How much did America’s bombs damage Iran’s nuclear programme?
美国的炸弹对伊朗核计划造成了多大的破坏？

“OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER”, as America called its strike on Iran on June 22nd, was a vast raid involving more than 125 military aircraft. It was the largest-ever strike by B-2 stealth bombers and the first use in battle of the GBU-57, America’s largest bunker-buster bomb. Seven bombers flew east over the Atlantic from Whiteman air-force base in Missouri on the 37-hour mission to Iran and back, helped by in-flight refuelling tankers and fighter jets to sweep the skies ahead of them. Decoy planes flew west over the Pacific to confuse anyone watching air deployments. Dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles were also fired at Iran from submarines. The operation’s scope and scale would “take the breath away” of most observers, boasted Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. But how much damage did it actually do to Iran’s nuclear programme?
美国于 6 月 22 日对伊朗发动袭击，代号 “ 午夜之锤行动”，这是一场大规模空袭，动用了超过 125 架军用飞机。这是 B-2 隐形轰炸机有史以来最大规模的袭击，也是美国最大的掩体炸弹 GBU-57 首次在战斗中使用。七架轰炸机从密苏里州怀特曼空军基地向东飞越大西洋，在 37 个小时的往返伊朗任务中，空中加油机和战斗机为其提供空中加油，为其扫清障碍。诱饵机向西飞越太平洋，迷惑任何观察空中部署的人。数十枚战斧巡航导弹也从潜艇上发射到伊朗。国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯夸口说，这次行动的范围和规模会让大多数观察员“惊叹不已”。但它实际上对伊朗核计划造成了多大的损害呢？

Donald Trump declared that the three facilities targeted had been “totally obliterated”. But on June 25th several American media outlets published details of a much more sceptical take from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), which reportedly concluded that the American and Israeli strikes set Iran’s nuclear programme back by months, rather than years. The centrifuges Iran uses to isolate the uranium isotope needed for bomb-making were largely “intact” and the country maintained other secret facilities that “remain operational”, according to CNN’s account of the report. “Much” of Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium had been moved before the strikes and so remains intact, the New York Times relayed. To quell the ensuing uproar, both Tulsi Gabbard, the director national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, issued statements insisting the targeted sites had been “destroyed”.
唐纳德·特朗普宣称，被袭击的三处设施已被“彻底摧毁”。但 6 月 25 日，多家美国媒体刊登了国防情报局（DIA）持怀疑态度的细节。据报道，DIA 得出结论，美国和以色列的袭击使伊朗核计划倒退了数月，而不是数年。据 CNN 报道，伊朗用于分离制造核弹所需铀同位素的离心机基本“完好无损”，该国还保留着其他“仍在运转”的秘密设施。《 纽约时报》 报道称，伊朗“大部分”近乎武器级的铀储备在袭击前已被转移，因此仍然完好无损。为了平息随后的骚动，国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德和中央情报局局长约翰·拉特克利夫均发表声明，坚称目标地点已被“摧毁”。

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The B-2s dropped 14 GBU-57s on buried nuclear sites at Natanz and especially Fordow, which Mr Trump described as the “primary” target. The Tomahawks struck Isfahan, a complex of facilities where Iran turns uranium metal into a gaseous compound and back, makes centrifuges and may have stored much of its stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU), meaning it has a high proportion of the fissile isotope. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that Iran had 400kg of uranium of 60% purity, a short hop to weapons-grade (usually 90%). That would be enough for ten bombs.
B-2 轰炸机向纳坦兹和福尔多的地下核设施投下了 14 枚 GBU-57，特朗普称福尔多是“首要”目标。战斧导弹袭击了伊斯法罕，这是伊朗的一个综合设施，伊朗在这里将铀金属转化为气态化合物，然后再转化回来，制造离心机，并且可能储存了其大量的高浓缩铀（HEU），这意味着伊朗拥有高比例的可裂变同位素。联合国国际原子能机构（IAEA）估计，伊朗拥有 400 公斤纯度为 60%的铀，距离武器级（通常为 90%）仅一步之遥。这足以制造十枚核弹。

Before the strikes Western officials disagreed about whether even the GBU-57, or “massive ordnance penetrator” (MOP), would do much damage to Fordow’s deeply buried chambers. It can burrow through 60 metres of ordinary concrete, but only a lesser depth of reinforced concrete. Repeatedly striking the same spot allows it to penetrate deeper. Satellite images of Fordow released by Maxar, an American firm, after the bombing raid show a series of craters on the mountainside.
空袭前，西方官员对 GBU-57（又称“巨型钻地弹”）能否对福尔多深埋的地下墓室造成严重破坏意见不一。它可以穿透 60 米厚的普通混凝土，但对钢筋混凝土的穿透深度则较短。反复打击同一位置可以使其穿透更深。美国公司 Maxar 在空袭后发布的福尔多卫星图像显示，山腰上出现了一系列弹坑。

David Albright, a former IAEA inspector who now leads the Institute for Science and International Security, a think-tank in Washington, argued prior to the war that Fordow was “more vulnerable than people realise”. Israel had detailed knowledge of the building’s designs, he noted, including knowledge of the tunnels: “where they start, how they zig and zag, where the ventilation system is, the power supplies”. The site had only one ventilation shaft; destroying that, he argued, could put Fordow out of action for “a few years rather than a few months”. Moreover, even if the bombs did not demolish all of the Fordow complex, the powerful blasts might nonetheless have damaged or destroyed much of the machinery inside.
前国际原子能机构核查员、现任华盛顿智库科学与国际安全研究所所长的戴维·奥尔布赖特在战前就指出，福尔多“比人们意识到的更脆弱”。他指出，以色列对这座建筑的设计了如指掌，包括对隧道的了解：“它们的起点、曲折路径、通风系统的位置以及电源”。该设施只有一个通风井；他认​​为，摧毁通风井可能会让福尔多“几年而不是几个月”无法运转。此外，即使炸弹没有摧毁福尔多综合设施的全部，强大的爆炸也可能损坏或摧毁里面的大部分机器。

There are other reasons to question the DIA’s pessimism. Its analysts themselves labelled their report “low-confidence”, meaning that its credibility is “questionable”, it is “poorly corroborated”, or there are “significant concerns” with the source. It is reportedly based solely on satellite images and intercepted communications. As new information comes in, American spies’ assessment is likely to change. On June 24th Mr Albright noted that new evidence, which arrived after the completion of the DIA’s report, suggested that “more enriched uranium stocks are in the rubble than believed just yesterday”. He says that Iran is likely to have lost close to 20,000 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, creating a “major bottleneck” in any renewed effort to build a bomb.
还有其他理由质疑国防情报局的悲观主义。该机构的分析师们自己也称其报告“可信度低”，这意味着其可信度“值得怀疑”、“缺乏佐证”或对消息来源存在“重大担忧”。据报道，该报告完全基于卫星图像和截获的通信。随着新信息的出现，美国间谍的评估可能会改变。6月24日，奥尔布赖特先生指出，国防情报局报告完成后获得的新证据表明，“废墟中浓缩铀库存比昨天预想的还要多”。他表示，伊朗可能已经损失了纳坦兹和福尔多近2万台离心机，这将给任何新的核计划制造“重大瓶颈”。

Fordow was originally a secret project, revealed by Western countries in 2009. The question now is whether Iran has other intact secret facilities and a sufficient stock of HEU hidden away with which to restart the programme away from prying eyes. Iran has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If it does so, IAEA inspectors would have no way to observe Iran’s future nuclear work. Nevertheless, Israel’s spies have displayed an extraordinary ability to penetrate Iran’s nuclear enterprise and security forces, and have repeatedly assassinated nuclear scientists and generals.
福尔多核电站原本是一个秘密项目，西方国家于2009年披露了这一秘密项目。现在的问题是，伊朗是否还有其他完整的秘密设施和充足的高浓缩铀库存，以便在无人监视的情况下重启该项目。伊朗威胁退出《不扩散核武器条约》。如果伊朗真的退出，国际原子能机构的核查人员将无法观察伊朗未来的核计划。然而，以色列间谍展现出了渗透伊朗核企业和安全部队的非凡能力，并多次暗杀核科学家和将军。

The Iranian project has been much more extensive and dispersed than the efforts of Iraq and Syria, whose reactors Israel bombed in 1981 and 2007 respectively. “Will this look more like Syria 2007—where a nuclear programme was decisively ended—or Iraq 1981, where nuclear ambitions were strengthened, and repeated intervention was required?” asks Nicholas Miller, a non-proliferation expert at Dartmouth College. “Assuming the current regime stays in power in Iran, my money is on the latter.” ■
伊朗的核计划比伊拉克和叙利亚的行动范围更广、更分散，以色列分别于 1981 年和 2007 年轰炸了这两个国家的反应堆。“这会更像 2007 年的叙利亚——核计划被果断终止——还是 1981 年的伊拉克——核野心进一步增强，需要反复干预？”达特茅斯学院的核不扩散专家尼古拉斯·米勒问道。“假设伊朗现政权继续掌权，我押注后者。 ”

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