Ackerman writes: "Just as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready."
Boeing's mega-bunker-buster bomb during its first explosive test at White Sands Missile Range, 2007. (photo: xaiforce.net)
Air Force's Mega-Bunker-Buster Bomb Is Ready
28 July 12
ust as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready.
That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It’s an absolutely ginormous bomb designed to convince rogue regimes that there is no redoubt for the manufacture of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons buried deep enough to escape the U.S. Air Force.
The military has been at work super-sizing its bunker-busters for years, and the Massive Ordnance Penetrator is the premier upgraded weapon. Supposedly, it can penetrate 60 feet of reinforced concrete, although it depends just how hard that concrete is. Although the Pentagon has spent over $200 million developing 30 of the bombs, there are doubts over how well equipped it is to destroy the hardened facilities believed to house Iran’s nuclear program.
The secretary of the Air Force does not share those doubts. “If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” Secretary Michael Donley told Danger Room pal Jeff Schogol of Air Force Times. “We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
Donley may not have had Iran in mind. The beleaguered Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is threatening to use chemical weapons against a foreign attack. His chemical arsenal is spread out amongst several concealed sites and stands a giant proliferation risk. Not the greatest opportunity for a mega-bomb — intelligence about the sites is dubious — but the U.S. would rather have the option than not.
Then there’s Iran. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may have been hinting about the new bomb’s capabilities when he remarked that the U.S. would do a better job of attacking Iran than Israel could. Not that that’s what the Obama administration wants to do.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator may even have a political component to it. During a debate on foreign policy between surrogates for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday, former Amb. Rich Williamson accused the Obama administration of ruling out the use of military force for Iran. The long-awaited arrival of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator would suggest otherwise. (Plus, its acronym has special resonance to fans of a certain era of East Coast hip hop.)
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Comments
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Whatever happened to ethics?
Our POLITICIANS have no ethics; where are our STATESMEN(WOMEN )?
In the military arena this is a must have. If you do not want it used, write Ahmadinejad and tell him to give up his nuclear program and quit burying his support facilities under tons of concrete.
By the time Bush attacked Iraq the second time around, the country had already been attacked by his father and bombed endlessly by Clinton. Iraq was a destroyed country by the time Bush made his attack. It wasn't Hussein that was killing citizens, it was death by sanctions and cancer from radiation exposure from bunker buster bombs. It was U.S. doing the killing and has ever since. Nothing to be proud of Right.
Right on -not to mention that D.U. poisons those who use it also, so you are going to get yet more young, badly-damaged Americans from just being the launchers!
I don't know if you are yakkin' at me but DU is used PRECISELY as it's enhanced density is most effective for penetrating deeply-buried installation.
"Sources?" Too many to list but start with, http://www.sott.net/articles/show/248805-Warmongering-US-bunker-buster-bomb-ready-to-go, which addresses this newly developed bomb directly.
The US and Israel have been using DU -enhanced bombs since 2003 and before, as you'd know if you followed the invasion and toxic destruction carried on in Iraq and Afghanistan from other sources than the big networks -or even talked to veterans who have survived, come back and spoken up at "Veterans for Peaces" gatherings. Try attending one of these, you may actually learn something.
The facts are there if you truly want them instead of using typically reactionary sniping. Do yer own poking into the facts in future and don't be so bloody lazy and/or accepting of the deliberate convenient omissions by the owner-media!
By the way, depleted uranium IS radioactive. There is no such thing as stable uranium. The only thing is, it's "depleted" of isotopes which can actually be used in a bomb (some isotopes, although radioactive, won't undergo fission). AND it's highly poisonous even apart from its radiactivity, much more so than lead.
If you demolish a nuclear site, the debris, ash, radionuclides blasted high in the atmosphere ARE radioactive and are carried on the jetstream just as happened with Fukushima. In 4 days Fukushima fallout began to arrive...from Iran it would take just a few days longer.
Iran has the right to use nuclear power for peaceful uses. No diversion to other uses has been discovered. Iran has complied with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NNPT). Ahmadinejad has the RIGHT to an Iranian nuclear program that is limited to peaceful uses.
On the other hand, as a signatory to the NNPT, the US is required to HELP Iran use nuclear power for peaceful purposes and is PROHIBITED from blocking Iran's development. The US is non-compliant with the NNPT.
The US has been supporting the State of Israel even though they HAVE developed nuclear weapons and have refused to sign the NNPT. Our financial support to a non-signatory state is in violation of the 1979 Symington Amendment, US law.
While the justification for a U.S. attack on Iran's deep underground nuclear research facilities are questionable, there would be little or no downwind hazard from using this weapon. There would be no "debris, ash, radionuclides blasted high in the atmosphere".
There would be a shallow crater at the surface where the earth above the target collapsed. The damage would be buried at whatever depth the concealed underground nuclear research facilities are located.
Don't let non-essential, easily disprovable concerns sidetrack the discussion.
If you're going to argue against this thing on the basis of how it works, you should KNOW how it works.
Google "Barnes Wallis" and "Grand Slam Bomb".
It's a heavy, conventional, high-explosive bomb designed to be dropped from very high up. The weight & drop altitude combine to allow it to penetrate deep into the earth before detonating.
The bomb causes a "camouflet", an artificial cavern that collapses undermining the target's foundations. The target is destroyed by collapsing it into a hole.
The bomb actually works better if it lands beside the target and penetrates beneath it.
The idea was abandoned after WWII in favor of nuclear bombs.
Plus in the 60s & 70s it became apparent that high altitude bombing was suicidal in the face of effective SAM anti-aircraft defenses; that's why the B-1 and B-2 bombers were designed for low level attack.
This bomb is supposed to have some kind of rocket motor to speed it up because they can't drop it from the high altitude it would otherwise require.
The design itself is not evil.
The real questions:
Is Iran secretly developing nuclear weapons?
If they are, do *WE* have to attack the development facilities?
What other options exist? Better ones?
If we do attack, will we be successful deterring Iran?
What other consequences will we face?
The kind of governments we are dealing with here are those who would use chemical weapons on their own people to ensure their continuation.
What is the point in defending Assad in Syria or the government in Iran or any of the radical Islamic tyrannies?
I believe the implied reference would be because of the suggestion that it could be used on IRAN who has nuclear materials.
BUT if a nation is killing its people, does the U.S. have to intervene, especially when much of the rebellion of late in the Middle East and North Africa was caused by the U.S. and Israel.
AND is it OK for the U.S. to kill many thousands more of those citizens rather than simply taking out the leaders. Hell, the U.S. has taken out numerous leaders. You've seen how well that went, I'm sure.
And don't EVER forget -or please inform yourselves if you didn't know, about the US/UK/BP coup against Mhammad Mossadegu in 1953, from which all else has sprung in the region.
As for Syria, one does not have to be a supporter of the Syrian regime to oppose the further militarization of the situation by arming the "opposition" which is now getting the bulk of its weapons from the Saudi's (one of the worst dictatorships in the region) and Qatar (another autocracy). The US intervention in Syria is more about Iran than Syria and so, as we have done countless times in he past, we will support a heinous regime (the saudi's) when we believe it is in our geo-political interest and at that point freedom, democracy, etc., be damned.
what bombs do is kill a lot of people and cause terrific suffering. Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, and others are all proof of that. This bomb is no differeent than the rest.
The Pentagon is only building a bigger phallic symbol as if to say to the world "look, I have the biggest dick in the world. Aren't you afraid of me." and the whole world is saying "what a pathetic shithole of a nation that is."
Such a weapon is obscene on its face. Any decent society would be embarrassed to pull this thing out and show the world.
I guarantee -- Iran is not afraid of this. They know what suffering at the hands of the US means (7 million people arrested and tortured between 1953 and 1979). They know they will survive. Their independence makes them unafraid.
This is just Israel and the US showing they world what big dicks they are.
Except we call them freedom factories, I guess, because we love freedom SO much...
This goes to show you were our priorities are at, wasting more & more money on weapon's. This country seems to base it's economy on war and outsourcing jobs. How sick is that?
Is it just me or is this the ULTIMATE in ironic hypocrisy?
"Factories of death"? My Gawd, the US "Factories of Death" are about the only flourishing part of this moribund economy right now, bolstering up the death culture. But no-go on anything life-saving or enhancing like universal health care or rejuvenated infrastructure.
Don' it just make ya glow with pride (and perhaps eventually, just glow with the ravaged detritus of the inevitable blowback when it comes home here to smite at it's roots, reinforcing the seemingly national thirst for the destruction of everything natural)?
Or maybe best-case;
"The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes -or it prospers and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighjting a little Hour or two-is gone".
Omar Khayyam,
The Rubaiyat.
Right! Remember that famous photo of Donnie Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein when he was "Our Bad Guy"?!
Sure that we will test the new mega-weapon in Syria ASAP. Hillarious propaganda is in full swing. And Israel gets it as a part of $3 billion/year military "AID" from American people (taxpayers). Militarism bankrupted USA both economically and militarily.
YOUR TAX $$$ AT WORK!
We really have bone-headed leaders that only know two things: Fear & $$$$$$
But in 2 years the US will look like Germany just after they surrendered in 1945.
Trillions for military toys and no money for education, health care and infrastructure.
How could a person ever consider using one of these on a cache of chemical weapons or nuclear reactors. The deaths caused by dispersal and fallout would be horrendous. In other words the MOB is a weapon of mass destruction - yes the very thing the US wants to prohibit. Don't you find that line of reasoning (to justify the use of MOB) insane!
But this is not some kind of terror weapon.
The same kind of bombs were used against German U-boat pens in WWII. It's not a new idea, just one we abandoned after the war in favor of nuclear weapons.
Used against a buried bunker the downwind hazard would be small.
It's stupid to argue about what kind of bomb we should use to attack Iran. It lets the right-wingnutz defuse the debate into side issues.
Then we would probably never have to use it again!
And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for;
Don't ask me I don't give a damn -
next stop must be Iran.
And it's five, six, seven, open up the
pearly gates;
Ain't no time to wonder why WHOPPEE - we're all gonna die!
If memory serves me (which is a rare day) tip o' the hat to Country Joe & the Fish.
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