MOP development heightens concern of strikes on Iranian targets

The United States is looking to boost its deep bunker penetration capability by putting additional funding into arming its Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber with Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) weapons, possibly in anticipation of a need to strike hardened targets in Iran.

Buried in the Bush administration's USD196.4 billion emergency war spending request is an additional USD88 million to expand a US Air Force (USAF) programme to modify B-2s for MOP.

The MOP is a nearly 30,000 lb conventional bunker buster designed to destroy hardened or deeply buried targets.

The White House provided few details about the need for the MOP, except to say in a summary accompanying the supplemental spending proposal that MOP funding comes in response to "an urgent operational need from theatre commanders".

The MOP can burrow 60 m into the ground through 5,000 lb per square inch of reinforced concrete, and 8 m into the ground through 10,000 lb per square inch of reinforced concrete, according to a 2005 statement from Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who received a briefing on the MOP from weapon designer Northrop Grumman.

Iran's Natanz nuclear fuel enrichment plant, which would be critical to any potential Iranian weapon building effort, includes underground centrifuge halls with walls as thick as 3 m, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank. 222 of 815 words