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According to several reports, powerful bombers, which are exclusively part of the US military equipment, are currently being relocated to a US Air Force base in Guam amid rising tensions with Iran.
Six B-2 stealth bombers, docked at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, appeared to be on the move on Saturday morning, according to Fox News.
The bombers have reportedly been refueled, indicating they might not have taken off with full tanks because of the weight of their massive bunker-buster bombs.
The B-2 bombers can carry bombs weighing 30,000 pounds, and experts suggest these might be the only weapons capable of demolishing Iran’s most fortified nuclear facility, Fordo.
The bomb, known as the GBU-57 or the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, is something only the US military possesses.
The Fordo fuel enrichment plant is buried deep within a mountain system in Iran, but experts don’t know exactly how deep, which complicated a potential US mission to neutralize it.
Experts who spoke to The New York Times believe the facility at its shallowest is 250 feet deep, but could be as much as 30 feet deeper.
Nonetheless, GBU-57 is the only way to assuredly wipe out the facility, short of using a nuclear device.
Six B-2 stealth bombers, docked in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, are on the move to a US military base in Guam, according to reports
These aircraft are capable of carrying a payload as heavy as the 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb (pictured) that the US military could use to destroy a fortified nuclear facility in Iran called Fordo
The bombers are thought to be destined for a US air force base in Guam, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
Jonathan Ruhe, the director of foreign policy for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said this type of bomb is designed to use the force of gravity to ‘penetrate through any mixture of earth, rock, and concrete before the bomb itself then explodes’ underground.
Ruhe told Fox News that the explosion could take out the facility fully or ‘collapse the structure’ around the target ‘without necessarily obliterating it.’
America’s possible escalating involvement in the Middle Eastern conflict comes as Israel and Iran have been launching tit-for-tat airstrikes against one another for the last week.
The war between the two countries began when Israel launched what it called Operation Rising Lion on Friday, June 13.
Israel targeted nuclear sites and military sites within Iran, while also killing many of Iran’s top military commanders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation against Iran would last ‘as many days as it takes.’
‘We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program. We targeted Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran’s ballistic missile program,’ he said in a seven-minute video released shortly after what Israel called pre-emptive strikes.
So far, Israel’s strikes have killed 657 people in Iran, while Iran has killed 24 people in Israel.
Pictured: The aftermath of an Israeli strike on an oil refinery in Tehran, Iran’s capital city
Pictured: A satellite view of the Fordo nuclear facility, which is in the northwest of Iran
Israel’s objective, to stop Iran from compiling enough fissile material to make a nuke, cannot be completed until the Fordo facility is destroyed.
That’s why Israel has been asking the Trump administration to get involved in the conflict, since the US is the only nation with the capability to strike at Fordo.
For days, Trump has been coy about whether the US will in fact enter the war and fly a mission to Fordo.
On Wednesday, he told reporters who were asking him about it: ‘You don’t seriously think I’m going to answer that question. Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component?’
‘I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate. And I say why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction,’ he said.
Trump warned that Tehran has a ‘maximum’ of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes if they don’t abandon their nuclear ambitions.
Trump recently publicly disagreed with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who testified in March that there is ‘no evidence’ Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
‘She’s wrong,’ Trump said Friday in New Jersey just off to the side of Air Force One. ‘My intelligence community is wrong.’
Gabbard has since reversed course and clarified that Iran could produce nukes ‘within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly.’
‘President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,’ she added.
There are possible complications that could arise if the US strikes Fordo, located 60 miles southwest of Tehran, with the bunker-buster bomb (pictured)
Back in March 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that some uranium at the Fordo site had been enriched to 83.7 percent purity – dangerously close to the 90 percent level necessary for nuclear bombs.
Fordo is smaller than the Natanz site, which has already been targeted by Israeli strikes.
There are possible complications that could arise if the US strikes Fordo, located 60 miles southwest of Tehran, with the bunker-buster bomb.
As well as being some 260 feet under rock and soil, the site is reportedly protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems.
Those air defenses, however, are believed to have been weakened by recent Israeli attacks.
Additionally, any US strike carries significant political and diplomatic risks for Trump, who has long warned against entangling the US in overseas conflicts.
For example, Russia has warned that US involvement could ‘radically destabilize the Middle East.’
Military engagement could also jeopardize any chance of Trump’s desired talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
