{"id":3206,"date":"2004-12-15T11:36:48","date_gmt":"2004-12-15T16:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3206.html"},"modified":"2004-12-15T11:36:48","modified_gmt":"2004-12-15T16:36:48","slug":"it-was-sunny-but-it-still-didnt-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/it-was-sunny-but-it-still-didnt-work\/","title":{"rendered":"It was sunny, but it still didn’t work"},"content":{"rendered":"

After cloudy skies forced delays<\/a> in previous tests, Defense Department officials were able to give their missile defense technology another shot, so to speak. Unfortunately for everyone, it didn’t go well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An interceptor missile failed to launch early Wednesday in what was to have been the first full flight test of the U.S. national missile defense system in nearly two years.<\/p>\n

The Missile Defense Agency has attempted to conduct the test several times this month, but scrubbed each one for a variety of reasons, including various weather problems and a malfunction on a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested.<\/p>\n

A target missile carrying a mock warhead was successfully launched as scheduled from Kodiak, Alaska, at 12:45 a.m. EST, in the first launch of a target missile from Kodiak in support of a full flight test of the system.<\/p>\n

However, the agency said the ground-based interceptor “experienced an anomaly shortly before it was to be launched” from the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean 16 minutes after the target missile left Alaska.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, Republicans even name missile test sites after Reagan. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the point here is that yet another test has suffered yet another failure. What’s worse, no one even knows why.
\n
\nWhen asked for an explanation for the failure, officials released an announcement blaming an “unknown anomaly” for the problem.<\/p>\n

Bush envisioned an environment two years ago in which he’d speed up deployment of these interceptors right in time for the election. Instead, flight tests have been delayed, rocket-booster tests have been cancelled, and even rigged tests of interceptors have produced failure. Don’t worry, though, Bush is prepared to throw several billion more at the problem.<\/p>\n

What’s worse, as Fred Kaplan explained<\/a> in September, these latest failures are supposed to examine the easiest<\/i> part of Bush’s missile-defense vision. All for a plan that doesn’t work<\/a>, is unnecessary<\/a>, unworkable<\/a>, and unsuccessful<\/a>, which costs far more<\/a> than Bush said it would and also happens to take money away<\/a> from meaningful counter-terrorism initiatives.<\/p>\n

Feel safer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After cloudy skies forced delays in previous tests, Defense Department officials were able to give their missile defense technology another shot, so to speak. Unfortunately for everyone, it didn’t go well. An interceptor missile failed to launch early Wednesday in what was to have been the first full flight test of the U.S. national missile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}