WarSclerotic

Iran Says No Plan for Missile Capable of Hitting U.S. (Update2) – BusinessWeek.

By Ali Sheikholeslami

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Iran doesn’t have any plan to build a missile capable of reaching the U.S., the country’s defense minister said, refuting a U.S. government report.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has no plans to build such a missile,” Ahmad Vahidi told reporters in Tehran today, the state-run Fars news agency said. He said that Iran “is capable of doing many things,” without giving details.

The U.S. Defense Department said in an April 19 report that Iran may be able to build ballistic missiles capable of reaching North America by 2015. The U.S. and Israel say they won’t rule out any option in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies say may be cover for an atomic bomb. Iran rejects the claim and says its program is purely civilian.

Iran’s military will test new weapons in war games starting tomorrow, Vahidi said. The maneuvers will take place in the Strait of Hormuz and the international waters of the Persian Gulf, Fars said.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today attacked the U.S. for raising the possibility of an atomic attack on Iran. In a review of nuclear policy released this month, President Barack Obama singled out Iran and North Korea as countries that could face a nuclear response from the U.S.

‘Threat to World’

“This is a threat against world peace and security, and against humanity,” Khamenei said, according to the state-run Mehr news agency. Khamenei said in February that his country deems nuclear weapons to be prohibited under Islam and isn’t seeking to build them.

Iran has hailed recent military advances as proof that it remains technologically self-sufficient even while under three sets of United Nations sanctions for refusing to scale back its nuclear program.

In February and March the Persian Gulf nation fired an Iranian-built rocket into space carrying a satellite, announced plans to launch the first domestically-made naval destroyer and fighter squadron, and said it will test a new 2,000-pound bomb.

The New York Times reported Jan. 31 that Obama is accelerating the deployment of new U.S. defenses against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Persian Gulf.

This entry was posted on April 21, 2010 at 4:34 PM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.