Posted on 05/11/2005 7:02:17 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Thursday 12.05.2005, CET 03:52
May 12, 2005 1:05 AM
please read in lead paragraph ...inbound North Korean missile... instead of ...inbound North Korean president... .
A corrected story follows.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department is weighing whether a decision to shoot down any suspected inbound North Korean missile should go all the way to the president, a top general told Congress on Wednesday.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command that coordinates U.S. missile defense operations, said the authorization would ideally come from the president and the secretary of defense, but there might not be time enough.
"As you can imagine, getting the president, the secretary, the regional combat commander into a conversation and a conference in a three to four-minute time frame is going to be challenging," Cartwright told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense. "So what are the rules that we lay down?
"We are working very hard with the secretary to lay down those rules and understand the risks associated with those very quick and timely decisions that are going to have to be made ... when we deal with the North Korean threat," he testified.
North Korea, at odds with the United States over its nuclear program, is believed to have the capability to mount a warhead on one of its long-range missiles, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month.
Cartwright said the U.S. missile defense system is designed to "characterize" a threat in its first three to four minutes of flight. This could leave as little as three minutes to decide whether to fire ground-based interceptors if the suspected target were Alaska or Hawaii.
Since October, the multibillion-dollar missile shield of radars, sensors, interceptors and battle management capabilities has been in a "shakedown" or check-out period similar to that used before a warship enters the operational fleet.
The ground-based system's prime contractor is Boeing Co..
Ships equipped with Lockheed Martin Corp. Aegis combat systems also have been patrolling the Sea of Japan to provide long-range surveillance and tracking data to the battle management system.
"Is it phone calls that we make? Do we use the command and control system in the displays to inform the national command authority? How are we going to bring them together?" Cartwright asked.
Last year, when interceptors were lowered into their silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the threat was defined as "two to five missiles coming from North Korea," he testified.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, told the committee that current missile defense fielding activities were a "direct response" to perceived dangers from North Korea and Iran.
While two recent aborted interceptor test flights had been "very disappointing," the Missile Defense Agency remained confident in the system's design, its ability to knock out targets and its "inherent operational ability," Obering said.
Reuters
Ping!
Real simple - the NKers send up a missile on a "test", we shoot it down with our BMD systems as a "test".
Basically I would put it to the N.Koreans that any missile that leaves NK air space or looks as though it may will be targeted and destroyed with possible follow up attacks on the launch point UNLESS they tell us in advance, the exact time, trajectory and splash point of every launch weeks in advance.
This is what we do with the Russians, even for little sounding rockets used for atmospheric research in Alaska.
There is no reason the NKs should get special treatment.
Trust the area commanders, and let them do their job.
Who is "She"? I never saw one female reference in the entire story.
I like that. A lot.
Agreed!
If the NKs flip a missile our way (and I include Japan in that statement because I live here) I do not want the U.S. Forces or JSDF commanders gabbling away on the phone to the White House or the Prime Minister's office.
Any unannounced missile coming your way is, by definition, hostile and should be destroyed.
You can bet it doesn't have a bouquet of flowers in it's warhead bus.
I think it would be better that if the North Koreans send up a "test" missle in our direction that crosses a certain geographical point, we obliterate North Korea. Simple.
On this issue, I like the way you think on missile defense.
Just the idea of potentially losing minutes on a confirmed inbound missile which could potentially be carrying a nuclear paylod is unsettling.
Leave it to bureaucrats to waste time on this 9-11 call and play the blame game later. The rules need to be set up in advance, but definitely let the military handle this call.
Off topic: Ronin - good movie.
Nicey!
> "We are working very hard with the secretary to lay
> down those rules and understand the risks associated
> with those very quick and timely decisions ...
This is either a ruse, or very disappointing news.
I would have expected the ROE to be nailed down as
soon as operations ABM assets were deployed or
identified (and there are at least four candidate
ABM systems that might be used against NK launches).
Some of these have been available for some time.
I'd further expect that the ROE includes pre-authorized
engagement of any launch that might be the least bit
threatening (like that one NK lobbed across Japan).
Best chase scene ever.
What is important is that instead of talking about what we will do to the NK missiles, what number of megatons we will dump on North Korea.
DETERRENCE
Does MAD work when one side is bedbug crazy?
Deterrence doesn't work when the other side is absolutely bats*** crazy and doesn't care about MAD.
There is nothing in NK that anyone cares about anymore, not even the people of NK.
No you don't want to do that. Then the enemy gets to see how your system works and learn to counter it. Instead we should be shooting missiles over the North Korean pennisula just like the shoot them over Japan. Let them react to US.
Never saw it.
That gives them a chance to see how our offensive systems work and learn to counter them. And then they can sell the intel to the highest bidder. BMD typically engages at ranges outside of any direct observation that NK could mount, so they won't get much intel from us shooting down their missiles.
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