\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Buried on page 11 of an unclassified report to Congress on Iran\u2019s 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.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is the Pentagon\u2019s best estimate, but some experts note it is difficult to be precise with secretive regimes like Iran and North Korea.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The 2015 ballistic missile projection comes at a time when the United States is predicting it won\u2019t be able to protect Europe with a missile defense system until 2018.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Critics say the Obama administration has wasted valuable time.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThey gutted the missile defense system that we had,\u201d James Carafano from the Heritage Foundation told Fox. \u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another expert calls Iran\u2019s activities troubling and worrisome, but says perfecting the technology may take time for the Iranians as it has with U.S. missile defense.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “<\/strong>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,\u201d Michael O\u2019Hanlon from the Brookings Institution told Fox. \u201c 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.”<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This report spells out how Iran is meddling in both Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThis 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,\u201d Brigadier General Steven L. Kwast, commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing told Pentagon reporters. \u201cAs we fight this enemy, the enemy has weapons.\u00a0 You see it.\u00a0 You read about it.\u00a0 They shoot at us with bullets.\u00a0 They shoot at us with RPGs.\u00a0 They shoot at us with all types of weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The U.S. military has evidence suggesting many of those weapons are supplied by the regime in Tehran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Buried on page 11 of an unclassified report to Congress on Iran\u2019s 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.” \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is the Pentagon\u2019s best estimate, but some experts note it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5940,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}