Israel Plans to Contain Nuclear Fallout From Any Strike on Iran's Fordow
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
An Israeli official has said that the country was actively planning to mitigate the potential contamination emanating from strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, including the massive underground complex at Fordow.
Speaking on background during a virtual briefing Tuesday, the official confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had not yet targeted the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, believed to be a sprawling facility located up to 300 feet underground around 20 miles from the city of Qom, amid ongoing Israeli operations that began late Thursday across the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, the Israeli official stated that further raids were planned against nuclear sites, and the IDF had drawn up calculations as to how to minimize the risk of fallout.
"We haven't operated to Fordow to this moment, but that doesn't mean we won't," the official said. "We have not finished and achieved all the goals of this operation. I won't go into more specifics to that, but I will tell you that going into this operation, there was a lot of planning, a lot of thought of how to minimize the risk and damage for civilians."
"And there's also a process to understand what are the possible effects of these kind of strikes on nuclear sites," they continued, adding that "the way we planned our operations is in a way that that there's never a 100 percent guarantee, but in a way that makes it very clear that that is not something that should happen, a nuclear disaster."
The comments came after International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Raphael Grossi reported Friday on "radioactive and chemical contamination" at the Natanz Nuclear Facility, following an earlier IDF strike there. The IAEA said radiation levels outside the facility "remain unchanged."
Grossi said that, while the Israeli strike appeared to have destroyed the above-ground facility at Natanz, the subterranean section showed "no indications of damage."
A radiation warning sign is placed on the road as part of a contamination perimeter during a training simulation in Tehran, Iran, on November 5, 2015.
A radiation warning sign is placed on the road as part of a contamination perimeter during a training simulation in Tehran, Iran, on November 5, 2015.
MOHAMAD ALI NAJIB/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
The Israeli official on Tuesday questioned the sourcing of the IAEA findings, saying the initial assessment of the IDF operation was that the strike "was a success," though the results were still being studied.
Asked by Newsweek if the IDF had the capability to effectively destroy the underground complexes of nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz or elsewhere without the support of the United States, the Israeli official touted the military's capabilities, without getting into specifics.
"We have prepared for this operation on different levels for years," they said. "This is a well-planned operation, and we have a lot of different capabilities, and we have a few surprises up our sleeve, and we leave it at that.
"We have had a lot of success already," the official added. "There is more to come, and we are prepared to operate against the Iranian nuclear plants on ourselves and have the right achievements and be smarter once all this is said and done, but we've had a lot of success so far."
The Israeli official also referred to "a lot of innovation" among the IDF's capabilities, pointing specifically to prior operations conducted "in different places throughout the Middle East," as well as "our capabilities operating against different targets underground, including targeted elimination of arch terrorists underground in real time."
In September, nearly a year into the ongoing war in Gaza that sparked soaring regional tensions, the IDF killed longtime Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in a raid against his underground bunker in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
A number of current and former Israeli officials have doubted the IDF's capability to take out Iran's heavily fortified underground nuclear facilities, given that the Israeli military was not known to possess the kind of 15-ton "bunker buster" bombs produced by the U.S., nor the aircraft necessary to deliver them.
Questions over the IDF's capabilities have raised speculation that the U.S. may become directly involved in the conflict, a notion further fueled by the movement of U.S. military aircraft and ships to the Middle East in recent days, as well as President Donald Trump's ominous warnings to Iran as he left a G7 meeting early in Canada late Monday.
Trump called for the immediate evacuation of Tehran, home to around 10 million residents. The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is located roughly 125 miles south of the Iranian capital.
Responding to French President Emmanuel Macron's claim that the U.S. leader had left to work toward a ceasefire as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes, Trump said early Tuesday that he was working on something "much bigger than that."
Trump has consistently warned that Iran could not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon, something the Islamic Republic has always denied seeking to build.
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