‘Once the inner wall is breached, it's all over': Mike Pezzullo reveals devastating impact of US strike on Iran's Fordow nuclear facility
Former Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo has offered a detailed technical breakdown of the United States' recent airstrike on Iran's heavily fortified Fordow nuclear site, revealing how precision-guided bunker-busting bombs were used to penetrate up to 100 metres of rock and concrete.
Speaking to Sky News Australia, Pezzullo explained that seven B-2 stealth bombers — the only aircraft capable of carrying the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) — were deployed in the mission, delivering 14 of the 13.5-tonne bombs designed to destroy deeply buried infrastructure.
Pezzullo explained that the precision-guided munitions were dropped from high altitude, creating either a single deep shaft or multiple entry points to punch through to the vast subterranean chambers housing uranium enrichment centrifuges.
'They just keep firing them in,' he said.
'Precision-guided, so they'll go into the same hole or create multiple shafts. Once the inner wall is breached, it's all over.
'That compressive energy just destroys everything that's got oxygen in it.'
According to Pezzullo, once the MOP reaches the internal halls beneath the mountain, the sheer force of the explosion makes survival or salvage of the facility virtually impossible.
'Well, the speculation and I've got to be careful here because when I was in government, I actually read all the intelligence reports but that is that you're looking at about 60 to 80 metres of protection, and then a 20-metre hall,' he said.
'Once a 2.5-tonne explosive gets into a large hall which has obviously open space and then corridors and ventilation shafts, it's all over at that point.
'In order to ensure that it's a decisive kill, they would have put a number of others in through the same hole until they get through to the cavernous halls where the centrifuges were.'
The B-2s involved in the mission flew east from their base in Missouri, crossing the Atlantic and navigating through the Mediterranean.
Pezzullo said it appeared likely that the UK was notified ahead of the strike, potentially to allow access to its base in Cyprus in case of emergency.
As part of the strike package, fighter jets - possibly including F-22s, F-35s, and electronic attack aircraft - cleared the airspace ahead of the bombers, targeting any Iranian systems that might have posed a threat but principally attacking the deeply buried infrastructure at Fordow.'
A full damage assessment is still underway.
While some attention has turned to whether Australia was briefed or involved, Pezzullo made clear the lack of consultation was not unusual - and likely a result of the US choosing to fly east.
'If they'd gone west, I think we'd be having a very different conversation,' he explained, noting that previous missions involving B-2 bombers over Yemen took a western route that may have required Australian airspace or logistical support.
Pezzullo added that with US military build-up continuing in Northern Australia will eventually need a clearer policy position on how and when it supports allied strikes - not necessarily in executing them, but in providing refuelling, overflight clearance, or basing access.
'I think the government's going to have to come up with a new policy framework to say not only do we concur in the American actions that have taken place, but we were prior notified and we provided support,' he said.
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