Special Envoy Steve Witkoff revealed the extent of Iran’s nuclear progress, noting that the country has enriched uranium to 60 percent, which is considered weapons-grade.
He also criticized opponents of Operation Epic Fury for doubting Iran’s longstanding nuclear ambitions, emphasizing that Tehran has pursued such programs repeatedly since 2003 and could attempt to deploy a weapon, including a dirty bomb, in the near future.
🚨 JUST IN: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff CONFIRMS Iran had 460kg of 60% enriched uranium, PROVING they were pursuing a nuclear weapon
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 10, 2026
"They could EASILY have taken the 60% and made a DIRTY BOMB! That would've been real easy!"
"We knew it was possible they could have a weapon or… pic.twitter.com/uzaY59wrdM
"Well, first of all, they had 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched material. There is no reason to be at 60 percent, none, zero reason, unless you're pursuing a weapon. So that's the first thing I would say to the naysayers," Witkoff said on CNBC, Tuesday. "The second thing I would say to the naysayers is, who actually shows evidence of their weapon? Would a murderer do such a thing? Everybody has known that they have been testing for weaponization since 2003. The IAEA has attested to that. So we know that they've done all kinds of testing on weapons. And it wouldn't be all that much for them to do a World War II vintage-type weapon."
This comes as critics of the ongoing operation in the Middle East have pointed to the Trump administration’s claim last summer that Operation Midnight Hammer “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. However, those critics have overlooked U.S. intelligence showing that while key sites like Natanz and Fordow were heavily damaged, Iran’s decentralized underground facilities and rebuilt enrichment networks remained intact.
They also miss that the operation’s goal was never full denuclearization, which would have required an invasion, but to slow Iran’s breakout timeline by six to eighteen months, reestablish deterrence, and push Tehran back to the negotiating table. When Iran continued to flex their nuclear capabilities at the table, the president determined enough was enough.
Witkoff went on:
So we knew that it was possible that they could have a weapon, where they might be close to being able to procure a weapon. And then I give you this other detail that no one seems to want to talk about, which is they could easily have taken the 60 percent enriched material and made a dirty bomb out of it.
That would have been a really easy step. So there were all kinds of reasons to be concerned with where they were. And they claim that they were coming to the negotiation with Jared and I for good purposes, to explain to them what they needed from an enrichment standpoint.
"So to start the conversation off with the predicate that they're entitled to enrich, with the further predicate that they've got 11 bombs worth of enrichment material, a week to a week and a half away from being weapons grade, and that they weren't going to give to us diplomatically what they claim we couldn't win, from a military standpoint," Witkoff cotninued. "That was reason enough for us to determine that they weren't there to be purposefully negotiating a diplomatic settlement to this conflict."