Blips on the Screen: 23 Apr 08

IranianThreat:

Iranian ballistic misslie facility?

Photo analysts view many photos each day. It is their job. Sometimes they discover secrets that some nations want to keep from other nations. That was the case in October 1962 when US photo analysts found Soviet Missiles in Cuba. And it looks like it is the case today in Iran.

Do satellite photos show Iran ballistic missile facility?

A new report by The Times of London says that satellite photographs of a site in Iran indicate the location is being used to develop a ballistic missile that could reach most of continental Europe. The Times writes that the photographs show the launch site of a Kavoshgar 1 rocket that Iran tested on February 4. Tehran claimed that the rocket was intended to further a nascent Iranian space program, but The Times says that the photos suggest otherwise.Space program? Right. Where are they going? To the Moon? They use other nations' satellites when they can.

Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).4000 miles or 6,000 you can hit London (2,740 miles). This puts Paris , Berlin, and Rome within their reach. A sobering thought.

If the Iranian facility is indeed developing a long-range ballistic missile, it would explain NATO's decision last week to move ahead with the missile shield program supported by the US. The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that the Bush administration scored a key success by persuading NATO to approve the missile shield, which is meant to protect against missiles like those that Iran is linked to. NATO members all supported the US position on missile-shield defense, which is to be deployed in the Czech Republic and Poland. "There is a threat ... and allied security must be indivisible in the face of it," read the statement on missile defense.
Europe is starting to wake up to the real threat that Iran is posing on them. It was ok for Iran to threaten Israel, but when it's their own nations, that's another story.

Read more about these latest developments at Monkey in the Middle:
http://findalismonkeyinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2008/04/iran-ballistic-missile-facility.html