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Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games

Hugh Pickens writes "Iran says it has successfully test fired a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, and the surface-to-sea missile, known as the Qader, struck its targets with precision and destroyed them. Iran had previously announced that it intended to test a missile during the exercises, raising fears that it might try to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for tougher international sanctions. The Qader missile is said to be capable of striking warships at a range of about 125 miles, a distance that would include some American forces in the Gulf region as Iran is about 140 miles at its nearest point from Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. Analysts say Iran's increasingly strident rhetoric, which has pushed oil prices higher, is aimed at sending a message to the West that it should think twice about the economic cost of putting further pressure on Tehran. 'No order has been given for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,' Iran's state television quoted navy chief Habibollah Sayyari as saying. 'But we are prepared for various scenarios.'"

4 of 547 comments (clear)

  1. Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 by AHuxley · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read about small boats and aircraft did during US war games under Gen. Paul van Ripen.
    U Sank My Carrier! By Gary Brecher
    http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779
    "send everything at once"

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hanging off of your post a little bit, there's been some rumblings in the news about the Chinese DF-21, which is basically a straight up, straight down mortar shell designed to sink aircraft carriers (and other local battleships) within an 1100 mile radius (that includes singapore, japan, and both koreas). Sort of the same functionality as an ICBM, but with more conventional explosives attached. The big problem is that they come down at mach 2 or faster, making them difficult to detect, let alone intercept.
       
      Forbes alluded to this saying "its surface vessels are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese attack"
       
      While I doubt we'd unwrap the ICBMs, there's no reason to think this non-nuclear-ized technology exists. We've already retired battleships from the navy, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that Carriers are on their way out too.
       
      More reading:
        http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-china-joins-the-yacht-club/
        http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
  2. Re:Would love to see some naval battle by Marcika · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the 'pedia page and its sources about the Millennium Challenge 2002 and LtGen. Van Riper.

  3. Re:And yet more evidence that Iraq was a huge mist by chrb · · Score: 5, Informative
    The stories of nukes in Iraq were lies at best, and a huge failure of US intelligence at worst.

    Presented to U.S. officials by the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based exile group pushing for an American attack on Iraq, the defector says Saddam is close to finishing a long-range ballistic missile that could hit Cairo; Ankara; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Nicosia, Cyprus, or Tehran. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/658542/posts

    That was what we were told in 2002. A decade on, we now know that those "intelligence" reports of WMDs from the INC were actually supplied by a double agent working for Iranian intelligence.

    According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/25/usa.iraq10

    Oops. And what about those mobile bioweapon labs? It turned out that intelligence came from another unreliable source:

    Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[1][4] On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[5] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

    The whole story was made up by one guy who wanted his immigration card, and yet - without any verification - it was used by the Bush administration to justify a war.

    And since you brought it up, alll of the intelligence that linked Iraq to 911 was lies as well.... There was no Iraq Islamist link (well, at least until the coalition invaded and plunged the country into a bloody sectarian civil war)