U.S. President Donald Trump called the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites by B-2 bombers a “spectacular military success” and said that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “completely and totally obliterated” in his TV address on Saturday night.
He warned: “Iran, the bully of then Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”
However, the deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster, Hassan Abedini, said Iran had evacuated these three nuclear sites a “while ago,” BBC reported.
He said on state-run television that Iran “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out.”
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ACCORDING to CNN, sources told them that the US used the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb, known as a “bunker buster,” in its strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The MOP — a 30,000-pound bomb with 6,000 pounds of explosives — was “designed for “reaching and destroying our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities,” according to a fact sheet from the US Air Force.
The B-2 is the only aircraft in the US inventory that can carry the GBU-57A/B.
With its flying wing design, composite material composition and special coatings, “the B-2 brings massive firepower to bear, in a short time, anywhere on the globe through previously impenetrable defenses,” an Air Force fact sheet.
The four-engine B-2 can be armed with nuclear or conventional weapons, is flown by a crew of two, has a payload of 40,000 pounds and an unlimited range with aerial refueling.
There are only 20 B-2s in the US Air Force inventory, all based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
Each of the bombers cost about $2 billon in current dollars.
