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US SUPERBOMB TO MAKE IRAN AND NORTH KOREA VULNERABLE
MASSIVE WEAPON BEING RUSHED INTO PRODUCTION
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor and The London Daily Mail
The recent discovery of a second uranium enrichment facility in Iran, near the holy city of Qom, has pushed forward US plans to deploy a massive 15 ton ‘bunker buster’ bomb capable of penetrating any known underground facility. Originally slated by the Bush administration for testing in 2012, sources indicate this weapon could be ready for testing as early as December 2009. Several times larger than the previous version and deliverable only using the B2 bomber, the new bunker buster will give the United States an option of destroying underground nuclear facilities otherwise unreachable without a ground invasion.
The questions about the rush in the development of the weapon all involve Israel. There are no non-nuclear weapons capable of destroying Iran’s facilities as we believe them to exist. Even the nuclear bunker buster which we may or may not have, is not particularly effective, in fact is likely much less effective than the new non-nuclear weapon soon to be deployed.
While Iran talks tough, there are many respected experts who believe their nuclear program is many years away from fruition. Iran needs only to look to Iraq to see where empty talk can and will end them. There is little dout that Iran has been less than honest about its nuclear program.
However, Iran’s rhetoric is both expanded and fictionalized by America’s press. Many statements that resemble threats are purposefully mistranslated and misrepresented and the presence of a substantial "mainstream" movement in Iran, seeking a moderate path is left unreported.
We can hope that President Obama’s decision to rush this superweapon forward is part of a diplomatic initiative, as such things sometimes work much better with teeth behind them, than a plan to forestall a rumored Israeli attack by intitating an American one instead.
Veterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
From the UK Daily Mail:
Ultimate bunker buster: U.S military speed plans for 13-ton bomb… but deny Iran nuclear standoff is the reason
The U.S. military is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.
Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
The 15-ton behemoth – called the ‘massive ordnance penetrator,’ or MOP – will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal and will carry 5,300 pounds of explosives.
News of the giant bomb, which is about 10 times more powerful than the weapon it is designed to replace, comes just days after it was announced that Barack Obama was to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $52 million contract to speed up placement of the bomb aboard the B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials say the bomb could be fielded as soon as next summer.
Officials acknowledge that the new bomb is intended to blow up fortified sites like those used by Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs, but they deny there is a specific target in mind.
‘I don’t think anybody can divine potential targets,’ Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. ‘This is just a capability that we think is necessary given the world we live in.’
The Obama administration has struggled to counter suspicions lingering from George W. Bush’s presidency that the United States is either planning to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities itself or would look the other way if Israel did the same.
The administration has been careful not to take military action off the table even as it reaches out to Iran with historic talks this month.
Tougher sanctions are the immediate backup if diplomacy fails to stop what the West fears is a drive for a nuclear weapon.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently said a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would probably only buy time. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has called a strike an option he doesn’t want to use.
The new U.S. bomb would be the culmination of planning begun in the Bush years.
The Obama administration’s plans to bring the bomb on line more quickly indicate that the weapon is still part of the long-range backup plan.
‘Without going into any intelligence, there are countries that have used technology to go further underground and to take those facilities and make them hardened,’
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. ‘This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one.’
After testing began in 2007, development of the bomb was slowed by about two years because of budgetary issues, Whitman said, and the administration moved last summer to return to the previous schedule.
North Korea, led by Kim Jong Il, is a known nuclear weapons state and has exploded working devices underground.
The United States and other countries have offered to buy out the country’s weapons program. The Obama administration is trying to lure Pyongyang back to the bargaining table after a walkout last year.
Iran is a more complex case, for both diplomatic and technical reasons. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claims its nuclear program is peaceful and meant only to produce energy, but the West suspects a covert bomb program that may be only a year or so away from fruition.
‘I don’t really see it as a near-term indication of anything being planned. I think certainly down the road it has a certain deterrent factor,’ said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on Iran and the Middle East at the Congressional Research Service. ‘It adds to the calculus, let’s say, of Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il.’
Details about Iran’s once-secret program have come out slowly and often under duress, as with last month’s surprise confirmation of the hidden underground development site near Qom.
That revelation came a month after the Pentagon had asked Congress to shift money to speed up the MOP program, although U.S. and other intelligence agencies had suspected for years that Iran was still hiding at least one nuclear development site.
The MOP could, in theory, take out bunkers such as those Saddam Hussein had begun to construct for weapons programs in Iraq, or flatten the kind of cave and tunnel networks that allowed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to escape U.S. assault in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2001.
The precision-guided bomb is designed to drill through earth and almost any underground encasement to reach weapons depots, labs or hideouts.
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Posted by Gordon Duff on Oct 18 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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The time to stop Iran was just after the elections, when the entire society was in the streets. If we could have gotten some side arms the the crowd, and made sure any armor was kept from entering Tehran, then we would not be having these problems.
If we still had friends in Iran, it would have been a good idea.
If.
g
You know Duff, there has always been these jackasses around the world who want to hurt the US for one reason or another. Most of them sawed off little pricks with a huge inferiority complex. I say that if they say they have a gun then we will show up with a bigger gun. This is all such a joke. They know damn well that if they shoot at us or one of our solid allies, they subject themselves and their people to being blown off the map. They know what the US has. It is all a foolish game. I wouldn’t cow bow to any of these guys. If America has done some bad things, then the little pricks are 100 times worse.
Terry,
I am always in favor of blowing the shit out of something but there are always games and twists behind everything.
Using something for our own good is one thing but being suckered to use something is another.
Best case is that Iran will take us seriously and back down on their weapons program, although we have no real proof how advanced it is.
I do know much of what we have been told is lies.
Just know this, there is a game going on to sucker us into taking on Iran and it has nothing to do with anything good for the US.
g
Perhaps we should name this new bomb the “David Koresh.” Why not? He certainly planned to take a lot of folks with him when he checked out!
Isn’t it sufficiently ignorant that we are poisoning our oceans with deadly poisons
and dioxins that we deem unwise to send into landfills?
But no,,, now we must design a super bomb that is capable of sending a massive shock wave to the middle of the Earth.
Are we so pissed off at Mother Nature that we are now planning to slap our planet
right in the face?(Or some might suggest,,kick it right in the balls?)
Would this bomb set off new Earthquakes? Would it cause old volcanos to erupt?
How about causing a massive tsunami to roll across the Atlantic and wipe out our east coast?
I just wonder if these brilliant bomb makers have any geologists on their payrolls
who might be asking these questions.
Have these brilliant scientists ever heard of the expression,,”For every action, their is an opposite and equal reaction?”
A good science fiction writer would find it difficult to even make this stuff up.
So what is your plan? Just set back and wring our hands and throw ashes on our heads? Just because we are producing such a bomb, doesn’t mean we will have to use it. You can’t deal with these idiots from a position of weakness. Even if its a bluff its better than doing nothing.
We have three separate sets of intel:
1. Iran has no bombs, isn’t making any and isn’t threatening Israel
2. Iran is building weapons and is going to attack Israel, a country with an ABM system, hundreds of nukes and ICBMs with multiple warheads.
3. Oil and gas pipeline scams may behind all of this.
choose.
g
a simple throw of a dart gave me a #3. let me know how it comes out.
I really hope we don’t bomb Iran for several reasons. It is never a first choice, but Old Leatherneck is right. You can’t back down or show weakness here. Duff says that we shouldn’t be dragged into doing something that is not good for us. I believe that too. Diplomacy may still be the answer here, but I sure don’t want to see the US grovel to a jackass.
America, Israel’s puppet, scares me more than Iran. Iran hasn’t started a war in 150 years. Israel and its puppet America have started too many wars (or “police actions)” to count.
Wasn’t Iraq and Iran at war? Before the 150 yr mark you claim? Those two nations have always been at one another throats. Yea, I do recall a war between them two..Didn’t they kill each off in the millions? Yea, I think so. What the 80′s, that is 1980′s.
I also see that you (Herman King are a racist) ah no wonder you like this site.
As a part time prof who teaches military history, I fail to see anything racist about what Mr. Duff has written. He raises some very good points for the reader to toss around, so to speak, so the reader can decide for him/herself what they believe should or shouldn’t be done. And for those who say this is separate from veterans issues, we are veterans, especially the combat veterans who more than likely can understand the issues more then the average citizen. After two wars that I have gone through, it is my hope always to pray for peace, not war.
I like your comment very much,,the question I like to ask people ,,is peace possible?
Most will answer back right away,, never. Or they might say that they prefer their freedom over peace, or their liberty over peace. Deep thinkers,, real investigators.
War has become business,, with its own advertising department.
We no longer seek peace, we seek never ending conflict. This creates the demand for new weapons and defense systems,, and this is just about 1/2 of all our exports.
Watched a great show last night called “Body of War.”
Watched MSNBC’s “Tip of the Spear” last week.
The American mindset is very much for war,,and as long as this is the general attitude we have,, we will run the risk of terrorist attacks.
Perhaps the one million dead from violence in Iraq in the last eight years, from the quite unnecessary invasion of Iraq, is enough karma to guarantee our country valid enemies for the next one hundred years. But let’s not stop there,, let’s keep playing
“bomb and occupy” with Pakistan and Afghanistan,, and war games with India,,and let’s keep selling more and more weapons to everyone,, for surely,, we do not want to run out of war,,, our “Defense” industry needs conflict in order to survive.
And as long as all our sheeple keep sending Washington their war taxes the defense industry will be calling the shots.
Only a revolution of sorts will end the exportation of American conflict around this planet.
It will not be enough for the majority of people in the world to believe in and demand peace. The war machine must somehow be defeated. The money tap must be turned off.
Many people,, and Steve,, especially people who teach military history, should read Alfred W. McCoy’s “The Politics of Heroin.”
This is the invisible,, or very dark side of this middle east chaos that no one is discussing.
The huge tanker trucks continue to roll into Afghanistan quite freely loaded with precursor chemicals needed to manufacture the high grade heroin,, and the heroin
manages to roll out quite freely,, driving right around the drug checkpoints, in official
government vehicles.
Fortunes are being made by Americans who are willing to travel and “count” the drug moneys. Hard to turn down three million dollars a year for about five trips to southern Europe,, or countries like Nigeria,, to go into a bank and count good old American cash.
It seems as though the oil exporting countries are once again asking their transactions to be done with Euros,, but the good old drug business is still being done with dollars,, and this most probably has a positive effect on the value of our currency.
One can read about this by searching for articles from the United Nations number one source for information on international crime at UNODC,, the United Nation’s Office for Drugs and Crime. It is right there in black and white.
I must sadly admit that I suspect that if these international offenses continue to somehow support the value of our dollar, they will of course be swept under the rug.
Of course our government does pay some fellows to fight this money laundering for the drug trade. They pay our top cops about $115,000 a year to travel the world without bodyguards,(U.S. Treasury Dept. Financial Crimes Division) and seek evidence and cooperation,,whereas the money launderers are making about $5,000,000 a year to circumvent them,, and they can afford teams of bodyguards. Wonder who has the advantage here?
Yes,, I too pray for peace,, and I very much know it is possible,, but we don’t have to fight our way through hoards of international terrorists to get it,, we need to fight our way through the many levels of international crime to achieve just the smallest foothold.
Sadly, the reality is that our brave yet naive soldiers, are supporting some drug manufacturers and ignoring others, while the drug trade flourishes like never before.
International drug trade and crime, and war, go hand in hand quite nicely.
For years the excuse has always been to achieve superior intelligence our agencies must be ever so intertwined with the criminal elements. Well,, where exactly has this superior intelligence gotten us in the last 40 years? Exactly how involved in the international crime are we?
With American markets being flooded with high grade heroin,, I read only about a few Pakistanis and a couple of small time Nigerians being caught with any heroin,,
and those arrest are made overseas.
Is peace possible? Is progress possible?
Yes,, of course,, with enough brave teachers,, with enough brave investigative reporters,, with enough children being raised with their eyes wide open,, yes, it is all possible.
When we finally cut through all the bullshit,, peace is sitting right there,, ready for us to embrace it.
Steve,, you have gone through two wars,, and you pray for peace.
Perhaps only those who actually know the horrors of war can pray so well for peace. You are a very big part of the solution. Good luck with your classes!
…..by the way, I was enlisted!
Excellent reporting.
No place to run and nowhere to hide. Always deal from a position of strength.Need a target to test? How about Afghanistan?
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