Posted on 12/17/2002 4:07:54 PM PST by GeneD
Filed at 6:54 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The missile defense system President Bush ordered to be deployed will not work and is a waste of money, critics said on Tuesday while the Pentagon acknowledged the system initially will provide only modest protection.
``I have no great confidence that it's going to work under real-world conditions,'' said Lawrence Korb, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank who served as assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.
Bush directed the Defense Department to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and sea-based interceptor rockets to be up and working in 2004.
The system is intended to protect the United States against long-range enemy missiles. But there have been three failures in the eight major tests involving attempts to shoot down a long-range dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean, including the most recent test on Dec. 11.
Critics said the program is too costly -- tens of billions of dollars already and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in the long run -- and has not proven that it can work as advertised. They also expressed worry that the deployment might prompt nations such as North Korea and China to step up missile-building efforts.
John Isaacs, president of Council for a Livable World, an organization opposed to the deployment, said Bush was rushing ahead with a system that is ``deaf, dumb and blind.''
``A missile defense system that protects Americans consistently and reliably is years, if not decades, away,'' he said in a statement. ``The planned deployment lacks a needed radar system to make it see, operational tests to determine if it works and satellite systems to provide adequate sensors.''
'IT'S IMPORTANT TO START'
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the administration was not rushing into anything.
``The reason I think it's important to start is because you have to put something in place and get knowledge about it and have experience with it, and then add to it over time. I mean, there isn't a single weapons systems we have that hasn't gotten better successively over a period of time that I can think of,'' Rumsfeld said during a Pentagon briefing.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy J.D. Crouch said the system will have ``very modest'' capability when first deployed, but would be ``very useful.''
Rumsfeld added: ``To the extent we have a capability, it will have a deterrent effect. ... To the extent it has a limited capability, it will have a deterrent effect only to that limit.''
Philip Coyle, who as assistant secretary of defense helped evaluate the program during the Clinton administration, said the tests of the system currently planned are not sufficient to determine whether it will work. ``Based on the test results so far, it isn't ready now,'' he said in an interview.
Korb told Reuters he believed Bush decided to deploy in 2004, the final year of his term in office, in order to have a program in place to ensure its long-term use.
``I think it's mostly a political decision because Bush can't be guaranteed a second term, and by picking that particular date what he does is he locks in his successor,'' Korb added.
Some congressional Democrats were critical.
Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Bush's decision ``violates common sense by determining to deploy systems before they have been tested and shown to work.''
U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts added, ``It wastes taxpayer dollars and lulls us into a false sense of security.''
``It's all politics and not much defense,'' said Rep. Thomas Allen, a Maine Democrat who noted the deployment target was the fall of 2004, when Bush is expected to seek re-election.
Rumsfeld was asked if the decision was driven by politics.
``It is driven by acute rationality,'' Rumsfeld said. ``There isn't anything we're doing in this department that it would be accurate to suggest is rooted in politics.''
A liberal claimed it was impossible to perfect so I asked him if he would support it if it DID work. Of course he would not so I think that shows you what bias they have towards Missle Defense.
RLK brings up a very good point. Most of the detractors say that swarms of nukes would overwhelm the system, proving it useless. I dont see SWARMS of missles coming, just a few.
It seems to me like they are reading from thier playbook of appeasement to the USSR. That was the only country that could throw swarms of missles at us.
Amazingly enough, the UK is doing research into this area but they state that it is to stop foreign objects such as asteroids... are they rogue? :D
The Dems claim that the GOP is playing politics with the missle defense system but do they really think that we WANT a useless system!?!?!?
It's easy to see WHO is playing politics on this one, and the fact that they would play politics on this issue speaks volumes to me. Lets hope the rest of the country can see it.
Of course according to them lots of things may not work in real life: airplanes, radar, kites, VCRs, toilets, microwave ovens... you get the drift.
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