-
Senators
are talking about cutting housing, food stamps,
education, Medicaid,and other programs important
to the less fortunate in American society; they
should cut a non-functioning, white elephant that
missile defense is today.
-
The last three tests -- Dec. 11, 2002, Dec. 15,
2004 and Feb. 14, 2005 -- have all been failures.
-
To this point, there have been ten highly artificial
and carefully scripted intercept tests, five resulting
in hits.
-
When
the Administration announced withdrawal from the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, it said that
freed from treaty restrictions, testing would be
expanded and speeded up; instead testing has slowed.
-
The program is the largest single request in the
Pentagon budget, $8.8 billion this year (a billion
less than last year, but still the largest).
-
Over $100 billion has been appropriated for missile
defense since 1983 -- and tens of billions before
that -- and the program has yet to work.
-
The Administration had planned to announce deployment
in 2004, but backed away because the program simply
does not work.
-
U.S. Northern and Strategic commands, the organizations
that would be responsible for operating new missile
defense system, clearly have considerable misgivings
about taking over the system.
-
If,
or when, rogue states acquire the capability, it
is highly unlikely that they would attack the United
States with long‑range ballistic missiles because
our nation has the capability to pinpoint the location
of the missile launch and deliver a devastating
retaliatory strike.
-
It is highly unlikely that the problem of discriminating
between warheads and decoys in the mid‑part of
their trajectories can be effectively solved.
More
articles on Missile Defense
Missile
Defense: The Current Debate, Congressional
Research Service report. Updated March 23, 2005: Click here.
Quote: "The development and deployment of missile
defenses has not only been elusive, but has proven
to be one of the most divisive issues of the past
generation."
Defense Acquisitions: Status of Missile
Defense Programs in 2004. GAO
report. March
31, 2005: Click here.
Quote: "[T]he performance of the system remains uncertain
and unverified, because a number of flight tests slipped
into fiscal year 2005 and MDA has not successfully
conducted an end-to-end flight test using operationally
representative hardware and software."
Director of Operational Test and Evaluation
(DOT&E) report for FY 04. Feb. 1, 2005:
Click here.
Quote: "Numerous ground tests and exercises have demonstrated
system interconnectivity and limited interoperability.
However, the components of BMDS remain immature. It
is not possible to estimate the current mission capability
of the BMDS with high confidence."
UPDATE
July 2005
Contentions
of missile defense's weaknesses have been dogging
the program for decades. This is not just from critics:
several government documents shows that there
have long been official concerns of a rush to failure.
Click
here for an overview
of these documents.
The
fatal lure of missile defense
Marc Pilisuk
San
Francisco Chronicle | Monday, August 1, 2005
Excerpt below. For full article, click
here.
The
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance is holding its "breakfast
of champions" Tuesday in San Francisco at the
St. Francis Hotel. The gathering occurs amid plans
by the Bush administration to increase funding for
the missile defense program. This organization of
military and corporate advocates for expanding the
funds for development of a missile shield is working
hard to stem the tide of opposition.
Their
opponents make three main points: First, missile
defense does not work and is unlikely ever to work.
Second, it has been a boondoggle over many decades
of waste, illegal overcharges and faulty reports of
progress. (The Department of Defense sued
two of the major contractors, Boeing and TRW, for
falsifying and withholding data that show the difficulty
of distinguishing decoys from actual warheads.) Third,
and most important, if pursued, it is likely to spur
a race among many nations in which nuclear weapons
buzzing overhead in space will threaten life on this
planet.
The
ambitious missile defense program -- which has cost
$92.5 billion since it began with the "Star Wars"
concept of space-based lasers in 1983 -- underwent
a major redesign in the early 1990s after the Cold
War ended. Many hoped that this change eliminated
the need to protect us from a nuclear attack from
the USSR and would result in a peace dividend to improve
our deficient health, education and transportation
systems...
