Former US bomber pilot Mark Weatherington assesses American strikes targeting Iranian nuclear sites
The US launched strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, with a US official telling Reuters that B-2 bombers were involved in carrying the attacks out.
The action came after Israel and Iran had been engaged in more than a week of aerial combat, which resulted in deaths and injuries in both countries.
President Donald Trump declared it a "very successful attack" and has repeatedly claimed Iran's nuclear sites had been "completely destroyed".
However, Mark Weatherington, a retired US Air Force lieutenant general who served from 1990 to 2023, said it would take a while before the full extent of the damage could be properly determined.
"It's going to take days, weeks, months for us to fully understand the damage at Fordow and how far that program may have been set back. So it's possible that an operation like this can be very decisively ordered, which I think it was, and it can be well executed, which I think was, and still not achieve the desired results," he told Sky News' Sharri Markson on Wednesday.
"There's a lot of unknowns. It appears to me that the weapons performed the way they were supposed to perform, arrived on the aim points precisely and did the damage that they were supposed to, but whether it caused that damage that we were looking for, we just don't know."
Mr Weatherington said the weight of the bombs being dropped from the B-2 bomber aircraft would "certainly" be felt and that it would have an effect on the flight.
He said they would be dropped from a medium altitude, meaning the weapon would take about a minute to fall and hit the ground.
"The (pilots are) not going to really realise any of the effects, whether that's a shockwave or a flash or anything like that," he said.
The B-2 aircraft carries a two-person crew, and would have had several air refuelings during the strikes "going into the target area and coming out of the target areas".
"Each one of those is about 20 minutes where they're piloting the large aeroplane, about 12 feet behind and beneath another very big aircraft transferring fuel," he said.
"So it's a very, very important aspect of the mission and one where they really have to be focused and prepared."
According to the former lieutenant general, there needed to be people on the ground to ascertain if the nuclear sites had been destroyed completely.
"You're going to need to be able to exploit that site, probably with someone there on the ground. There may be some clandestine sources that you can use. There's probably some measures and signals intelligence and other things that will help build that complete picture," he said.
"Unless you're really at the site and you can see that damage firsthand, it's hard to make a full assessment."
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