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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SecularBull who wrote (155859)	6/26/2001 12:33:57 PM
From: ThirdEye	Respond to of 769670

What? Here? LOL!

To: SecularBull who wrote (155859)	6/26/2001 1:16:11 PM
From: Scumbria	Respond to of 769670

Missile defence may never fly An internal US defence department study has cast new doubts on the feasibility of missile defence and strains on the defence budget pose problems for the project, writes Mark Tran Tuesday June 26, 2001 Special report: George Bush's America At $325bn, American defence spending seems a colossal amount of money. In reality, the Pentagon is already in trouble making ends meet with all the commitments it faces. Quite apart from headline-grabbing projects such as missile defence, more humdrum tasks confront the American military. A huge modernisation programme is under way, American bases in Europe and elsewhere desperately need repair and it costs money to maintain a high state of combat readiness. There is also a crisis of manpower, as junior officers, particularly from the army, opt out in favour of civilian life. While outsiders may see the US military as a well-oiled behemoth, the view from inside the bunker is one of a desperately over-stretched organisation, with missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. That is partly why the White House and Pentagon are so reluctant to undertake another mission in Macedonia. Besides the fear of casualties, the US military wants to shrink commitments, not increase them. American reluctance for foreign engagements does not mean that Nato can stay aloof from Macedonia if ethnic conflict boils over into civil war. But it does mean that intervention will not happen until the situation gets much worse. As one senior US defence official put it: "Will we be late - yes. Will we take care of it - yes. That's the nature of the beast." With the US military feeling the pinch, even the administration's pet project of missile defence will be vulnerable. As the separate fiefdoms of the Pentagon fight for their share of the pie, there will be hard questions on why the US should spend so much money on a technically suspect and politically explosive project. An internal defence department study has cast further doubt on the missile shield. The August 2000 report from the Pentagon's office of operational testing and evaluation, recently given to Congress, concluded that missile defence testing was unrealistic, behind schedule and had failed too often to justify deployment in 2005, a year later than the Bush administration is considering as the date for deployment. As an example of unrealistic testing, the report said none of the tests used the kinds of sophisticated decoys that a real ballistic missile would employ to confuse an anti-missile system. Instead, the decoy in each test was a large balloon that did not look like a warhead and was easily distinguishable from the target. In plain language, the test was rigged for an easy kill. Even so, two out three recent tests failed. Apart from the technical problems, the loss of Republican control of the Senate when James Jeffords turned independent, will mean roadblocks for missile defence in Congress. The US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, is preparing to ask Congress to increase spending for missile defence research and development by $2.2bn, but congressional Democrats will use the Pentagon's own report to oppose the request. The most ardent advocate of missile defence in the administration, Mr Rumsfeld wants a deployment as quickly as possible. During his recent trip to Europe, he told Nato ministers that the US planned to deploy "rudimentary defences to deal with emerging threats". But within the military, many unresolved questions remain about the "architecture" of missile defence. Will it be land- or sea-based? Will it be confined to the US or deployed outside America? And how far does the US want to go in tearing up the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, which bans defensive systems. Given the budgetary and political limitations, it is possible to see that missile defence will end up as a very limited system of dubious value. The Pentagon's own report carries a damning conclusion: "Deployment means the fielding of an operational system with some military utility which is effective under realistic combat condition. Such a capability is yet to be shown to be practicable for NMD (national missile defence)". guardianunlimited.co.uk