Part 1 of 4 Parts
The U.S. arsenal contains powerful, deeply burrowing Massive Ordinance Penetrator bunker buster bombs (MOPs). The Air Force’s thirty-thousand-pound class GBU-547/B MOPs are guided weapons specifically designed to penetrate hugely fortified targets such as Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. They can impact surfaces above targets with great accuracy. Recently, a rare “live” MOP was pictured at Whitman Air Force Base. However, they may not be able to penetrate a buried nuclear facility in central Iran. This concern is based on an analysis of new satellites images.
The international press first reported on these developments observed at Iran’s nuclear site recently. These reports were based on images provided by Planet Labs, as well as analysis by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The Natanz site is located about one hundred and forty miles south of Tehran. As separate press reports suggest, Iran is making significant progress in constructing underground tunnels in the Zagros Mountains to the south of the Natanz nuclear site. Considering its size, Iran would probably be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium. It is much bigger than needed to build centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium.
Construction of the core portions of the Natanz nuclear facility itself started in the early 2000s. In September of 2020, Iran announced that it would be replacing the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC) with a new facility in the nearby mountains. The ICAC was an above-ground plant at the Natanz facility that was destroyed by a fire in June of 2020. Iran blamed the destruction of the ICAC on Israel.
Since then, intelligence analysts have monitored the development of underground tunnels in the mountain with satellite imagery. The analysts fear that the new underground facility could aid Iran in developing nuclear weapons. Iran has not admitted publicly that it has any other plans for the underground facility beyond its use as a replacement for the ICAC. Iranian authorities would have to declare the site to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna if it was going to bring uranium into the new facility. Iran does have a long history of deep-burying sensitive facilities, especially those connected to their nuclear and missile programs.
Experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies report that the new facility is probably being built at a depth of from two hundred sixty feet to three hundred twenty-eight feet inside the mountain. This depth is deeper than U.S. military has publicly stated in the past for the maximum depth that the thirty-thousand-pound class GBU-57/B MOPs can burrow down to which is two hundred feet. It is not clear exactly whether this figure also accounts for penetrating through reinforced concrete layers which are often used in the construction of sensitive underground facilities.
Experts at the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on Iran’s nuclear program, claim that the underground tunnels could be even deeper than the two hundred sixty to three hundred twenty-eight feet estimate reported by the James Martin Center.
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