# Iranian underground missile silos

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Iranian underground missile silos," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iranian-underground-missile-silos/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's assessment of why the American and Israeli air campaign against Iran could not disarm it: the missile silos are buried under featureless desert with nothing on the surface to mark them, and an air force cannot destroy what it cannot locate. He measures the problem against twenty years of failure against Taliban fighters who had only rifles and caves.*

- **Kiriakou's point:** You can bomb an underground facility, but you have to know where it is
- **Iranian announcement:** Future launches to carry warheads exceeding one ton
- **Comparison:** Twenty years against [the Taliban](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-iran-war) in caves, with rifles
- **Precedent cited:** A thirty-ton bomb used against Iran the previous year

**Iranian underground missile silos** are the target set [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses to explain why the [2026 Iran war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-iran-war) could not achieve disarmament from the air. Footage circulating during the war showed Iranian missiles emerging from underground silos in terrain so featureless that nothing on the surface indicated anything was buried beneath it.[1]

Iran announced during the war that future launches would carry warheads exceeding one ton.[2] Kiriakou set that against the American record in Afghanistan: *"for twenty years the US failed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan when all they were hiding in the mountains and in the caves were AK-47s and RPG launchers and hidden weapon caches."*[2] His question followed directly, *"how are they going to defeat this? We're not talking about RPGs and AK-47s."*[3]

## The targeting problem

Kiriakou allows that an underground facility can be destroyed from the air, *"just like they did with [Nasrallah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hassan-nasrallah), but you need to know where it is and they don't know where these ones are."*[3] He points to the previous year's strike on Iran as evidence of the guesswork involved: a thirty-ton bomb was used *"because they had an idea where it was, they weren't sure if there was anything in it."*[3]

That uncertainty is the foundation of his objection to [the claim that the Iranian nuclear programme had been obliterated](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-obliteration-claim).

## See also

- [2026 Iran war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-iran-war)
- [The Obliteration Claim](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-obliteration-claim)
- [Hassan Nasrallah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hassan-nasrallah)
- [Iran Nuclear Assessment](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iran-nuclear-assessment)

## Sources

1. Kiriakou: Washington Has No Say in This War (2026-04-03), at 00:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Ar9pc_twk&t=0s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-03-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-kiriakou-washington-has-no-say-in-this-war/
2. Kiriakou: Washington Has No Say in This War (2026-04-03), at 00:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Ar9pc_twk&t=30s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-03-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-kiriakou-washington-has-no-say-in-this-war/
3. Kiriakou: Washington Has No Say in This War (2026-04-03), at 01:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Ar9pc_twk&t=61s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-03-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-kiriakou-washington-has-no-say-in-this-war/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iranian-underground-missile-silos/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt