Missile Defense

Missile Defense Program Changes Course by Bradley Graham Page A06, Aug 5, 2002 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43890-2002Aug4.html

" This was to have been a big year for the Pentagon's new PAC-3 missile defense weapon, a forerunner of the nationwide anti-missile system that the Bush administration is pursuing. Flight tests from February through May were supposed to confirm that the missile interception system worked and result in a decision this fall to proceed with full production.

" But the testing went awry. In several cases, interceptors failed to fire out of launchers. When they did, they missed nearly as often as they hit. Unable to certify that the PAC-3 interceptor was ready for stepped-up production, Pentagon officials have put off the decision for at least a year and plan instead on further testing once fixes are in place.

This is a program trying to fix a missile system that we thought we had working in the LAST Gulf War. Some basic problems have NOT been solved.

Defense against longer range ballistic missiles (especially with easy countermeasures) is MUCH harder - and engineers, working hard, and well funded, STILL can't get the Patriot system to work.

rshow55 - 09:08pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3570 of 3578)

Shortcuts To Missile Defense By Mary McGrory Page A17, Aug 8, 2002 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57401-2002Aug7.html

"The Pentagon believes in Santa Claus.

"Why shouldn't it? Every day is Christmas over there. Programs for health care, schools, playgrounds and day-care centers get killed, casualties of war, but at the Pentagon, economy is not a watchword; it is a wimpy, lefty kind of word used by people who don't want to invade Iraq or build the missile defense system, the commander in chief's dearest dream.

"You think the Pentagon is spoiled? You are right. It is like a child in a custody fight in which estranged parents compete in giving extravagant presents to court their offspring. Republicans see in the military-industrial complex the only worthy recipients of government welfare. The Democrats dare not squawk because there's a war going on against terrorism and they are terrified of being found "weak on defense."

"That is why the Defense Department makes arrangements that mere mortals think are profligate, as for instance the matter of waiving oversight and audits for missile defense contractors. Even one of the Pentagon's top officials, the recently retired deputy inspector general Robert Lieberman, thinks that the move to call off the watchdogs is not a good idea.

""Given the events of the last year in the country as a whole," Lieberman told John M. Donnelly, editor of Defense Week, "we should be worried about more effective auditing everywhere, not finding ways to exempt people from oversight."

"Donnelly estimates that hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade will go to contractors under the special "other transactions" provision and will be exempt from the usual oversight.

rshow55 - 09:10pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3571 of 3578)

Nuclear weapons make mass murder easy - too easy. Though not entirely easy. You could know this too - especially if you'd seen the faces, and the rigidity of the missileers, of all ranks, in CNN's Special Report, REHEARSING DOOMSDAY ...which aired on October 15, 2000 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/democracy/nuclear/stories/nukes/index.html

The senior officers wanted nukes taken down . . . but through the magic of our "logical patterns" a different decision has been made.

I thought there was something specially sensitive, and specially courageous, about Bob Kerrey, by political standards, when he wrote ARMED TO EXCESS ... http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/opinion/02KERR.html

We're making some CRAZY decisions, while the world watches and wonders.

(7 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense