2026-04-19T19:00:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
美伊战争的走向取决于三个字母：HEU——高浓缩铀——核武器的关键原料。
据悉伊朗目前拥有足够制造10枚原子弹的高浓缩铀。但自去年6月美以空袭三座核设施以来，国际核查人员就再也无法核实伊朗的核材料库存了。
在持续七周的战争中，特朗普总统始终坚称美国将接管剩余的核材料，无论是通过地面部队推进占领，还是与伊朗政权达成协议，让科学家安全接管这批库存并将其运回美国。
你可能不知道——这种方案此前已经实施过——那次高风险任务或将成为从伊朗转移高浓缩铀的蓝本。
安德鲁·韦伯：苏联解体后那段时间局势混乱，我们清楚伊朗一直在整个地区寻求核材料。
1994年苏联解体后，年轻的外交事务官员安德鲁·韦伯来到新独立的哈萨克斯坦，该国当时拥有全球第四大核武库。苏联遗留的部分核材料就存放在一家工厂内。
安德鲁·韦伯：我们知道这家工厂的存在，也清楚它的核电用途。但我们不知道那里藏有可用于制造武器的高浓缩铀库存。
安德鲁·韦伯 接受《60分钟》采访
耗时数月后，韦伯凭借传统外交手段和一次猎鹿之旅，与工厂主管建立了信任。终于有一天，收获以一张纸条的形式到来。
安德鲁·韦伯：我还记得那天是初雪。我们在院子里散步时，他说：“安迪，我收到了维塔利的消息。”然后他递给我一张小纸条。
塞西莉亚·维加：让我们看看。他递给你的这张小纸条上写着“铀-235 丰度90%，600公斤”。这对你来说意味着什么？
安德鲁·韦伯：数十枚核武器。
丰度达到90%的铀已经可以直接用于制造炸弹。这一发现直接上报给了比尔·克林顿总统。很快两国达成协议：美国将接管这批库存，防止伊朗、朝鲜等国获取此类材料。
安德鲁·韦伯：他们本可以直接购买这种丰度90%的浓缩铀金属，很快就能用它制造出炸弹。
韦伯成为了代号“蓝宝石计划”行动的负责人。他用自己的相机拍下了照片，画面中装载着超过1300磅武器级铀的桶。当时唯一的安保措施是一名携带手枪的民兵女兵和……
安德鲁·韦伯：安保措施就是一把不错的挂锁，就是那种你在古董店能看到的普通挂锁。
蓝宝石计划是同类行动中的首例。美军出动了三架巨型C-5银河运输机，搭载了来自国防部和能源部的31名专家。团队带来了450个专为运输核货物设计的货桶，强度足以承受飞机坠毁的冲击。整个行动严格保密，伪装成人道主义任务。
安德鲁·韦伯：所有工作都在极度保密中完成。30多名工作人员耗时约五到六周完成包装作业。没有任何消息泄露，没人知道他们曾在那里。
每克高浓缩铀都被妥善固定，装载到破旧的苏联-era卡车中。
安德鲁·韦伯：当晚路面结了黑冰，卡车不断打滑。那是这批材料最脆弱的时候。我们绝不能让伊朗或有组织犯罪团伙知道货物正在转运。在那个雪夜寒冷的夜晚，不让任何人知晓我们的行动至关重要。
飞机装载完毕，高浓缩铀被空运回美国，送往田纳西州橡树岭的能源部 complexes 妥善保存。韦伯后来升任负责核威慑事务的助理国防部长。
塞西莉亚·维加：从着陆到起飞，蓝宝石计划用了六周时间从哈萨克斯坦移除了超过1300磅武器级铀。如今同样的行动在伊朗可行吗？
安德鲁·韦伯：在伊朗，我们无法在不承担巨大风险的情况下单方面派遣团队执行任务。你需要在该国中部建立安全警戒线，可能需要数千名美军来保护设施，同时让我们的专家挖掘深藏在伊斯法罕某处地下隧道中的高浓缩铀。
这里是伊朗沙漠深处的伊斯法罕核设施。国际核查人员称，伊朗大部分高浓缩铀就储存在这座山下方的潜水气瓶大小的容器中。据悉这些容器深埋地下，美军的钻地弹可能无法触及。
卫星图像显示，在当前战争爆发前的几周，伊朗人用泥土封堵了隧道入口。两周前的图像显示道路设置了路障。核分析师表示，这表明德黑兰担心美国或以色列突袭该设施。
马修·邦恩：伊朗并非没有考虑过我们可能采取行动的可能性。但美国特种部队长期以来一直在为各类地下深处设施的行动进行训练。
马修·邦恩博士 接受《60分钟》采访
马修·邦恩博士曾担任白宫核事务顾问，数十年来一直致力于防止核材料落入不法之手。如今他在哈佛大学贝尔弗中心尽可能地监控伊朗的核活动。
马修·邦恩：所以我们能从卫星上看到的只是地面上的情况，对吗？但我们看不到建筑内部的任何情况，也看不到其他地下设施里的动静。
塞西莉亚·维加：特朗普总统曾多次表示，去年6月的空袭后伊朗的核计划已被彻底摧毁。
马修·邦恩：是的，这种说法根本不属实。你不能说一个仍拥有足够制造多枚核弹的核材料的计划被摧毁了。不幸的是，去年6月的空袭加上持续的战争，确实严重阻碍了伊朗的核能力，但剩余的能力依然可观。你无法用炸弹抹去他们的核知识。
联合国核查人员认为，伊朗拥有近1000磅丰度60%的铀，距离可用于核武器仅一步之遥。
塞西莉亚·维加：970磅丰度60%的高浓缩铀。你能用这些材料做什么？
马修·邦恩：如果你再稍微提高一下丰度，就足够制造10到11枚核弹了。
核分析师越来越担忧伊朗另一处名为“斧山”的地点。今年2月的卫星图像显示，一处入口疑似深藏在坚硬岩石下的大型核设施。
塞西莉亚·维加：你能通过轰炸找到伊朗的核材料库存，然后将其带走移除吗？
斯科特·罗克：我认为通过军事手段解决伊朗核计划并非持久可靠的方案。
斯科特·罗克曾是国家核安全管理局（NNSA）的高级官员，该机构是能源部下一个预算240亿美元的部门。他于2021年离职。
斯科特·罗克：如果美伊达成协议，由美国接管这批核材料，那么将由国家核安全管理局牵头执行这项任务。
斯科特·罗克 与塞西莉亚·维加 接受《60分钟》采访
罗克曾借鉴蓝宝石计划的经验，从全球多国移除核材料并运回美国妥善保存。迄今为止，国家核安全管理局已移除超过16000磅高浓缩铀。
斯科特·罗克：当时相关国家都达成了协议。这是关键前提。你需要一个愿意与你携手合作的伙伴。
塞西莉亚·维加：也就是合作。
斯科特·罗克：没错。
塞西莉亚·维加：没有合作能做到吗？
斯科特·罗克：我从未见过这种情况。以我的经验来看，从来没有过。
塞西莉亚·维加：如果明天你的前同事打电话给你，说“嘿，回来吧，我们要去伊斯法罕打包这批材料并把它运出国”，你会去吗？
斯科特·罗克：我会立刻动身。
过去一周，特朗普总统称伊朗同意交出其核材料库存，也就是他所说的“核尘埃”，作为结束战争协议的一部分。几小时后，伊朗方面坚称本国的高浓缩铀不会被移走。
特朗普总统：伊朗不会拥有核武器，我们会把那些尘埃拿回来。我们会拿回来——要么从他们那里拿，要么我们自己去取。
塞西莉亚·维加：这样的行动值得美国士兵冒生命危险吗？
罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将：在我看来？值得。
退役的罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将曾是海豹突击队队员，也是美国中央司令部副总监。他曾领导中东地区的精锐特种作战行动，并表示在伊朗的行动可能需要数周时间，需要大规模兵力部署，涉及美军所有军种。
退役的罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将 接受《60分钟》采访
罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将：风险极高。你必须占领领土，必须直面敌人，必须强行进入，所有这些风险都是行动中固有的，但我们能做到。
塞西莉亚·维加：有人说部队必须在进入的任何设施周围建立完整的安全警戒线。他们可能需要自带推土机清理废墟，甚至可能需要建造自己的着陆场，才能成功完成这项行动。
罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将：这就是我们军队的本职。我们进入阿富汗时，就在沙漠里修建了跑道，出动了C-17运输机。
真正让哈沃德副海军上将担忧的是伊朗在当前战场上仍可使用的武器。
罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将：最普遍的威胁是他们的无人机、动能无人机，以及他们库存中剩余的导弹。这才是对你地面部队和行动人员的真正威胁。
塞西莉亚·维加：你预计这样的行动会有人员伤亡吗？
罗伯特·哈沃德副海军上将：当然。你必须做好应对准备。
美伊之间脆弱的停火协议将于周三到期。马修·邦恩博士表示，任何核协议都不应基于信任，而应基于核查。
马修·邦恩：20多年来，伊朗一直在谎报其核武器研发计划。他们一直声称本国的核计划完全和平，从未追求过核武器。这是谎言。当国际核查人员介入并开始发现一些问题后，伊朗仍一直在欺骗他们。
塞西莉亚·维加：美国最终需要伊朗承诺什么，才能一劳永逸地解决其核能力问题？
马修·邦恩：我认为最重要的是彻底清除高浓缩铀，并建立深入的国际监测机制。这是最关键的，考虑到这场战争以及特朗普多次退出谈判、发动更多空袭带来的不信任，这将非常困难。
塞西莉亚·维加：听起来你并不乐观。
马修·邦恩：我确实不乐观。我认为在未来很长一段时间里，我们应对伊朗核计划的现实手段都将非常有限。
制作：迈克尔·卡齐斯·格雷厄姆、梅西克。联合制片人：凯蒂·克布斯特、亚历克斯·奥尔蒂斯。广播助理：格蕾丝·康利、艾琳·杜查尔姆。新闻助理：朱莉娅·C·多伊尔。剪辑：克雷格·克劳福德、马修·莱夫、迈克·莱文。助理编辑：艾莎·克雷斯波
What it could take for the U.S. to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran
2026-04-19T19:00:00-0400 / CBS News
The fate of the war between Iran and America hangs on just three letters: HEU — highly enriched uranium — an essential ingredient for nuclear weapons.
It’s believed Iran currently has enough HEU to eventually make 10 atomic bombs. But international inspectors have not been allowed to verify Iran’s stockpile since last June, when the U.S. and Israel struck three nuclear sites.
Over the last seven weeks of war, President Trump has insisted the U.S. will take whatever is left, whether with boots on the ground fighting their way in or striking a deal with the Iranian regime to allow scientists to safely secure the stockpile and bring it back to the United States.
What you may not know — that option has been done before — in a high-stakes mission that could become the blueprint for how to get HEU out of Iran.
Andrew Weber: It was a crazy time after the Soviet Union fell apart and we knew that Iran was pursuing nuclear material throughout the region.
In 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Andrew Weber was a young foreign service officer in the newly-minted country of Kazakhstan, which held the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Left behind by the Soviets, part of it was sitting inside a factory.
Andrew Weber: We knew about the factory. We knew it had a purpose in the nuclear power sector. What we didn’t know was that they had a cache of highly enriched uranium that was weapons-usable.
Andrew Weber 60 Minutes
It took several months, but using good old-fashioned diplomacy and a moose hunting trip, Weber built trust with the factory director. And one day it paid off in the form of a note.
Andrew Weber: And I remember it was one of the first snows that day. And so, we’re walking in the courtyard, and he said, “Andy, I have a message from Vitaly.” And he passed me this little note.
Cecilia Vega: Let’s see. This tiny little piece of paper he hands you, and it says, “U-235 90%, 600 kilograms.” And that means what to you?
Andrew Weber: Dozens of nuclear weapons.
Uranium enriched to 90% is ready to be made into a bomb. The revelation made it all the way up to President Bill Clinton. Soon both countries came to an agreement: the U.S. would take the stockpile to prevent countries like Iran and North Korea from getting a hold of it.
Andrew Weber: They could have just bought the 90% enriched uranium metal, and they would have been able to fabricate bombs very quickly out of it.
Weber became the point person for the operation codenamed Project Sapphire. He took these pictures with his own camera, showing canisters holding more than 1,300 pounds of the bomb-grade uranium. The only thing protecting them was a militia woman with a sidearm and…
Andrew Weber: It was protected by a good, a good padlock, sort of the kind you see in an antique shop.
Project Sapphire was the first of its kind. Three massive C-5 Galaxy cargo planes were dispatched to Kazakhstan, carrying 31 specialists from the Departments of Defense and Energy. The teams brought 450 drums built to transport nuclear cargo, strong enough to survive a plane crash. And the whole thing was covert, under the cover of a humanitarian mission.
Andrew Weber: It was all done in utmost secrecy. A team of over 30 people working for about five or six weeks to finish this packaging operation. It didn’t leak, and nobody knew they were even there.
Every gram of HEU was secured and loaded onto rickety Soviet-era trucks.
Andrew Weber: And that night there was black ice on the roads. And the trucks were sliding. That’s when the material was most vulnerable. We didn’t want the Iranians or organized criminal groups to know that the material was being transported. It was very important that nobody knew that we were gonna be moving the material that snowy, cold night.
The planes were loaded up and the HEU was flown back to the United States, taken to a Department of Energy complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for safekeeping. Weber went on to become an assistant secretary of defense responsible for nuclear deterrence.
Cecilia Vega: From touchdown to takeoff, Project Sapphire took six weeks to remove more than 1,300 pounds of bomb-grade uranium from Kazakhstan. Would the same mission be possible today in Iran?
Andrew Weber: In Iran, we couldn’t send a team in to do this unilaterally without great risk. You would need to set up in the middle of the country a secure perimeter. It would probably take thousands of U.S. troops to secure the facility while our experts excavated the HEU that’s located inside deep tunnels at a place called Isfahan.
This is the Isfahan nuclear facility deep in Iran’s desert. Under this mountain, international inspectors say most of Iran’s HEU is stored in scuba tank sized containers. It’s believed those containers are in tunnels so far below ground, America’s bunker busting bombs may not be able to reach them.
Satellite images show in the weeks leading up to this current war, the Iranians blocked the tunnel entrances with dirt. Two weeks ago, images showed roadblocks. Nuclear analysts say it suggests Tehran is concerned about a U.S. or Israeli raid on the facility.
Matthew Bunn: It’s not like Iran hasn’t thought about the possibility that we might do this. But U.S. Special Forces have been training for deep underground facilities of one kind or another for a long, long, long time.
Dr. Matthew Bunn 60 Minutes
Dr. Matthew Bunn is a former White House nuclear adviser, who has spent decades trying to prevent nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. From his perch at Harvard’s Belfer Center, he monitors Iran’s nuclear activity as best he can.
Matthew Bunn: So what you can see from a satellite is what’s goin’ on the surface, right? But what you can’t see is anything going on inside buildings, anything going on in other underground facilities.
Cecilia Vega: President Trump has said repeatedly that Iran’s nuclear program was completely obliterated after the strikes last June.
Matthew Bunn: Yeah, that statement is just not true. You can’t say that a program that still has enough nuclear material for a bunch of nuclear bombs is obliterated. Unfortunately. There’s no doubt that the combination of the strikes in June of last year, and the ongoing war, have seriously set back Iran’s capabilities. But the remaining capabilities are substantial. You can’t bomb away their knowledge.
U.N. inspectors believe Iran has close to 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%, nearly ready to be used in a nuclear weapon.
Cecilia Vega: 970 pounds of 60% highly enriched uranium. What can you do with that?
Matthew Bunn: So that is enough material for if you enrich it just a little bit more, for ten to eleven nuclear bombs.
Nuclear analysts have become increasingly concerned about another site in Iran, known as Pickaxe Mountain. Satellite images from February show an entrance to what’s believed to be a massive nuclear facility deep under solid rock.
Cecilia Vega: Can you bomb your way to Iran’s stockpile and get it and remove it?
Scott Roecker: I don’t think that there is a lasting, durable solution to Iran’s nuclear program through military means.
Scott Roecker was a top official in the NNSA, a $24 billion agency buried inside the Department of Energy. He left in 2021.
Scott Roecker: If there was a deal between the United States and Iran for the United States to take possession of that material it would be the National Nuclear Security Administration that would lead that effort.
Scott Roecker and Cecilia Vega 60 Minutes
Roecker used lessons learned from Project Sapphire to remove nuclear material from countries around the world and ship it to the U.S. for safekeeping. So far the NNSA has removed more than 16,000 pounds of HEU.
Scott Roecker: There was agreement in place with the countries. And so that’s a really key fact here. You wanna have a willing partner who’s working with you hand in hand.
Cecilia Vega: Cooperation.
Scott Roecker: Exactly.
Cecilia Vega: Can it be done without that?
Scott Roecker: I’ve never seen it done without that. Never in my experience have I seen that.
Cecilia Vega: If your phone rang tomorrow and your former colleagues said, “Hey, come back, we’re going into Isfahan to package this up and get it out of the country,” would you go?
Scott Roecker: I would go in a heartbeat.
This past week, President Trump said Iran agreed to hand over its stockpile, what he calls nuclear dust, as part of a deal to end the war. Hours later, the Iranians insisted their HEU was not going anywhere.
President Trump: Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and we’re going to get the dust back. We’ll get it back either – we’ll get it back from them, or we’ll take it.
Cecilia Vega: Would an operation like this be worth risking American lives?
Vice Admiral Robert Harward: In my opinion? Yes.
Retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward is a former NAVY Seal and deputy director of U.S. Central Command. He led elite special operations in the Middle East and says an operation in Iran could take many weeks and require a large footprint involving all the branches of the military.
Retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward 60 Minutes
Vice Admiral Robert Harward: It’s high risk. You have to occupy territory. You have to confront. You have to force your way in so all those risks are inherent in that operation but we can do it.
Cecilia Vega: It’s been said troops would have to secure a full perimeter around any facility they’d enter. They might have to bring in their own bulldozers to clear rubble, maybe even build their own landing strip in order to pull this off as a successful operation.
Vice Admiral Robert Harward: That’s what our military does. When we went into Afghanistan, we built a runway in the desert and we brought in C-17’s.
What does concern Vice Admiral Harward is the weapons still available to Iran on today’s battlefield.
Vice Admiral Robert Harward: The most prevalent threat is their abilities then to respond with drones, kinetic drones, maybe whatever’s left in their inventory of missiles. That’s your real threat to your time on the ground and the force.
Cecilia Vega: Would you expect casualties in an operation like this?
Vice Admiral Robert Harward: Sure. You have to plan for that.
The fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is set to expire on Wednesday. Dr. Matthew Bunn says any nuclear agreement should not be based on trust, but verification.
Matthew Bunn: Iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons effort for over 20 years now. They have always claimed our program was 100% peaceful, we were never pursuing nuclear weapons. That’s a lie. And then once the international inspectors got in and started finding some things out, the Iranians kept lying to them.
Cecilia Vega: What specifically does the United States need Iran to commit to, to deal with its nuclear capabilities once and for all?
Matthew Bunn: I think the most important thing is no highly enriched uranium and some in-depth monitoring, international monitoring. That’s what’s most essential, and it’s gonna be very difficult now, given all of the distrust following this war, following Trump pulling out of talks repeatedly to launch more strikes.
Cecilia Vega: You don’t sound very optimistic.
Matthew Bunn: I’m not very optimistic. I think we’re gonna be dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, with very few realistic tools available to us, for a long time to come.
Produced by Michael Karzis Graham, Messick. Associate producers, Katie Kerbstat and Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associates, Grace Conley and Erin DuCharme. News associate, Julia C. Doyle. Edited by Craig Crawford, Matthew Lev, Mike Levine. Assistant editor, Aisha Crespo