Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea
Iran bought 19 advanced missiles from North Korea, a diplomatic cable says. The North displayed what some experts say are the same kind of missiles in an October parade.By WILLIAM J. BROAD, JAMES GLANZ and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 28, 2010
Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.
Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year. The cable is a detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann H. Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division who, as a national intelligence officer several years ago, played a crucial role in the 2007 assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity.
The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or at Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html_________________________________________________________________________
It was only a matter of time before we started seeing articles like this in the mainstream news.
