Weapons Assembly Room, Bushehr Power Plant, Iran, 0223 Hours December 28th, 2006
The warning klaxon sounded, and the security reaction team rushed to the access doors. It did no good. The guards had hardly made it to their posts when the lights went out and the doors were blown open by small shaped charges. Combined with some flash-bang grenades, the effect was intended to render those inside temporarily deaf and blind, unable to respond. It worked pretty well, with only two guards requiring some non-lethal projectiles to take them down. The use of less-than-deadly force was not so much in the interests of humanity, as to minimize dust and contaminants in the almost surgically clean room. Within seconds, the Marines had the room secured, and Lieutenant Colonel Tom Shaw, the commander of the 3/8 BLT, the 24th's GCE, strode in to take charge of the scene.
What he found was a white-painted, high ceilinged room that looked like a cross between an automobile service center and an operating room. Twelve assembly bays were located around the perimeter, each with a partially assembled warhead, or 'physics package,' sitting on an assembly stand. Off to the side of each assembly bay was a rolling rack of parts and sub-assemblies. As he surveyed the prisoners, he noticed three older men standing off to one side of the cluster of dejected personnel. He ordered two of his Marines to take charge of them and ensure they were on the first evacuation flight back to the
A VMA-231 AV-8B Plus Harrier II Over the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Bushehr, Iran, 0230 Hours, December 28th, 2006
From the cockpit of Spade-1, Major Terry 'Pirate' Kidd could see almost everything happening below through his night-vision goggles and the multi-function display of his FLIR targeting pod. He was flying at 12,000 ft/3,667.7 m. as lead ship of a two Harrier flight assigned to cover Chilly Dog against interference by Iranian forces. Each aircraft carried pairs of Sidewinder and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, two CBU-87 cluster bombs, a pair of AGM-65G Maverick air-to-ground missiles, and a GAU-12 25mm gun pod. He had listened to Spade-3 and -4 taking out the defense platforms with their HARMs, and was now using his APG-65 radar to track the movements of the HMM-263 helicopters.
As he and his wingman orbited back to the west, he saw the LCACs unloading vehicles and other equipment at the dock, and he smiled as Lieutenant Colonel Shaw called in the success code for capturing the Iranian nuclear weapons and personnel. All that was left was to take care of the reactor itself, and then to get everyone back out into international waters. Thus far, Chilly Dog had gone perfectly, with only two Marines from Charlie Company suffering minor wounds from stray Iranian fire at the power plant.
Then it happened. One of the AH-1 W attack helicopters came too close to the Iranian garrison compound, and a trio of shoulder-fired SA-16 missiles lanced out towards the Cobra. The helicopter evaded two of the missiles through a combination of maneuver and decoy flares, but the last missile hit home on the tail boom. Though it was heavily damaged, the pilot managed to get it to the ground, but not before he and the gunner both suffered sprained backs and ankles. They managed to crawl away from the wreckage (which, thankfully, didn't burn), calling on their rescue radios for a TRAP mission. Pirate immediately called for the standby TRAP team: a CH-53E and two Harriers. The TRAP team Marines were standing by on the hangar deck ready to go, and Colonel Newman in the LFOC indicated that they would be on station in twenty minutes. Until then, Pirate and Spade-2 would provide cover for the two downed Marines.
The first problem was to suppress the continuing ground fire from the Iranian compound. Kidd locked up his FLIR onto an air conditioning unit on the top of the nearest barracks and slaved his radar to provide a good delivery solution. He ordered his wingman in Spade-2 to hit the other end of the compound, and they dove on the complex, releasing their CBU-87s. Kidd tried to put out of his mind that he had probably just killed a hundred or more Iranian soldiers. Combat was like that. In the end, what kept him focused was the fact that he was doing it for two brother Marines who were down and hurt. His mind clearer, he turned the Harrier flight around in a wide starboard turn, and headed back to the crash site.
Reactor Control Room, Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0250 Hours, December 28th, 2006
The last act of the Chilly Dog assault plan was 'safeing' the reactor plant. This meant finding a way to rapidly shut down the plant, and then to make it incapable of producing plutonium. The solution had been found in an IAEA report on a Czech nuclear plant that was a near twin of the Bushehr facility.
When you perform an emergency shutdown of a nuclear pile, called a SCRAM, there is a lot of latent heat left in the reactor. Even with the cooling pumps working full speed, the IAEA specialists figured that it would take three to four days for the plant to go 'cold' to the point where it could be completely shut down. Destroying the huge water-cooling towers was out of the question. Damaging the control rod assembly was also ruled out, since it would require opening the radioactive reactor pressure vessel. The experts therefore decided that the safest course of action would be to eliminate the ability to restart the reactor by taking out the control rod electronics and consoles, once the reactor had been SCRAMed and backup generators started to maintain the cooling pumps' vital flow of water. This would require access to the main control room of the plant, and that was easier said than done.
Just as the laws of physics dictate the design of a nuclear reactor core, regardless of the owner's ideology, the laws of small-arms fire and human psychology dictate the design of a reactor control complex. Security is a fundamental design criterion. To be certified as safe to operate, a reactor control complex must pass a rigorous security-threat evaluation, just as its overall design, systems redundancy, documentation, and operator training must be evaluated by appropriate experts. Over the years, a great deal of high-tech wizardry had been proposed for ensuring the safety of reactor controls against a well-armed and well-organized terrorist attack. Entry locks keyed to retinal patterns, fingerprints, or brain-wave spectrums of authorized personnel. Passageways that can be instantly filled with sticky foam, or debilitating gas.
At Bushehr, though, physical security relied on the tried and true system of steel doors with firing ports, and men with automatic weapons behind them. These defenses were deployed in depth, with a labyrinth of right-angle turns that created 'man-trap' corridors with kill zones swept by fire from two directions.
But anything defended by men with guns can be taken by men with guns. The variables are hard to quantify, but they include training, small-unit cohesion, special weapons and tactics, and something indefinable that falls somewhere between uncommon valor and common craziness. The Marines of the 22nd MEU (SOC) had practiced this drill many times, often taking the role of the 'aggressor' forces in exercises staged with the cooperation of the Department of Energy at a variety of active and decommissioned nuclear plants.
The main outer gate resembled a bank vault door; indeed it had been installed by the same firm that supplied most of the vaults for the better-known Swiss banks. In initial planning for the mission, Major Shaw of VMA-231 had proposed cracking the gate with the formidable armor-piercing warheads of precision-guided Maverick missiles; but the problem of targeting in the confusion of the ground battle, the proximity of friendly troops, and the risk of collateral damage to the plant had ruled this out.
In the end it came down to the practiced eye and hand of Lance Corporal Drew Richardson, an AT-4 missile gunner in the Heavy Weapons Platoon of Charlie Company. Repeated direct hits with shoulder-fired rockets left the massive steel door twisted and hanging from its hinges. Two Marines managed to loop a steel cable around the
