By: SOC - 1st September 2005 at 22:59
They buy 1800-mile range missiles to fill a requirement. They then fail to acquire nuclear warheads. They THEN have yet to develop a nuclear warhead, let alone a miniaturised one for the Kh-55. Where does this leave them? They’ll have to adapt, at least for now, a conventional warhead for the weapon. Given that conventional warheads are larger and weigh a good deal more means that the 1800-mile range just got seriously slashed. What are these guys thinking?
By: DT AD - 1st September 2005 at 17:15
Sure has been reported… here is the article from UPI
Politics & Policies: Iran’s Nuke Missiles
Ukraine, says Jafarzadeh, secretly sold 12 cruise Kh-55 missiles to Iran. The missiles initially received by Iran’s Defense Ministry were subsequently delivered to the Revolutionary Guards. These missiles can be mounted with nuclear warheads.
Indeed, an investigation by Ukraine’s secret police found that Iran (and China) bought long-range missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads, said Grigory Omelchenko, a Ukrainian politician.
Omelchenko is reported by the Financial Times to claim that Ukraine’s SBU secret police had found that 12 Kh-55s were illegally exported in 1999-2001. He said six of the air-to-ground cruise missiles were sold to Iran; the other six went to China.
The Kh-55 — known as the AS-15 by the U.S. military — has an accurate guidance system. A private Ukrainian company was sanctioned last September by the United States for violating a U.S. ban on proliferation to Iran.
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September 1, 2005 at 4:14 pm