The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large ”bunker-buster” bomb on the most advanced United States bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.
The non-nuclear, 30 000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.
If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the programme, Northrop Grumman Corp’s radar-evading B-2 bomber ”would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010”, said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesperson.
”The Air Force and Department of Defence are looking at the possibility of accelerating the programme,” he said. ”There have been discussions with the four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. No final decision has been made.”
The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing, could become the biggest conventional bomb the US has ever used.
Carrying more than 5 300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2 000-pound BLU-109, according to the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency, which has funded and managed the seed programme.
Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon’s No. 2 supplier by sales, could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first MOP production models if Congress signs off, Bourland said.
The threat reduction agency is working with the Air Force to transition the programme from ”technology demonstration” to acquisition, said Betsy Freeman, an agency spokesperson.
Both the US Pacific Command, which takes the lead in US military planning for North Korea, and the Central Command, which prepares for contingencies with Iran, appeared to be backing the acceleration request, said Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress.
”It’s very possible that the Pentagon wants to send a signal to various countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, that the US is developing a viable military option against their nuclear programmes,” Katzman said.
But he cautioned against concluding there was any specific mission in mind at this time.
Biggest bomb
The MOP would be about one-third heavier than the 9 500kg GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — dubbed the ”mother of all bombs” — that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003.
The six metre MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52 or the B-2 ”stealth” bomber. It is designed to penetrate up to 61 metres underground before exploding, according to the US Air Force.
The suspected nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea are believed to be largely buried underground to escape detection and boost their chances of surviving attack.
During a visit to Jerusalem last week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates sought to reassure Israel that a drive by President Barack Obama to talk Iran into giving up its nuclear work was not ”open-ended”.
Iran says its uranium enrichment — a process with bomb-making potential — is for energy only and has rejected US-led demands to curb the programme.
For its part, North Korea responded to new United Nations sanctions, imposed after it detonated a second nuclear device, by vowing in June to press the production of nuclear weapons and act against international efforts to isolate it. — Reuters