US Official Says B-2 Bombers Were Involved In Iran Strikes

Sunday June 22, 2025|

By Idorenyin UMOREN
Security Evaluator

United States, US, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were involved in strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites announced by President Donald Trump on Saturday, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Reuters had reported earlier on Saturday the movement of B-2 stealth bombers, which can be equipped to carry massive bombs that experts say would be ideal to strike the sites.

The B-2 Bombers

For three decades, the B-2 Spirit, built by Northrop Grumman, has been the backbone of stealth technology for the U.S. Air Force and has been commemorated in the Pioneers of Stealth Memorial at the National Museum of the United States Air Force Memorial Park, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

The Pioneers of Stealth are a group of over 200 individuals from the U.S. Government and defense industry who worked low observable, or stealth, programs dating back to the 1970s. The memorial recognizes these visionaries, and four key programs that changed everything for stealth and its role in national defense. Two of these programs were developed by Northrop Grumman: Tacit Blue and the B-2 Spirit.

According to Wikipedia, the Northrop B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses.

A subsonic flying wing with a crew of two, the plane was designed by Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) as the prime contractor, with Boeing, Hughes, and Vought as principal subcontractors, and was produced from 1988 to 2000.

The bomber can drop conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty 500-pound class (230 kg) Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400-pound (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged in-service aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.

Development began under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project during the Carter administration, which cancelled the Mach 2-capable B-1A bomber in part because the ATB showed such promise, but development difficulties delayed progress and drove up costs. Ultimately, the program produced 21 B-2s at an average cost of $2.13 billion each (~$4.17 billion in 2024), including development, engineering, testing, production, and procurement.[7] Building each aircraft cost an average of US$737 million,[7] while total procurement costs (including production, spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support) averaged $929 million (~$1.11 billion in 2023) per plane.The project’s considerable capital and operating costs made it controversial in the U.S. Congress even before the winding down of the Cold War dramatically reduced the desire for a stealth aircraft designed to strike deep in Soviet territory. Consequently, in the late 1980s and 1990s lawmakers shrank the planned purchase of 132 bombers to 21, Wikipedia says.

The B-2 can perform attack missions at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m); it has an unrefueled range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) with one midair refueling. It entered service in 1997 as the second aircraft designed with advanced stealth technology, after the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft. Primarily designed as a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat to drop conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It was later used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Iran.

The United States Air Force has nineteen B-2s in service as of 2024; one was destroyed in a 2008 crash and another one damaged in a crash in 2022 was retired from service likely on account of the cost and duration of a potential repair.

The Air Force plans to operate the B-2s until 2032, when the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is to replace them.