Free Republic

Going on Offense for Missile Defense Defending ourselves has never made more sense. by Fred Barnes 08/07/2006, Volume 011, Issue 44 SENATOR CARL LEVIN of Michigan had a grim and unhappy look on his face. For years, he had led Democrats in an effort to slash funding for missile defense. He had planned to seek a cut of $68 million. But with North Korea poised to launch missiles and Iran's relentless drive to go nuclear, the situation had changed. So much so that Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama proposed to boost spending on the missile defense program, now more than...

Sea-Based Missile Defense System Works, but Will Congress Fund It? by Baker SpringPosted Jun 16, 2006In 1995, The Heritage Foundation’s Missile Defense Study Team proposed to Congress a comprehensive plan for developing and deploying an effective global defense against ballistic missiles. The panel was chaired by the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, and among its recommendations was a proposal to evolve the existing AEGIS weapons systems onboard Navy surface ships for air defense into a missile defense system. Last month, the Navy demonstrated the wisdom of this approach by successfully testing modified versions of...

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2006 – A U.S. Navy ship shot down a long-range ballistic missile in its final seconds of flight during a test yesterday. It was the first successful ship-launched intercept of a ballistic missile in its terminal phase, U.S. military officials said. During the Navy and Missile Defense Agency test, Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie, equipped with technology to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missiles, launched a Standard Missile 2 to intercept a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range facility on Kauai, Hawaii. "The test yesterday was an opportunity to see if a modified configuration of the...