Similarity, the Taepo-dong 2 missile, when fully operational, is only expected to barely reach Alaska.
The General Accounting Office cautioned, in a 40-page report released in Sept. 2003, that the Bush administration's push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by that year would lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads. The GAO report said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task. The GAO report faulted the stepped-up schedule proposed by Bush for 'premature integration.'
"As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system". But, despite the GAO report, the DoD has budgeted approximately $10 billion a year over the next five years to fund the missile defense program, and appropriators approved $9.1billion to be spent on the system.
So, today Rumsfeld announced that he was going to get another 'test' of the missile defense system, firing a missile from Kodiak Island, Alaska, to be intercepted by a rocket fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It won't be the "full end-to-end test" he said he wanted. It's really not much of a test at all.
"We are not going to try to hit the target," said Scott Fancher, head of Boeing Co.'s ground-based missile defense program. "It is not a primary or secondary test objective to hit the target."
"Why not proceed in an orderly way with the kind of the test expert people want to do?" Rumsfeld rationalized. "They do not have to do it to demonstrate to you."
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, says that although the rocket might hit the missile, that's not really the point of the test, even though it's being described as the largest missile defense test since the last failed one 18 months ago.
So why all the blather from Rumsfeld now about the missile defense boondoggle? It could be that he sees this as his last opportunity to deliver for his defense industry cronies, the ones who keep him in power. Or, he could be working a Rovian ploy to stop the bleeding of Bush's credibility on issues of national defense over his mishandling of Iraq and his inability to catch bin-Laden.
There's another reason for the re-emergence of the missile defense canard that hasn't gotten much ink.
The Pentagon was set back in May to ask Congress for a $1.6b 'anti-missile' base in Eastern Europe to defend against, what they claimed, is a threat to the region from Iran's ballistic missiles. Under consideration were sites in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic. The Iran card was a perfect play at the time, as North Korea hadn't yet launched their missiles. But there was no more of a credible threat from nuclear weapons from Iran than from anyone else.
"As far as we can tell," Gary Samore, former aide on the National Security Council was quoted in a NYT article Aug. 26, "Iran is many years away from having the capability to deliver a military strike against the U.S. If they made a political decision to seriously pursue a space launch vehicle, it would take them a decade or more to develop the capability to launch against the U.S."
The proposal was a flop in Central Europe. The countries under consideration immediately balked at the prospect of aligning with the U.S. against a major economic ally of Russia. Outgoing Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said just last week that the U.S. won't be building a missile defense base in the Czech Republic.
In fact, the U.S. reportedly made "discreet inquiries" in Britain in early August to see whether they would take the 'Son of Star Wars' systems that Central Europe had spurned. There's a good possibility that Britain turned down the bogus system as well. And they should turn it down. The missile defense scam is nothing more than a feathering of the aerospace industry coffers at the expense of other costly priorities for legitimate and necessary defenses.
The Bush regime desperately wants to re-start Star Wars, or 'Son of Star Wars.' Hawking their rejected earmarks for missile defense R&D was their first thought. Then, they hoped their plan to proliferate their 'missile defense' technology to European provinces 'to counter Iran' would get a boost from all of their flailing around over the NK launches.
It's a war campaign for Bush and his republican cowboys from now until the November elections. If the Bush regime has their way, missile defense will be one of the wedge weapons in their rhetorical arsenal. The result shouldn't be any more effective than this latest orchestrated demonstration of their phony system.
The General Accounting Office cautioned, in a 40-page report released in Sept. 2003, that the Bush administration's push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by that year would lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads. The GAO report said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task. The GAO report faulted the stepped-up schedule proposed by Bush for 'premature integration.'
"As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system". But, despite the GAO report, the DoD has budgeted approximately $10 billion a year over the next five years to fund the missile defense program, and appropriators approved $9.1billion to be spent on the system.
So, today Rumsfeld announced that he was going to get another 'test' of the missile defense system, firing a missile from Kodiak Island, Alaska, to be intercepted by a rocket fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It won't be the "full end-to-end test" he said he wanted. It's really not much of a test at all.
"Why not proceed in an orderly way with the kind of the test expert people want to do?" Rumsfeld rationalized. "They do not have to do it to demonstrate to you."
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, says that although the rocket might hit the missile, that's not really the point of the test, even though it's being described as the largest missile defense test since the last failed one 18 months ago.
So why all the blather from Rumsfeld now about the missile defense boondoggle? It could be that he sees this as his last opportunity to deliver for his defense industry cronies, the ones who keep him in power. Or, he could be working a Rovian ploy to stop the bleeding of Bush's credibility on issues of national defense over his mishandling of Iraq and his inability to catch bin-Laden.
There's another reason for the re-emergence of the missile defense canard that hasn't gotten much ink.
The Pentagon was set back in May to ask Congress for a $1.6b 'anti-missile' base in Eastern Europe to defend against, what they claimed, is a threat to the region from Iran's ballistic missiles. Under consideration were sites in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic. The Iran card was a perfect play at the time, as North Korea hadn't yet launched their missiles. But there was no more of a credible threat from nuclear weapons from Iran than from anyone else.
"As far as we can tell," Gary Samore, former aide on the National Security Council was quoted in a NYT article Aug. 26, "Iran is many years away from having the capability to deliver a military strike against the U.S. If they made a political decision to seriously pursue a space launch vehicle, it would take them a decade or more to develop the capability to launch against the U.S."
The proposal was a flop in Central Europe. The countries under consideration immediately balked at the prospect of aligning with the U.S. against a major economic ally of Russia. Outgoing Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said just last week that the U.S. won't be building a missile defense base in the Czech Republic.
In fact, the U.S. reportedly made "discreet inquiries" in Britain in early August to see whether they would take the 'Son of Star Wars' systems that Central Europe had spurned. There's a good possibility that Britain turned down the bogus system as well. And they should turn it down. The missile defense scam is nothing more than a feathering of the aerospace industry coffers at the expense of other costly priorities for legitimate and necessary defenses.
The Bush regime desperately wants to re-start Star Wars, or 'Son of Star Wars.' Hawking their rejected earmarks for missile defense R&D was their first thought. Then, they hoped their plan to proliferate their 'missile defense' technology to European provinces 'to counter Iran' would get a boost from all of their flailing around over the NK launches.
It's a war campaign for Bush and his republican cowboys from now until the November elections. If the Bush regime has their way, missile defense will be one of the wedge weapons in their rhetorical arsenal. The result shouldn't be any more effective than this latest orchestrated demonstration of their phony system.
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