U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that questions about U.S. plans for the Middle East, including the potential use of a giant bomb, shouldn’t be discussed in public.
Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that any such discussions should be held behind closed doors, rather than in a televised hearing on the Pentagon’s budget.
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., asked Hegseth during Wednesday’s hearing if he had been asked to provide the president with options regarding a U.S. strike in the Middle East.
“If I had or had not, I wouldn’t disclose that in this forum,” Hegseth said.
Shaheen specifically asked about the U.S. “bunker buster,” a bomb that weighs as much as a semi-truck and can penetrate up to 200 feet underground.
Shaheen said the B-2 bomber was the only plane that could carry the giant explosive and that such a mission would require a U.S. pilot.
“That raises real concerns about about what retaliation might mean for the safety and stability of the entire region, our troops and Americans in the region,” she said.
The U.S. military spent about $400 million to design and produce 20 such bombs for the U.S. Air Force. The 30,000-pound bomb is called GBU-57, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or for short, simply MOP.
MOP was designed to “attack hard and deeply-buried facilities.”
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., noted that their would be classified session later in the day where such matters could be discussed in private.
The question comes as tensions mount between Israel and Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday at the White House that he wouldn’t answer questions about a potential U.S. strike.
“I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said. “I can tell you this: Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate.”
