Like when you might possibly be deciding whether to drop one or more 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities:
The Pentagon is always making plans, but based on a little-noticed funding request recently sent to Congress, the answer to that question appears to be yes.
First, some background: Back in October 2007, ABC News reported that the Pentagon had asked Congress for $88 million in the emergency Iraq/Afghanistan war funding request to develop a gargantuan bunker-busting bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). It’s a 30,000-pound bomb designed to hit targets buried 200 feet below ground. Back then,the Pentagon cited an “urgent operational need” for the new weapon.
Now the Pentagon is shifting spending from other programs to fast forward the development and procurement of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The Pentagon comptroller sent a request to shift the funds to the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees over the summer.
The comptroller said the Pentagon planned to spend $19.1 million to procure four of the bombs, $28.3 million to accelerate the bomb’s “development and testing”, and $21 million to accelerate the integration of the bomb onto B-2 stealth bombers.
The notification was tucked inside a 93-page “reprogramming” request that included a couple hundred other more mundane items.
Why now? The notification says simply, “The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON.” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).
So how does a “little-noticed funding request” that is “tucked inside a 93-page” purchase order come to the attention of ABC News? That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because we all know the answer. Nevertheless, Allahpundit has a couple of thoughts:
One: This is a relatively cheap form of saber-rattling. $70 million is nothing when it comes to defense outlays; probably the whole point of speeding up production is simply to be able to leak the story to an outlet like ABC so that Iran will see it. Two: They could be rushing this out not because we intend to use it ourselves (the part about outfitting it for the B-2 notwithstanding) but so that we can hand it off to Israel.
And here is where the indecision thing comes in. Allahpundit asks this question:
Would a man with this on his wall really bomb Iran? I ask you.
I fervently hope the answer is No.
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.