U.S. weighs options to missile threat.By SAM BISHOP News-Miner Washington BureauWASHINGTON--Those in charge of the nation's missile defense system have often said the interceptors based at Fort Greely could be used in a pinch. Tuesday, amid reports that North Korea was about to launch a missile, officials wouldn't say whether that pinch has arrived.
"There are many options available, and we are simply not going to tip our hand as to what the possible response would be," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Tuesday on a flight to Vienna with President Bush, according to a transcript.
Military spokesmen also declined to speculate about media reports quoting unnamed officials who say the missile defense system has been placed in "operational" status in response to North Korea's missile.
"The Department of Defense does not comment on the operational status of any weapons system," said Pentagon spokesman Brian Maka.
Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, said his agency is in charge of developing the system, not operating it, so he had no comment on whether it is now operational. Not that he could say anything anyway, he added.
"Any time it's ever been brought to operational status, it's been classified," he said.
If the interceptors are in an "operational" mode, as opposed to a "test" mode, it would mean several things, according to those who have studied and debated the system from outside the government.
Sensors such as radars and satellites will "essentially focus on the fairly well-known launch point of this missile," said Baker Spring, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Also, he said, "it means having the interceptor missiles in a position where they can be launched in accordance with what the sensors are telling them would be some kind of substantial threat to the United States."
John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the most noticeable difference would be that military personnel would start covering essential posts around the clock.
When the system is not in operational status, "they don't have soldiers staffing it at all times, especially at the interceptor sites in Alaska and California," Isaacs said.
Leslie Ozawa, public affairs officer at Fort Greely, said Tuesday that "we're not doing anything different."
He said he could not discuss the status of the interceptors, nine of which, at last report, rest in silos at the post 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Two more interceptors are located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Outside observers differed on whether the United States should actually attempt an intercept if North Korea launches a missile.
Peter Huessy of Geostrategic Analysis in Potomac, Md., said the threat to the United States depends on whether the missile has two or three stages and on the direction of the launch.
Estimates of the missile's reach vary widely in published reports, but Huessy said a general told him the Taepedong two-stage missile has a range of up to 5,000 miles, while the three-stage missile could fly up to 7,500 miles.
Thus, a two-stage rocket could reach all of Alaska, while a three-stage rocket could reach some of the contiguous United States, particularly if it travels over the pole, he said.
"If it comes over your territory and it's a polar shot, by God, shoot it down," said Huessy, a vocal backer of the missile defense system.
Spring agreed.
"I think we certainly should do so if there is evidence that it is traveling in a direction where U.S. lives and property are at risk," Spring said.
Isaacs, though, said shooting down the missile would be a "terrible idea."
"I can't believe we'd try to do that," he said.
The launch, if it occurs, will be a test, not an attack on the United States, Isaacs said. Shooting it down would set a poor precedent, he said.
"If other countries decide 'Well, we can shoot down either tests or civilian launches,' it could be extremely dangerous," he said.
The missile poses little serious risk, he said. While North Korea has developed a nuclear weapon, Isaacs said, "there is no evidence that they have miniaturized a nuclear weapon and mated it to a missile."
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, a defense consultant working with Isaac's center, said he believes talk of using the missile defense system is a "grandstanding public relations ploy."
Attacking the United States would be suicide for North Korea, he said.
"I don't think North Korea will launch anything (directed at the U.S.), so I don't think that there is any likelihood that we're going to try to shoot it down and get embarrassed by failing," he said.
The interceptors will almost certainly miss if called upon, he said.
"The system is in a relatively early developmental phase," he said. "We haven't had a successful intercept in four years, and the intercepts called successful have been in very artificial conditions.
"The Department of Defense's own director of operational testing and evaluation said that there is no evidence they have the ability to control the engagement," he said.
The Missile Defense Agency's recent assessment of the system is cautiously optimistic, though.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, MDA director, said three months ago that the agency "made history" in 2004 "by establishing a limited defensive capability for the United States against a possible long-range ballistic missile attack from North Korea and the Middle East."
Since then, the military has "demonstrated our ability to transition smoothly from test to operations and back," he said in written testimony to the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on March 9.
"Based on the many tests we have conducted to date, including three successful flight tests of the operational long-range booster now emplaced in Alaska and California, we maintain our confidence in the system's basic design, its hit-to-kill effectiveness, and its inherent operational capability," Obering said.
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at (202) 662-8721 or
[email protected] .
A medium-range separating target missile is seen seconds after lift-off from the Pacific Missile Range Facility .Źródło:
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