U.S. defense officials believe that Iran has completed development of the Shabab 3 missile, which could hit several U.S. allies, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

“The Shahab 3 has completed development, and a few missiles are likely deployed, which would allow Iran to reach Israel, most of Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” the Pentagon said (see GSN, May 28).

“The U.S. government is now saying that the Shahab 3 is no longer experimental, no longer just a ‘program,’ but it is now a weapon that needs to be factored into U.S. planning,” said Kenneth Katzman, an analyst for the Congressional Research Service.  “It reflects a ratcheting up of official concern about Iran’s weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Iran deployed some of the missiles “about a month ago,” Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said, adding that Iran is probably “moving on to the longer-range Shahab 4, which threatens all of Europe” (see GSN, May 8).

Joseph Cirincione, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, questioned the military’s assessment of Iran’s missile capabilities.  The Pentagon’s “evaluation is a little hard to believe,” he said.

“It is a stretch to say that they have ‘completed development,’” Cirincione said.  “More likely is that Iranian defense officials, anxious to show some progress in the troubled program, have fielded a few missiles while development continues.  Whether or how they will perform is unknown, not just to us but probably to the Iranians as well.”

Earlier intelligence reports estimated that Iran could deploy some Shahab 3 missiles “on an emergency basis,” Cirincione added.  “That more cautious estimate seems closer to reality.”

The Pentagon estimates that the Shahab 3 has a range of 1,300 kilometers.  Israel estimates the range at closer to 3,000 kilometers, Ephraim Halevy, head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, said last month, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (see GSN, June 27).

The missile’s design is based on North Korean No Dong missiles and uses Chinese and Russian technology, according to unclassified defense reports.  Russian technology could help Iran “accelerate the pace of its ballistic missile development program,” one Pentagon report said.

Russian assistance to Iran has been a continuing point of contention in the U.S.-Russian relationship (see GSN, June 7).  The United States must continue to pressure Russia to crack down on providing WMD technology to Iran, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Bloomberg News.

“There’s no way we can cooperate with them [Russia] on missile defense if the technology goes out the back door to countries like Iran,” Wolfowitz said (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News, July 9).

For further information, see:

Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart

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