$92.5 Billion and counting down the "Missile Defense" Rathole [View All]

[swag]

An informative summary by the Center for Defense Information's Victoria Samson.

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=3110&StartRow=1&ListRows=10&appendURL=&Orderby=D.DateLastUpdated&ProgramID=6&from_page=index.cfm

When do we say when?

"The effectiveness is in the 90 percent range" – Pete Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition technology and logistics, on March 18, 2003.


There is a "better-than-zero chance of successfully intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead" - Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency, on July 21, 2005.

The official stance on missile defense has been changed. In the time between the first and second statements, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) held two intercept flight tests of the missile defense program that is intended to defend the United States against a very limited ICBM attack. In both of the tests, in December 2004 and February 2005, the rocket failed to leave the ground. This gives missile defense a track record of five intercepts out of 10 heavily scripted attempts, with the last successful intercept being completed three years ago in July 2002. Looking at the system’s development history, it seems unlikely that anyone could claim that it was progressing according to plan.

But yet the Pentagon continues to deploy missile defense interceptors in Alaska and California, even when acknowledging that problems with the flight test program means that another intercept probably won’t be held until next year at the earliest; plus, it is requesting funds to buy more and to send them out to a third site that will probably be in Europe.

Why the unbridled enthusiasm when it comes to funding – missile defense overall is the single most expensive weapon system in this year’s budget request – and yet such cautious backpedaling when speaking on record?

It would imply that the Pentagon is willing to go as far as it can convince Congress to endorse its budget requests, but refuses to be accountable for its behavior. After the $92.5 billion that has been poured into missile defense since its inception under the Ronald Reagan administration, it seems implausible that more funding is what is needed to make this program work the way it is supposed to.

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