Peter Beaumont, The Guardian (“How effective was the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites?“):
Donald Trump was quick to claim that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “completely and totally obliterated” them. Still, it remains unclear how much physical damage has been done or what the longer-term impact might be on Iran’s nuclear programme.
What was the target?
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but insisted its nuclear programme would not be stopped. Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the three locations after the strikes.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported no deaths from the US strikes, appearing to confirm Iranian claims they had been largely evacuated in advance. The health ministry said those who were injured showed no evidence of nuclear contamination. In the immediate aftermath, US military officials said the three sites had suffered “severe damage” after an operation that had been planned for weeks, suggesting it was coordinated with Israel.
The Pentagon said a battle damage assessment was still being conducted.
What do we know about the strike on Fordow?
Long regarded as the most difficult military target among Iran’s nuclear sites, the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow – the primary target of the operation – are buried beneath the Zagros mountains. Reports have suggested that the site was constructed beneath 45-90 metres of bedrock, largely limestone and dolomite.
[…]
The site was hit by a dozen 13,600kg massive ordnance penetrators – known as bunker busters – at approximately 2.10am Iranian time. It was the weapon’s first operational use. The number used suggests a lack of confidence that a smaller strike could penetrate through to the target.
The result to a large extent depends on the kind of concrete inside the facility. Estimates of the bunker busters’ penetration are based largely on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000psi. Iran is believed to have used more resistant concrete.
While video from the site showed evidence of a fire in the immediate aftermath, satellite images published on Sunday were suggestive but far from conclusive.
The main support building at the site appeared to be undamaged, but the topography of a prominent area of ridge line appeared to have altered and been flattened out, with some evidence of rock scarring close to two clusters of bomb craters around the ridge.
[…]
At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”
What was the impact at Isfahan?
Isfahan’s nuclear technology centre was struck by Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from an Ohio-class submarine as opposed to bunker busters. Video posted on social media showed a distant detonation from the site on Saturday night.
According to the IAEA, in addition to four hit by Israeli strikes, six other buildings had now been attacked, including a fuel rod production facility. It said facilities targeted at Isfahan either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low-enriched uranium.
What was hit at Natanz?
Natanz had previously been damaged by the first Israeli strikes of the conflict, with assessments then suggesting they had hit the power plant supplying the main centrifuge hall. Uranium had been enriched to up to 60%, short of weapons-grade material.
It appears that Natanz’s underground enrichment hall was targeted. Enhancement of satellite images from the site on Sunday showed fresh damage to overground buildings and new cratering in the centre of the site.
[…]
Was Iran’s nuclear programme obliterated?
Iran has claimed that it evacuated the sites several days ago, and satellite imagery from several days ago suggests there was unusual truck traffic at Fordow. That appears to confirm the movement of some material from the site, possibly including the uranium stockpile – or parts of it – which remains unaccounted for.
Hassan Abedini, the deputy political head of Iran’s state broadcaster, said Iran had evacuated the three sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow – some time ago.
“The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots,” he said.
Three days before the US attacks, 16 cargo trucks were seen near the Fordow entrance tunnel.
The head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, claimed this month that Iran had another enrichment site “in a secure and invulnerable location” that could house centrifuges.
Analysts have long argued that while it is possible to disrupt the physical function of a nuclear facility and limit the scope of a programme through, for example, the killing of scientists, the breadth of technical knowledge acquired during the decades-long programme is impossible to destroy.
Ultimately, the question is whether the US-Israeli attacks are seen as sufficient for Iran to capitulate, or whether they instead encourage the regime to accelerate its efforts to produce a viable nuclear weapon.
Peter Sanger, NYT (“Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile“):
A day after President Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated” by American bunker-busting bombs and a barrage of missiles, the actual state of the program seemed far more murky, with senior officials conceding they did not know the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
“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,” Vice President JD Vance told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, referring to a batch of uranium sufficient to make nine or 10 atomic weapons. Nonetheless, he contended that the country’s potential to weaponize that fuel had been set back substantially because it no longer had the equipment to turn that fuel into operative weapons.
[…]
In a briefing for reporters on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, avoided Mr. Trump’s maximalist claims of success. They said an initial battle-damage assessment of all three sites struck by Air Force B-2 bombers and Navy Tomahawk missiles showed “severe damage and destruction.”
Satellite photographs of the primary target, the Fordo uranium enrichment plant that Iran built under a mountain, showed several holes where a dozen 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators — one of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal — punched deep holes in the rock. The Israeli military’s initial analysis concluded that the site, the target of American and Israeli military planners for more than 26 years, sustained serious damage from the strike but had not been completely destroyed.
But there was also evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days. And there was growing evidence that the Iranians, attuned to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.
The 60-percent enriched fuel had been stored deep inside another nuclear complex, near the ancient capital of Isfahan. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said by text that the fuel had last been seen by his teams of United Nations inspectors about a week before Israel began its attacks on Iran. In an interview on CNN on Sunday he added that “Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material.”
Asked by text later in the day whether he meant that the fuel stockpile — which is stored in special casks small enough to fit in the trunks of about 10 cars — had been moved, he replied, “I do.” That appeared to be the mystery about the fuel’s fate that Mr. Vance was discussing.
If so, Isfahan would not be the only place where the custodians of the Iranian nuclear program — a subject of nationalistic pride and the symbol of Iran’s ability to defend itself — were trying to move equipment and material out of sight, and harden the Fordo plant to protect what had to stay in place.
Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies at the tunnels leading into the Fordo mountain, taken in the days before the American strike, show 16 cargo trucks positioned near an entrance. An analysis by the Open Source Centre in London suggested that Iran may have been preparing the site for a strike.
It is unclear exactly what, if anything, was removed from the facility.
In fact, there was only so much the Iranians could save. The giant centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds, purifying uranium, are piped together and bolted to the cement floor. One U.S. official said it would have been unrealistic to completely move equipment out of Fordo after the conflict with Israel began.
The official added that historical documents about the nuclear program were buried in the bowels of the site, likely complicating any efforts in reconstituting it. In coming days, both the Iranians and intelligence agencies expect to learn more about the Natanz enrichment site, which is older, larger and less well protected than Fordo. It was struck by the Israelis repeatedly, and they destroyed an aboveground enrichment center and disrupted the electrical system. Mr. Grossi later said he believed the interruption of the electrical supply could have sent the centrifuges spinning out of control, probably destroying all of them.
How long it would take the Iranians to repair and replace that equipment is unknown; it would probably stretch for years. But Iran is also building a new, deep replacement for Natanz in the south of the city. Officials in Tehran have told the I.A.E. A. that they have not yet opened the plant, so there is nothing to see.
That President Trump’s initial claims were likely wildly overstated comes as no surprise. It’s the nature of his political style. While unorthodox and frequently counterproductive from a policymaking perspective, it’s been highly effective at mobilizing and reshaping his base. It has landed him the White House on two separate occasions and made him the central figure of American politics for more than a decade.
Tactically, the decision to broadcast our intention to bomb Iran if they did not make unacceptable-to-them concessions was a mixed bag. It did not have the desired coercive effect and, rather clearly, gave them time to move materiel that could be moved, thereby lessening the strategic impact of the attack. On the other hand, it did appear to minimize noncombatant casualties.
That said, it’s rather clear that the damage was substantial. At worst, these facilities will take a long time to rebuild. At best, they’re permanently unusable.
But Sanger makes a point I’ve been making for going on twenty years:
If Iran is truly pursuing a nuclear weapon — which it officially denies — it is taking more time than any nuclear-armed nation in history. The United States developed the Manhattan Project in four years or so, developing the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. The Soviet Union conducted its first test in 1949, only four years later. India, Pakistan and Israel all sped the process.
The Iranians have been at it for more than 20 years, and an archive of data stolen from a Tehran warehouse by Israel a number of years ago showed that Iranian engineers were exploring nuclear triggers and other equipment that would only be used to detonate a weapon. That was around 2003, when, according to American intelligence, the engineers received instructions to halt work on weaponization.
Comments by Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days suggest they believe that work has resumed, though no evidence to support the contention has been made public. If so, the strikes on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan may only reinforce the view among Iranian leaders that they need a weapon for survival of the government.
The mantra that “Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is unacceptable” has been a bipartisan and, indeed, global consensus for a very long time. I certainly share it. Not so much because I think they’ll immediately nuke Israel—despite eliminationist rhetoric, we have almost half a century of evidence that the Islamic Republic is a rational actor—but because it would likely set off a regional arms race. At the same time, though, we’ve seen time and again that it’s next to impossible to stop a determined regime from acquiring 1940s technology.
To the extent this attack kicked the can down the road, it was effective. But, as Sanger notes, it’s quite possible that it will have the opposite effect: convincing the mullahs that the only way Iran can achieve its rightful place as a dominant regional power is to become a nuclear possessor.
UPDATE: It’s worth noting that, whether or not the U.S. strikes were a “one-off” (which I suspect really depends on Iran’s next moves), Israel is not finished attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
