|
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
|
|
TAKING STOCK OF THE INITIAL DEPLOYMENT With the deadline for the Bush administration’s “initial deployment” drawing closer, Congressional scrutiny of Pentagon missile defense plans is growing. In March 11th testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, some of the Defense Department’s top missile defense officials – including Missile Defense Agency Director Lieutenant-General Ronald Kadish and Admiral James Ellis, Commander of the United States Strategic Command – expressed confidence in the emerging American anti-missile system. In his remarks, Admiral Ellis emphasized that the missile defense system now under development represents an essential element of American strategy, which is designed to anticipate the “capabilities of rogue states and non-state actors” and to “dissuade or deter the action of potential adversaries.” General Kadish, meanwhile, stressed the evolutionary nature of the missile defense deployment now underway as integral to responding to “technical progress” and “real world developments.” A cautionary note, however, was struck by the government’s top weapons evaluator. In response to questioning from the Committee, Thomas Christie, the Pentagon’s Director for Testing and Evaluation, admitted uncertainty that existing systems could effectively counter missile threats from rogue nations, as a result of limited testing. Christie’s comments confirm the findings of a new report just released by the government’s fiscal watchdog, which warns that many components of the “initial deployment” remain untested. The report, drafted for Congress by the U.S. General Accounting Office, cites gaps in data regarding system performance and discrimination capabilities, and faults the Defense Department’s current testing schedule for lacking sufficiently challenging and complex intercept scenarios, the Washington Post (March 11) reports. GAMING THE NORTH KOREAN THREAT American military planners, meanwhile, are actively mapping potential responses to the rogue state missile threat. The latest such effort took place on March 16th, when a war game conducted at the Schriever air force base in Colorado simulated a missile strike on the United States from a fictional Asian rogue modeled after North Korea. As part of the exercises, components of the upcoming “initial deployment” (such as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system), as well as advanced systems like the Air Force’s Airborne Laser, successfully intercepted six ballistic missiles simultaneously fired at the United States, the March 17th Washington Post reports. The drill, to which journalists were given unprecedented access, is part of ongoing gaming and contingency planning taking place within the Defense Department ahead of this summer’s looming deployment of initial defenses. AL-QAEDA’S MISSILE PLANS... Citing sources within the terrorist organization, Islamabad’s Khabrain newspaper (March 12) reports that al-Qaeda has managed to acquire both nuclear and chemical materials on the European black market over the past year, and has now commenced production of nuclear missiles. The development, currently underway at a secret location in Afghanistan, is expected to yield a ballistic missile capability for the terrorist organization within the decade, the group’s sources say – one intended to be used against the United States. ...AND IRAN’S BALLISTIC PROGRESS A new study out of the Persian Gulf is confirming Western fears regarding Iran’s missile advances, Gulf News (March 15) reports. According to the Abu-Dhabi-based Gulf Defence magazine, Iran – the Persian Gulf region’s dominant military power – is rapidly approaching self-sufficiency in its ballistic missile arsenal, after years of Chinese, Russian and North Korean rocket assistance. And not only is Iran currently “developing strategic missiles with a range of 2,000km,” writes the study’s author, retired Egyptian Major General Ali Mohammed Rajab. The Islamic Republic is also actively planning a follow-on rocket with a range of 5,000 kilometers, dubbed the “Shahab-5.” The assessment flatly contradicts Tehran’s Fall 2003 announcement of a self-imposed moratorium on missile development beyond its 1,300-kilometer range “Shahab-3.” |
|
Copyright
© 2004, American Foreign Policy Council.
|
The American
Foreign Policy Council |
|
 |
|
509 C Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Email: afpc@afpc.org Phone: 202-543-1006 Fax: 202-543-1007 |
|
| |
Copyright
© 2006, American Foreign Policy Council. All Rights Reserved. |
| Web Hosting provided by Mosaic Technologies | |