The successful attack on three of Iran's most important nuclear facilities showed off the brilliance of the U.S. military and the amazing advancement of American-made technology.
Simply put, no other nation could have pulled off this attack.
Seven B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers flew 37 hours round-trip, refueling on the way, and shook down the thunder, dropping 14 30,000-pound bombs — putting the damage smack on the head of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
You must know that the Russians and Chinese are viewing Operation Midnight Hammer with a mixture of awe, envy, and fear. "Begone before someone drops a house on you, too," Good Witch Glinda told the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz." Our adversaries are getting the same feeling.
We won't know the extent of the damage to Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan for several weeks. But it's a safe bet that Iran won't be spinning up any uranium and enriching it to near-bomb-grade, since it has few, if any, working centrifuges left.
Before the U.S. attack, Iran had created a stockpile of 900 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), that is, uranium enriched up to 60%. This is a hop, skip, and a jump short of the 90%-enriched U-235 needed for a bomb. The stockpile was assumed to have been stored at Fordow.
If it was, it's now buried under thousands of tons of rubble. But was it? In the days leading up to the attack, dump trucks were seen in commercial satellite images outside the entrance to the underground facility. Could they have been moving the stockpile?
Center for Strategic and International Studies:
Iran may have moved nuclear material and any stockpiled uranium out of Fordow in the days prior to the attack. However, Maxar satellite imagery from June 19 shows significant activity at Fordow consistent with defensive measures rather than material transport. This includes 16 dump trucks parked outside the underground tunnel entrances to the centrifuge facility. These dump trucks seem to indicate Iran taking defensive actions prior to the attack. Satellite imagery shows that all six entrances were sealed with rock and sand prior to the U.S. raid.
Would you move 900 pounds of HEU using a dump truck? It's unlikely Iran did, either, but then, we can't be certain.
Related: The Great Unknown About the Damage to Iran's Nuclear Facilities
One interesting issue is that, in addition to storing the HEU at Fordow, Iran had also stored the material at the Isfahan nuclear facility.
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
Whether Iran moved all or some of its HEU stocks prior to the U.S. strike that targeted the Isfahan tunnels and Fordow is unclear. Trucks were visible in commercial satellite imagery, meaning Tehran could have moved nuclear assets just prior to the U.S. attack. Apart from the HEU, Iran may have sought to detach and relocate some 1,700 IR-6 centrifuges, yet they could be difficult to relocate promptly.
On June 13, Israel eliminated the above-ground Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant and reportedly damaged the underground main Natanz enrichment plant, which the United States struck with two MOPs on June 21 to ensure its destruction. The Fordow enrichment site is likely too damaged to be operable after successive MOP strikes since centrifuges are delicate machinery and would be significantly damaged from bombing shock waves.
Finding the stockpile is critical, not only to make sure that Iran can't use it to get a jump start on rebuilding its bomb-making ability, but because having that much near-weapons-grade uranium unaccounted for is a nightmare scenario for the West. The IAEA will seek the strongest assurances from Iran that it has the stockpile under its control.
Vice President JD Vance told ABC’s This Week on Sunday, “We are going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel, and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about."
Ideally, the stockpile is buried. But if it isn't, and Iran has hidden it, there's always the U.S. Air Force, B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers, and 30,000 pounds of U.S. kick-butt we can drop on wherever it is.
