Pentagon Requests Mightier Bomb to Attack Iran

The 30,000-pound bunker-busters are designed to penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities

The Pentagon has decided that its largest conventional bomb isn’t capable of destroying Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment facilities and has ordered efforts to make it more powerful.

The 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was designed to penetrate deeply buried targets, like some of Iran’s nuclear facilities. But tests of the bomb led the Pentagon to believe it may not fully destroy the facilities, and so this month they secretly submitted a request to Congress additional for funding to build a bigger, more destructive bomb.

Already more than $330 million has been spent to develop about 20 of the bombs, which are built by Boeing Co. The Pentagon is now seeking about $82 million more to enhance it.

There is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration, and the latest IAEA report is that Iran’s enrichment is so far civilian in nature. Still, Washington leaves these facts out of their rhetoric and the administration continues with threatening postures, leaving room for the Pentagon to request profligate weapons and fill the pockets of rent-seeking defense corporations.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.