US did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's nuclear sites, top general tells lawmakers, citing depth of the targ

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

Source: C NN

The US military did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran’s largest nuclear sites last weekend because the site is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US’ top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday.

The comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, which was described by three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them, is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. US officials believe Isfahan’s underground structures house nearly 60% of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon.

US B2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/politics/bunker-buster-bomb-isfahan-iran

[Oopsie Daisy]

1. The world views us as a paper tiger, it seems.

[Prairie Gates]

2. Enough with the fucking "bunker busters"

A more phony baloney media phrase I cannot recall.

[IronLionZion]

5. bunker buster is a generic term going back to WW2

It covers many types of penetrator bombs. MOP happens to be the biggest.

[Gimpyknee]

8. Not so.

The term “bunker buster” was first used in 1985 when the U.S. Air Force introduced a bomb designed to penetrate deep underground. The British employed similar bombs in WWII, the 5-ton “Tallboy” and the “10-ton “Grand Slam”. These bombs were commonly referred to as “earthquake” bombs, not “bunker busters”.

[Prairie Gates]

9. These are not mutually exclusive positions

I did a little NGram on it. Obviously, the limitations of Ngram is that it only captures usage in written documents available to Google. As a result, Ngram will tend to have more recent spikes for some terms simply as a function of the availability of scanned, searchable text, etc. However, it is still a pretty good indication of a term's use.

The term bunker buster was indeed around since the 1940s meaning more or less what it means today, though there were other uses. But its use is extremely rare until the 1980s when the defense industry decides to use it as a selling tool for appropriations committees. Hence, the spike in the 80s is mostly associated with Congressional documents. There is additional use in media for the first Gulf War. Notably, the term is mostly non-existent during the entirety of the Vietnam period (for which we have plenty of text-searchable documents), which at least suggest it was not in widespread use even in military contexts after World War II.

The term really takes off (see the NGram link) in the early 2000s with the war on terror, a massive media-driven spike in usage. It is, in short, a marketing gimmick for the military industrial complex at best, and a little magical fairy tale invented by the US media at worst. Like I said, phony baloney.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bunker+buster&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3

[Bluetus]

3. IOW, they shot a $5,000,000 missile into the side of a mountan

just to humor Trump.

They could have accomplished the same thing with a 97-cent Sharpie pen.

[Lovie777]

4. Lies......................

more lies, lies on the lies, different lies to cover up the other lies. The rollercoaster never ends.

shithole musk republicans and liars and very corrupt.

[LudwigPastorius]

6. So, not QUITE totally obliterated.

Gotcha

Iran's going to have a bomb within 6 months.

[Bayard]

7. Any bets on how fast Gen. Caine will be fired?

[SaveThePlanet2025]

10. Left Behind at 1PM youtube music video

?si=FQhunQ1ey_TbtmaV

Left Behind at 1PM youtube music video

[highplainsdem]

11. This is AI-generated from your own YouTube channel.You've posted both recent videos from it

multiple times in different forums here since joining DU only a few hours ago.