OPINION:
Assessing the battle damage inflicted by a deep penetration weapon is not a fast process. Those who are legitimately concerned about the state of Iran’s nuclear program should reject the leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report suggesting that Operation Midnight Hammer did very little damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Deep penetration weapons typically inflict their destruction far below the surface, leaving a surface crater that is comparatively small in diameter and seemingly shallow. That is because the blast occurs more than 100 feet underground, causing the sides of the bomb’s penetrating path to the target to collapse. Much of the debris falls into that shaft, filling it in to more than half its depth.
Inexperienced or agenda-driven imagery interpreters examining such craters may convince themselves that very little damage was inflicted. After all, traditional bombs leave large blast craters that throw its debris dozens of feet outward because their mission is to maximize damage to a building or military equipment on or within 30 feet of the surface.
However, a hardened building that contains the blast without collapsing will hide the damage inflicted therein. That is why imagery has its limitations when applied to battle damage assessment of a target deep underground or within a structure that can contain the bombs’ blast.
This tells any intelligence professional that the leaked report was prepared by inexperienced analysts interpreting the immediate poststrike imagery of what may have been their first experience with deep-penetrating bomb craters. If the leakers were honest, they would have highlighted the “low confidence” placed on the information.
That confidence level can be a result of several factors, among them the timing of the imagery and the limitations of using imagery to assess the battle damage inflicted by a deep-penetrating weapon. The leakers’ failure to emphasize that confidence level to their journalist contacts suggests that the leakers, like so many others in the past, had a personal or political agenda behind their decision to leak the report, and perhaps behind their assessment too. It is also very likely that the media outlets had an agenda that led them to ignore the low confidence level and add editorial spin to reinforce the story’s political impact.
Accurate battle damage assessment is rapid only when the targets are on the surface, and even then, it is not always dispositive. That is not the case in Fordow and Natanz. Most of the damage is deep underground, where imagery cannot see. The debris may settle over a few days, but again, the actual detonation area will not appear in imagery. Seismic data can give some indications about how many weapons detonated. Infrared may show hot spots where fire broke out or where the blast scattered heat sources that were sufficiently powerful to create a heat signature. Changes in radiation signatures can contribute to the battle damage assessment process as well.
The full range of sources goes far beyond what can be discussed here, and unlike in the movies, the best source data rarely arrives immediately after an event. In fact, first reports should not be trusted because shock can affect sensors and excitement affects the humans interpreting the data.
The reality is that making an accurate battle damage assessment report requires several days at least, sometimes much longer. The analysts must gather the required information from all the available sources and assess it dispassionately. That may not be fast enough for America’s agenda-driven media or “leakers” seeking to influence government policy or earn the favor of journalists or political officials, but it is vital to providing our nation’s leaders and the public with the knowledge required to make good decisions.
• Carl O. Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy captain with 25 years of active duty service.
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