The Iranian government put its key nuclear facility about 300 feet below ground at Fordow. A quick look at the area with Google Earth shows that it’s a mountainous area, and all that rock over the enrichment facility would seem to be pretty good protection. But just like a police officer wearing body armor, the appearance of invulnerability is deceiving.
The United States put NORAD’s facility about 2,000 feet below the top of Cheyenne Mountain for the same reason. The granite overhead offers great protection from attack, with Cheyenne Mountain designed to withstand a 30-megaton nuclear blast from 1.2 miles away. While the rock at Cheyenne Mountain provides decent protection, the 300 feet of limestone at Fordow isn’t as good. But, still, it’s better than nothing.
Image created using AI.
Most commentary revolves around US “bunker buster” bombs. One friend commented that the protocol is to drop one bomb, then follow it with a laser guided bomb into the same hole and continue until you see a Chinaman looking back up through the hole. Obviously, such a procedure would shake things up at Fordow so badly that those centrifuges wouldn’t work. But that requires heavy-lift aircraft such as US B-2s or Israeli C-130s. The Hercules will do the job, and Israeli air defense suppression would make the trip feasible. But it’s probably unnecessary.
An underground facility is a little bit like a submarine. It is isolated from the rest of the world under an inhospitable medium. Whether it’s water or rock doesn’t make much difference. It requires energy, which it must either generate or get from outside. A nuclear submarine generates its own energy. If Fordow has a reactor, it might also. Or it may have diesel generators. It may get power from the grid outside. None of these makes any difference to my scenario.
Nuclear submarines regenerate fresh air, and Fordow might also, but it’s much more likely that it simply uses external ventilation like a mine. And this raises a question. Why do we need to bother with the GBU-57A if there are other, simpler approaches? Inquiring minds want to know.
Israel has demonstrated an incredible amount of highly specific intel on Iranian facilities. This allowed them to completely decapitate the Persian military and wipe out its air defenses, largely with weaponry prepositioned for extended periods inside Iran. It is virtually impossible for them not to have detailed information on Fordow. Remember, they got the Stuxnet computer virus into the facility and bollixed up the enrichment process for months or years. Israel knows where the doors are.
In this case, our concern looks much like the police officer in body armor. He’s got steel plates front and back with soft armor in the side panels. Most of the time, an incoming round will be stopped. But suppose the bad guy sneaks a shot into an unprotected area above a side panel or the officer’s neck. Then, it’s likely we’ll see his wife on the evening news dressed in black. He’s protected, but not perfectly.
Fordow has major entrances that are visible from space. Their location is known within centimeters. Any nuclear material would have to come out through them. So, if precision munitions were to fly into the doors, it wouldn’t take long before Fordow wouldn’t have any way to get bombs out. It would be a tomb. If the ventilation and power came in the same way, no one inside would live long.
But if they’re making power from generators, the staff could live longer, perhaps until all ventilation was cut off. Again, the Israelis know where the ventilation structures are. If those are plugged or destroyed, air for the workers and the generators would stop. Again, this isn’t difficult with precision munitions. Just provide for a bit of overkill.
We need to stop overthinking this. Yes, in theory, the big bomb can do the job. But so can a lot of little bombs. And little bombs can come in horizontally to take out the doors. Keep hammering, and pretty soon, the tunnel to which the doors provide access is gone as well. If there are vertical ventilation shafts, we proved in Iraq that we can fly bombs into them as well.
We don’t need to move the mountain. Just a little bit of it.
Ted Noel is retired physician who posts on social media as Doctor Ted. His occasional Doctor Ted’s Prescription podcast is available on multiple podcast channels.