The June 21 U.S. stealth bomber strike on Iran, the culmination of more than 15 years of planning and preparation, has brought new attention to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
Formally established in October 1998, the DTRA has described itself as a research and development component for the Department of Defense that can trace its origins to the World War II Manhattan Project, which oversaw the development of the first U.S. atomic weapons.
The DTRA stated that it also formed through the merging of several predecessor organizations that emerged during the Cold War era, combining a mix of weapons development projects with efforts to counter the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons of potential global adversaries.
At a June 26 Pentagon press briefing, amid questions about the efficacy of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s fortified, underground Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine took the opportunity to highlight the role the agency played in preparing the U.S. military to strike Iran.
While Caine said the U.S. military defers to the Intelligence Community to assess the damage of the strikes, he expressed confidence that the weapons dropped on Fordow worked exactly as they were designed.
Caine also highlighted the DTRA’s role in developing the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the heavy bunker busters used on Fordow.
According to Caine, a DTRA officer was summoned in 2009 to “a vault at an undisclosed location” to be briefed about Fordow.
From that point on, Caine said, the agency officer and another employee “lived and breathed this single target” and helped steer the development of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator project.
The top U.S. general said these two DTRA employees worked with weaponeers and scientists to configure the GBU-57 bombs in a bespoke fashion for the Fordow strike.
Caine said there were several live tests of the GBU-57, as well as extensive modeling and simulation efforts to study the weapon’s effects.
He said that, for a time, the team became the leading users of supercomputer hours in the United States.
Concluding his June 26 remarks, Caine said there were more teams of agency employees devoting similar time and attention to other targets around the world.
Preempting WMD Threats
Speaking to reporters on July 10, a senior military official said the DTRA originally focused heavily on nuclear weapons development and treaty compliance but that the agency’s mission has expanded to finding ways to address a broad range of emerging threats from so-called weapons of mass destruction.
At one point, the senior military official compared the agency to the Q Division in the “James Bond” series, which is responsible for equipping the fictional spy with the high-tech gadgets his secret missions would require.
“I would liken [DTRA] to—if you watch James Bond, they’re kind of like those folks that work in Q that come up with these incredible solutions to difficult problems,” he said.
A June 25, 2025, poster from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency shows aerial images of Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant’s two ventilation shafts during construction in 2008, after construction in 2009, and after the June 21, 2025, strike. (The Pentagon)
Another senior defense official said a key responsibility of the DTRA is to help provide highly customized methods to respond to unique emerging national security challenges.
“One of the things that DTRA does is generate customer-focused, threat-informed, trusted technical solutions to deter and counter critical weapons of mass destruction problems both for today and for tomorrow,” the official said.
The senior defense official said the agency was part of a broader team that collaborated to prepare the U.S. strike on Iran, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer.”
The DTRA’s responsibilities require the agency to work closely with the Intelligence Community to better understand the nature of the emerging threats.
“We work closely with the Intelligence Community to understand our adversaries’ intentions with weapons of mass destruction,” the senior defense official said.
“We use our deep technical expertise to look for vulnerabilities within those adversary activities, and then we work to exploit those vulnerabilities to change what the adversary is doing.”
Airmen look at a GBU-57, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on May 2, 2023. (U.S. Air Force via AP)
Improving Survivability
Along with preempting threats from potential weapons of mass destruction, the senior defense official noted that the DTRA also plays a key role in improving the equipment that may be used to protect people when such weapons have been employed.
She said the agency is currently assisting in the development of the next generation of protective boots, suits, and masks that U.S. troops may wear in environments contaminated by chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials.
“[The] DTRA is constantly analyzing threats posed by the nation’s adversaries, and looking ahead to ensure our warfighters are fully equipped to deny possession of, and defeat adversary weapons of mass destruction in any domain,” the senior defense official said.
