US Central Command has requested the deployment of the US’s hypersonic missile, known as the Dark Eagle, for potential use against Iran, as President Trump is considering restarting the bombing campaign, Bloomberg has reported.
The US has already used a missile for the first time against Iran, a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which, according to an investigation from The New York Times, was used in a February 28 strike that hit a sports hall in the Iranian city of Lamerd, killing at least 21 people in the area, including boys and girls practicing sports.
The Bloomberg report said that CENTCOM wants to use the Dark Eagle, also known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Missile (LRHW), because Iran’s missile launchers are now out of range of the PrSM, which can hit targets more than 300 miles away. The Dark Eagle reportedly has a range of 1,725 miles, though its capabilities are not public.
Another reason the US wants to use the Dark Eagle in Iran is to demonstrate to Russia and China that it has hypersonic capabilities, as both Moscow and Beijing have already deployed hypersonic missiles, and the US’s LRHW project is very far behind schedule.
If the US does deploy the Dark Eagle to the Middle East, it won’t have many to use. A source told Bloomberg that each missile, developed by Lockheed Martin, costs about $15 million and that there are no more than eight. The batteries to fire the Dark Eagle also cost about $3.6 billion.
According to Axios, President Trump was scheduled to receive a briefing on Thursday on the possibility of launching strikes against Iran from CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper. The idea would be to launch a limited bombing campaign to break a deadlock in negotiations, though any US strikes would almost certainly plunge the region into a full-blown war.
The report also said another option being presented to Trump would be to use military force to open the Strait of Hormuz, which could involve ground forces.
