One could easily launch a tirade against Bush’s plan for a so-called ballistic missile defense “shield” on a daily basis. Of all of the dumb ideas promoted by this White House, this has to be…well, in the top five.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan has written the best stuff I’ve seen anywhere on this topic, spanning several years. As Kaplan has noted, this boondoggle is unnecessary, unworkable, unsuccessful, and happens to take money away from meaningful counter-terrorism initiatives. And that’s just for starters.
Based on a plan launched by Bush and Rumsfeld in December 2002, the U.S. is supposed to have 10 working anti-missile interceptors in the field at test site in Alaska by the end of this year. In fact, Bush has committed his administration to a system that is supposed to work before this year’s election is even held.
As Eugene Oregon noted yesterday, however, serious people seem to have noticed a minor flaw in the plan.
The multibillion-dollar U.S. ballistic missile shield due to start operating by Sept. 30 appears incapable of shooting down any incoming warheads, an independent scientists’ group said on Thursday.
A technical analysis found “no basis for believing the system will have any capability to defend against a real attack,” the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a 76-page report titled Technical Realities.
If this weren’t so pathetic, it’d be hilarious.
The Bush administration, which seems to have some kind of allergy to accepting reality, is already trying to spin the UCS report.
“It will provide a defense against incoming missiles for the first time in this country’s history,” said Richard Lehner, an agency spokesman.
Actually, Rich, in order to “provide a defense,” the system has to work. Maybe the “no capability to defend against a real attack” phrase wasn’t clear enough.
The researchers don’t appear to think much of Pentagon spin.
The Missile Defense Agency “appears to be picking numbers out of thin air,” the report said of past Pentagon assertions of a high probability of shooting down targets.
“There is no data to justify such an assumption,” added the scientists’ group, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its findings dovetailed with an audit last month by Congress’s General Accounting Office that said the system’s effectiveness would be “largely unproven” when the initial capability goes on alert.
And if this were only a problem of wasting billions of tax dollars on a useless initiative, it would simply be offensive. But the Union of Concerned Scientists also insisted the administration’s reliance on a faulty system actually undermines national security.
“If the president is told that the system could reliably defend against a North Korean ballistic missile attack, he might be willing to accept more risks when making policy and military decisions,” the report said.
“All indications are that it would not work,” added Lisbeth Gronlund, a physicist who is a co-author of the report and co-director of the group’s global security program.
“And the administration’s statements that it will be highly effective are irresponsible nonsense,” she added in a telephone interview.
Carpetbagger regular Joe Fitzpatrick had an enjoyable tirade on this in an email yesterday. Joe calls it a “Bull-istic missile defense program.”
Stupidity and audacity on this issue appear to have no bounds…. The dogged insistence on pursuing a costly, wholly worthless, program in the absence of a single successful test is, to me, treasonous corruption and greed. Surely no one could be stupid enough to buy a multi-billion dollar product that does not work — which leaves rich handouts to big contractors (who also happen to be big donors) as the most reasonable explanation.
Post Script: I forgot something. What really frustrates me is when Republicans characterize this issue as a litmus test for being “strong on defense.” The implication is that support for missile defense is tantamount to national security credibility, instead of insanity. The GOP used this against Max Cleland, for example, in tearing apart a war hero’s reputation.