Article published June 29, 2006
Not ready, aim, fire!
A NEWS report the other day that the United States was prepared to use its so-called “ballistic missile defense system” to intercept an anticipated North Korean missile test must have caused a panic deep inside the Pentagon.
That’s because, despite the bold claims of the brass hats out front, the military has no operational missile defense system, at least not one proven to work.
What if they tried to take down the North Korean missile with this untried system and missed? That would be a propaganda victory dictator/crazyman Kim Jong Il couldn’t purchase at any price.
Nonetheless, the Air Force officer who heads the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, delivered an unequivocally bold assessment: “From what I’ve seen from our testing from the last several years … and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I’m very confident.”
General Obering must not have read a report on the fledgling missile system issued earlier this year by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO, which is paid to be skeptical rather than promotional, pointed out that the Pentagon had significant quality-control problems with its missiles and, in any event, has yet to prove its ground-based system can function as intended.
The facts are that the complex matrix of ground-based radar and 11 interceptor missiles, located in Alaska and California, has failed in half of 10 tests so far — even though the tests were designed not to duplicate surprise launch conditions but to ensure success.
The Pentagon has spent some $43 billion on this “Son of Star Wars” system in the past five years.
Add what was expended on Ronald Reagan’s original “Star Wars” fantasy of laser missile destroyers from 1984 on and the total cost jumps to nearly $100 billion.
Apparently intent on throwing good money after bad, the military expects to spend another $10.4 billion on the system in the budget year beginning Oct. 1, and $58 billion over the next six years. That’s 14 percent of its entire research budget. How much taxpayer treasure will be needed before the system actually works — if ever — is sheer conjecture.
In addition to readying the ground system, the Pentagon has deployed the Navy’s anti-missile destroyers toward North Korea. That defense system, at least, has a better track record.
Fortunately, all the bluster over the North Korean missile launch appears to be so much saber-rattling, both on the part of Kim Jong Il and the Bush Administration.
In this kind of international shadow-boxing, there’s nothing wrong with keeping an adversary off-balance. But the United States would be more credible if its vaunted missile defense system weren’t more show than go.
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