The U.S. may have the only weapon capable of destroying Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facility, and it has never been used in war before, defense experts told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
As Israel ramps up its strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the Fordow uranium enrichment facility — buried deep beneath a mountain near the city of Qom — remains undamaged, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Military analysts say only a U.S.-developed Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) has the ability to destroy the facility, as reported by the WSJ.
Israel has already launched hundreds of airstrikes against the Islamic Republic, reportedly hitting key parts of the Natanz enrichment facility and eliminating key personnel in Iran’s top military leadership and numerous nuclear scientists. However, Fordow presents a different challenge, as it is too deep and fortified for traditional Israeli munitions to reach.
The GBU-57 MOP is a 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb designed specifically for fortified targets like Fordow, according to WSJ. Encased in a dense steel alloy, GBU-57 is reportedly able to punch through at least 200 feet of reinforced concrete or rock before detonating.
“This is really what it was designed for,” Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the WSJ. He noted that the U.S. spent $400 million developing the weapon and maintains around 20 of them, and that they can only be delivered by B-2 stealth bombers.
Former U.S. defense officials told WSJ that taking out Fordow and Natanz could require at least six MOPs.
Israel has a plan for destroying Fordow on its own, a senior Israeli military official told the WSJ. However, a U.S. strike using an MOP dropped from a B-2 bomber would offer the “highest confidence of success,” William Wechsler, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations under the Obama administration, told the outlet.
While the U.S. hasn’t officially joined the Israeli campaign, it has moved additional forces into the region, including a second aircraft carrier. Additionally, American air defense systems and naval assets in the Middle East assisted Israel in shooting down a barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran last Friday.
President Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear arsenal and called for an “unconditional surrender” from Iran.
“Unconditional surrender. That means I’ve had it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there. They had bad intentions. You know, for 40 years they’ve been saying, death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies, and now they’re not bullies anymore.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Americans “should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”
“Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender,” Khamenei said.
Neither the Pentagon nor the White House responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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