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U.S. Bomb Test to Produce 'Huge Mushroom Cloud'
While the press breathlessly speculates about whether the Bush administration would use tactical nuclear weapons to penetrate Iranian bunkers housing that country's nuclear weapons program, the Pentagon is actually moving in another direction. On June 2, what is being described as a "huge mushroom cloud" will rise over the skies of White Sands, Nevada - when the U.S. military conducts its "Divine Strake" bomb test. "This is the largest single explosive we could imagine doing," said James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon group conducting the test, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Tegnelia told The Washington Post that Divine Strake's big bomb will consist of 700 tons of heavy ammonium nitrate-fuel oil emulsion and be able to unleash a blast equivalent to 593 tons of TNT. It's expected to create a 36-foot-deep crater at the Nevada Test Site, according to official reports.
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"To my knowledge, this will be the largest open-air chemical explosion that we've conducted," said Darwin Morgan, spokesman for the Energy Department's test site. The Pentagon began to devise its conventional bunker buster bomb in 2001, after Congress refused to fund research for a nuclear version. While Mr. Tegnelia didn't mention Iran per se, he told the Post that the bomb test is aimed at determining how well a massive conventional bomb would perform against fortified underground targets - just the kind of place where Tehran has hidden much of its nuclear weapons program.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
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