A major German newspaper reports that Iran and Venezuela are building a joint missile base on the Caribbean shore—but the United States says the story is false.
Die Welt, Germany’s most respected daily, reported last month that a group of engineers from Iran’s Pasdaran had already visited the site of the planned base on the Paraguana Peninsula.
Some rightwing American publications have picked up the report and broadcast it as evidence of a direct Iranian threat to the United States. But the US State Department issued a statement saying, “We have no evidence to support this claim and therefore no reason to believe the assertions made in the article are true.”
Die Welt said Iran was trying to develop a strategic missile threat to the United States, much as the Soviet Union did in the 1960s by building missile sites in Cuba. That almost produced a war between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1963. But Iran does not have nuclear weapons at this time, so a missile base in Venezuela would do little more than provide a justification for an American attack on Iran.
Die Welt said the base would hold missiles jointly owned by Iran and Venezuela and could also be used to attack nearby enemies of Venezuela, such as Columbia. The article did not suggest why Iran would wish to entangle itself in Latin American squabbles from which it would be unlikely to benefit.
The article asserted that the head of the Iranian delegation that visited in February brought millions of dollars in cash in his luggage as initial funding for the missile base project.
In the wake of the questions raised by the report, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro described the allegations as an “extravagant lie.… There is an international war machine against the prestige of Venezuelan democracy, against the prestige of the Bolivarian Revolution.”
According to Die Welt, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Ahmadi-nejad signed an agreement last October that included the development of a common medium-range missile.
The alleged base project includes the construction of a command-and-control center, watchtowers and bunkers in which warheads and rocket fuel can be stored, Die Welt reported.
