|
Bush Budget Request Raises Fears Of
Iran Strike, Increases Funding For ‘Massive’ ‘Bunker
Buster’
Think
Progress
Thursday October 25, 2007
In light of the administration’s increasingly threatening
rhetoric
on Iran, CQ reports that members of Congress are worried by Bush’s
recent budget proposal. In particular, they cite his request to equip
B-2 “stealth” bombers with a new 30,000-pound bunker buster
as a “sign
of plans for an attack on Iran“:
Buried in the $196.4 billion supplemental war spending proposal that
Bush submitted to Congress on Oct. 22 is a request for $88 million
to modify B-2 bombers so they can drop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator,
or MOP, a conventional bomb still in development that is the most powerful
weapon designed to destroy targets deep underground.
A White House summary accompanying the supplemental spending proposal
said the request for money to modify B-2s to carry the bombs
came in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.”
[…]
Previous statements by the Defense Department and the program’s
contractors, along with interviews with military experts, suggest the
weapon is meant for the kind of hardened targets found chiefly in Iran.
The B-2 bomber and MOPs are reportedly choice weapons for strikes against
Iranian nuclear facilities. In January, the BBC reported that the administration
had drawn up plans for “long range B2 stealth bombers” to
“drop
‘bunker-busting‘ bombs” in an effort to penetrate,
for example, the Natanz
enrichment facility in Iran.
The MOP has been in
development for several years. After its completion, a U.S. military
officer proudly described the destructive power of the bunker buster,
specifically saying it could be
used against Iran:
The U.S. has a 14-ton super bomb more destructive than the vacuum bomb
just tested by Russia, a U.S. general said Wednesday.
The statement was made by retired Lt. General McInerney, chairman of
the Iran Policy Committee, and former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff
of the Air Force.
McInerney said the U.S. has “a new massive ordnance penetrator
that’s 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates … Ahmadinejad
has nothing in Iran that we can’t penetrate.”
– Mike Kuykendall
This post was submitted through our Blog Fellows program. Make your
own contribution — and get paid for it — by clicking here.
|
