Buried on page 11 of an unclassified report to Congress on Iran’s military power is a troubling item: “With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015.”
That is the Pentagon’s best estimate, but some experts note it is difficult to be precise with secretive regimes like Iran and North Korea.
The 2015 ballistic missile projection comes at a time when the United States is predicting it won’t be able to protect Europe with a missile defense system until 2018.
Critics say the Obama administration has wasted valuable time.
“They gutted the missile defense system that we had,” James Carafano from the Heritage Foundation told Fox. “If you remember correctly, the Bush administration was going to put a third site in western Europe which the administration would have said would have been in place by 2013, but which essentially would have accomplished everything this administration says is going to happen half a decade later.”
Another expert calls Iran’s activities troubling and worrisome, but says perfecting the technology may take time for the Iranians as it has with U.S. missile defense.
“We haven’t really seen a technology that would have been deployable prior to 2018 and the administration is hoping to have an interim capability before that date,” Michael O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institution told Fox. “ It may not be the best system we could develop of course, but the administration hoping to have the second installation of Europe-based missile defenses at about the 2015 timeline as well.”
This report spells out how Iran is meddling in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Iraq, Iran continues to provide money, weapons, and training to select Iraqi Shia militants and terrorists despite pledges by senior Iranian officials to stop such support.
While in Afghanistan, Iran is covertly supporting insurgent and political opposition groups, and the report notes large weapons caches of Iranian manufactured weapons have been recently uncovered. Something that has gotten the attention of U.S. military commanders there.
“This is one of those situations where any state that is supplying our enemy is not a friend to the coalition, and that needs to be addressed,” Brigadier General Steven L. Kwast, commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing told Pentagon reporters. “As we fight this enemy, the enemy has weapons. You see it. You read about it. They shoot at us with bullets. They shoot at us with RPGs. They shoot at us with all types of weapons.”
The U.S. military has evidence suggesting many of those weapons are supplied by the regime in Tehran.