Pentagon and White House Have Drawn Up Plans to Hit Iran With the 'Mother of All Bombs'
Sources tell CBS News the plans exist if President Trump orders them, even as he says the U.S. will not attack Iran before the midterms.
The White House and the Pentagon have prepared plans to use the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, known as the MOAB or "mother of all bombs," against military sites in Iran if President Trump orders it, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News on Thursday. CNN first reported the plans.
A Pentagon official did not confirm or deny the specifics. "The Department of War plans for a wide range of operational scenarios to execute Presidential and Secretary level direction and to ensure mission success in any operational environment," the official told CBS News. A White House spokesperson said: "We do not comment on sensitive military plans that may or may not exist. President Trump keeps all options on the table to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon."
The reports land at a delicate moment. Last week, Trump said the United States would not attack Iran before the midterm elections, and he touted "productive conversations" with Tehran, though he gave no details. The two countries have largely held off on striking each other in recent weeks after several months of on-and-off American strikes on Iranian targets. Trump has suggested the war could ramp back up if he cannot secure a satisfactory agreement with the Iranian government.
In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, the president said he has a "big decision to make" on whether to strike a deal with Iran or "annihilate the Islamic Republic."
The MOAB is the largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal. It weighs upwards of 30,000 pounds and costs about $170,000 per unit. Trump set the precedent for its combat use in 2017, when the weapon was dropped on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports and trying to keep oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has continued to threaten and strike ships in the waterway, which has kept global oil prices high. Over the summer, many of the American strikes were aimed at Iran's conventional military capabilities near the strait, according to U.S. Central Command, including air defense sites and missile and drone storage.
Trump has also floated striking Iranian nuclear sites. One of them is Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried site that analysts believe could be part of Iran's nuclear program. A bomb of the MOAB's type is built for blast effects, and the reports did not say which sites the plans cover.
The existence of a contingency plan does not mean an order is coming. The Pentagon's statement stressed that it plans for many scenarios, and the White House declined to discuss the matter. But the timing, less than three weeks before voters decide control of Congress, ensures the question of whether and when the war escalates will remain a central issue of the campaign. The president has said publicly that the conflict would not widen before Election Day, and the sources who described the plans did not suggest that position has changed.
