Posted on 07/01/2025 5:59:10 PM PDT by bitt
On June 22, 2025, the United States struck deep. Using bunker-buster bombs, Operation Midnight Hammer targeted Iran’s most fortified nuclear facility, Fordow, along with a constellation of related sites. Within hours, a new narrative emerged. According to some analysts and media commentators, Iran had foreseen the strike and whisked its highly enriched uranium out of harm’s way just days before the bombs fell. It is a seductive story, part thriller, part geopolitical chess game. But it is also, on closer inspection, fiction.
Fordow is not a shipping warehouse. It is a subterranean stronghold. Situated 2,500 feet beneath the mountains near Qom, the site is more than a nuclear lab. It is a fortress built precisely to defy attack. Iran spent more than a decade and upwards of two billion dollars to design a facility whose central purpose was to shelter its enriched uranium. So any theory suggesting that the uranium was hastily removed before the strike must explain why Iran would choose, at the critical moment, to abandon the one place specifically engineered to protect it.
The story begins with satellite imagery. On June 19 and 20, sixteen large dump trucks were observed at Fordow. They were not empty, nor discreet. These were trucks of a kind suited to hauling construction materials, cement, earth-moving equipment, steel sheeting. Analysts who reviewed the imagery noted bulldozers actively placing cement covers over air shafts. These shafts are the known weak points in any deeply buried complex, where pressure and airflow must meet engineering limits, but where adversaries might also insert precision-guided munitions. To harden these vulnerabilities is to reinforce the very purpose of Fordow: to endure.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanliberty.news ...
It would be a smarter thing to hide 18 containers in an area the size of Texas instead of leaving them in a place likely to be bombed and bombed successfully.
Agreed
With modern radiation detection equipment satellites would be able to track that material if it was being moved on the surface.
“highly enriched uranium radiates enough energy”
U-235 has a half-life of about 700 million years.
It is not very radioactive.
“With modern radiation detection equipment satellites would be able to track that material if it was being moved on the surface.”
The U-235 is not very radioactive, it probably would be shielded, and the satellite would be really far away.
Compare ~30% down of this:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-22/inside-iran-fordow-nuclear-bunker-bombed-by-us/105446636
to ~80% down of this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-868e3c3d-25ec-43cb-bcc0-8832464b91ca
The US dropped the bunker busters to strike offset from and below the ridgelines, so the explosions were probably at about the right level and off to the side, which would likely make the centrifuges the Iranians still had at Fordow inoperable since they would wobble way too much.
I am glad this article was posted. I have seen multiple articles on Facebook saying the satellite imagery is proof all of Fordow’s enriched uranium was moved before the bombing. Comments about these Facebook posts were telling how much Trump was a fool and a liar. Some said it justifies impeachment.
I believe the success of the bombings of Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan should merit President Trump the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? Because it eliminated the ability of Iran to murder millions of people.
With modern radiation detection equipment satellites would be able to track that material if it was being moved on the surface.
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From 100 miles? I don’t think so.
Not so. HE uranium or even plutonium are just average alpha particle emitters. Their radiation can be stopped by a sheet of aluminum. Even skin, or paper, can stop low emission Alpha particles.
And so you might ask, how can agents with DHS detect uranium in a shipping container? I have always wondered that, it must be from contaminants with much more energetic emissions.
“...2,500 feet beneath the mountains...”
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It gets deeper and deeper every-time someone reports on it.
Kinda like a fisherman telling about that big fish he caught one time...
These shafts are the known weak points in any deeply buried complex, where pressure and airflow must meet engineering limits, but where adversaries might also insert precision-guided munitions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll ask a question again that I asked a few days ago.... What possessed the Iranians to think that a vertical shaft for ventilation was a good idea?
and the testing would have been detected.
“It is a subterranean stronghold. Situated 2,500 feet beneath the mountains”
bullshit: fordow facility is about 300 feet below the surface ...
the media did the same thing with Iraq with Saddam ...acted like they were this giant, super army. The “ELITE REPUBLICAN GUARD”..thats all you heard. Turned out to be a big nothing. Same thing with Iran. I cant believe how easy Israel and the US made this look. Literally bombed them at will. Other than Israel, mid east countries simply dont know how to fight. The Iran /Iraq war in the 80’s was comedy gold. Both sides kept killing their own soldiers with chemical weapons. Dumbasses.
Article assumes Iran cares about possible criticality. Article assumes Iran cares about worker safety, I think they could get volunteers, even if they had to lie about this.
Iran took this seriously enough to try to reinforce the facility. Why wouldn’t they try to move some of the uranium out of the facility, giving them two chances to preserve some of it?
What stopped Iran from predicting the strike well in advance? Or secreting some of the uranium on general principles? 900 kg is a lot to move all at once. One kg at a time, not so much. Maybe they built Fordow to attract attention, while they squirrel uranium all over the place.
For the record, I find the article very persuasive apart from the passage quoted above. We are dealing here with weapons of mass destruction so the burden of proof should always rest on those who assert that the danger is under control.
Get this wrong and millions die. That tells us where the burden of proof should be.
The article carries the burden to my relatively uneducated level of satisfaction.
“even if they moved it, its useless.”
I bet it makes a pretty effective dirty bomb. Denial of territory due to contamination works.
Nah. Not buying it.
Strangely, I have not seen many YouTube's of the Colonel telling us about Ukraine's imminent defeat because their defeat is inevitable. His allegations grow more bizarre and absurd even as the facts stubbornly rebuke him.
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