Posted on 01/31/2007 5:51:34 AM PST by shrinkermd
National Security: Nearly 24 years have passed since Ronald Reagan was ridiculed for proposing a system that would detect, track and destroy incoming ballistic missiles. But in a year, such a system will be on line.
Can’t hit a bullet with a bullet, the critics of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative imperiously sniffed. Mary McGrory of the Washington Post mocked Reagan’s proposal as “a Buck Rogers plan.”
Others, Sen. Ted Kennedy among the first, derided the plan as “Star Wars.” It was dismissed as too expensive, too iffy and too destabilizing to the geopolitical order — just another dimwitted idea from our simple-minded president.
McGrory is no longer around to see Reagan’s vision come true or to eat the foolish words she so contemptuously uttered in 1983. But Kennedy is likely to be around when the system becomes operational within a year. That optimistic time frame is not our speculation but the projection of Brig. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.
Sure, the development of the missile defense system has been uneven. Like any complex project, its progress has been set back by failures. But that’s to be expected...
Currently, the system is riding a crest of successes, the most recent coming Saturday, when the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense intercepted a target shot from a barge. That followed a successful test in September, when an interceptor launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base struck a missile launched from Alaska. A February 2005 test failure was followed by two successful tests, one in that same month, another in November 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at epaper.investors.com ...
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