What Could Happen if Trump Decides to Bomb Iran’s Main Nuclear Facility

If the president decides to use the largest conventional bomb of the United States to destroy the uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, the massive force of the explosion would likely cause casualties among workers or anyone still in the area. However, it would not cause a nuclear explosion or extensive radiological or chemical leakage, according to former nuclear officers and experts consulted about a potential decision by Donald Trump to strike Iran’s nuclear installation. The specific facility is located south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, and the Fordo plant is used for uranium enrichment for nuclear energy production or possibly a bomb. Although this uranium and its chemical byproducts may be harmful without protective equipment, they will not create a wider explosion or regional contamination, say analysts who spoke to NBC News. This would only happen if Fordo housed nuclear reactors or warheads, which international observers and experts say is not the case. The weapon the U.S. could use for such an attack is described as ‘if you’re down there when it’s bombed, you’ve been hit,’ said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former head of the UK Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear unit, speaking to NBC News on Thursday. ‘This is because we’re talking about a 2,500-kilogram warhead,’ he noted, referring to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), the world’s largest non-nuclear bomb, possessed solely by the U.S. More suited for mountain bombing than shelter bombing, this might be the only conventional munition globally capable of doing the job if Trump decides to bomb Fordo.