MOAB Test

"The Air Force on Tuesday tested for the first time the biggest conventional bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal, a 21,000-pound munition that could play a dramatic role in an attack on Iraq," the AP reports. This weapon, known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), dwarfs the so-called Daisy Cutter, which was used to devastating effect in Afghanistan.

The military denies that the testing of the MOAB is meant to coincide with the buildup to war in Iraq. However, the spokesman for the Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, the site of the test, admits that the weapon could surely be made available for the war planners. Indeed, the Evening Standard claims the Pentagon is sending a videotape of the test to Iraq "as a warning" of what will likely happen during a military assault. There's no reason to think that the military would avoid using this weapon if it was functional, as it appears to be.

Paul Rogers has more on the MOAB -- what it is, how it developed, and why its use is likely to destroy civilian lives in their thousands.