CIA Report on WMDs and Ballistic Missile Proliferation
November 10, 2003 :: CIA :: News
The CIA’s most recent intelligence estimate to Congress outlines the state of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile capabilities in a number of “countries of concern,” as well as continued proliferation by Russia, China, and North Korea. (More »»»)
» More stories on: China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia
North Korea Shipped 400 SCUDs to Middle East
October 23, 2003 :: SpaceDaily :: News
A report released by the South Korean defense ministry claims that North Korea has shipped over 400 SCUD-class ballistic missiles to the Middle East since the 1980s. The biggest buyers were Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, but also include Egypt and Libya. Increasingly, the Communist government of North Korea continues to rely upon missile exports for its single largest source of currency. Sales have been estimated at around $500 million since the mid-80s. (Article, Link)
» World Tribune on NK missile sales
» More stories on: Iran, North Korea, Proliferation
» Missile details: Scud B variant, Sergeant, Shahab 3
Iran’s Successful Missile Tests Puts Israel Within Range
July 7, 2003 :: Ha'aretz :: News
Iran again successfully tested its Shahab-3 missile, with a range capable of striking Israel. This particular test, according to Ha’aretz, “was the most successful so far of the seven or eight tests of the missile over the last five years, and has increased worries in Washington - which spotted the test with its tracking mechanisms - and in Israel.” (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Iran, Proliferation, Testing - Foreign
» Missile details: Shahab 6
Libya Buying Iranian missiles
June 19, 2003 :: Ha'aretz
Libya is reportedly paying large sums to Iran to purchase versions of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile. Ha’aretz also notes that the Iranian government has sent ground-to-ground missile experts to aid in the development of the Libyan missile program. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Iran, Libya, Proliferation
» Missile details: Shahab 6
Wolfowitz: Ship-Launched Missiles Threaten United States
October 24, 2002 :: Department of Defense :: News
Nearly one year to the day after Secretary of Defense Donald Romsfeld warned of a ship based launch of a ballistic missile as already having taken place by an unidentified “rogue state,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz similarly observed the salience of this type of threat:
While much of the discussion of the ballistic missile threat is focused on outlaw states developing long-range ballistic missiles that could reach our shores and those of our friends and allies, let me share with you another possibility. We know that North Korea, Iran and Iraq are developing long-range ballistic missiles. That is the familiar line of threat development. But what is to stop such countries from launching shorter-range ballistic missiles that they already possess today from cargo ships near our shores, perhaps using non-state terrorist surrogates to attack without fingerprints. It’s not a far-fetched threat. The United States test launched a captured German V-2 rocket from the deck of a ship in 1947. And recently we have observed indications of an outlaw state attempting to do the same thing with a short-range ballistic missile from a ship.
(More »»»)
» October 21, 2001: Rumsfeld: a rogue state has tested a ship-launched missile
» More stories on: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Proliferation, Ship-Launched Threat, Testing - Foreign
Rumsfeld on Ship Launched Missile Threat
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, Link)
» More stories on: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Proliferation, Ship-Launched Threat
National Intelligence Estimate on the Foreign Ballistic Missile Threat
January 9, 2002 :: CIA :: News
The National Intelligence Council released the latest report on Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015. The report concludes that the missile threat to the United States has increased since 1999 and that any future analyses of the missile threat must also include the threat posed by rogue nations and terrorist groups. (Article, Link)
» More stories on: Analysis, China, India, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Proliferation
Rumsfeld: Rogue State has Test-Launched Ship-Based Missile
October 21, 2001 :: Department of Defense :: News
During a press conference held in Russia during his visit there, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that a “rogue state” had successfully tested the shipboard launch of a ballistic missile. “A weapon of mass destruction can be delivered over intercontinental range by a ballistic missile that has less than intercontinental range,” said Rumsfeld. One technique “is to put it on a ship, peel back the cover, use a transporter-erector-launcher, and fire it from a distance shorter than ICBM range. That has been done.”
Rumsfeld did not elaborate, commenting: “I’m calculating in my mind what is classified and what is not.”
But he was quite clear that “a rogue state has done that… They have fired a ballistic missile from a ship simply by peeling back the top, erecting it, firing it off, launching it a good distance, and covering it back up and moving the ship away.”
Rumsfeld also responded to a journalist’s question about chemical or biological missile warheads that, “Yes, there is proof that rogue states have demonstrated the use of chemical weapons on ballistic missiles.”
Rumsfeld did not identify what countries were involved in these programs, but noted that within the admittedly “imperfect phrase” ‘rogue states’, “certainly you would include in that category North Korea and Iraq and Iran and Libya—and North Korea.” (More »»»)
» October 24, 2002: Wolfowitz too speaks of ship launched missile threat
» More stories on: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Proliferation, Ship-Launched Threat, Testing - Foreign
