Bush Budget Request Raises Fears Of Iran Strike, Increases Funding For ‘Massive’ ‘Bunker Buster’... [View All]

[bridgit]

'In light of the administration’s increasingly threatening rhetoric on Iran, CQ reports that members of Congress are worried by Bush’s recent budget proposal. In particular, they cite his request to equip B-2 “stealth” bombers with a new 30,000-pound bunker buster as a “sign of plans for an attack on Iran“:

Buried in the $196.4 billion supplemental war spending proposal that Bush submitted to Congress on Oct. 22 is a request for $88 million to modify B-2 bombers so they can drop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, a conventional bomb still in development that is the most powerful weapon designed to destroy targets deep underground.

A White House summary accompanying the supplemental spending proposal said the request for money to modify ­B-2s to carry the bombs came in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.” <…>

Previous statements by the Defense Department and the program’s contractors, along with interviews with military experts, suggest the weapon is meant for the kind of hardened targets found chiefly in Iran.'

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/bush-budget-iran/