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Has Iran evacuated its enriched uranium out of facilities?
Just a minor update…
If Israel was successful in knocking out the underground nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, and the overground one in Esfahan, as it claimed it was – why was it then necessary for the US to bomb these by two GBU-57s and 30 TLAMs, respectively?
But… well, latest RUMINT is: the Iranians not only evacuated all of their ‘valuables’ out of facilities like Fordow, Natanz and in Esfahan (which is why, in the case of Fordow and Natanz there is none, and in the case of Esfahan only very limited post-strike radioactive contamination), but actually emptied all of these.
Whether this happened yesterday, or the day before: that’s left to be seen. But, and essentially, they’ve removed their enriched uranium, probably also the mass of centrifuges from the facilities that have been hit.
Point is: in the case of the Fordow, they’ve had enough time to bury all the entrances with gravel and earth, as obvious from photos like these:
What’s more: the US intelligence services must have been aware of the evacuation of this facility. Just for example, two days before the US strike, Maxar has photographed lengthy columns of trucks at the entrance to the Fordow complex:
…which, obviously, means: there was nothing of any kind of value left inside.
Indeed: this also means that regardless of all the Israeli and now the US air strikes, Iranians took away, and have hidden their stocks of enriched uranium, probably the mass of centrifuges, too.
….and why should Iranians now hold back any more?
Operation Midnight Hammer
In the meantime, during a press conference at the Pentagon today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lauded the success of the US Central Command’s overnight strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” Centcom deployed multiple combined assets to inflict significant damage at the sites of Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.
After proceeding quietly and with minimal communication for 18 hours from the U.S. to the target area, the first of seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped two 30,000 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker buster” bombs at the Fordo site yesterday at approximately 6:40 p.m. EDT, Caine said.
The initial mission package also included several decoy aircraft that flew west over the Pacific Ocean as “a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and [Centcom headquarters],” Caine said in a DOD news release.
First operational use of the GBU-57 MOP
Such tactics were also used in support of the main strike package of aircraft.
“The U.S. employed several deception tactics — including decoys — as the fourth and fifth generation aircraft pushed out in front of the strike package at high altitude and high speed, sweeping in front of the package for enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats,” Caine said.
Following the initial strike on Fordo, the remaining B-2s went on to deploy their ordnance, eventually totaling 14 MOPs hitting the targeted areas.
This was the first operational use of the GBU-57 MOP, Caine noted.
In addition to the MOPs, Caine said a US submarine operating in Centcom’s area of responsibility launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles at key infrastructure targets at the Isfahan site, bringing the overall total of precision-guided weapons employed during the operation to approximately 75.
Caine stated there was no detectable retaliation to the strikes.
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Photo credit: U.S. Air Force / OSDPA and Maxar
