The U.S. would need a special bomber aircraft with “remarkable” capabilities if it were to go ahead with any decision to try to take out Iran’s extremely deep subterranean Fordow nuclear facility, a retired Air Force officer told Fox News.
Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Weatherington, a former commander of the 8th Air Force who has piloted the B-2 bomber, said it is the only vessel capable of carrying and dropping the 30,000-pound MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) that would be needed for such an operation.
Only the U.S. has a bomb capable of reaching that depth, as Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile volleys of lesser means.
“The B-2 is a very unique aircraft in the American arsenal. There’s no other airplane like it. No one else in the world has this type of capability. It’s a low-observable aircraft with a large payload; extreme range. And [is] the only aircraft that can carry a GBU-57, the large 30,000 lb. bunker-buster weapon that we’re discussing today,” Weatherington told chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin.
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Satellite image of Fordow Nuclear installation, Iran (Reuters / Reuters)
Weatherington said his main background is bomber aircraft and has piloted the B-1, B-2 and B-52.
“The B-2 is a remarkable airplane, very technologically advanced. It’s a flying wing. It handles very well. It’s not as fast as some of the other aircraft in the inventory, but it’s designed really to evade radar, to evade detection, to manage its signature and so it can get to places that nothing else can get to. It carries a very large payload.”
The current stock of B-2s are stationed at Whiteman AFB in Knob Noster, Mo.
Weatherington said the flight would be about 6,000 miles to Fordow and that there would need to be multiple refuelings. While the B-2 isn’t entirely silent, it is programmed to evade detection, the general said.
Taking out Fordow would be a “very complex mission,” he said.
Responding to Russian and Chinese claims of matching the B-2’s airpower, Weatherington said that while both nations are developing similar aircraft, the Air Force still possesses capabilities no other air force in the world can match. The B-2 is produced by Northrop-Grumman.
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Griffin also spoke with former CENTCOM intel officer Todd Sawhill, a Naval intelligence adviser to the Joint Staff on Mideast targets.
Sawhill said it remains to be seen if the MOP can destroy Fordow, but that if deployed properly and with the correct coordinates for the munitions drop, “absolutely.”
“But there’s variables that are going to be at play in a case like that,” he said.
With reports the MOP has a 200-foot depth-ability and Fordow being 300 feet beneath a mountainside, a “multiple hit” scenario or other strategy could be used to make up for the added depth.
“As with any operation and having been involved with multiple strike operations in the region for the better part of the last 20 years, a lot of this depends on if the tactics were carried out correctly, if the munition performed the way it was supposed to,” he said.
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The ordnance has been tested in New Mexico at White Sands Missile range.
Sawhill noted that it is not likely the B-2 would be hopscotched overseas and held at any number of places over there; that the 6,000-mile journey from Whiteman would be the best option.
“It’s unlikely that we would ever put a B-2 forward stage in the Middle East, because it’s such a high-value asset that it leaves itself to increased vulnerability to attack, particularly in a situation like this where tensions continue to escalate and the risk of miscalculation is high,” he said.
“You want to keep those strategic assets farther away so you can make sure you can use them at a time and place of your choosing.”
