U.S. Defense Department Says Missile Defense Plan is Unrealistic

Quoting an internal Defense Department study, the New York Times (NYT) revealed yesterday that U.S. Defense Department had once concluded already last year that Bush administration’s aspiring missile defense plan is being delayed and is considered even unrealistic.

Especially, it has been revealed that there is a problem to finish deploying of the system before the year 2005, which is an additional year to the original plan for the U.S. to finish the job.

The NYT reported that the August 2000 internal report from Defense Department’s Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, which was recently submitted to the congress, contains the detailed information about problems that the department has encountered during their missile technology development process.

The paper criticized that despite the problems, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has shown an intention to deploy the missile defense system even before a complete experimental launching if there is an imminent threat by enemies.

The NYT exemplified the October 1999 test in which the Global Positioning System that was installed in the experimental warhead had succeeded to chase the target over the Pacific. But the newspaper explained that the recent two experimental launchings ended all failures.

The paper set forth that they did not even have an experimental plan in which multiple targets are assumed when enemies’ missiles attack. And a software problem with the training simulator has also been found.

The article said that since former president Bill Clinton stopped the plan last September, the missile defense technology is still in an early stage except some fronts that has shown progress.

The newspaper reported that the internal report from the Pentagon had concluded that due to the high cost, unless testing is significantly progressed, the plan would not be ready against real attacks for several years.

(New York, Yon-Hap)