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U.S. Plans: Pentagon Wants Waiver on Missile Defense Testing Rules The Pentagon has asked Congress for permission to sidestep operational testing requirements to deploy ballistic missile defenses in 2004, Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 7, 2003). Defense officials want to avoid a law that requires the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation to confirm that sufficient testing has been conducted. “That law exists to prevent the production and fielding of a weapon system that doesn’t work right,” Levin said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The waiver request was submitted as part of the fiscal 2004 Pentagon budget request, according to Levin, the committee’s ranking Democrat. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the request, saying that the United States needs at least a minimal national missile defense capability and could conduct more realistic testing once the system is in place. “We need to get something out there in the ground (and) at sea,” Rumsfeld said. Echoing comments this week by intelligence officials, Rumsfeld said there is “no doubt in my mind” that North Korea has a missile capable of hitting the United States (see GSN, Feb. 13; Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily, Feb. 14).
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