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U.S. Plans II: Former Pentagon Official Criticizes Missile Defense Secrecy A former top U.S. Defense official today criticized the Pentagon’s recent decision to classify information related to missile defense tests (see GSN, May 17). The Missile Defense Agency has decided to classify details related to targets and decoys used in all future flight intercept tests of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. Such classification might prevent enemies from someday acquiring information that would allow them to circumvent U.S. missile defenses, but the missile defense program currently is years away from conducting realistic tests, former assistant defense secretary Philip Coyle wrote in today’s Washington Post (see related GSN story, today). Missile defense tests currently only use a mock enemy warhead and balloon decoys that look very different from warheads — not a real-life situation, Coyle said. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense program will require 20 more developmental tests, costing $100 million each, and several years before it will be ready for “realistic operational testing,” he wrote. The decision to classify information is not justified because the current test program does not provide any secrets that enemies can use, Coyle wrote. Rather than decreasing transparency, the Pentagon should be increasing transparency and openness due the extremely high costs of missile defense, Coyle wrote, noting that the GMD system alone is expected to cost more than $70 billion. Not only is the Pentagon planning to withhold information on tests from the public and Congress, the new policy also would withhold information from the Pentagon’s independent review officers, such as the director of Operational Test and Evaluation, said Coyle, who held that position from 1994 to 2001. “If independent review of testing progress is stifled, the Pentagon itself will be unable to make reasonable judgments about the program’s viability,” he said. The new classification regulations would also slow development just as the Pentagon is attempting to accelerate missile defense programs, Coyle said. Methods used to protect classified information, such as removing computer hard drives for safe storage every night, would slow work, he said (Philip Coyle, Washington Post, June 11). For further information, see: U.S. Missile Defense 2002 Budget
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