Washington has put a price on what it no longer knows about Iran's nuclear programme: up to $20 million. The US State Department's Rewards for Justice programme announced late on Friday that it will pay up to $20 million — yaani 2 crore dollars — and offer possible relocation to anyone who provides information about Iran's nuclear programme, including its facilities, equipment and associated personnel, 'such as those in the scientific community', US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement posted on X.

Source: CENTCOM statement via Islamabad Post

The programme is also seeking information on the movement of any of those facilities, equipment or people, its official notice said, and tips can be sent via Signal or its Tor-based tip line. The US government did not specify what particular information would qualify for the maximum $20 million reward. Rewards for Justice was established in 1984 under the State Department's national security rewards initiative to offer financial incentives for information that protects American lives and interests, and has since expanded beyond terrorism to areas such as foreign election interference, malicious cyber activity and North Korea.

Source: RFE/RL Iran live blog (Nov 6-7, 2026)

Why Washington says it needs informants

In its statement, the State Department said Iran's lack of compliance with its safeguards obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has led to the agency losing 'continuity of knowledge' about Iran's production and inventory of key components such as centrifuges — the machines that enrich uranium. Tehran has refused IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear facilities since the war began on February 28, accusing the agency of advancing Western interests.

The notice pointed to the IAEA's 2025 reporting that Iran was enriching uranium to 60 percent purity — a short technical step from the 90 percent generally required for a nuclear weapon. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce uranium at such a high enrichment level, the statement said, and experts estimate the quantity, if enriched further, could be enough for several nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its programme is peaceful, and has insisted not a single gram of its enriched uranium will be removed from the country, while not ruling out downblending it inside Iran under international supervision.

A reward that sits oddly beside 'obliterated'

The offer's timing underlines the gap between Washington's public claims and its intelligence picture. Trump has repeatedly said US and Israeli strikes — which opened the war on February 28 — effectively obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities. Speaking on Friday night in West Palm Beach, Florida, he said: 'If we didn't hit Iran, you wouldn't have Israel today. If they had nuclear, they would have used nuclear. They would have obliterated the Middle East.' He added that Iran's economy and military had been severely damaged and that Tehran now wants a deal: 'We're dealing with them now. They want to make a deal very badly.'

Yet earlier this week Trump also said Washington still had to 'take care' of one or two targets in Iran, including Pickaxe Mountain in the centre of the country — a tunnel complex near the Natanz nuclear facility that is suspected of being a nuclear site, although Tehran denies it serves such a purpose. A programme that must still be mapped by paid informants, and a mountain that must still be dealt with, are not quite the same thing as a programme that has been obliterated — and the $20 million notice is, in effect, Washington's own admission of how much it cannot see.

What happens next runs on two tracks at once: the money is now on the table for anyone inside or near the programme willing to talk — through Signal or a Tor tip line — while mediators, led by Qatar, continue trying to turn the current pause in large-scale fighting into a deal before Washington decides whether to resume major strikes. Every informant who answers the offer makes the first track stronger; every week without inspections makes the IAEA's missing picture harder to rebuild by any other means.