Following up ORAC's post.....

When Dictatorhips fall it does not take long sometimes as the leadership falls prey to its own propaganda.

When despots are seen as weak and vulnerable their own security apparatus sometimes sees opportunities for self advancement to the front office.,

Consider all of the setbacks the current Iranian Regime has suffered in the past couple of years, its lack of real and loyal allies, and now its stepping up of oppressive actions against its own people.

History is not on their side at all.

Was the Ayatollah hiding from the IDF or his own side?

https://www.nzz.ch/english/for-many-...ise-ld.1865074

Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, CNN reports

"WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - An early U.S. intelligence assessment indicated that the U.S. military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities last week did not destroy the core components of Tehran's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing three people briefed on it. "This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong," CNN quoted White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt as saying.!"

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...es-2025-06-24/

Yes, I know it's CNN, and I know there is still to be an official release, but there is considerable difference between "totally obliterated" and "set it back by a few months".

Further to the above, the WH Press Sec has issued a rebuttal that basically confirms the report is real.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5b75e4fe05.jpg

Yes, "fighter pilots", I know ...

From a news story in AP, discussing the death of 14 Iranian nuclear experts/scientists during the attacks by Israel, and subsequent air strikes by the US. Right. Set back for ... a while.

Mal Drop, I have an idea of what may be behind that message from that mouthpiece: the intent is to offer the impression that the political leadership has no effing idea of what they are doing. It's part of the Deception Plan. :8
(Or is it? :confused: )

Was anyone setting book on when Bibi is going to trot over to the U.S. and start beating the drums for round two?

I hope I am not misplaced with this concession, but I might have to hand it to Trump in that he doesn't seem to be in the mood to brook lip from either side.

Whether he was right or wrong ordering U.S. involvement I will wait and see, but I feel that he is now in the position to at least try to crack heads together and tell the parties that enough is enough. Rather like my parents would do when I was scrapping with my siblings. They would get to the point where they would say they did not care who started it, but it was going to end NOW... and upon that warning it usually did.

Interesting point was made by someone today that the idea of nukes has been altered a bit in recent years. If you are going to use them as a true existential deterrent, then you have to have enough to completely destroy the opponent.

North Korea could take out, for example, Seattle but then the Hermit Kingdom would dissappear 20 minutes later. It would need to take out a lot more to play the MAD game.

If a country is going to be operating below that threshold of MAD however, then a stockpile of precision weapons are much more cost and planning effective. Things that can take out specific targets and capabilities. One would think Iran would have gone down that route unless they were/are actually planning to develop and field a dozen or more weapons and delivery vehicles.

Of course in the ME it is not a matter of tomorrow, next week, or even next year, but maybe in the next decade.

................the assessment was wrong ............. but ............. classified as top secret.

Two countries divided by a common language.

I've always considered that anyone occupying a cockpit, irrespective of aircraft type, and engaged in combat, can quite rightly call themselves a "fighter pilot". Combat is all about fighting after all, I get the point you're making though.

Found Trump's truth social posts yesterday hilarious - ordering Israel and Iran to stop violating the ceasefire.
As if either of them are going to listen to him...

So the Intelligence community needs to make sure their assessments don’t upset the thin skinned administration now?

Well, it seems they did!

demean1
/dɪˈmiːn/

verb

1. cause a severe loss in the dignity of and respect for (someone or something).

"Totally obliterated" was it? How does such wild and whimsical hyperbole before any intel or assessment has been carried out display dignity or deserve anything but incredulity, least of all respect?
'Flat out wrong" hardly increases the respect or dignity of a mere press secretary or her puppetmasters when slapping down one of their own primary governmental intel outfits. She has this superior and contradictory better intel from - where exactly? Doesn't reflect well on the analysts who came up with this hardly iunexpected or unsurprising finding does it? Now that is demeaning.
"low level loser". - that's just a junior school playground level insult. Hardly a dignified way for a primary governmental spokesperson to characterise a whistleblower
"brave fighter pilots". Leaving the glaring technical inaccuracy aside (well, she is press...) how could this reflect in any way on the service personnel who were doing their job to their usual high standard? For sure it probably was perfectly executed, but the aircrew are the last people to blame for the fact that no one, least of all the Air Force, the ordnance people, the planners or the Generals have any idea whatsoever what actually happens when you drop a bomb that can allegedly penetrate just 60m of soft concrete and far far less of properly hardened stuff onto solid rock maybe 3-500m thick. No lady, "everyone" most assuredly does NOT "know". In fact no-one has much (if any) idea at all. Complete hollywood/video game inspired flummel.

This entire undignified, inaccurate and frankly mendacious statement merely further demeans the current POTUS and his staff, as if they need any help on that score.
I'd bet my last shilling that the military brass were holding their heads in their hands when they heard that "totally obliterated" nonsense - while the rest of us less directly involved probably just guffawed in disbelief at the delusion.

It'll take a darn sight more than a handful of tons of HE to obliterate an entire mountain. Surely everyone (except POTUS) knows that?

I am guessing that this lot heading back to Qatar yesterday had a significantly greater effect than the missiles.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....568347576d.jpg

I'll see if our correspondent in Doha has an "Ops Normal" report.

The 'obliterationists' seem increasingly shrill as the hours pass. There's an admirably cool and balanced overview at The Times of Israel:
...and much more.

If the voices of caution are vindicated, I expect that Israel will have to cope as best it can without further US strikes on Iran. President Trump has very limited patience for complex issues which demand sustained effort from him. He also hates to be perceived as a failure in any way. He will, I think, drop this crisis and move on to something else. I hope that Israel will continue to benefit from US intelligence data on Iran.

Perhaps the last bunker buster dropped in each pit was set to a specific type of fuze...

Regarding confidence in the CNN reporting:

As neither Mod nor Admin:
If the point is that they can "restart it" in a few months, they still have to get things up and going.
Maybe they have to play "catch up" or cover some old ground again to "get back to where we were."
How long does that take?
Do they even know yet, themselves?
Will some helpful people from North Korea, Russia or Pakistan offer to help them get back on step?

Personally a bit skeptical of this "...we don't know where the HEU has gone..." line.
For a long time now US IMINT platforms (both UAVs and things that fly or orbit at higher altitudes) have had the ability to `stare' at large areas of the earth for long periods and record what they see in exquisite detail.
If something happens at a particular point, you can then re-wind the view, zoom in on parts of the picture, tag items of interest and then follow them back on the timeline.
Want to see where the truck carrying the bomb came from? Tag it, and follow it all the way back to the terrorist hideout.
Have never seen it (for obvious reasons) but have seen reports from those who have who say it is quite extraordinary.
As an area of great interest, particularly in the last few months, I would imagine there would have been a RQ-180 or some other HALO platform that we might not yet know about over Fordow for a long time, recording stuff almost continuously, and occasionally supplemented by U2s looking in from Iraq when needed and/or IMINT or SAR birds as they transit overhead.
I would have assumed that anything leaving Fordow recently would have been recorded by our friends in Chantilly VA - including where it went. I find it hard to believe it wouldn't have been.
But I may also have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels...

The HEU can be carried in canisters which will fit in the back of any military vehicle. There will literally be hundreds of such arriving and departing from the sites daily loading and unloading out of sight.

Once a vehicle has left a site it can stop in any tunnel or any loading bay or garage and the contents moved to any other vehicle and moved elsewhere. A tactics which can be performed multiple times.

The idea that the presence of the HEU could be confirmed, let alone tracked, by satellite or drone surveillance is something reserved for Mission Impossible movies.

The only one’s I’d suspect have any idea of it’s location, based on HUMINT, not ELINT which I suspect the Iranians will be paranoid about in such circumstances, will the Israelis with people on the ground who have infiltrated the programme over the years.

HEU possibly under the scenarios you outline, but tracking of hundreds of targets by IMINT or ELINT is indeed feasible.
These systems deployed at altitude can visually monitor an entire city, and effectively re-wind what they see.
Google the term Wide Area Persistent Surveillance.
Effectively they are military digital video surveillance recorders paired with highly sophisticated multi-lens camera systems, and software which can stitch the imagery together enabling analysts to zoom in on parts of the image - highlight an object or person of interest and then backtrack a path.

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;)