Pentagon Urges Congress to Back Missile Defenses

Requiring more complete flight-testing could delay the deployment of U.S. missile defenses in Eastern Europe, a U.S. military official said yesterday (see GSN, May 10).

That time could be used by U.S. adversaries to improve their ballistic missile capabilities, warned Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

“If we continue to delay going into Europe,” Campbell told a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation, “we may end up with more of problem with Iran than we have today.”

“I don’t see (Iran) slowing down” its missile development program “unless we can devalue those assets,” he added (Dave Ahearn, Defense Daily, May 17).

U.S. lawmakers have introduced cuts to the Bush administration’s missile defense budget request, arguing that the technology has not been adequately tested even though missile interceptors have already been deployed in Alaska and California.

“I don't want America to have a false sense of security with these defense missiles on the ground that may not actually work to knock enemy missiles out of the sky,” said Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).  “I do think a robust program is important, but we have to remember it's just one piece of the puzzle on homeland defense.”

“Some people are still startled to hear it, but the hardware being deployed in Alaska and California has no demonstrated capability to defend us against an enemy attack under realistic operational conditions,” added former top Pentagon testing official Philip Coyle, now with the Center for Defense Information (Tim Elfrink, Omaha World-Herald, May 15).

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