Tuesday, 15 December 2009A top Pentagon official said Monday that a US missile defense drill will simulate an Iranian attack, a departure from the usual scenario of a North Korean attack, according to Reuters.
"Previously, we have been testing the GMD system against a North Korean-type scenario. This next test ... is more of a head-on shot like you would use defending against an Iranian shot into the United States. So that's the first time that we're now testing in a different scenario," Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the US Missile Defense Agency said at the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington.
According to O'Reilly, an Iranian attack would be more challenging than a North Korean attack because a missile fired from Iran would reach the US in a more direct trajectory and therefore relatively faster.
"Whenever we have a situation where we're taking on a missile more head on than from the side, that increases the challenges," O'Reilly said ahead of the test, which is expected to cost at about $150 million and will take place in January.
During the test, the US would fire an interceptor missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at a mock-Iranian missile which would be fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
O'Reilly was speaking just days after diplomats expressed concerns over reports that Iran has been testing a neutron initiator, a key element in producing nuclear weapons.
A neutron initiator begins the implosion that ends with a nuclear blast, and as a component of the nuclear cycle has no use in civilian or military programs unless in the production of atomic bombs.
British newspaper The Times claimed it had obtained confidential intelligence documents from "foreign intelligence agencies," and quoted a source at an "Asian intelligence agency" as confirming that Iran had been working on the device, "as recently as 2007."
If the report is correct and Iran began developing the device began while insisting its program was peaceful, it could be a casus belli, Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, was quoted by the Times as saying. "If Iran is working on weapons, it means there is no diplomatic solution," he said, adding "Is this the smoking gun? That's the question people should be asking. It looks like the smoking gun. This is smoking uranium."
By JPost Staff |
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
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