U.S. warplanes strike three Iranian nuclear sites in sweeping attack

 U.S. warplanes strike three Iranian nuclear sites in sweeping attack

effort, saying the talks in Geneva “didn’t help.” Iran has consistently refused U.S. and Israeli demands that it completely halt its enrichment of uranium, which can be used for both civilian nuclear power and, at higher enrichment levels, a nuclear weapon.

On June 10, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who as the head of U.S. Central Command oversees military operations across the Middle East, told House lawmakers that he had presented Trump with a “wide range of options” when asked whether the U.S. was prepared to respond with overwhelming force to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

The most formidable of Iran’s nuclear sites is Fordow, which is buried about 250 feet underground in the side of a mountain near the holy city of Qom. U.S. and Israeli officials have said it can be disabled only by immense earth-penetrating bombs.

The only aircraft in the world capable of carrying such weapons, known as massive ordnance penetrators, is the B-2 Spirit. Each MOP round weighs about 30,000 pounds, and defense officials had predicted that it would take multiple bombs to effectively attack Fordow.

The Fordow site, which Western intelligence agencies discovered and revealed publicly in 2009, has increased the pace of its enrichment of uranium to a 60 percent purity level, approaching the level needed for a nuclear weapon, according to a May 31 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran’s main uranium enrichment site is Natanz, which is larger but less deeply buried than Fordow. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Monday that Israeli airstrikes have destroyed the aboveground portion of the plant and knocked out the complex’s main power supply and backup systems. Although Israel has not attacked the underground enrichment plant, “the loss of power to the cascade hall may have damaged the centrifuges there,” he said.Reaction to the attack was mixed in Congress, including within the Republican Party, which for days has been split on whether to use military force and risk getting pulled into another Middle East conflict.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Trump had “made a deliberate — and correct — decision to eliminate the existential threat posed by the Iranian regime.”

“We now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies and stability for the Middle East,” Wicker said.

Among the Republicans to condemn the strikes were Rep. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), who questioned whether the attack was constitutional, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia).

“Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,” Greene posted on social media, adding that Israel is a nuclear-armed nation and “this is not our fight.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) lamented the decision in a post on X, saying that the American people are “overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S. waging war on Iran.”

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