(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Raytheon has landed a massive $22.9 billion contract with the US military to dramatically ramp up the production of Tomahawk missiles, as US arms makers continue to cash in on the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The US fired over 1,000 Tomahawk missiles into Iran during the conflict, nearly one-third of the pre-war inventory, according to analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
All available evidence suggests that Tomahawk missiles were what was used when the US bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, southern Iran, an attack that killed at least 156 people, including 120 schoolchildren.
Raytheon currently produces 60 Tomahawk missiles per year, but under a new agreement with the US War Department, it plans to ramp up production to more than 1,000 per year, according to a press release from RTX Corporation, Raytheon’s parent company.
“Tomahawk is the Navy’s most important strike weapon, able to target hostile forces hundreds of miles away without ever risking the lives of our sailors,” said Raytheon President Phil Jasper.
“We are making significant investments in our workforce, technology, supply chain, and facilities to dramatically boost production capacity and meet surging demand,” Jasper added.
The news comes after the US military awarded massive contracts to Lockheed Martin to ramp up production of air defense munitions depleted in the Iran war, including a $35 billion deal for THAAD interceptors and a $58.6 billion contract for Patriot PAC-3 interceptors.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
