Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed that the recent US strike on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility was designed to entomb the site—not obliterate it.

Writing in his Substack newsletter The Burial Plan on June 25, the 88-year-old journalist revealed that the goal of the operation was to collapse the entrances and ventilation shafts of the heavily fortified facility, making it inaccessible to Iranian engineers and scientists. The aim was not to trigger a nuclear incident, but to render Fordow unusable by sealing it under tons of rubble.

The US deployed B-2 bombers equipped with 12 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in coordinated strikes on June 22, hitting both Fordow and Natanz. These bombs, capable of penetrating up to 60 metres, fell short of reaching the centrifuges at Fordow, which lies roughly 90 metres underground. However, repeated hits on its entrances and air vents were meant to isolate the site permanently.

Hersh said planning for the operation began in the final months of President Biden’s term and was prioritised by the incoming Trump administration. The Fordow facility, located over 300 kilometres south of Tehran, had become a critical node in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It housed about 900 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 per cent—enough material that, with further enrichment to weapons-grade (90 per cent), could be used to make several nuclear bombs. Experts say the final enrichment phase could take just a few weeks.

Although the White House publicly declared the operation a complete success, the New York Times on June 25 cited preliminary findings by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) indicating that the site was not destroyed, but rather sealed off. The report suggests the Iranian nuclear programme may only have been delayed by a few months.

President Trump, however, insisted the attacks were a total success. Posting on Truth Social the same day, he accused the media of undermining the military’s achievement:

“We just caught the Failing New York Times, working with Fake News CNN, cheating again! … TOTAL OBLITERATION.”

Hersh maintains that the real success of the mission lay in its strategy—cutting off Iran’s access to its enriched uranium stockpile by burying it deep underground. “It may be years, if ever, before Iran can access that uranium again,” he noted.
 

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