Pentagon Tester Questions U.S. Missile Defense EffectivenessFebruary 24, 2009
 The U.S. missile defense, managed by Boeing, might not be very effective against even a crude North Korean missile, the Pentagon's weapons tester told Congress in a report this week. Charles McQueary said that testing has been limited and has not generated the needed data to run computer simulations required to predict the effectiveness of the missile defense against various trajectories, according to Bloomberg News. This report comes at a time when North Korea is within weeks of testing its long-range missile technology. Any North Korean missile is also likely to carry decoys to fool U.S. defenses, according to defense experts. McQueary, however, states that the U.S. defenses would probably be ineffective even if the missile carried no decoys. Bloomberg also reported that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Carl Levin, who heads a panel that controls funding for missile defense, found McQueary's assessment "troubling" and "not surprising." As the Bush administration accelerated the program, "the Missile Defense Agency was allowed to cut corners," Levin said in a January 28 e-mail to Bloomberg News (U.S. Navy photo by the Missile Defense Agency, Released) |
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