I’m aware of the capability - but all it will tell you is that thousands of vehicles visited thousands of locations without giving you any way of knowing what they were carrying and what went on every time they stopped.

The USA can’t even track its own HEU - let alone anyone else’s.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...eapons-program

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_affair

Let's assume (for the sake of argument) that US intel can track every vehicle movement in Iran with 100% accuracy. Now consider that the Iranians move all of their 400kg of HEU in 1 vehicle movement and the US know exactly which day this will occur. They observe 50 vehicle movements at the Fordow facility on that day and each of these vehicles moves to a logistics hub/ warehouse. There are a further 50 vehicle movements from each of these hubs each going to a final location. That is now 2500 possible locations for your HEU on day 1! Now consider that 50% of these secondary movements are also to hubs, and that vehicle movements follow the same pattern the next day. By the end of day 2, you have ~63k possible locations and by day 3 you are close to 1M. If you target trucks as they leave the facility, that might be doable with an airstrike. Otherwise, you will need additional sources of intelligence.

In reality, the HEU will be widely dispersed with multiple dummy containers and a very few people who know which is which. Logistically it is much easier to store HEU out of the reach of US and Israeli weapons than it is to do the same with a processing facility. I have no doubt that Israeli intelligence capabilities in Iran are exceptionally good but I very much doubt that they (or the US) have the capability to target Iranian HEU inventory with airpower alone.

Edit: This should not be a surprise to anybody who has posted a letter. Imagine claiming that because you saw me post a letter, and you could log movements of every postal truck, that you would be able to tell who I had sent it to without seeing the envelope!

A bit technical logic applied. With the facilities in place why should Iran have stopped at 60% enrichment. They did likely let the centrifuges run to get weapon grade material. Then disperse it with camouflaged transportation to various location. A mule carriage will do. Not much shielding for highly enriched Uranium metal is required. By all means we can assume that they already have some working uranium bombs. But now they are in the same problem as all others with nuclear bombs. You can not use them, otherwise your country will be toast. Israel has a working second strike capability with their subs, and Iran knows this. All large population centers in Iran would be glassed if they would use a single nuke against Israel.

Also keep in mind that the target we are talking about here is nothing more than a lump of metal. The lump of metal can be bent broken warped twisted or perforated and it retains exactly the same value to the weapons programme (just so long as you can find all the pieces). Designing a strike that can functionally 'destroy' small disks of metal is (I would imagine) not a trivial undertaking, even if you know to the nearest cm where they are.

At the latest press conference with Trump Hegseth stated that each of the two targets (Fordo and Natanz) were hit with 6 bombs.

Since each B-2 are reported as carrying 2 MOBs and seven were reported on the raid it would seem the seventh was an inflight spare in case any of the others had a problem en-route or over the target. With the small inventory of such weapons presumably they carried them home unused.

A bit of a bummer for the crew concerned.

Compare CNN of today with CNN during Desert Storm. The "N" in the middle has become "n".

As neither mod nor admin
An old friend of mine, now deceased, used to refer to it as the "Cable Noise Network."
From our correspondent in Doha. The base being referred to is Al Udeid.

I thought it was usual for 'new' nuclear powers to first do an underground test explosion to 'announce' their entry into the club.
The resultant seismic signature is usually attributed to a nuke by those countries with suitable monitoring equipment and
scientific knowhow.

Well, that's the conventional 1950's paradigm. Mutual Assured Destruction, aka "MAD". But would that really make sense for Israel?

Palestinian Arabs hate Israeli Jews, that goes back to Isaac vs. Ishmael, or maybe even Cain vs. Abel. Persians do not. Minority Iranian peoples certainly do not. Hatred of Israel is only a creature of the fanatical Islamic government.

So why would Israel, even if mortally wounded, play into the mullah's hands by exterminating millions of Iranians? Where's the benefit? No amount of revenge killing would put Tel Aviv and Haifa back together.

Furthermore, what's the deterrent value of a gun with an empty magazine, so to speak? If Israel expends its entire nuclear arsenal on a revenge attack, no cards are left to play.

Seems more likely that the Israeli response would be directed at the Islamic regime, its leadership, its forces, and its symbols than at the general population. And that the Israelis would never expend all their nuclear ordnance.

And more likely that Israel would be willing to carry out a nuclear preemptive strike, since they don't have the strategic depth to absorb the damage from a first strike.

Think of Israel. They did it with less fanfare. Oppenheimer did not see it necessary to test the simple gun type uranium bomb later used in Hiroshima.
Israel will not use them in first strike for the same reason than everyone else. However they learned the hard way that if attacked you have to make a point.

In my day If you'd walked into a FJ crew room as a Vulcan pilot and tried that approach you would have been bantered to hell and back!

Even if, at any sort of reasonable altitude, you could have out turned them with ease?

Information taken from a news article quoting the Israel Prime Minister.......who do we believe and why?

Also, a Wiki article discussing the Iranian Nuclear Program starting back under the Shah leading up to today. Remember Mr. Trump arrived on the scene in January 2017 for four years and again in January 2025.

Yes, even more if they had tried that nomsense! A BVR before they even knew that we were there would have stopped that silliness.

WH Press Sec debunking nonsense from fake news channels about the success of Op MIDNIGHT HAMMER - President Trump and SecDef did the same at the NATO Summit

12 x F-22A that were deployed for Op MIDNIGHT HAMMER leaving the CENTCOM AOR and will be returning to RAF Lakenheath, UK today

F-22As landing at RAF Lakenheath - from 11:40

DNI Statement

Is that the same Tulsi Gabbard who said the Iranians didn't have a nuke programme a few short weeks ago?

The only reason they're pushing back on this is because they don't want to have to go back in again (and possibly again, and again...). The Iranians will be enjoying the fact that they are off the hook

A foundation engineer's take:

There's a comment from a mining engineer on underground blasting. The kinetic impact would be significant as well as the blast. Much depends on the proximity of the detonations to the facilities.

If no significant damage, the regime may decide to pretend obliteration and let Trump declare victory;)