Clandestine Pentagon program developed the bunker buster bombs specifically to take out Iran’s nuclear program.
WASHINGTON—The United States’ B-2 stealth bomber strike on Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility was the culmination of more than 15 years of study and planning, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
Caine joined Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a press briefing on June 26, in which the defense secretary said the June 21 bombing mission was a resounding success that set Iran’s nuclear development back by years.
Caine detailed the military planning that began in 2009 to design a purpose-built method to knock out the Fordow facility, which is buried hundreds of feet underground in a mountainous region of Iran.
A Briefing in a Vault
During the press briefing, Caine shed new light on the role of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), an organization tasked with preparing bespoke solutions to destroy highly sensitive targets, including emerging weapons of mass destruction.
“DTRA does a lot of things for our nation, but DTRA is the world’s leading expert on deeply buried, underground targets,” Caine said.
“In 2009, a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran,” Caine said, declining to identify the DTRA officer by name.
Caine said that this DTRA officer, and another unnamed member of the agency, were then tasked to work with the intelligence community to study the construction of the Fordow site.
“For more than 15 years, this officer and his teammate lived and breathed this single target: Fordow, a critical element of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program,” Caine said.
According to the general, these two DTRA employees spent years studying everything from the geology surrounding Fordow, to the construction materials and other equipment arriving at the facility, so they could model the site and devise a plan.
“They literally dreamed about this target at night when they slept,” Caine said.
By Ryan Morgan
