The Iran strikes: How effective were US bombs, really?

The Trump administration in Washington and the Netanyahu administration in Jerusalem both say

Iran's nuclear program was set back years after the U.S. strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan

Even the Iranian foreign minister admitted the sites were severely damaged. So why is there a

U.S. intelligence report saying the strikes only set Iran's nuclear ambitions back by a few months

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane, says when the United States

dropped 14 massive ordnance penetrators on Fordow and Natanz, all indications are the weapons

performed as intended. The first of the 30,000-pound bombs took out concrete caps covering

ventilation shafts. The successive bombs then penetrated the shafts and detonated deep below

the surface. A bomb has three effects that causes damage, blast, fragmentation, and overpressure

In this case, the primary kill mechanism in the mission space was a mix of overpressure

and blast ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware. Planning for

Operation Midnight Hammer started 15 years ago when the Fordow facility was first discovered

But an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency is casting doubt on whether the strike was as effective as the White House says

The Defense Intelligence Agency is the main intel arm of the Pentagon but it just one of 18 U intelligence agencies The DIA report says based on current findings Iran nuclear program was probably set back a

few months, not years. But it's worth noting the DIA's report was given a low confidence rating

implying it could be wrong or it might change. And that should not be surprising

because just like it took time to plan the strikes, it's going to take time to find out if the plan worked

There's actually several layers to this, right? Mark Wetherington is a retired Air Force Lieutenant General

and the former Deputy Commander of USAF Global Strike Command. He says battle damage assessments are always labor-intensive

so assessing the damage of what happened underground will only complicate things

The first thing that's going to happen is the crew or a follow on crew, another aircraft that might be in the area, might observe some effects on the target

OK, the crew is going to be able to report that, yes, the weapons released, they released in certain parameters

And there'll be some, you know, understanding that we believe the weapons functioned as we as they were supposed to

The general says in the case of Fordow and Natanz, early satellite imagery clearly shows

the aim points of the weapons and that they were hit with precision

But it really doesn tell you anything about the impact on the target area especially with a target like this because it is so deep and so obscured from direct observation right And so I think early reports while they can be positive and in this case I think they were they not conclusive

And so I think that's what part of the challenge was when you had some initial reporting coming out, one source, one day's worth of information or less, right

Just a small set of observations, that's going to be a low confidence type of thing, right

There's so many more factors, so many more variables, so much more information that must be gathered to build confidence in that reporting

to moderate confidence and high confidence in the results that we shouldn't have expected it to be any different

Wetherington says as more intelligence is gathered on the strikes, it's likely the confidence level of battle damage assessments will go up

And he says it requires ysis from multiple sources of intelligence. So in addition to the reporting from the flight crews, the U.S. will also learn things from open sources as well as covert sources like spies or by monitoring Iranian communications

Air samples will likely be taken as well to monitor for spikes in radiation

As for the potential for missing or unaccounted for fissile material, Wetherington says given the nature of enriched uranium and the dangers surrounding its transfer

he doesn think it likely anything was moved out of the nuclear sites before the bombs hit But that too will require confirmation through more intelligence gathering which is just more proof that battle damage assessments

take time. And even if we could answer all the questions around the strikes

there will still be more unknowns on the other side. This is not a game-winning field goal as time expired. We didn't just win the Super Bowl and

we can all say, oh, thank goodness that's over. We don't have to worry about that anymore

The question is, how much will Iran compete? How much will they continue to drive

on a nuclear program? Did this increase their ambition or drive in that way

How much did this set them back? What else are they going to do? Because they're a thinking

reacting adversary. They certainly have ingenuity. They certainly have determination. And so we shouldn't think that this, even though it changed the strategic environment

it didn't change this competition with Iran forever. There's going to be a back and forth cycle of moves going forward

And that's something we're going to have to watch from here on out. Assessing the damage from the other strikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel is a little easier

According to Iran's health ministry, at least 627 people are dead and another 4,800 injured

as a result of Israeli strikes. Israel says 28 people are dead from Iranian attacks

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