September 16, 2002 :: Department of Defense :: News
On September 16, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, gave a press briefing, at which Rumsfeld forcefully underlined the capability, already possessed by such countries as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, to deliver ballistic missiles against the United States. An excerpt from the press conference:
Question: “…as far as we know, Saddam Hussein does not have a delivery system of carrying weapons of mass destruction to CONUS—to the shores of the United States—no ICBMs that can reach us, as far as we know. And yet intelligence sources say that North Korea will have missiles capable of hitting Alaska in 2004 and, with a smaller warhead, the West Coast of the United States. Militarily, could not a case be made that North Korea poses a greater threat to the United States than Iraq does? …
Rumsfeld: “…September 11th suggested lots of ways to deliver lethal damage to the United States.
In addition, countries have placed ballistic missiles in ships—cargo ships, commercial ships, dime a dozen—all over the world. Any given time, there’s any number off our coast, coming, going, on transporter-erector-launchers, and they simply erect it, fire off a ballistic missile, put it down, cover it up. Their radar signature’s not any different than other 50 others in close proximity. So your comment that they don’t have the ability to deliver a ballistic missile to this country is flat wrong.
(Article)
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