Israel wants to demolish Iran's nuclear facilities. Does it need US military help?
WASHINGTON − As Israel and Iran trade blows in an escalating aerial war, Israel has its sights trained on taking out Iran's nuclear facilities – and it wants the U.S. military's help.
Israel wants the Pentagon to drop the bombs because their penetrating weapons cannot reach the depth necessary to destroy underground facilities, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Israel has pressed the U.S. for years, without success, to join an offensive to decapitate Iran's nuclear program. "The answer is no," former President Joe Biden said last October when asked if he would take part.
But after President Donald Trump asserted in a blizzard of all-caps Truth Social posts that "IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON," U.S. participation in a strike could be closer than ever.
Military experts say there are multiple ways Israel could strike Iran's uranium enrichment plants – with or without help from the U.S.
Fully demolishing Iran's nuclear facilities would require 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs, or "bunker-busters," which Israel's military doesn't have. Iran's Fordo nuclear facility – central to its uranium enrichment efforts – is buried around 300 feet underground, unreachable to non-penetrating bombs.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57, has a 'high-performance steel alloy' warhead case that allows the weapon to stay intact as it burrows deep into the ground, according to Pentagon documents.
Only U.S.-made B-2 warplanes are equipped to carry the bombs. Each B-2 Spirit stealth bomber based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri can hold two of the penetrators.
See how the bunker buster works: A closer look at the GBU-57
In 2012, the Air Force conducted five tests of the weapon at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Data and visual inspections showed that each bombing run 'effectively prosecuted the targets.'
At the depth of Iran's most protected underground nuclear facilities, just one 30,000-pound bomb would likely not be enough to "impose significant damage" on nuclear centrifuges, said David Deptula, a retired Lieutenant General who was the principal attack planner for operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Gulf War.
'It brings to bear a capability that Israel doesn't possess on their own,' Deptula said.
The U.S. raised eyebrows in April when it repositioned several B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia, a U.S. base on an island in the Indian Ocean, around 2,300 miles from Iran.
Still, the B-2's long range means it could take part in missions with distant targets. "You can perform the strikes from the United States," he said.
Given Israel's success so far at degrading Iran's air defenses, deploying the MOP may be unnecessary, said Scott Murray, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer with experience identifying targets in the Middle East.
Instead, Israel could use smaller penetrating weapons to collapse the entry ways to Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Murray said. Israel could then effectively bar Iran from recovery work at the sites.
'Think of it as a no-work zone patrolled from above,' he said. 'Air superiority buys incredible capability and flexibility.'
More: Iran: 11 facts about a country rarely visited by westerners
After five days of heavy bombing, Israel now has control over Iran's air space, clearing the way for such an operation. U.S.-made weapons were instrumental to achieve that control, a fact alluded to by Trump in a June 17 Truth Social post that said, "We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran."
"Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn't compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured 'stuff,'" Trump wrote.
Israel's military first clinched air superiority by sweeping the area with F-35 fighter jets, according to Deptula. Then, they deployed F-15s and F-16s in "follow-on attacks."
Deptula called it a "textbook repeat" of the 1991 Operation Desert Storm – the U.S.'s air campaign against Iraqi forces led by Saddam Hussein, for which Deptula wrote the attack plans.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel takes aim at Iran's nuclear facilities. Does it need US help?
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