Pentagon Office That Designed Bombs for Iran Strikes Can't Say If They Reached the Needed Depth
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin
Published July 10, 2025 at 6:15pm ET
Top officials at the Pentagon office that played a key role in designing the bombs used in the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities more than two weeks ago cannot say whether the weapons were successful in reaching the deeply buried bunkers.
At a press briefing days after the strike, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "for more than 15 years" a pair of officers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency "lived and breathed this single target -- Fordo -- a critical element of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program" and hailed the agency as "the world's leading expert on deeply buried underground targets."
However, in a press briefing Thursday, a senior defense official at the agency told reporters that they didn't know whether the bombs they designed specifically for this strike reached the depths for which they were engineered. They also defined the effects of the strike in incredibly narrow terms that boiled down to the bombs falling where they were intended.
The officials, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, argued that the historic U.S. strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities were successful and their 30,000-pound bombs, 14 of which were dropped on two sites, accomplished their goals.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/07/10/pentagon-office-designed-bombs-iran-strikes-cant-say-if-they-reached-needed-depth.html
