In an op-ed written for the New York Times, John F. Tierney, a former congressman from Massachusetts and one-time chairman of the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, noted his concerns over the $40 billion missile defense system. Now the executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C., he warned that the defense system was being presented to the American public as something it is not: fully capable of defending the U.S. from a missile attack.
In fact, Pentagon officials announced on May 30 that they had successfully conducted a first-ever missile defense test that involved a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile. As was reported by Reuters, a missile from the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system was fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to intercept an ICBM fired from the Marshall Islands toward Alaska and succeeded in doing so. It was hailed as an “incredible accomplishment.”
But John F. Tierney begs to differ.
“The larger context, however, tells a very different story,” he wrote.
