Free Republic

WASHINGTON, September 13 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. has a 14-ton super bomb more destructive than the vacuum bomb just tested by Russia, a U.S. general said Wednesday. The statement was made by retired Lt. General McInerney, chairman of the Iran Policy Committee, and former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. McInerney said the U.S. has "a new massive ordnance penetrator that's 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates ... Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can't penetrate."

<p>The Pentagon's pursuit of a new kind of nonnuclear super-weapon has sparked a behind-the-scenes revolt among its elite scientific advisers, some of whom reject the scheme as pseudoscience.</p> <p>The military's goal is to develop a bomb that might be far more powerful than existing conventional weapons of the same size. Precisely targeted, such a weapon could take out targets -- such as underground caverns that conceal weapons of mass destruction -- without posing the severe political risks of using nuclear bombs.</p>

The new superbomb is an upgrade of an already devastating weapon used by the Americans against al Qaeda and the Taliban. *Nicknamed Big Blue, it contains 21,000lb of conventional high explosive, an increase from the 15,000lb BLU-82 "daisy cutter" used at least four times on tunnels and caves in Afghanistan. * It was originally designed to clear helicopter-landing zones in Vietnam and works by detonating a few feet above ground level and destroying everything in its path. * The warhead is packed with Gelled Slurry Explosive, which is detonated with a high explosive booster. The slurry is poured into the...