President Trump’s most effective path to preventing Iran from restarting its nuclear weapons program may be to strike the entrances to Pickaxe Mountain, a nuclear expert monitoring the site told The Post, pointing to visible activity around the suspected underground facility.
“One set of tunnels is hardened and filled with dirt and rock. The other is still open – we see some trucks ongoing construction vehicles coming in and out,” Iran nuclear expert Andrea Stricker told The Post, as the world braced for the possibility of another intense round of US military strikes, with the subterranean complex reportedly on Trump’s radar.
It is still unclear whether additional strikes will take place. Iran has said it is in the final stages of an arrangement involving Oman to partially secure travel through the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump has warned Iran of “decapitation” if it fails to reach a deal. He has also insisted the US still has “massive” stockpiles of munitions available, despite leaks suggesting otherwise.
Bunker-buster bombs may not be capable of reaching a facility buried as deep as 450 feet underground, after The Post and The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel claimed to have intelligence indicating Iran had moved centrifuges into the secret mountain stronghold.
A “boots on the ground” mission to seize the material would carry significant risks, though it could give forces the ability to position explosives at a more effective location far below the surface.
Reaching the lower levels would be comparable to descending a 38-story condominium tower. “Who knows how far down you’d have to go,” said Stricker, who leads the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
That reality leaves an airstrike among the most viable options under consideration.
“They could try the bunker busters (munitions). They could try exploiting ventilation shafts which are visible at Pickaxe They may be less effective because they’re trying to plummet through 300 to 450 feet of granite,” Stricker said.
“If they’re not effective, you could be left with the options of simply destroying the tunnel entrances with precision munitions.” That could at least deny access to anyone who might seek to go down, and allow for further monitoring from the sky.
Trump predicted a new round of military strikes might succeed where others have failed. “They’ll get weaker. They’ll get a little stronger, maybe, but they’ll get weaker, and then they peter out,” he said at a meeting with his cabinet at Camp David. “We’ll be hitting them very hard. “At some point they’re going to say we just can’t take it anymore.”
And he is primed to hit new targets after repeated strikes and counter strikes, including an attack on a Bermuda-flagged tanker carrying liquified natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz overnight Saturday. Iran has yet to take credit for the attack.
The president teased his intentions in an interview with talk host Hugh Hewitt last month. “We have eyes on it and Pickaxe Mountain is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right in the front door…We’re watching Pickaxe Mountain very closely. We don’t see any activity there.”
Trump finished the interview with a more definitive statement: “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”
“We’re hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” he said July 21. “I know exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe. It’s not a big problem – we took out their nuclear sites, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal,” he said July 28.
“It remains unclear when Pickaxe Mountain could be operational, based only on assessments of satellite imagery,” according to an analysis last month by the Institute for Science and International Security, authored by David Albright.
“It is also unclear if Iran still plans on installing a large-scale assembly facility, given the destruction of Iran’s centrifuge program, including Iran’s ability to make centrifuge components needed for an assembly plant. Nonetheless, if Iran starts to rebuild its centrifuge manufacturing capability, it could plan to install a smaller centrifuge assembly facility in Pickaxe Mountain able to serve a nuclear weapons program.
The good news for the Pentagon: repeated US and Israeli strikes have set back Tehran’s nuclear breakout clock to as much as 2.5 years, Stricker said.
