The entire Israeli campaign to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons will be considered a failure if the spinning centrifuges deep underground at the Fordow enrichment facility south of Tehran are left untouched, the former head of U.S. Central Command said Monday.
“I take it at face value when the Israelis say if Fordow is untouched when they’re finished, they would regard it as a failure” of Operation Rising Lion, which began last Friday with wide-ranging airstrikes against Iran’s air defenses, military facilities and key leaders, retired Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie said in a Middle East Institute panel discussion.
Former CIA and National Security Council official Ken Pollack, the panel’s moderator, said he had been told by Israeli officials that, “If this ends with Fordow still functioning, we have not achieved our objectives.”
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Even as Fordow remains a high priority for the Israelis, the facility has been relatively untouched thus far, McKenzie said. “I’m certain they’re gonna get round to Fordow,” he said, but how the Israelis could attack and destroy a facility believed to be protected by reinforced concrete a half-mile underground was unclear.
The Air Force has the weapon that could possibly penetrate the Fordow facility — the GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), a precision-guided, 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb that can penetrate down 200 feet before exploding.
The MOP weapon can be delivered only by the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, McKenzie said. “It is a uniquely American capability we’ve trained with over a number of years,” he explained, but added that the bunker buster was unlikely to be used unless Iran attacked U.S. personnel or assets in the region.
However, McKenzie said without giving specifics that “there are other ways to get at that space,” meaning Fordow. “I really can’t say a lot more about that,” he said, but the other ways would involve what he called “heroic measures.”
Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, suggested Sunday that Israel had contingency plans to deal with Fordow without U.S. assistance.
“We have a number of contingencies … which will enable us to deal with Fordow. Not everything is a matter of, you know, taking to the skies and bombing from afar,” Leiter said Sunday on ABC-TV’s “This Week” program.
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