Weekend Project

I bet President Trump’s weekend project was a bit more complicated than yours. Fireworks came two weeks early this year. The United States military bombed the facilities used by the Iranian government’s uranium-enrichment program. It remains unclear whether the mission was successful.

As I have pointed out in the past, this incredibly violent attack has a low percentage of successfully affecting Iran’s nuclear program because most of their facilities are deep underground. To try to solve that problem, we used 15-ton bunker-buster bombs. Although they are the most successful at penetrating rock, they are only effective to about 300 feet below the surface. According to Israeli intelligence, the tunnels involved in the uranium facility were 600 feet below the surface.

To try to increase their depth, the USA‘s plan was to use a first set (2) of bombs to clear the top 300 feet of rock, a second set of bombs to devastate the next 300 feet and a final set to try to penetrate and collapse the tunnels below. It could be weeks before we know whether we were successful.

The more serious problem is our need to account for the enriched uranium. This is not rocket science but simple common sense. If they had enough enriched uranium to build nine atomic bombs, would they keep it all in the same place? Once they built their first atomic bomb, would they keep it in a location about which everyone in the world knows? Until we can account for all of the enriched uranium, the mission is not a success.

What we learned in Gaza is that even the top Israeli intelligence does not know the extent of the tunnels. What if Iran has already moved most of uranium out of the three known facilities? That is why we will need some troops on the ground.

In this case, we also have satellite photographs of a convoy of trucks at the main facility’s entrance two days before our bombing run. Our space force has been able to provide such timely surveillance photos to allow the Israeli pilots to bomb mobile missile launchers within minutes of rockets being launched. That is only about 20 minutes on the outside. (Israel claims it enabled them to knock out more than 55% of the launchers.) So, why in the world would we wait two days while watching trucks apparently move the enriched uranium? The logical conclusion is that the Israelis already knew where the uranium was going.

Unfortunately, that means the bombing run was just to prevent future uranium enrichment. That does not affect the primary concern. Of course, if our last president had any balls or at least a pulse, there would not any enriched uranium to cause concern.

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As to the assets used, the Air Force got the spotlight but the United States Navy is our real power in the fight. Unless you have spent some time standing on a jetty in Norfolk, San Diego, or Mayport, you probably do not understand that aircraft carriers are social animals. They never travel alone. A typical carrier group travels with between 15 and 20 other ships, all of which carry substantial firepower of their own. With three carrier groups in the region, we have enough power there to take on everybody in the Middle East.

The Pentagon reported that several fighter planes led the bombing group and attacked a variety of collateral sites to create diversions. Yet, the Pentagon did not specify the targets of the fighter planes. They clearly are not providing the whole story.

The Navy‘s best contribution had to be the tomahawk missiles launched from one of the boomer submarines. The tomahawks are one of the greatest weapons in the US arsenal. They can carry a variety of payloads from nuclear bombs to propaganda flyers. The tomahawk missiles were able to completely level two of the above-ground facilities. They travel slowly by current standards but they are radio controlled so their targets can be changed in flight. They also are accurate within four or five inches. At $1 million each, they are a bargain. They really do “deliver the most bang for the buck.” (We have several submarines that can carry up to 154 tomahawks at a time.)

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To really understand what is going on in Iran, we must start by looking into Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Reza), the last Shaw of Iran.