CNN
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Five tunnels dig holes in mountain groups, large support structures, wide security perimeters: everything about Iran’s mystical Fodow fuel enrichment plant from recent satellite images.
The secret, strictly guarded complex, built near the sacred city, has been spurring speculation about its true nature and size since its first opened in 2009.
The chunk of what we know about it comes from a flock of Iranian documents stolen by the Israeli Intelligence Report a few years ago.
Its main hole is estimated to be 80-90 meters (approximately 262-295 feet) below the ground. It is safe from air bombs known to be owned by Israel, and it is nearly impossible to destroy the facility from the sky.
Just as Iran’s leadership sways from a series of catastrophic Israeli strikes, some analysts say Iran is in Fordou that it may be in a hurry to convert its enriched uranium stockpile into a nuclear bomb.
Israel has recently targeted the facility, but so far it has been reluctant or impossible to damage it, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Tehran has long maintained its nuclear program purpose as peaceful, but Fordau has been at the heart of concern over Iran’s ambitions.
“The size and composition of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” President Barack Obama said in 2009 that he, along with French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed the world of Fordou’s existence.
A few days before the announcement, Iranians apparently knew what Western institutions had learned about the facilities and spoke about their desire to build a new fuel enrichment facility in the IAEA. By that point, construction at Fordow had been underway for years.
Tehran opposed the charges, but even criticised them from Alli Russia, and concerns from China left almost room to pilot it.
The US and its allies have not provided much details about when the Fordow construction began, but published historical satellite images show that they are working on the site back to 2004, with the photos revealing two white square structures with the entrance to the tunnel today. According to the IAEA, there are additional images showing the structure up to 2002.
“Fordow is actually a project called the Crash Nuclear Weapons Program in the early 2000s,” said David Albright, director of the Washington, DC-based Institute for International Security (ISIS), a nonpartisan institution dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. “The idea was that they (the Iranians) would make weapon-grade uranium from their plants, and they would acquire a wealth of uranium from Iran’s civilian nuclear program.”
In 2009, a large external support structure was already fully built, and for what experts believe to be a ventilation shaft, excavations were underway to allow air circulation to the facility. The shaft is later hidden and camouflaged, and shows recent images as well.
Tehran explained to the IAEA in a letter dated October 2009 that the decision to build the facility underground was the result of a “threatening of a military attack on Iran,” adding that the Fordau would serve as a contingency at the nearby Natantz plant.
Iran told the IAEA the facility could accommodate up to 3,000 centrifuges.
Nuclear trade and Israel’s accusations
The dangers raised by Fordow were primarily tamed as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA).
When President Donald Trump withdrew his contract in 2018, the process slowly reversed.
Details of the facility were made public in 2018 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Israel’s intelligence agency seized more than 55,000 documents after Israel said it was an Iranian “atomic archive.”
The document contained a detailed blueprint for Fordow and information about its purpose. As part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, it is to produce weapon-grade uranium for at least one or two nuclear weapons.
“I never saw a contradiction,” Albright, who looked into the documents, said of Iran’s push for nuclear weapons. “It’s hundreds of thousands of pages. I mean you can’t make that amount of stuff. I don’t think anyone will try that. That’s probably why the (IAEA) Governor’s Committee has a resolution against Iran.”
At the time, Iranian Deputy Minister Abbas Aragchi called the revelation and Netanyahu’s comments “childish” and “hate.” Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US had known about the material “for a while” and believed the document was authentic.
A recent IAEA report suggests that Iran has increased its enriched uranium production to 60% levels at its Fordow facility.
“The significant increase in the production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only nuclear-free weapon that produces such nuclear material, is a serious concern,” the IAEA said in its May 31 report.
“One of the things that increased the tension was that there was no reason to do that other than being able to go on the next step and turn it into weapon-grade uranium,” Albright said.
“It was interpreted as being prepared so they can do it if they decide, and if you’re 60%, you can turn it into weapon-grade uranium very quickly,” he added.
According to the ISIS think tank, “Iran can convert its current stock of enriched uranium into a weapon-grade uranium of 233 kg in three weeks at the Fordaw fuel enriched plant.”
That’s why Fordow is the main focus of Israel’s attempts to dismantle and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But is that viable?
The United States is the only country that owns the kind of bombs needed to attack Iran’s Fordau nuclear land, and Israel’s US ambassador Yechiel Leiter said in an interview with Merit TV on Monday.
“The only country in the world that has a bomb from the air is the United States that has the bomb. And it is a decision the United States has to take whether the US actually chose to pursue that course or not,” the writer said. But he added that it wasn’t the only option. “There are other ways to deal with Fordow.”
A March report from the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank found that destroying the Fordow is nearly impossible for Israel, and requires important firepower and support from the US.
According to a report by RUSI, the US GBU-57’s large intruder bomb, which reaches only about 60 meters deep, will not even reach it. Additionally, the GBU-57 is only delivered by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers that the US does not own. Even if the US gives a bomb.
“Even GBU-57/B may require multiple impacts at the same target point because it is likely to penetrate the facility,” the report states.
Other analysts agree that if the US tried to attack Fordow, it probably wouldn’t have been possible with one bomb.
“I will deposit my banks in the bank on repeated strikes against Fordor,” said CNN military analyst CNN.
Albright says there may be other ways to disable Fordow.
“Israel could probably destroy the tunnel entrance quite some time ago and certainly destroy the ventilation system,” he said. “If you destroy (the tunnel) and supply electrical power, it will take several months for it to actually work.”
Despite its important role in Iran’s nuclear program, Albright believes Fordow is just another part of the puzzle.
“If you destroy it, it’s not the end of the line, because you’re going to the next threat. So did Iran make Iran that didn’t deploy to Fordau and Natantz? He said.
“I think people are stressing the need to destroy it by knocking it down, and this is certainly something that only the US can do.”