White House Has Accelerated A Secret Program to Sabotage Iranian Missiles and Rockets

Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of Iran’s missile program, has said that Iran’s pursuit of missiles will never stop “under any circumstances.” Mahmood Hossein/Tasnim News Agency, via Wikimedia Commons

New York Times: U.S. Revives Secret Program to Sabotage Iranian Missiles and Rockets

WARSAW — The Trump White House has accelerated a secret American program to sabotage Iran’s missiles and rockets, according to current and former administration officials, who described it as part of an expanding campaign by the United States to undercut Tehran’s military and isolate its economy.

Officials said it was impossible to measure precisely the success of the classified program, which has never been publicly acknowledged. But in the past month alone, two Iranian attempts to launch satellites have failed within minutes.

Those two rocket failures — one that Iran announced on Jan. 15 and the other, an unacknowledged attempt, on Feb. 5 — were part of a pattern over the past 11 years. In that time, 67 percent of Iranian orbital launches have failed, an astonishingly high number compared to a 5 percent failure rate worldwide for similar space launches.

The setbacks have not deterred Iran. This week, President Hassan Rouhani singled out Tehran’s missile fleets as he vowed to “continue our path and our military power.”

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Update #1: White House accelerates secret program to sabotage Iran missiles - report (The Jerusalem Post)
Update #2: US sabotage may be behind Iran's embarrassing rocket launch failures (Business Insider)

WNU Editor: It makes you wonder if the U.S. was responsible for this last month .... Rocket failure dooms Iranian satellite launch (NBC)