Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has been urged to sell bunker-busters and aircraft to Israel.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs has called on the administration of President Barack Obama to sell Israel weapons and platforms that could destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure.

In an article, the institute, deemed close to the Defense Department, cited Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) as well as the B-52 aircraft.

“Israel has 2,000- and 5,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, some of which were delivered by the Obama administration,” the institute said. “Iranian planners, however, might hope that these will prove insufficient to do major damage. The U.S. should remove such doubt by providing Israel with the capability to reach and destroy Iran’s most deeply buried nuclear sites.”

Authors David Deptula And Michael Makovsky said MOP, a 30,000-pound bomb
meant to destroy underground facilities, could not be fitted onto Israel Air Force’s fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighter-jets. But they said Washington could export several of its B-52 surplus fleet in wake of the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Teheran.

“President Obama has already taken one potential source of leverage off
the table by promising to veto legislation that threatens tighter economic
sanctions on Iran,” the article, titled “Sending a Bunker-Buster Message to Iran,” said.

The article, published in the Wall Street Journal on April 7, cited the
United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, signed by Obama in
2012. The legislation called for the delivery of aerial refueling tankers
and bunker-buster munitions to Israel.

Deptula is a former Air Force intelligence chief and senior adviser to
JINSA. Makovsky, chief executive officer of the institute, was a former
Defense Department official.

The administration has refrained from exporting long-range munitions to
Israel. Instead, Washington offered a deferred payment plan to purchase U.S.
equipment, including the V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey.

The U.S. Air Force was said to have hundreds of decommissioned B-52s,
most of them inoperable. The Air Force has kept more than a dozen of the
1960s-era B-52Hs in storage.

“Some of these should be delivered to Israel,” the institute said.
“There’s no legal or policy impediments to their transfer; they would just
have to be refurbished and retrofitted to carry the MOP. By transferring to
Israel MOPs and B-52Hs the administration would send a signal that its ally,
which already has the will, now has the ability to prevent a nuclear Iran.”

  B-52s to destroy Iran sites, B-52s to penetrate Iran’s nuke sites, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Massive Ordnance Penetrator, Report urges U.S. to sell Israel ‘MOP’ bunker-busters