Iran and North Korea Collaborating on Long-Range Missiles

Yesterday, Brig. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said that Iran and North Korea are working together to develop long-range missiles capable of delivering their nuclear weapons. Bill Gertz reports:

North Korea test fired a long-range Taepodong missile in July, and Iran is working on a space launcher that would help develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could hit the U.S.
“Not only North Korea, but Iran has shown some significant developments in their [own] missile systems,” Gen. O’Reilly said in a speech to the George C. Marshall Institute. “They are working in concert with the North Koreans,” he said. “They have made a claim that they are working towards developing a space launch capability, which also would give them an ICBM capability.”
The Pentagon believes Iran has a “new intermediate-range ballistic missile or space launch vehicle [SLV] in development,” a Missile Defense Agency briefing slide stated.
The Iranians are “likely to develop an ICBM/SLV [and] could have an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. before 2015,” according to the briefing chart.

A day or two ago, Hillary Clinton demanded, in her usual schoolyard-bully manner, that President Bush resolve the situation in Iraq before he leaves office, rather than leaving it for the next administration. If she had any sense, she would be demanding that he do something about Iran, rather than leaving that problem for the next administration–potentially, hers. Of course, if she did that, someone might ask her to make a constructive suggestion as to what, exactly, the administration should do about Iran, and thereby violate the Democrats’ strict code of silence on that topic.
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