrance wounds. But we don't really know what happened. But it's possible there was quite a bit of damage done. So at this point, maybe walk us through what's been hit, how much of the program has been taken out at this point?

On the enrichment side, the main facility hit has been Florida. It's kind of the workhorse of the enrichment program because if you're going to make weapon grade uranium, 70% of the effort is to make 5%. And it's all done at this underground site. And it had four, I'm sorry, it had Natanz. And that underground Natanz site has about 15,000 centrifuges. And where you can see you need a lot fewer is that the pilot plant, they were making a couple of kilograms of 60% a month in essentially 300 centrifuges. And at Fordow, they were making it in a very small number of

centrifuges, relatively just about the same number, and they were taking the 20% and making 30 kilograms of 60% a month. A bomb's amount is about 40 kilograms of 60%. So they were rapidly increasing. That capability at Fordow has not been eliminated. We looked at satellite imagery yesterday and looked at, we call, change detection. Has there been any disturbance in the soil at all? And the analysts who did this didn't find any. So it's confirmation that the site has not been attacked with some kind of earth penetrate that leaves little chance.

So let's leave Ford out for a second because I want to compare to that. That's the enrichment site. On the weaponization side, more has been hit. What I should mention, centrifuge manufacturing sites have been hit, the two centrifuge manufacturing sites. And I'll come back to that, but that's very important. On the weaponization, they hit, there was a place that makes metal, uranium metal, enriched uranium metal, it's called Esfahan. And it is a formal nuclear site safeguarded by the inspectors. But it was an anomaly to have a place to make enriched uranium metal. And that's really part of a weaponization track because if you're going to

have a nuclear weapon, you have to have a weapon-grade uranium metal. It comes out of an enrichment plant as a chemical form that's different, and you have to convert it into metal. Israel took out that capability at Asfahan. Then it's been taking out the headquarters for the Nuclear Weapons Program lies in what we call SP&D. It's a military organization. Its former head was Mosin Fakhrizadeh. And they attacked the headquarters, they attacked a complex of buildings that's not too far away,

that's associated. I assume they've attacked some of the other SP&D facilities that are out in the countryside. And so that part, I think, has been the weaponization side of this question has been advancing more quickly. And I think I and others are starting to think that the Iraq Israelis have extended the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon by several months. And our baseline is six months. So if you can get it up to a year, that's a good accomplishment because it takes them quite a bit of time to build this non-missile deliverable weapon. Okay. So one of the things that we've heard now for 20 years is that there's no military

solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, meaning that even if you succeeded in taking out all of their facilities the knowledge was still there. And yet one of the things that Israel has accomplished through, I guess, extraordinary intelligence is it's taken out, I think, a dozen of the top scientists. Nine. Yeah, we can, I think it's more like... Nine. Yeah, but it's...

Okay, so nine. Right. Yeah, it's a nuclear weapons elite. And, I mean... Okay. Okay, so now I'm right. Yeah, it's a nuclear weapons elite. And I mean- Okay, so my question is like, does that address this sort of long standing criticism of a military solution to the Iranian crisis?

One is intelligence is, Israel's intelligence is phenomenal. The other is weapons are very different now. What weapons can do now is what could only be dreamed of 20 years ago when some of this thought was developed. Remember, this has been going on a long time. I remember participating in events around 2005, 2006 about can you destroy the enrichment program.

But it's changed a lot since then and Israel is showing that it can be done. We have to see what they do with Fordow, but that they are able to learn where all the pieces of this are located and shown a persistence. For example, they don't know, we don't know for sure, but Iran's made a lot of centrifuges that hasn't deployed in Natanz and Florida. Where are those? Iran recently announced it was building a new centrifuge plant or have built one actually and in essence, showing it was violating another part of the safeguards agreement. But they must have made centrifuges because they said they were going to deploy them there.

So where are those? And so what Israel has to deal with, but I think it is capable, is it has to get more intelligence about where Iran has been hiding these things. And I know in the inspection effort in Iraq, that was a great part of what had to be done. And you can do it with time. And what you count on is essentially insiders who decide they don't want to be inside anymore and they want to reveal things. And so I hope that Israel is trying to recruit people in these programs either with money or a ticket out of Iran or whatever it is, or they do it out of good consciousness or being a good citizen and international citizen and they reveal these things.

So in order for Israel to play this out, it needs time. In my mind, it's not a couple-day event or even a week-long event. And part of it is to hunt and find and destroy. Hey there, it's Eli. With a constant barrage of alarming headlines, wars, a warming planet, and high-stakes politics, it might feel like we're teetering on the edge, but the world contains a lot more good news than you hear on mainstream media. If you're looking for another show that questions the status quo, then I recommend What Could Go Right, the twice-weekly news podcast hosted by Zachary Carabelle and Emma

Varvaloukas. Recently nominated for Best Politics or Opinion Podcast at the Ambi Awards, What Could Go Right provides a balanced view of what's going on across the globe, even during difficult times. Each Wednesday, they sit down with leading minds like bestselling author John Green and environmental reporter Emily Atkin to discuss today's biggest challenges with nuance and insight. And on Fridays, they highlight the latest progress reports from around the

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So let's talk about Fordow. Why is Fordow the kind of crown jewel? Why does so much depend on this? I mean, maybe just talk about this facility that is built under a mountain. You know, it's like a fortress. Yeah, I think you have to be careful. It doesn't, it's only one piece and it's a vulnerable piece. Believe it or not, it's a vulnerable piece. I worry more about, do they have three, four thousand centrifuges hidden away that they could set up at yet a fourth centrifuge plant that they are thinking through now? But Fordow originated in this crash nuclear weapons program. It was called the Al Ghadir project. We know that from this nuclear archive that Iran seized. I'm sorry, that Israel seized in Iran in 2018. There's all

kinds of designs for what we now call the Fordow enrichment plant and all kinds of plans of how they were going to make weapon-grade uranium. And using low enriched uranium produced in the Natanz plant, they had a formal agreement with the Atomic Energy Organization to transfer enriched uranium, but they were slow on building it, and they continued building it after the Hamad plan closed. And that's one of the, I think, the chinks in the armor of the US intelligence assessment is they can only, they can't incorporate the idea that this secret project on declared enrichment plant continued while they're saying there is no nuclear weapons program in Iran. It wasn't found until or exposed publicly to 2009, at which point Iran had a strategy,

if caught, call it civilian and they put it under safeguards. So it was built as part of a nuclear weapons effort and the Iranians must be getting some kind of satisfaction that this is the plant where they've actually rebuilt in some ways in the last year or so. So it could make weapon-grade uranium starting with 5% enriched uranium. So they in a sense have the Al Gideo project has come to fruition. And they designed it to be 80 meters underground. They started building it around 2003. It does have vulnerabilities. It has a ventilation shaft that we've watched.

We went back and looked at old image and saw how they were building it. A facility that deep has to have good ventilation. You can't, and also you can't run generators if they're using fossil fuels in a facility like that. You may use batteries, but those, if you knock out the electricity to the plant, and that can be done, they may run wires from several miles underground,

but still there's an electric station that can be taken out that can make the lights go out there, in which case they can't operate it. And you can destroy tunnel entrances, you can destroy the tunnels themselves going toward, and you destroy the ventilation system. So you can do a lot to put it out of operation. And there's nothing to keep Israel from coming back. So I think it doesn't need the United States to come in with these big bunker busters and drop it on top of the mound and destroy it. I mean, that would hurry the process. But I think Israel can do it on its own, but I think it's hesitated and I don't know the reason why, but I don't think it's because they can't make it inoperative.

Well, that's interesting. But I don't think it's because they can't Make it inoperative Well, that's interesting, I mean do you think part of the hesitation is because they're originally Donald Trump seemed to suggest that Iran can come back to the table The foreign minister has sort of hinted that in recent days as I've reported in others Is this a way of maybe saying? Give it, you know kind of giving an out to the Iranians to end the war, you think? No, because I don't think Fordow is negotiable. I think it has to go under any reasonable position. It's just too dangerous to allow to exist. Okay. Hey, I'm thinking more, maybe the if the Israelis did make it inoperative, the United States would say, oh,

thank you, we don't have to do it. Or they have intelligence that they know that weapon-grade uranium isn't being made there now. Perhaps it's not in the operating. We look at the old Amman nuclear weapons development sites, some of which have been reactivated in the last year and a half. which have been reactivated in the last year and a half. And a surprising lack of cars in the parking lots. So I think the SPND people, enrichment people are staying home. I mean, they don't wanna be here when a bomb drops. So it's not even clear to me

that Ford is operating right now. And I think the Iranians have really become dismayed and disorganized. And I think that's why Israel wanted to attack with a great deal of surprise. I mean, it makes it very hard for Iran to think about building the bomb. Now if you walk away now, of course they will. They'll try, they'll be doing, they'll take longer just because of the weaponization side and the losses they've taken on that side of things.

And it could be much more extensive than we know publicly because I have found Israel is not really revealing a lot of what it's doing. And so I think- Yeah, so we're gonna find out much more later, we might find it. Yeah, and so- For a certain target that-

It is an answer to your question is, today, because of Israel's abilities, you can't set back a program to the point where it's not worth restarting. And I think that's what Israel's driving toward with when it says this is going to go on for a while. So I think the idea that they'll immediately build a bomb or it'll just make them build

a bomb, Israel's showing that it's not true in this case. Okay. So this gets to a question from one of our viewers, Bernie, who asks, what is the endpoint of the war? How does it end with Israel having met its strategic goals? And I think you were kind of getting at that. So maybe just expand, like, what do you think the endpoint would look like?

Well, I think there's many. And I think, and again, I'm not talking to the Israelis about any of this. And so I'm just really just speculating. I mean, one that isn't particularly desirable is Israel becomes, you know, it's done what met its goals. It could be a year race to build the bomb itself. It got rid of the stocks of 60%.

Maybe there's still some 20%. It eliminated Fordow as an operating centrifuge plant. The Tons, we think, is already out of operation. And they go and say, look, we'll come back if you rebuild. And then we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what the regime will do. Another is that if President Trump is able to step in later, not now, but later, and impose a stringent deal, which would include no enrichment and would include intrusive inspections. Those inspections may be just letting the IA free to do its job and Iran cooperates. And if Iran doesn't cooperate, then military actions

could restart or take place. So I think that to me would be the ideal solution, whether Iran would agree, I don't know. But I think that we can't just go back to a situation where Iran agrees to limits, 10 years, 15 years, then they're gone and they jerk around the inspectors to keep them away from their secret activities. And so I think even a deal just to end enrichment, unless it's verified and there's some belief that the IA has that there isn't a secret nuclear weapons program, that that kind of deal would be very bad. So I think you do want to deal with that. That is a reference directly to what was known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA. That was the great achievement of the Obama administration in his second term.

You were, I think, a principled critic of that at the time. But this gets to a larger point. Going forward, has this military operation, this war, opened up the prospect of potentially better nuclear diplomacy down the line? And what I mean by that is the credible stick that was actually used in these negotiations was economic sanctions. That was what led to the JCPOA. And it was in the context of like, well, you know, we find a violation, there'll be snapback. And there was all that. But now that Israel has proven that it can,

you could effectively take out a, an industrial sized nuclear weapons program. What does that mean going forward in terms of strengthening the nuclear nonprolroliferation Treaty and you know maybe deterring or ending the prospects of other rogue states from acquiring nukes. I think it could bring back some optimism. I mean it's a little bit controversial what I'm saying but for me it does remind me of what happened in 91. I mean Iraq had a huge weapons program that escaped detection by the inspectors and the breadth of it escaped detection by all the major powers. And yet you had after the war, forced disarmament verified.

And it was going along with the end of the Cold War, South Africa had given up its nuclear weapons program. And so there was this idea that, yeah, you could entice people to give up nuclear weapons in these programs like South Africa and also Brazil, at least in Brazil, give up a program. And then if they don't, like Iraq, then you have military means to do it back by that time by the UN Security Council, which was united on this. So this case shows that sometimes you really do have to use military force to enforce, in opportunities to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime. But a lot will depend on just how it plays out and where does it end? And does it end in an agreement that enforces or ensures the absence of a nuclear weapons

program in Iran? Or does it kind of just stall out and then this whole question will need to be revisited by Israel again six months from after it ends or a year? So I think it's to be seen, but I do think there's an opportunity here. And I hope the president Trump seizes it and, and moves at the right time. And I think now is not the right. Okay. What do you think the right time would be? What would have to be destroyed?

I think Fordow certainly has to be in operative in a very, in a very significant way. Well, I can, destroyed would be even better. More of the nuclear weaponization program has to be destroyed. There needs to be clarity on the number of centrifuges Iran has that are not deployed anywhere but could be deployed. Certainly the stocks of 60% have to be found and neutralized. And we don't know how many. I mean, some could have been, there were four buildings that damaged it at this Esfahan site. I mentioned one that was involved in rich uranium metal production, but there were others and one

traditionally had large stocks of 20% and 60% stored there. They don't keep it at the enrichment plant necessarily, but they could have moved it. So you don't know. Israel Crouton may have known something. It may know where some other locations of these stocks, but that's where I think they have to go into kind of a hunting and finding mode. And that's where I think they certainly need more time is to find out where these hidden items are.

Then there's a whole rash of items that the IA's pointed out that there was a site they wanted to call Turqasabad that was filled with shipping containers of equipment from the crash nuclear weapons program. Iran learned that everyone knew about it and dispersed them and then acts as if they were never there in the first place in the sense of typically refusing to cooperate. Iran is hiding those things and Israel is probably searching for where that equipment is hidden and it's a lot of dual use equipment related to making nuclear weapons. So you expect there'll be some time,

but there is an endpoint at which you think you could say, all right, we know where the 60% enriched uranium is and we've secured it. Fordow is either inoperable or destroyed and enough of this equipment and other centrifuges and so forth have been found and neutralized. And then at that point you could begin to sort of see an end of the war. Yeah.

And I think you have to set realistic goals. I mean, you can't eliminate nuclear weapons program because in the end there are people left and you know, you combine stuff. But so you want to have a realistic goal. And I would, and again, I don't know what Israel's thinking but if it would take Iran a year to make it a yeah kind of a well unfortunately their design is quite sophisticated but it took him a year to make a non-missile deliverable warhead that may be enough I mean we have, and particularly if there's robust inspections. And then I think you want to create a situation where either they're not enriching, or if they are going to have an

enrichment program, it's going to take them well, at least a year, maybe even longer, to be able to produce enough weapon grade uranium for a bomb. So I think, and that to me are more realistic. So I think, and that to me are more realistic. Others may pick different lengths of time, but I think trying to work toward that kind of world is doable. And it may be all Israel can do anyway. So I think it, how long that would take, I don't know, but it's measured in weeks and not days. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is a question from Dave, and it's one I actually have as well, which is, what are the risks of radiation exposure from military destruction of facilities that are producing highly enriched or even for that matter, low enriched uranium? Yeah. Well, we're lucky it's a uranium based program. I mean it's not a plutonium based program and so we're very lucky and uranium is

not very radio toxic. I mean again yeah you don't I don't want to be cavalier about it but I remember as a boy scout when I was a kid we went up to Canada and the uranium mines and we could take all the yellow cake we wanted home. And I had yellow cake, which is uranium oxide from a purified after a mine in my bedroom for years. And so I wouldn't do that anymore. And the Canadian mining industry doesn't open up their mines to 14-year-old teenagers anymore either. But it's just not that anymore either. And so, but, but it's just not that radio toxic and, and, and, and also most of it is in the form of what's called uranium hexafluoride. That's the working material that's used in a centrifuge plant. And, and you know, what's very dangerous is the fluorine. And, and directori at the IA recently said, you know,

you really have to be careful going into the buildings where there have been bombs that have uranium hexafluoride, whether enriched or natural, but outside the building, it's fine. And so it's the chemical threat that is the most pressing because fluorine will just rip your lungs apart. I mean, it's really reactive. But when it's the uranium, particles combined with various amounts of fluorine tend to fall out pretty quickly. And so they're locally contained. So I think there isn't much risk at all. And the Iranians will try to tell you different and they're going to try to scare their own people and scare us. But we've actually gone through some of their studies they've sponsored and it's just bogus science. And I used to be very much involved in dispersion of

plutonium and uranium from former, well, nuclear weapon sites in the United States. And plutonium was a real problem, I can tell you. But uranium got out in large quantities and did not pose a serious risk to the local population. We're coming to the end here. But before we do, I want to ask you this, because I think it's a real possibility, although there's a lot we don't know. If there was a regime collapse and there was anarchy in a country of 90 million people and no monopoly of violence, what would need to happen in terms of a crash program to secure nuclear facilities, nuclear material, nuclear equipment. I mean, it strikes me that that would be a kind of nightmare scenario that certain things could get in the hands of very dangerous actors and potentially terrorist groups.

And those actors may be armed and determined to find some of this stuff. Yeah, that's what I'm so so just so is a regime collapse from a kind of perspective of the prospect of of you know the leakage of nuclear material which is something we spent you know years on trying to solve this problem after the fall of the Soviet Union. What does that look like? What do you think the United States would have to do in terms of trying to secure this material if there was regime collapse? I know many people posing the regime, Iranians, Americans who supported Europeans, I mean, would like to see the regime collapse.

But from a strictly kind of nuclear perspective, I don't think that should be a goal. I mean, it could happen. And I think the Israeli military is probably on board with me is that you want to have a coherent government in order to negotiate sort of the end, what comes after the war. And we had a little bit of this in Iraq. I remember I was working with journalists when the United States invaded in 2003 and the army was pretty, despite all the preparation, they were not that well prepared and they took over the main nuclear research site called Tuwaitha the south of Baghdad and and I got a call from a journalist and Said well here we are in this facility. There's huge and what is it and you know I could tell them it's a nuclear site in the military army people didn't even know that and The Iraqis had run off and and they had large amounts of uranium

Stored there and and there was one site a little bit outside the main complex that had tons of uranium. It was in blue barrels, blue plastic barrels. And the journalists told me, God, there's uranium all over the floor. And there's some barrels. And what had been appealing to the people who looted the place, because it was left unprotected, were the blue barrels. So we were lucky in that case. Someone could have carted all tons and tons of natural uranium in this form of yellow cake. And so that's what you could face in Iran that just suddenly

important stocks of nuclear material would be just left abandoned to whoever finds them. And it may be people who are more clever or more. And unlike Iraq, there are no boots on the ground. Yeah. There are no American boots on the ground. There are Israeli. I don't think there was really boots. There's really slippers. There's really like, you know, like, but you know what I mean? They have obviously a lot of agents. You know, very dangerous terrorists in the neighborhood.

So yeah, it is a problem. And you're right. The US, in this case, I could call the State Department contact I had and they could energize the system to protect the nuclear material. Yeah. But in Iran, there wouldn't be anything. So yeah, so from that point of view, I mean, but it could happen and we probably should at least think about what would be done. And so what could be done if that happened? In a case of a sudden regime collapse, and we don't know, I mean, we know that that Khamenei is in some secret location, that Trump has said for now, we're not going to hit you. But, you know, I don't know, like, things are, you know, well, I see right now, you'd want to move to try to work toward a stable government,

replacement government. And I don't know what what that would mean. But you don't want a disintegration of society. Now the Iranian society is very advanced and and and, and yearning for freedom. And it and it may be that they'll find something, but it could be that it becomes chaotic. And I think the powers that be probably led by the United States would have to organize things to try to find the material in season and maybe they'll have certainly assistance of Israel. But what it does say though, and this again is an argument, don't end this too soon.

Let Israel try to find and destroy the key components of the enrichment program and the nuclear weapons program. And then if there is chaos, there won't be much there. Okay. Well, David Albright, thank you so much for taking time out of your day.

Couldn't think of a more important person to talk to on this momentous time that we're living in. So thank you again. I wish I saw myself that way. I feel fighting a battle that is struggling to gain a foothold. But I guess this maybe maybe things are going to get better that this what you mentioned that this attack could could actually have a bright

side. I think it has a bright side. If Iran went nuclear, it's pretty clear that Turkey, Saudi, and maybe even Egypt would then crash on their programs. I mean, another genie would come out of the bottle. And so, avoiding that is itself a great thing. And we have to see how it goes,

because the devil's going to be in the details. If it can end in an agreement, I think you're right that that would be better. And then once the program is kind of secure and diminished, then let's focus on a democratic transition. And I think that's for the Iranian people. Great. I agree. Thank you.

Thank you.