Pentagon wants bigger bomb to be ready for Iranian underground nuke facilities

The Pentagon is looking to build a bigger bunker-busting
bomb to be prepared for a strike against Iran’s underground nuclear
facilities.

The Wall Street Journal reported
this weekend that the Pentagon had secretly submitted a request to Congress
this month to upgrade the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb, which
is designed to penetrate fortified underground locations before exploding.

{mosads}The Pentagon had concluded that the bomb, made by Boeing,
would not be capable of destroying some of Iran’s underground nuclear
facilities, according to the report, prompting the request for re-designing
the bomb to penetrate even further.

The Pentagon has spent $300 million so far for 20 bombs, and
is now asking for another $82 million for the upgrades.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said, “The
development of this weapon is not intended to send a signal to any one
particular country.”

President Obama and senior Pentagon officials have said that
all options are on the table to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,
including a military strike.

Iran has refused to halt its uranium production, which it
says it’s developing to produce energy. The United States and its allies say Iran is
looking to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran recently moved uranium production facilities
underground, and the United States and European Union have imposed economic sanctions
against Iran to try and get the country to abandon its nuclear efforts.

A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran on Sunday, though there was plenty of skepticism about how much information the team would be able to gather.

The United States is also planning to send a ship that was initially slated
for retirement, the USS Ponce, into the Persian Gulf to act as a “mothership”
for special operations missions, according to published reports.

Iran had threatened to close down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway into the Persian Gulf, in response to economic sanctions. Iranian officials have warned U.S. ships not to re-enter the gulf, but a U.S. carrier went through without incident earlier this month.