Seemingly in a gesture of solidarity, Iran recently tested its Shahab 3 missile, capable of attacking Israel, on the very day that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended Tehran to improve relationships.
Close on the heels of this development, Israel successfully upgraded jointly with Pentagon, its radar defenses, named the Arrow Missile Defense shield. The Blue Sparrow 2 missile was also successfully tested from an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean.
Just one month ago, Iran had declared that it would start on uranium enrichment at an impenetrable underground facility in the Fardow Mountain near the city of Qom.
Iran had made claims that the facility was beyond the reach of America’s vaunted MOP bunker buster (a massive 30, 000 pound bomb meant for attacking concrete bunkers and tunnel facilities) which according to Boeing, “allows the warfighter to hold adversaries’ most highly valued military facilities at risk, especially those protecting weapons of mass destruction.”
This week, sources have reported that the Pentagon requested $81 million from the Congress for urgent upgrade of the MOP bunker buster bomb, and that defense appropriators have allowed the request on Wednesday.
While nobody is officially connecting the urgent upgrade of the bomb as a response to Iran’s claims of defense abilities, $81 million for upgrading a weapon is too hard to ignore in times of peace, and at a time when the nation is still caught in the throes of a slowly receding recession.
The Air Force continues to deny publicly any intention of deploying the weapon in the Middle East, and that the ‘urgent upgrade’ is related to the tensions with Iran in any manner.
However, the above reasoning and stance seems hollow, because when ex Rep. Ike Skelton, former House Armed Services Chairman was asked whether there were any reports of the MOP having any problems under his committee, his answer was, “No.”