U.S.’s bunker buster for Iran?

[Anchor]

If the United States intervenes militarily, the justification will be the removal of Iran's nuclear facilities.

In particular, the Iranian nuclear facilities built deep underground are the key issue.

There is a possibility that the U.S. will use ultra-powerful bunker busters.

Reporter Park Seok-ho has the details.

[Report]

The U.S. military's B-2 stealth bomber drops two massive missiles.

These missiles do not explode at the surface; instead, they penetrate the ground and explode deeper underground.

The GBU-57, commonly known as a bunker buster, is 6.2 meters long, weighs 13.6 tons, and has a warhead weight of 2.4 tons.

With GPS guidance, it can strike with precision and is made of special steel, allowing it to destroy bunkers or nuclear facilities located 60 meters underground with just one missile.

Iran's Fordow nuclear facility is built 80 meters underground in a mountainous area, and it can be destroyed if the U.S. military drops several bunker busters with precision.

[Carlton Haelig/Researcher at the Center for a New American Security: "It will be multiple strikes barrelling down into that target set over time, kind of drilling down towards the target."]

As the U.S. considers whether to directly intervene militarily in Iran, the possibility of utilizing these bunker busters is gaining attention.

Due to the heavy weight of the missiles, they can only be transported by B-2 bombers, and the U.S. military is always ready for the B-2 bombers to take off.

[James Stavridis/Former U.S. Navy Admiral: "The big B-2 strategic bombers will probably stage out of the small island in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia. Those are the ones that carry the big bunker busting bomb."]

Even if the U.S. military does not actually use the ultra-powerful bunker busters, it is analyzed that merely mentioning them can exert strong pressure on Iran.

This is KBS News, Park Seok-ho.