Israel Matzav

Experts: Fordow not immune to bunker busters

The Washington Post reports that experts believe that Iran's Fordow nuclear plant outside the 'holy city' of Qom, where Iran is enriching uranium underground, is not immune to bunker buster bombs.

But impregnable it is not, say U.S. military planners, who are increasingly confident about their ability to deliver a serious blow against Fordow should the president ever order an attack.

U.S. officials say they have no imminent plan to bombard the site, and they have cautioned that an American attack — or one by its closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel — risks devastating consequences such as soaring oil prices, Iranian retaliation and dramatically heightened tension in a fragile region.

Yet as a matter of physics, Fordow is far more vulnerable than generally portrayed, said current and former military and intelligence analysts. Massive new “bunker buster” munitions recently added to the U.S. arsenal would not necessarily have to penetrate the deepest bunkers to cause irreparable damage to infrastructure as well as highly sensitive nuclear equipment, probably setting back Iran’s program by years, officials said.

...

In arguing their case, U.S. officials acknowledged some uncertainty over whether even the Pentagon’s newest bunker-buster weapon — called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — could pierce in a single blow the subterranean chambers where Iran is making enriched uranium. But they said a sustained U.S. attack over multiple days would probably render the plant unusable by collapsing tunnels and irreparably damaging both its highly sensitive centrifuge equipment and the miles of pipes, tubes and wires required to operate it.

“Hardened facilities require multiple sorties,” said a former senior intelligence official who has studied the formerly secret Fordow site and who agreed to discuss sensitive details of U.S. strike capabilities on the condition of anonymity. “The question is, how many turns do you get at the apple?”

U.S. confidence has been reinforced by training exercises in which bombers assaulted similar targets in deeply buried bunkers and mountain tunnels, the officials and experts said.

My problem is that every time I see a report like this, I cannot help but wonder whether it is spin by the Obama administration that's designed to hold off an Israeli attack. What could go wrong?

Read the whole thing.

Labels: bunker busters, Iranian nuclear threat, Qom

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:24 PM