RecordSage, it is not my lack of faith in US technology that worries me, it is the Pentagon's.

Washington Post, 9/29/04 said:

But what the administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work...Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.

The paucity of realistic test data has caused the Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator to conclude that he cannot offer a confident judgment about the system's viability. He estimated its likely effectiveness to be as low as 20 percent.

Chicago Tribune,...[-substr- said:

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RecordSage, it is not my lack of faith in US technology that worries me, it is the Pentagon's.

Washington Post, 9/29/04 said:

But what the administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work...Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.

The paucity of realistic test data has caused the Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator to conclude that he cannot offer a confident judgment about the system's viability. He estimated its likely effectiveness to be as low as 20 percent.

Chicago Tribune, 6/28/04 said:

WASHINGTON -- In its effort to build and deploy a missile defense system quickly, the Bush administration has sidestepped a federal law that requires "operational testing" for new weapons systems before they are deployed.

Instead, the Defense Department has argued that its ambitious $50 billion program to destroy missiles fired at the United States still is under development and not ready for such testing even though the first interceptors of the system are scheduled to be installed and switched on this fall.

Opponents say the Pentagon's explanation is doublespeak. The administration's missile defense program already is in production, they argue, and the development claim is a ruse to ward off scrutiny.

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American Prospect, Dec 2005 said:

Meanwhile, the Missile Defense Agency began classifying more information as secret, making it harder for outside watchdogs to tell what was going on. Before the Bush administration, "we knew a good deal about planned tests," says Stephen Young, a missile-defense expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a scientific nonprofit. "Now we know basically just which quarter of the year a test might occur . . . this may be the most difficult thing the U.S. government has ever deployed."


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Yet the MDA was able to keep most criticism quiet. The agency postponed several scheduled tests, and the few tests that went forward remained heavily scripted. In ...

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American Prospect, Dec 2005 said:

Meanwhile, the Missile Defense Agency began classifying more information as secret, making it harder for outside watchdogs to tell what was going on. Before the Bush administration, "we knew a good deal about planned tests," says Stephen Young, a missile-defense expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a scientific nonprofit. "Now we know basically just which quarter of the year a test might occur . . . this may be the most difficult thing the U.S. government has ever deployed."


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Yet the MDA was able to keep most criticism quiet. The agency postponed several scheduled tests, and the few tests that went forward remained heavily scripted. In them, the agency continued to propel the incoming missiles slower than an actual attacking missile would fly, placed a radar device on the incoming missile to make it easier to shoot down, and gave the interceptor crucial information about the incoming missile, like its trajectory. Even this apparently was not enough: The Pentagon also announced that it would make even more information classified after 2004. When a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) charged that claims of unqualified success were due to fraudulent claims by defense contractors, and the school launched an inquiry into his assertions, the Pentagon classified the information MIT investigators said they needed to complete their task.

"The easiest way to ensure accountability would be to publish the results of your tests," but there was no desire to do so, says David Mosher, who follows missile defense at the RAND Corporation.

Star Wars was started in the Reagan era... so how is that it's Bush Jr. at fault for lack of 'rigorous testing' with all of these prior administrations in place?

Anyway, I was listening to a Washington Times reporter, who specializes in our defense, weapons etc., he certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about and he indicated that tests were done and fairly recently and out of 4 missiles fired (normally there are 11) - 1 hit the target on the spot, 1 was off by 7 feet, 1 by 5 and another missed a larger distance. The bottom line was that with 11 missiles going and doing their job - chances are very slim of unsuccessful intersection. These were real tests, not simulations on c...

Star Wars was started in the Reagan era... so how is that it's Bush Jr. at fault for lack of 'rigorous testing' with all of these prior administrations in place?

Anyway, I was listening to a Washington Times reporter, who specializes in our defense, weapons etc., he certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about and he indicated that tests were done and fairly recently and out of 4 missiles fired (normally there are 11) - 1 hit the target on the spot, 1 was off by 7 feet, 1 by 5 and another missed a larger distance. The bottom line was that with 11 missiles going and doing their job - chances are very slim of unsuccessful intersection. These were real tests, not simulations on computers.

The fact that Pentagon is cautious isn't anything unusual. When you think of investing - just about every public company will tell you that you have a possibility of losing your shirt... so what? Does that mean they don't believe in their company and products and chances for success down the line? Of course not. Just being cautiously optimistic. Pentagon knows that when missiles fly faster than you can see them - well, it's certainly a rocket science to intercept them with all kinds of variables possibly altering the situation. You could have a plane get in the way or a lightning storm or who knows...

Anyway, it's pointless to debate this... since neither you or I are intimately close with technology and its fathers and all you're doing is trying to find anything to knock the military and equipment because... only you know why... and I'm trying to defend the same because I do have a lot of faith in US military, great respect for American scientists who have proven beyond a shadown of doubt that they can create some of the most ingenious items on this planet, whether for military or anything else... and so we'll just have to wait and see what actually happens.