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US Ballistic Missile Interceptors Have ‘No Chance’ of Working

Sputnik — February 19, 2016

WASHINGTON  – A report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) accurately describes the very serious problems with the US Ground-Based Missile Defense System, former Chief of Naval Operations science and policy advisor Theodore Postol told Sputnik.

The GAO report, published on Wednesday, found that the Missile Defense Agency has not demonstrated through flight testing that it can defend the US homeland against the current missile defense threat. It also noted that a full assessment of the system’s effectiveness is currently not possible.

“It is the cruelest form of betrayal to tell people that you have created something to protect them when you know for a fact there is no chance,” Postol stated on Thursday.

Moreover, the GAO report found that flight testing was insufficient to demonstrate that an operationally useful defense capability exists, and concluded that the Missile Defense Agency cannot even prove that the defense can intercept a target representative of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“My own view is that the GAO report is overly optimistic, as it doesn’t deal with the fundamental underlying physics issues that support the conclusion,” Postol, who is also an MIT Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security Policy, said.

There is still no engineering solution that will ever provide a workable Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system, he pointed out.

“The report is useful comparing its findings to the glowing claims of capability that have constantly been made by the Missile Defense Agency about the GMD system,” Postol acknowledged.

He cautioned that the GAO report also contradicted the history of false claims made by the Missile Defense Agency about its defense systems.

“The agency lied to the American people about a defense that’s supposed to protect the mainland of the United States.”

The most fundamental problem the GMD faces is to be able to tell the difference between warheads, upper rocket stages, debris and decoys, Postol explained.

“All of the GMD tests have been very carefully orchestrated so that the interceptors never encounter any problems of these types.”

The Missile Defense Agency has claimed one successful interception of an intercontinental ballistic missile-like target in the past eight years of tests.

President Barack Obama has ordered the MDA to increase the number of Ground-Based Mid-course Interceptors it deploys from 30 to 44 by the end of 2017, the GAO report noted.

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Former Defense Secretary Warns US is Pushing Towards Nuclear Apocalypse

Sputnik – 03.12.2015

The United States is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race that will elevate the risk of nuclear apocalypse to Cold War levels, former Secretary of Defense William Perry warned on Thursday.

Perry, who from 1994 to 1997 served as Pentagon chief under President Bill Clinton, delivered his remarks at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group

“We’re now at the precipice, maybe I should say the brink, of a new nuclear arms race,” he said. “This arms race will be at least as expensive as the arms race we had during the Cold War, which is a lot of money.”

The Pentagon is starting a major overhaul of its nuclear triad, made up of bomber, submarine and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear options. Perry called for the breaking of the triad by dismantling the ICBM stockpile.

ICBMs, he said, “aren’t necessary … they’re not needed. Any reasonable definition of deterrence will not require that third leg.”

In an August assessment, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments projects that it will cost more than $700 billion over the next 25 years to recapitalize the nuclear triad.

Perry said spending that money is foolish considering the United States is both short of cash for other programs and capable of a robust nuclear deterrence already, Defense News reported.

The risk of nuclear war is exacerbated by the deterioration of the relationship between Moscow and Washington that had been formed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without clear military-to-military communication between those two nations, the risk of an accidental conflict increases, Perry said.

“Today – probably I would not have said this 10 years ago – but today we now face the kind of dangers of a nuclear event like we had during the Cold War, an accidental war,” he said.

“I see an imperative: to stop this damn nuclear arms race from accelerating again.”

December 3, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment