{"id":4089,"date":"2005-04-29T09:58:42","date_gmt":"2005-04-29T13:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4089.html"},"modified":"2005-04-29T09:58:42","modified_gmt":"2005-04-29T13:58:42","slug":"it-might-be-nice-but-its-not-going-to-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/it-might-be-nice-but-its-not-going-to-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"It might be ‘nice,’ but it’s not going to happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more irresponsible moments of the president’s press conference<\/a> last night came during a discussion over North Korea and the threat posed by Kim Jung Il’s alleged nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

“[A]s you know, I have instructed Secretary Rumsfeld — and I work with Congress — Secretary Rumsfeld has worked with Congress to set up a missile defense system. And we’re in the process of getting that missile defense system up and running. One of the reasons why I thought it was important to have a missile defense system is for precisely the reason that you brought up, that perhaps Kim Jong-il has got the capacity to launch a weapon, and wouldn’t it be nice to be able to shoot it down.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Would it be nice? Sure. It’d also be nice if the president could wave a magic wand and make nuclear missiles disappear mid-flight, but we shouldn’t exactly be crafting a national security policy based on Bush’s idea of scenarios that might be nice.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it’s responses like this one that make me more than a little nervous about Bush’s false sense of security. Remember, the Union of Concerned Scientists recently warned that Bush’s missile defense system is more than just an expensive boondoggle that doesn’t work; it’s also a faulty system that can undermine a national security strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If 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,\u00e2\u20ac? the report said. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All indications are that it would not work,\u00e2\u20ac? added Lisbeth Gronlund, a physicist who is a co-author of the report and co-director of the group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s global security program.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statements that it will be highly effective are irresponsible nonsense,\u00e2\u20ac? she added in a telephone interview.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was almost 12 full months ago. Since then, the system Bush touted last night has failed multiple<\/a> tests — in each instance, interceptor missiles wouldn’t even launch — and a Congressional Budget Office technical report suggested that the boost-phase system, scheduled for deployment in 2011, would press the far edge of what was physically possible<\/a> in an antimissile system.<\/p>\n

Bush’s comments last night were careless and wildly misleading. People watching at home probably got the impression that we’re close to protecting ourselves against a possible North Korean attack because Bush is on the case with a missile defense system. It’s just not true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more irresponsible moments of the president’s press conference last night came during a discussion over North Korea and the threat posed by Kim Jung Il’s alleged nuclear arsenal. “[A]s you know, I have instructed Secretary Rumsfeld — and I work with Congress — Secretary Rumsfeld has worked with Congress to set up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}