Before dawn in the United States on Saturday, airplane observers using flight tracker applications noticed B-2 stealth bombers based in the Missouri flying to the Pacific, arousing speculation that they were heading for Guam to prepare for an attack on Iran.
While experts discussed the reason why the B-2 flew to Guam and not Diego Garcia, a location of the Indian Ocean closer to Iran where the United States and the United Kingdom have a base, the United States was already putting a TOP Sector attack against Iran.
Very Saturday morning, east time, seven other B-2 took off from Whiteman’s air base in Missouri. Unlike planes that flew to the Pacific and sometimes went detectable, the seven B-2 stole east in stealth mode. About 6 p.m. later, they dropped 14 massive bunker bombs on two of the three Iranian nuclear sites that were affected in the strikes.
After the Fordow strikes, Natanz and Isfahan, the American defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said that Operation Midnight Hammer involved very tight operational security and a “bad direction”.
“The scope and scale of what happened … would remove the breath of almost all Americans if you had the opportunity to look at it in real time,” said Hegseth. “Tehran certainly calculates the reality that planes stole from the middle of America … Completely not detected on three of their most sensitive sites and we were able to destroy nuclear capacities.
Hegseth was flanked by General Dan “Razin” Caine, president of the joint staff chiefs, who declared that the B-2 bombers who stole west towards the Pacific were a “lure” designed to ensure a “tactical surprise”.
Caine said that “the effort of deception [was] Known only of an extremely small number of planners and key leaders “in Washington and US Central Command, that American forces abroad in the Middle East.
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Mark Kimmitt, former deputy director of strategy and plans at Centcom, said operational security was impressive. “During my years in the army and the government, I have never seen it so tight.”
Doug Birkey, head of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said that the bombers used a tactic “hidden-revised” with certain planes being sometimes detectable, while the others remained stealthy.
Caine said the strikes started at 12:30 p.m. Sunday in Iran when an American submarine launched more than 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles in Isfahan while the B-2 entered the Iranian airspace. The B-2 reached their targets between 2:10 am and 2:35 am. Shortly after, the Tomahawks reached Isfahan – timed to ensure that the B -2 maintained a surprise element.
Caine said the bombers and their refueling planes accompany planes and fighter planes – known as “strike” – had stolen in and outside Iranian airspace without being burned.
“It was a carefully designed mission that used significant operational deception, in particular, sending a set of B-2 bombers to Guam,” said James Stavridis, a former Supreme American Commander of Allies in Europe. “The media fixed the Guam movement, and I suspect that it made it think of the Iranians that they had a few more days.”
Joseph Veclel, who commanded Centcom during the first two years of Donald Trump’s first presidency, said the Missouri B-2 has improved the secret. “In directly deployment of the United States, the joint force did everything it could to minimize detection, which is very intelligent,” he said.
Kimmitt said that B-2’s sending to Guam was a “pretty little false head”, but that the key strategic deception arrived earlier. “The ultimate deception was that Trump set a two-week calendar for negotiations, then attacking Iran three days later, a classic Trojan horse,” he said.
Trump gave Tehran on Thursday a “maximum” of two weeks to conclude a nuclear agreement with the United States, suggesting that a strike was not imminent. Two days later, the United States struck the three Iranian nuclear installations.
But there were signs that Trump had made his decision, even if he had not made the final order, by Thursday. Three people familiar with the situation said he had left G7 leaders in Canada last weekend with the impression that he hit Iran.
They said he had presented options to other leaders. A fourth person said he told the group that de -escalation did not and would not work. He told leaders that any attack would imply a race against Iran.
“It was clear to me that he was already preparing his discussion points,” said one of the people.
However, following the G7, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Trump said “nothing … to suggest that he is about to get involved in this conflict”.
When the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the EU had talks with Iran on Friday, the British Foreign Minister David Lammy was not aware of the imminent attack. But he tried to convince Iran that he could not afford to carry out slowed negotiations with Washington, according to a person close to talks. “Lammy has really tried to make the Iranian delegation focus on the word ‘` inside’ ‘after Trump said “within two weeks,” said the person.
Several people said Trump seemed to have been convinced that the risks had been considerably reduced since Israel had degraded Iran’s air defenses with his attacks in the days preceding the American mission.
“The elaborate deception of the administration has encouraged the surprise and therefore reduced the risk to the operation, but since Israel had already established the domination of the air and decimated from the military leaders of Iran perhaps not much,” said Kori Schake, head of foreign and defense policy of the American Enterprise Institute.
During the press briefing, Caine said that the United States “took advantage of some of the preparatory work that was done [by Israel] During last and a half week in terms of access [and] approach”.
Birkey said the F-35 fighter planes that Israel had used in his campaign had played a huge role. “The F-35 are incredible information sponges which aspire so much intelligence” on the state of the air defenses of Iran.
Stressing the secret, Hegseth said that the administration had informed the congress after the attack. However, a spokesperson for the Républicain of the House, Mike Johnson, said that he had been informed of strikes.
The United States has not given any advice to most allies. Even the United Kingdom, one of its closest allies, received only a few hours of notice, according to people familiar with the situation.
The United States, however, coordinated with Israel, according to the Israeli government. The Israel security firm also watched the American strikes in real time, according to a person familiar with the issue.
The United States and Israel has also embarked on coordinated deception before Israel launching its attack on Iran on June 13. Leaks to the Israeli media suggested that Netanyahu and Trump had a fractive telephone call on Iran with Trump for a diplomatic solution, which, according to a familiar person, was an attempt at the dungeon of the Tehran.
Additional report by Neri Zilber and Lauren Fedor
