SPECIAL REPORT INITIAL DEPLOYMENT The Administration intends to deploy an initial operating capability of a ground-based strategic ballistic missile defense system (GMD), designed to attack incoming missiles in their mid-course phase of flight, beginning in the summer of 2004. Initial defensive operations will be declared before the end of September of this year. The current […]
Nearly Fifty Senior Retired Military Officers Seek NMD Postponement
by Robert G. Gard The Bush Administration will soon deploy the first stages of a Missile Defense system designed to protect the United States from a ballistic missile attack. But today, during a press conference unveiling “An Open Letter to President Bush,” the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation criticized the deployment of […]
Current Status of Missile Defense Program
Current national missile defense deployment plans The initial deployment of land-based interceptors designed to smash into enemy warheads headed toward the U.S. is scheduled for calendar 2004. The Pentagon originally announced plans to deploy 10 interceptors in Alaska and California by October 2004, just before the election. At this point, it is likely that the […]
Missile Defense: The Dangers and Lack of Realism
By George Rathjens and Carl Kaysen, A year ago President Bush announced that he was ordering the deployment of an anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) system, with the first sites to be operational in 2004 in Alaska and California. In 1967 President Johnson made a strikingly similar decision. Both smacked of election-year domestic politics. President Johnson had reason […]
Bush’s Missile Defense System: Does it Pass Muster?
President Bush has announced plans to begin deployment of a strategic missile defense by September 30, 2004. The initial deployment will include six silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California; each silo will contain one interceptor missile. More are to follow in succeeding years. Site preparation has already […]
