, Tuesday, August 04, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military said it wants to speed up production plans for an enormous "bunker buster" bomb, amid international concern over underground nuclear sites in Iran and North Korea. The Pentagon has asked Congress for extra money to ensure the massive ordinance penetrator (MOP) would be ready by July 2010, spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. "The department has asked for reprogramming of about 68 million dollars to start production for some of these in 2009," Whitman said. "This will help it accelerate some if it's approved." The weapon, weighing in at 30,000 pounds (13,600 kilograms) and carrying 5,300 pounds (2,400 kilograms) of explosives, would be delivered by the radar-evading B-2 Stealth bomber.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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