How US used its bunker-buster bombs at Iranian nuclear websites

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mentioned at a press briefing that they’re assured the weapons struck precisely as deliberate.

Caine, the nation’s high navy officer, provided new particulars concerning the work that went into constructing the “bunker-buster” bombs and the way the US used them to burrow into the Iranian websites. He sought to indicate the extent of destruction however didn’t immediately deal with President Donald Trump’s assertion that Tehran’s nuclear programme has been “obliterated.”

A categorized briefing that pushed US work on bunker busters

The bombs, known as the GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, have their roots in a decades-old categorized briefing “of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran,” Caine mentioned.

That turned out to be the Fordo gas enrichment plant, with development believed to have began round 2006. It grew to become operational in 2009, the identical yr Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.

The categorized briefing was proven in 2009 to a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer, who with a colleague “lived and breathed” Fordo for the subsequent 15 years, finding out the geology, development dig, the earth moved and “every piece of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out,” Caine mentioned.

What they concluded: The US did not have a bomb that might destroy these websites. So the Pentagon set to work, Caine mentioned.

“We had so many PhDs working on the mock programm — doing modelling and simulation — that we were quietly and in a secret way the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America,” he mentioned.

How the bunker busters are designed

The 30,000-pound bomb is comprised of metal, explosive and a fuse programmed to a particular detonation time. The longer the fuse, the deeper the weapon will penetrate earlier than exploding.

Over the years, the navy examined and retested it tons of of occasions on mock amenities, Caine mentioned. Crews fine-tuned the bombs to detonate within the mock enrichment rooms, delaying detonation till they’d reached a place to ship a strain blast by way of open tunnels to destroy gear underground.

How the US mentioned it bombed an Iranian underground nuclear facility

Fordo had two important air flow routes into the underground facility — and officers rigorously eyed these entry factors as a solution to goal the positioning.

Each route had three shafts — a important shaft and a smaller shaft on both facet, which regarded virtually like a pitchfork in graphics supplied by the Pentagon. In the times previous the US assault, Iran positioned massive concrete slabs on high of each air flow routes to attempt to shield them, Caine mentioned.

In response, the US crafted an assault plan the place six bunker-buster bombs could be used towards every air flow route, utilizing the primary shaft as a manner down into the enrichment facility.

Seven B-2 stealth bombers have been used, carrying two of the large munitions apiece. The first bomb was used to eradicate the concrete slab, Caine mentioned.

The subsequent 4 bombs have been dropped down the primary shaft and into the advanced at a pace of greater than 1,000 ft per second earlier than exploding, he mentioned. A sixth bomb was dropped as a backup, in case something went mistaken.

In addition to the 12 bombs dropped on Fordo, with six on every air flow route, two extra hit Iran’s important Natanz facility, Caine mentioned.

Each crew was capable of verify detonation as they noticed the bombs drop from the plane in entrance of them: “We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function,” Caine mentioned.

The pilots reported again that it was the brightest explosion they’d ever seen — that it regarded like daylight, he mentioned.

Questions stay concerning the whereabouts of Iran’s extremely enriched uranium

Caine mentioned the munitions have been constructed, examined and loaded correctly, guided to their meant targets after which exploded as designed.

“Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” Hegseth mentioned.

However, questions remained as as to if the extremely enriched uranium that Iran would wish to develop a nuclear weapon was on the web site on the time. Asked repeatedly, Hegseth didn’t say if the uranium had been destroyed or moved.

“I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be — moved or otherwise,” Hegseth mentioned.