Senior State Department Official On State Department 2019 Successes for the Political-Military Affairs Bureau (Excerpts)

January 8, 2020

Weapon Program: 

  • Missile

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QUESTION: On the Iranian strikes last night, did Iran demonstrate any sort of new capabilities that you can talk about? Are you increasingly concerned about what you saw in terms of their ballistic missile program?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: So there – those – there – those were short-range ballistic missiles that were fired, and short-range missiles can go as far as 950 kilometers. I mean, the – so the range of those was not surprising. And not to – not to presuppose what else is on Iran’s plate, but I mean the short answer as far as, like, what are they capable of? That was not new or unique.

If one’s a student of history, one can look back. It is not dissimilar of what they were capable of doing during the Iran-Iraq War. In fact, if anything, the application or the tactic or that – those actual firing of those missiles was almost like a – was retro. I mean, it was like back to the ’80s in some respects, as far as what they were able to do and the capability they were able to do.

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