Binoy Kampmark
The aftermath of Operation Midnight Hammer, a strike by the US Air Force on three nuclear facilities in Iran authorised by President Donald Trump on June 22, was raucous and triumphant. But that depended on what company you were keeping.
The mission involved the bombing of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, and the uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan. The Israeli Air Force had already attacked the last two facilities, sparing Fordow for the singular weaponry available for the USAF.
The Fordow site was of particular interest, located some eighty to a hundred metres underground and cocooned by protective concrete. For its purported destruction, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were used to drop GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker buster” bombs. All in all, approximately 75 precision guided weapons were used in the operation, along with 125 aircraft and a guided missile submarine.
Trump was never going to be anything other than optimistic about the result. “Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images,” he blustered. “Obliteration is an accurate term!”
At the Pentagon press conference following the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bubbled with enthusiasm. “The order we received from our commander in chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear. We devastated the Iranian nuclear program.” The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen.
Dan Caine was confident that the facilities had been subjected to severe punishment. “Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.” Adding to Caine’s remarks, Hegseth stated that, “The battle damage assessment is ongoing, but our initial assessment, as the Chairman said, is that all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect.”
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