STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- <A HREF="aol://4344:3167.missile.21049994.679332128"> AOL News: Pentagon Sets Missile Test Odds</A> Pentagon Sets Missile Test Odds By Jim Wolf Reuters WASHINGTON (July 14) - The general heading the U.S. drive to build a controversial missile defense system rated at 50-50 the odds of intercepting a long-range missile in the first such test in a year. In the Saturday night test over the Pacific, ''we have ... somewhere around a 50-50 chance'' of destroying the target to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The interceptor will be fired from a U.S. range in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It will be cued to launch about 10 minutes after the target, equipped with a dummy warhead and a decoy to gauge discrimination capabilities. If everything goes according to plan, the interceptor will home in on and destroy the Minuteman 2 booster eight minutes and eight seconds later outside the earth's atmosphere. Only one of three previous $100 million flight tests have ended with hits. The military often compares the technical challenge to hitting one speeding bullet with another. With Saturday's flight, the Pentagon will kick off a string of $100 million tests at a rate of about one every other month aimed at fielding an operational system as early as 2004, Kadish told a Pentagon news briefing. The Bush administration's goal is to build a multilayered system of ground-based, sea-launched, airborne and possibly space-based weapons against what it calls the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the hands of unpredictable foes including North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Asked how many missiles such a system might be effective against, Kadish replied Friday: ''I cannot tell you and I will not.'' The issue is sensitive because Russia and China fear the eventual neutralization of their intercontinental missile arsenals. President Bush's accelerated testing schedule calls for as many as 10 flight tests through the end of next year. It also aims for seven interceptors to be fired from ships against short-range targets. LAST TEST WAS A FLOP The last flight test flopped on July 7 of last year, when the interceptor's ''kill vehicle'' failed to separate from its booster. Then-President Bill Clinton, lacking confidence in the technology, postponed a decision on whether to go ahead with plans for a limited, ground-based anti-missile shield. The Bush administration, on the other hand, wants to move to a multilayered defense as soon as possible. The schedule will collide with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in a matter of months, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress on Thursday. The administration has played down the importance of whether Saturday's test winds up with a hit. ''This is one test in a series of tests and if it succeeds, we will gain confidence. And if it fails, we will learn a lot,'' Kadish said. The test will take place some time between 10 p.m. EDT and 2 a.m. EDT Sunday, a time chosen to minimize the inconvenience and danger to mariners and air traffic. The precise moment of the test is dictated by weather and readiness at the test sites, Pentagon officials said. When it announced the test plan last week, the Pentagon mistakenly said the launch window would be from 9 p.m. EDT to 1 a.m. EDT Eastern time. The one-hour difference was a mistake caused by failing to take into account a time zone difference, said Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the missile defense program. Boeing Co. is the lead system integrator for U.S. missile defense. TRW Inc. builds the battle command, control and communications system. Raytheon Corp. builds the ''exoatmospheric kill vehicle'' and Lockheed Martin Corp. is prime contractor on the current booster system. Under Clinton, the land-based leg alone of interceptors, advanced radar posts and battle management stations was projected to cost perhaps $60 billion. Reut07:00 07-14-01 Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
