Boeing is set to receive a contract worth up to $123 million to replace the massive 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs that the US dropped on Iranian nuclear facilities in June as part of the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
On June 22, US B-2 Spirit bombers dropped 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites, marking the first time the weapon was used in combat. A US submarine also fired Tomahawk missiles in strikes on an Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan.
The attack, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” was launched on behalf of Israel. The Bloomberg report said that a Pentagon budget document from August says that funds are being shifted from operations and maintenance accounts to Air Force munitions procurement as “funds are required to replace GBU-57 munitions expended in Operation Midnight Hammer in support of Israel.”
Replacing the MOPs is just a fraction of the cost of the war against Iran, as the US used a significant number of interceptors to defend Israel throughout the 12 days. US officials told The Wall Street Journal that the US fired more than 150 THAAD interceptors during the war, accounting for about one-quarter of the Pentagon’s total stock of the interceptors and costing about $2 billion.
The US military also engaged in its largest use of Patriot missiles to repel the Iranian attack on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Iran launched in retaliation for the bombing of its nuclear sites.
Bloomberg previously reported that the Pentagon was planning to spend at least $3.5 billion replenishing weapons it had used defending Israel before the 12-Day War. Most of the cost was related to the US defense of Israel when Iran launched an attack in April 2024 in retaliation for Israel bombing its consulate in Damascus.
