Gannett News Service July 17, 2006
Missile defense gobbles funds
By John Yaukey
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers looking to burnish national security credentials after North Korea's missile tests want to speed up development and deployment of missile defenses despite major problems with the centerpiece technology and the test failures that underscore them.
As early as this week, lawmakers will debate bumping up the roughly $9 billion a year in funds for missile defense. It's already the Bush administration's most expensive military research-and-development project and one of the largest line items on the Pentagon's roughly $440 billion 2007 budget request.
"We have to have a defense that allows us to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "It's time for Democrats to stop fighting the ghost of Ronald Reagan," he said, referring to Democratic opposition to President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense concept.
Meanwhile, 11 long-range, ground-based missile interceptors already are being deployed in California and Alaska despite the fact that the last two prototypes failed on the launch pad when tested and the system hasn't successfully intercepted a missile since 2002.
Talk of more spending for missile defense comes as Army and Marine troops and budgets are stretched thin, their fighting equipment is wearing out, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being paid for off budget with supplemental spending, and the Pentagon has come under fire for cost overruns on a menu of high-tech weapons.
Missile-defense critics are concerned there is a growing "hubris" over the program that testing data cannot support and it's being pushed ahead for political as much as military reasons.
"Right now, the system is technically operational, and we have no idea if it will work," said Loren Thompson, a defense expert at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute. "But once you establish a major weapon system and deploy it in Alaska, California and Hawaii, it takes on a life of its own."
Thompson was referring to states with major missile defense facilities and powerful senators who control defense spending.
Rhetoric vs. record
After North Korea's missile tests, President Bush voiced confidence the recently deployed interceptors would have worked if launched.
In March, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said, "The testing we've done ... shows the technology is valid and viable."
The test record and multiple government reports on the technology are a stark contrast.
The long-range, land-based interceptors meant to strike missiles from thousands of miles away have succeeded in five out of 10 tests, and only under highly controlled situations such as with the target missile emitting a homing signal for the interceptor to lock on. Decoys easily confuse the interceptors.
The short-range system, now deployed on three Navy cruisers, has hit test missiles seven out of eight times. But these must be deployed near the missile launch, which requires suspicion an attack is imminent.
Two January government reports on the long-range system:
- The Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation said, "There is insufficient evidence to support a confident assessment of (even) limited defensive operations."
- A Congressional Research Service report said there is no "conclusive evidence of a learning curve, such as increased success over time."
"I can't detect that anybody has any real confidence in it," said John Pike, a military weapons and tactics expert with GlobalSecurity.org.
Daunting task
Much of the problem with missile defense, which has vexed rocket scientists for decades, is the sheer difficulty of the task. The current land and sea systems use nonexplosive interceptors that destroy missiles by contact because explosives are too heavy.
"It's like trying to hit a hole in one -- except the hole is moving at 17,000 miles an hour," said Philip Coyle, a former Pentagon director of operational test and evaluation.
Even if the current technology is improved, it will work only on relatively primitive missiles.
© Copyright 2006, Gannett News Service
