Russians help Iran with missile threat to Europe

[fintstone]

I wonder if the Europeans will be as quick to apologise for Iran as they were for Saddam...now that the missiles reportedly can reach them...and not just Isreal?
If anyone deserves to live under the fear of such an attack, it is the Germans and French...who profited from Sadam's "oil for Food" money.

Russians help Iran with missile threat to Europe
By Con Coughlin
News Telegraph
(Filed: 16/10/2005)

Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran to acquire technology needed to produce missiles capable of striking European capitals.

The Russians are acting as go-betweens with North Korea as part of a multi-million pound deal they negotiated between Teheran and Pyongyang in 2003. It has enabled Teheran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top secret missile technology, believed to be channelled through Russia.



Western intelligence officials believe that the technology will enable Iran to complete development of a missile with a range of 2,200 miles, capable of hitting much of Europe. It is designed to carry a 1.2-ton payload, sufficient for a basic nuclear device.

The revelation raises the stakes in the confrontation between Iran's Islamic regime and the West - led by the United States and European countries including Britain.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, clashed with Russian officials over Iran's nuclear programme during a visit to Moscow yesterday, saying that Teheran must fulfil its obligations under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

She was later expected to urge President Vladimir Putin to back a referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council.



A senior American official said Iran's programme was "sophisticated and getting larger and more accurate. They have had very much in mind the payload needed to carry a nuclear weapon.

"I think Putin knows what the Iranians are doing."

Iran is believed to be hiding its weapons development behind its nuclear power programme, for which it receives Russian support, and has refused to suspend uranium enrichment or to allow full UN inspections.

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, told BBC2's Newsnight that Iran was "determined to get nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles it can then use to intimidate not only its own region but possibly to supply to terrorists".

Iran's longest-range missile is the Shahab 3, which, with an 800-mile range, could hit Israel. The North Korean deal will allow the Iranian missile to reach targets far into Europe - including Rome, Berlin, and much of France.

North Korea has developed a missile, the Taepo Dong 2, that could reach America's west coast, based on the submarine-launched Soviet SSN6. Modifications allow it to be fired from a land-based transporter and this technology is being smuggled to Teheran with Russian help.

Russians have provided production facilities, diagrams and operating instruction so the missile can be built in Iran. Liquid propellant has been shipped to Iran. Russian specialists have also been sent to Iran to help development of its Shahab 5 missile project, which the Iranians hope to have operational by the end of the decade.

9 October 2005: Iran puts radicals in charge of nuclear programme
14 August 2005: By breaking the seals at Isfahan, the Iranian president has deliberately set up a showdown with the West

[87coupe]

It's time to start making glass.

[creaturecat]

and the USA provides India with technology that makes Pakistan nervous - same thing, only different?

[fintstone]

India already has nukes and can easily deliver them to Pakistan. What are you talking about?

[Joeaksa]

Pakistan provided information and materials to many rogue nations around the world. They are by far the worst of the second/third world nations when it comes to nuke security.

JoeA

[1967 R50/2]

The problem with iran or NK having nukes is that the leaders of these countries are not accountable to anyone...nor do the rules of mutually assured destruction apply to these countries.

The leaders of Iran/NK can use the nukes with out having to answer for that use....they are not democracies. Nor do the leaders necessarily care if their own people live or die in a retaliatory strike.

The bolded comment is very important. It is what made MAD a valid proposition for the since the dawn of the atomic age. There is the underlying assumption that the people of nuclear states don't want to die...nor do their leaders want to die. As bad as the leaders of the Soviet Union and PRC might have been at the height of the cold war, they had enough humanity, patriotism, or at least self preservation to see that their nations avert a nuclear exchange.

Can you say with absolute certainty that those conditions apply to NK or Iran? No you cannot. In fact it is quite the opposite.

1. NK-Kim has shown quite the disdain for the welfare of his own people for quite a long time now. I am sure he has some deep presidential bunker than none of our nukes can reach. If all his people die in the exchange, well so be it.

2. Iran-With the current "martyrdom" philosophy prevalent in the middle east, I don't think that these people are afraid of annhilation. Again, assured destruction is not an obstacle to them using nukes.

So, in either case, MAD will not work. It is incredibly unsafe and irresponsible to let these nations have nukes and the means to deliver them.

Besides...who really names a ICBM "Type-o-Dong"??? I mean REALLY!!

The Daily show had a really good bit on the various "Taepo dongs". Hilarious.