Updated on: February 28, 2026 / 4:11 AM EST / CBS News
Washington — President Trump ordered military strikes on Iran early Saturday after pressing the country to curtail its nuclear program, an issue that has vexed presidents from both parties for decades.
Iran — which denies nuclear weapons ambitions — has amassed a stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. Mr. Trump ordered strikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites last June, causing extensive damage and leaving the status of the stockpile unclear. Now, less than a year later, the president announced what he called a “massive and ongoing operation.”
“We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said in a video announcing the action. He said he had “sought repeatedly to make a deal,” but Iranian officials “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.”
The United States and Iran had engaged in several rounds of indirect negotiations in recent weeks as a U.S. fleet and military aircraft arrived in the Middle East to ratchet up pressure. Here are key details about Iran’s nuclear program.
How close is Iran to making a nuclear weapon, and is it building one right now?
In recent years Iran rapidly increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. As of mid-June 2025, shortly before the U.S. strikes that month, Iran had enriched about 972 pounds of uranium to roughly 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). By comparison, the IAEA reported 605.8 pounds of 60%-enriched uranium in February 2025 and 267.9 pounds in early 2024. The IAEA’s metrics indicate roughly 92.5 pounds of 60%-enriched uranium is enough, if further enriched, to make a single nuclear weapon.
That material is a relatively short step from weapons-grade (about 90% enrichment). The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated in May that Iran could likely produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a first bomb “probably less than one week” if it chose to. Another U.S. intelligence summary last year assessed Iran could make a nuclear device within three to eight months absent technical or logistical delays.
What remains unclear is whether Iran has decided to build a weapon. U.S. intelligence has long judged Iran halted a structured nuclear weapons program in 2003 and assessed last spring that the program had not restarted. The DIA said in May that “Iran almost certainly is not producing nuclear weapons, but Iran has undertaken activities in recent years that better position it to produce them, if it chooses to do so.”
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told a French television network on Feb. 18 that the agency had seen no indication Iran was currently working to develop a nuclear weapon and said he saw “a willingness on both sides to reach an agreement.” Iran maintains its nuclear activities are peaceful and has long insisted it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons.
The IAEA has noted Iran is now “the only non-nuclear-weapon State to produce such nuclear material,” referring to the high-enriched uranium in its stockpile.
What impact did the last U.S. strikes on Iran have?
Last June’s airstrikes targeted Iran’s Fordow and Natanz enrichment facilities and a research site near Isfahan. It’s unclear how much the strikes ultimately damaged Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Trump has said the strikes “obliterated” the three sites and set back the program “basically decades.” Grossi told CBS News in June the strikes caused “severe damage” but not “total damage.”
Grossi said in February the nuclear material was “still there, in large quantities,” although “some of it may be less accessible.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Feb. 25 Iran was not currently enriching uranium, while alleging they were trying to reach the point where they could again. Satellite images from late January show roofs built over damaged buildings at Natanz and Isfahan, possibly indicating efforts to salvage materials.
A confidential IAEA report assessed Iran was conducting unexplained activity at nuclear sites that were bombed by the U.S. The IAEA said it withdrew its inspectors from Iran for safety reasons shortly after the June strikes, and Iran moved in July to suspend cooperation with the agency. The IAEA later said it had been able to conduct some inspections in the months following the attacks, but not at any of the sites struck by U.S. forces.
Iran downplayed the strikes, arguing they did not eliminate its technological know-how. “Yes, you destroyed the facilities, the machines,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News in January. “But the technology cannot be bombed, and the determination also cannot be bombed.”
What’s the history of Iran’s nuclear program?
Iran’s nuclear program dates back decades, with some early research during the U.S.-allied government before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. By the mid-1980s Iran began developing — or acquiring on the black market — centrifuge technology to enrich uranium, according to the IAEA. Allegations in 2002 that Iran had secretly built nuclear facilities spurred intense international scrutiny. The IAEA has said that until 2003 Iran had a “structured program” including activities relevant to developing a nuclear explosive device.
After years of sanctions and international negotiations, Iran and world powers reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, limiting Iran’s uranium stockpiles and enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief and IAEA monitoring. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 under President Trump, reimposing sanctions in a “maximum pressure” campaign. Efforts by later administrations and European parties to revive the deal were unsuccessful.
Since leaving the agreement, Iran has stopped abiding by its limits and dramatically ramped up enrichment, including producing 60%-enriched uranium for the first time.
President Trump at times has pressed Iran to abandon enrichment entirely. “They want to enrich a little bit. You don’t have to enrich when you have that much oil,” he said on Feb. 27. “I say, no enrichment.” Araghchi has rejected that demand, calling enrichment “a matter of dignity and pride” and saying Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment developed by its own scientists.
In: Iran; Iran Nuclear Program
