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Air
Force Secretary Michael Donley said its record-breaking bunker-buster has
become operational after years of testing.
“If
it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” said Donley. “We continue
to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is on-going. We
also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
The
Pentagon has spent $330 million to develop and deliver more than 20 of the
precision-guided Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-busters, which are
designed to blast through up to 200 feet of concrete.
Although
there has previously been a bigger nuclear device, the new conventional rocket
is six times the weight of the previous bunker-buster used by the US Air Force,
and carries an explosive payload of 5,300 pounds.
US
military chiefs openly admitted the weapon was built to attack the fortified
nuclear facilities of “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea. Although the
Pentagon insists that it is not aimed at a specific threat, unnamed officials
within the ministry have repeatedly claimed the bomb is being tailor-made to
disable Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, or at least to intimidate Tehran.
Iran
is working at breakneck speed to expand its Fordo uranium enrichment facility,
which is built inside a mountain in the heart of the country, and has
previously been declared “impregnable” by senior officials in Tehran. Iran has
often paraded its fast-advancing nuclear program, while denying that it intends
to build a nuclear bomb.
Earlier
this year, the Pentagon rapidly diverted $120 million in two separate tranches
from other weapons programs to MOPs. The money was transferred to significantly
redesign and upgrade the precision-guided missile to provide “an enhanced
threat response” against the “deepest bunkers.”
Donley’s
claim can be read as a reassertion of US determination to thwart Iran’s atomic
ambitions.
Whether
the MOP would be able to actually destroy Fordo is open to debate and may not
be known by either of the sides.
The
effectiveness of bunker-busters depends on the strength of the soil into which
it plunges, how well it makes contact, and the internal structure of the
facilities. In the case of Fordo, the US may only have a sketchy idea of its
layout.
At
best, the US believes a successful strike could set the Iranian program back
several years, and, at worst, to at least collapse the passageways to the
facility and force substantial rebuilding work.
Two
bombs can be mounted simultaneously on a modified B-52 bomber, and a US
official previously claimed the effectiveness of any operation would depend on
how many “tries at the apple” the US bombers get.
Nonetheless,
even if the MOP can be of limited effectiveness against Iran, the United States
has precious little alternative. The only other weapon capable of destroying
such a facility from the air would be a tactical nuclear missile.
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