GAO Questions Missile Defense Systems

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. missile defense systems may not have faced testing rigorous enough to ensure they would work during an attack, said a congressional study released Friday.

The report, prepared by the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, calls for the military to conduct more realistic testing before making the systems operational.

The first of a series of interceptor missiles, designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles launched by North Korea or other belligerents, are expected to be ready by the end of the year.

A spokesman for the military's Missile Defense Agency disputed aspects of the congressional report. Rick Lehner said the military is fulfilling a congressional mandate to deploy missile defenses as soon as it can - even though the program is still in a research and development phase. That means additional testing will take place after the first interceptors are deployed, he said.

Right now the military would have little hope of stopping an incoming missile if it were fired at an American city. That could change by the end of the year, military officials say.

The Bush administration has made the deployment of missile defenses a key aspect of its national security policy, saying it is vital to defend the nation against missiles launched by hostile nations. Critics say the technology is immature and too expensive, and fails to address the greater threat of weapons of mass destruction being brought into the country by terrorists or other means.

The initial system of long-range interceptors would be placed in Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. A set of shorter-range interceptors will be deployed on Navy destroyers.

More advanced missile defenses, including a laser cannon mounted on a Boeing 747, are also in development.

Citing figures from the Missile Defense Agency, the GAO report says missile defense programs will cost $53 billion between 2004 and 2009.

The GAO report says several programs are over budget or delayed. It also criticizes the military's development strategy, saying the program lacks firm milestones and estimates of its total cost over its lifetime.

"As a result, decision makers in DOD and Congress do not have a full understanding of the overall cost of developing and fielding the Ballistic Missile Defense System and what the system's true capabilities will be," a summary of the GAO report says.

In a statement, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., accused the Bush administration is "blindly spending billions of dollars every year" on an untested defense.

"When the administration does deploy a system this fall, the United States will unfortunately still be a long way from an effective defense against real missiles," he said.

Earlier this week, Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he expects to meet President Bush's goal of having 20 interceptors in place by the end of 2005.

"It's still a major challenge for us over the next six months to do this, but right now what I see is we will have up to eight by this calendar year," Kadish said.

He said the system would provide a "capability to defeat near-term threats of greatest concern."

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BerkeleyRight,

I'm an aerospace senior mechanical engineer.

Most Americans are completely ignorant of the incredible technological hurdles we've overcome in getting National Missile Defense to the SUCCESSFUL point where it is today.

America's mortal enemies (that includes Democrats and Clintonistas) HATE having an effective strtegic missile defense --- and that GW Bush has the chahones (sp) to make it happen.

Maybe the GAO ough to approach AIDS Research funding the same way.

The U.S. has squandered billons of AIDS research --- and to what end ? Where's cure ? Where's the vaccine ? And what of the latest news that the "next" generation of faggots are openly having sex with anything that moves, just to show their "courage" against the AIDS virus ?

Patton@Bastogne

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My reply no. 10 at Asia's Ill-Advised Umbrella(missile shield: NYT)

In the chronology of news reports mentioned here this evening, two posts later, was the story about Bob Woodward revealing "war secrets."

How ironic, then, to see the article in the New York Times, about "Asia's ill-advised" anti-missile "umbrella."

Why?

Because the very "umbrella" of which the pro-Stalinist newspaper as a matter of record, is so sure is ineffectual according to its gathering of the data, is in fact the very reason that the actual events surrounding the shootdown of TWA 800, has been, as they say, "covered up."

I don't have any news to report, in that some details of the following information are already public.

TWA 800, because of aircraft route limitations imposed upon it, was flying at a low altitude, lower than it should have been, and it flew into a test of the anti-ballistic andanti-cruise missile systems off Long Island.

Also into this area, was launched, by terrorists, the missile that shot down the aircraft.

Part of the anti-ballistic andanti-cruise missile system, includes an array of sophisticated RADAR "capabilities," which are mostly unknown to the public.

The setup protects the New York City metropolitan area, along with other areas along the coast.

On September 11, 2001, attacks other than those against the known structures, and by cruise missiles, was part of what was on the "threat board" so to speak.

When you are attacked, you do not send every thing that you have, against the known attackers; you instead reserve some of what you've got, for use against what has not yet shown itself.

Such as cruise missiles aimed at New York City, and presumably, deadly enough for even the New York Times.

The Clinton Administration did its part to cover up the TWA 800 shootdown, out of both embarrassment and an unwillingness to do something substantially effective about it.

Some others helped to cover up the events, in order to preserve what progress there has been in development of the anti-ballistic and anti-cruise missile systems, so as to "keep it under the RADAR."

On September 11, 2001, we were looking for incoming cruise missiles, though our resources are quite limited.

Had we detected a missile and a U.S. Navy missile cruiser/destroyer had shot that cruise missile down, what then would be the New York Times opinion, now?

We have to be able to discriminate between inbound enemy missiles that are purposely launched into flight patterns by our enemies, who are attempting to cloak their missiles by using the flight patterns of commercial air traffic ... discriminate between such missiles and the commercial flights.

To test that, you have to run the tests in real time.

This is one of the missiles that we were anticipating
would be launched from a ship off of Long Island /
New Jersey, or from river barges in the greater New
York City metropolitan area.

I am as conservative as they come & have first hand experience with the BMDS. Based on this, I can tell you that the GAO is RIGHT on this one. The system to be deployed has undergone several recent upgrades and, because of technical problems, is still undergoing basic integration. As a result, the key components have not yet been tested as a system using operational scenarios. While previous flight testing has been done (and intercepts acheived), the scope has been very limited and conditions highly controlled. Its much easier to intercept a ballistic target when you know its exact location & trajectory vs. one that you don't. To use the AIDS analogy, this is akin to innoculating the population with a vaccine that has not gone through medical trials. IMO--it is dangerous and foolish to deploy an untested sytem that shoots ballistic missiles. The potential for a technical & political embarrasment is not worth the risk.

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