Posted on 08/31/2006 1:33:50 PM PDT by knighthawk
The Department of Defense will soon conduct the latest in a series of exercises designed to strengthen America's ability to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.
Events in the last two months, both in the Pacific and Middle East, have shown that concern about the missile threat is valid.
North Korea, in defiance of the international community, continues to test its long-range missiles and is developing a missile capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. And, as President Bush has noted, Iran, which is developing long-range missiles, and Syria, which is improving its shorter-range missiles, are the sponsors of Hezbollah. It is estimated that Hezbollah in Lebanon fired as many as 4,000 missiles and rockets at the civilian population in Israel in just a matter of weeks.
The evolving U.S. missile defense system has undergone a large number of tests of its capabilities in recent years -- many of which have had positive results. In the last 11 months, for example, all 12 flight tests of several different types of interceptors have been successful. And since 2001, 20 hit-to-kill intercept tests have destroyed their targets.
As is to be expected, in some instances, tests and experiments have not gone as hoped. But trial and error are the essence of all advanced scientific endeavors. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the new products developed to help save lives are a result of years of experimentation involving both advances and setbacks.
Yet with each test, whether characterized as a "success" or a "failure," knowledge and experience are gained. So too with the missile defense program.
By any measure, the experts have come a long way in the 23 years since President Reagan laid out his vision for a missile defense system. I was privileged to be in the White House the evening Reagan announced his proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative. He said, "Tonight we're launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risks, and results take time. But I believe we can do it."
Last weekend, I visited the missile defense site at Fort Greely, Alaska. I saw the initial signs of that vision being put into action. Of course, the system being put into place today differs from the all-encompassing "shield" once thought necessary to deflect a massive Soviet missile attack. The program today is more limited in scope, but one that is successfully evolving and expanding over time.
The goal is to fashion a system that will be able to engage a volley of several missiles launched by a rogue regime at the United States or its allies.
The end of the Cold War dramatically altered -- but did not eliminate -- the potential threat posed by ballistic missiles. Indeed, in some ways the threat today is even greater. Outlaw regimes have ambitions and are working toward a capability to blackmail or attack the United States and our allies with missiles. When I was chairman of the bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat in 1998, that panel unanimously concluded that "concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces and its friends and allies."
These growing threats underscore the wisdom of President Bush's decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- a Cold War era agreement that restricted the development of missile defense systems against missiles of all ranges -- and to develop a limited capability to defend the United States while research, testing and development of that capability continued. The president understood well that our country should not wait still another decade -- or longer -- to deploy a defensive system.
Because the threat of ballistic missiles also endangers U.S. friends and allies, the president has made working with other nations a priority. In support of this, we are working on a number of cooperative missile defense activities with friends and allies in both Europe and Asia.
What we have accomplished so far is a tribute to the American people and to the many members of Congress of both parties who stood resolute in the face of the withering criticism of the U.S. missile defense program. A decade ago, missile defense was under attack in the Congress. Today, a large consensus favors its deployment. It has become the policy of the United States government under law.
If recent experience has taught us anything, it is that threats can arise quickly, and in unexpected ways, from unexpected locations. Our task is to try to arrange ourselves and our defenses so that we are able to respond to a range of dangers.
These were the underpinnings of the vision President Reagan offered our country more than a generation ago. And they are the principles that should guide us as we continue to prepare for the threats of tomorrow.
Donald Rumsfeld is secretary of defense.
Ping
Well, we can thank the liberal press for attacking Reagan and putting us in this position.
Test today. Did it go yet?
Those same detractors that said with certainty that Star Wars "couldn't work" are now the cheerleaders for embryonic stem cell research.
bring bac the Neutron Bomb as well....
Of course those same detractors were saying this research was being done in the Oval Office by the Clinton administration, namely by ole slick Willy himself, so of course they invented it, thought of it, first. He was testing the female gender's ability to intercept missiles, and in the name of national security too.:)
The ABM test was fog delayed. Not today.
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