{"id":20563,"date":"2012-07-30T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=20563"},"modified":"2012-07-29T14:33:35","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T13:33:35","slug":"air-forces-mega-bunker-buster-bomb-is-finally-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/07\/air-forces-mega-bunker-buster-bomb-is-finally-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"US Air Force\u2019s Mega-Bunker-Buster Bomb Is Finally Ready"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly<\/a>) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready.<\/p>\n

That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator \u2014 all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It\u2019s an absolutely ginormous bomb<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The military has been at work super-sizing its bunker-busters for years<\/a>, 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<\/a>. Although the Pentagon has spent over $200 million developing 30 of the bombs, there are doubts<\/a> over how well equipped it is to destroy the hardened facilities believed to house Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The secretary of the Air Force does not share those doubts. \u201cIf it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that<\/a>,\u201d Secretary Michael Donley told Danger Room pal Jeff Schogol of Air Force Times<\/em>. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donley may not have had Iran in mind. The beleaguered Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is threatening to use chemical weapons<\/a> against a foreign attack. His chemical arsenal is spread out amongst several concealed sites<\/a> and stands a giant proliferation risk. Not the greatest opportunity for a mega-bomb \u2014 intelligence about the sites is dubious \u2014 but the U.S. would rather have the option than not.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Iran. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may have been hinting about the new bomb\u2019s capabilities when he remarked that the U.S. would do a better job of attacking Iran<\/a> than Israel could. Not that that\u2019s what the Obama administration wants to do.<\/p>\n

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 [25 Jul 2012], 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<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wired.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator \u2014 all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It\u2019s an absolutely ginormous bomb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}