Ill-Starred 'Star Wars' Tests

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ill-Starred 'Star Wars' Tests
  The Los Angeles Times | Editorial

  Monday 20 December 2004

  It should surprise no one that the first test in two years of the "Star
Wars" missile defense system fizzled Wednesday when a "kill vehicle" never
left its silo in the Marshall Islands. The startling thing would have been
if the $85-million test had succeeded.

  Ever since President Reagan called for this ill-conceived system in March
1983, his conservative acolytes - including President Bush - have been
determined to make it a reality despite widespread evidence of its
impracticality. Two decades later, it has still gone nowhere despite Bush's
rash promise that he would have a limited system in place by the end of
2004.

  The government has spent about $130 billion on the program and is slated
to invest $50 billion more over the next five years. Yet the only tests that
have succeeded were rigged; the missiles being intercepted were equipped
with homing devices, something a real attacker probably wouldn't be
considerate enough to include. The most recent test before Wednesday's, on
Dec. 11, 2002, failed when a warhead didn't detach from its booster rocket.

  In the wake of the latest fiasco, Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the
Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, claimed the test didn't represent a
failure of the system, simply a glitch. This is like a repairman telling you
there's nothing wrong with your car just because it won't start, that it
simply has a mechanical problem.

  The Bush administration, though, isn't budging. Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld, who headed a commission in 1998 warning about missile threats
from North Korea and Iran, says a defense is vital. It isn't. As Greg
Thielmann, the director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and
Research during Bush's first term, has written in Arms Control Today,
Rumsfeld contorted the evidence in 1998 to create a North Korean and Iranian
missile threat to the United States where none existed, just as he would
later do on the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

  It's unfathomable how Bush can continue to talk about the need for
spending cuts while embracing one of the least successful and costliest
military research programs in recent memory.

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