U.S. stockpiles powerful bunker-buster bombs in case Iran nuclear talks fail
By W.J. HENNIGAN contact the reporter
As diplomats rush to reach an
agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. military is
stockpiling conventional bombs so powerful that strategists say they
could cripple Tehran’s most heavily fortified nuclear complexes,
including one deep underground.
The bunker-busting bombs are
America’s most destructive munitions short of atomic weapons. At 15
tons, each is 5 tons heavier than any other bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
In development for more than a decade, the latest iteration of the
MOP — massive ordnance penetrator — was successfully tested on a deeply
buried target this year at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The test followed upgrades to the bomb’s guidance system and electronics
to stop jammers from sending it off course.
U.S. officials say the huge
bombs, which have never been used in combat, are a crucial element in
the White House deterrent strategy and contingency planning should
diplomacy go awry and Iran seek to develop a nuclear bomb.
Obama has made it clear that he has no desire to order an attack,
warning that U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s air defense network and nuclear
facilities would spark a destabilizing new war in the Middle East, and
would only delay Iran by several years should it choose to build a bomb.
“A military solution will not fix it,” Obama told Israeli TV on June
1. An attack “would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program,
but it will not eliminate it.”
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, speaking to reporters Thursday at
the Pentagon, sought to downplay the likelihood or the utility of an
attack. He said no plan under consideration, including use of the
bunker-busters,
could deliver a permanent knockout blow to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and enrichment plants.
“A military strike of that kind is a setback, but it doesn’t prevent
the reconstitution over time,” he said. “And that basically has been the
case as long as we’ve had those instruments and those plans, and I
don’t think there’s anything substantially changed since then.”
U.S. officials have publicized the new bomb partly to rattle the
Iranians. Some Pentagon officials warned not to underestimate U.S.
military capabilities even if the bunker-busters can’t eliminate Iran’s
nuclear program.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested
at the same Pentagon news conference Thursday that airstrikes might be
ordered multiple times if Iran tries to build a bomb.
The military option “isn’t used once and set aside,” he said. “It
remains in place. … We will always have military options, and a massive
ordnance penetrator is one of them.”
A dynamic of escalation, action, and counteraction could produce
serious unintended consequences that would … lead, potentially, to
all-out regional war.
Contingency plans include
airstrikes by cruise missiles and stealth bombers on Iran’s major
nuclear facilities, including the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, a
heavy-water reactor at Arak and a nuclear enrichment site at Fordow,
which is inside a mountain and fortified with steel and concrete.
B-2 stealth bombers would be required to drop the MOP, which is
designed to burrow 200 feet underground before it detonates. Multiple
MOPs probably would be aimed at the same target to bore deeper and
achieve maximum destruction.
The U.S. began secretly developing the MOP in 2004 after U.S. forces
scoured caves in eastern Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
They discovered some sites so deeply buried they appeared impervious to
existing bombs.
The Air Force and bomb builder Boeing Co. flight-tested the
GPS-guided MOP in 2008 at the White Sands range, where the first atomic
bomb was tested during World War II. The 20-foot-long bombs were dropped
on multistory buildings with hardened bunkers and tunnels.
But development ramped up in 2010 after Fordow was uncovered and
concern about Iran’s nuclear capabilities rose. Since then, the military
has spent at least $400 million — including $40 million this year — to
build and upgrade 20 bombs, according to budget documents.
“
A military strike would result in the worst of all worlds,”
said Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of the Center for Middle East Public
Policy at the nonpartisan Rand Corp. “It may eliminate some facilities.
But it would not eliminate Iranian scientists’ technical know-how and
would likely further incentivize Iran to pursue a weapon at all costs.”
Iran could increase support for regional militant groups, such as
Hezbollah, and perhaps back a terrorist attack on the United States, she
said. U.S. forces battling Islamic State fighters in Iraq could find
themselves targeted by Iranian-backed militias who are in tacit
alignment in the war against the Sunni extremists.
A U.S. attack also could spark a
broader war in the world’s most volatile region. Iran has hundreds of
medium-range missiles capable of hitting Israel, Jordan and other
American allies, according to defense intelligence estimates.
“
A dynamic of escalation,
action, and counteraction could produce serious unintended consequences
that would … lead, potentially, to all-out regional war,” according
to a recent study by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars that was endorsed by 32 high-ranking former military and
government officials.
Iran’s nuclear program has already been attacked through covert
digital action. In 2010, the U.S. and Israel reportedly slipped a
destructive computer worm called Stuxnet into Iranian computer systems
controlling the fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium.
The cyberattack destroyed centrifuges and delayed enrichment, but
Tehran soon recovered, according to the International Atomic Energy
Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency.
Stuxnet did not lead to overt Iranian retaliation. U.S. airstrikes, and the casualties they would cause, almost certainly would spark a
different response.
“It would create huge problems,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military
analyst at the Brookings Institution. “That said, it’s hard to rule out
if talks fail.”
william.hennigan@latimes.com
