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US says
Iran has Missile that could Hit Europe
 The Pentagon said on Tuesday
that Iran has the ability to launch a ballistic missile capable of
hitting sections of eastern and southern Europe. Air Force
Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told
reporters he believes Iran now has a missile with a range of 1,250
miles (2,000 km), but he declined to say whether the weapon has been
test-fired.
Iran said last week it conducted two missile tests involving a number
of weapons including what Iranian state television called a "new"
Shahab-3 missile, a medium-range missile that could be used to
strike Israel.
Tensions over Iran's missile arsenal and accusations from the United
States and its allies that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons have
roiled international financial markets with fears of a possible
military confrontation.
Iran denies it wants nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is
designed to produce electricity to increase its output of oil and
natural gas.
Older versions of the Shahab-3 have a 800-mile (1,300 km) range. But a
new extended version is believed to have a range of up to 1,250 miles,
making it capable of hitting targets as far away as Greece, Serbia,
Romania and Belarus.
Iran is also developing a solid-fuel missile known as the Ashura with a
range of 1,250 miles, according to the Pentagon. US officials and
independent missile experts have said last week's tests involved no new
or enhanced technology, or even the latest generations of missiles
known to be in Iran's arsenal.
Obering did not dispute those assertions in a briefing for Pentagon
officials on Tuesday. But his description of Iran's missile capability
was stronger than what US officials have said up to now. "The Iranians
themselves are describing ... a 2,000-km range missile launch," Obering
said of last week's tests, adding that Iran also claimed to have such a
missile in November.
Major weapon threats
"I believe, based on what I have seen, that they have the ability to do
that and to continue to advance in the future, based on what I have
seen so far from those (Iranian state media) reports and from the
intelligence reports," he added.
"I won't go into detail as to what was fired when. That's something I
think the international community should answer," he said. The
Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, which monitors major weapons
threats to the United States and its allies, was vaguer in its February
27 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Iran continues to develop and acquire ballistic missiles that can hit
Israel and central Europe, including Iranian claims of an
extended-range variant of the Shahab-3 and a new 2,000-km medium range
ballistic missile called the Ashura," DIA director Army Lt. Gen.
Michael Maples told the panel.
US officials and analysts dismissed last week's missile tests as an
angry Iranian response to recent military exercises including an
Israeli air exercise in June that some have called a rehearsal for an
attack on Iran.
The Bush administration has used concern about Iranian missiles to
press forward with plans for a missile defense shield in Poland and the
Czech Republic, capable of protecting both Europe and the United States
from attack.
Washington and the Czech Republic signed an agreement last week to
place missile-tracking radar on Czech soil. US officials are now hoping
for a deal to station the system's interceptor missiles in Poland.
Source: YNet News
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