Eyeing Iran, US seeks to rush production of 30,000-pound bomb

The US Defense Department is seeking to accelerate by three years the development of a 30,000-pound bomb, a move that underscores growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, the Bloomberg news network reported on Friday.

The formal request was made by Comptroller Robert Hale to the four congressional defense committees earlier this month, the report said.

The bomb would be the US military’s largest and six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bombs that the Air Force now uses to strike deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.

In his 8 July request, Hale said that there was “an urgent operational need for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high-threat environments.”

He told lawmakers that top commanders of US forces in Asia and the Middle East “recently identified the need to expedite” the bomb program.

Hale asked lawmakers for permission to shift 68 million dollars in the Defense Department’s budget to the program, to ensure that the first four bombs could be mounted on B-2 bombers by July 2010. More