US didn’t use bunker busters on Isfahan nuclear site: CNN

Defense affairs analysis

WASHINGTON: The US military did not use bunker buster bombs on one of Iran’s largest nuclear sites last weekend, because it is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US’s top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday.

CNN reported that the comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran.

US officials believe Isfahan’s underground structures house nearly 60pc of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon.

B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine.

The classified briefing to lawmakers was conducted by Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, CNN reported.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN on Thursday night after receiving the briefing that some of Iran’s capabilities “are so far underground that we can never reach them. So they have the ability to move a lot of what has been saved into areas where there’s no American bombing capacity that can reach it.”

Separately, President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to bomb Iran again if it resumes efforts to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, and made the claim that he saved Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from an assassination, lashing out at the Iranian supreme leader for claiming victory in their recent conflict.