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You are here: Home / Missile Defense / Dueling Quotes of the Day: GMD on the Jersey Shore edition

May 21, 2012

Dueling Quotes of the Day: GMD on the Jersey Shore edition

“We’ve invested billions of dollars. We’ve proven this technology,” says Sessions, who represents the state where much of the GMD development work was conducted. “An extra site [on the East Coast] would clearly provide extra protection. And I think it would validate our investment. It’s such an unacceptable thing to have developed a system that will work and then not deploy it.”

Senator Jeff Session (R-AL), May 17, 2012.

And for a different view…

To date, GMD has demonstrated a limited capability against a simple threat.

Dr. Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, December 2011.

The current GMD system has serious shortcomings, and provides at best a limited, initial defense against a relatively primitive threat.

National Research Council Report “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives”, April 30, 2012.

UPDATE 5/22: Over at his excellent new blog “mostlymissiledefense”, MIT’s Dr. George Lewis asks 12 multiple-choice questions about the GMD system, the answers to which further demonstrate the folly of Sen. Sessions’ gloating.

Posted in: Missile Defense, Nukes of Hazard blog

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