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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday ordered the
military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and
sea-based interceptor rockets to be operational starting in 2004. The decision came despite last week's
failure of an anti-missile test over the Pacific Ocean.
In a statement, Bush
said his goal was to "protect our citizens against what is perhaps the
greatest danger of all -- catastrophic harm that may result from hostile
states or terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction and the
means to deliver them."
Defense officials,
who asked not to be identified, said Bush was going ahead with an ambitious
schedule to field 10 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, by 2004 and
an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006.
The initial defense
is also expected to include Aegis warship-based missiles, and another Bush administration official
said ground-based interceptors could also possibly be deployed at Vandenberg
Air Force base in California.
"Today I am
pleased to announce that we will take another important step in countering
these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities to protect
the United States as well as our friends and allies," Bush said. “While modest, these capabilities will add to
American security and serve as a starting point for improved and expanded
capabilities later as further progress is made in researching and developing
missile defense technologies and in light of changes in the threat," he added.
Bush said the
administration planned to begin operating "initial capabilities" in
2004 and 2005, including ground- and sea-based interceptors, additional
Patriot units used to shoot down shorter-range missiles, and sensors based
"on land, at sea and in space." Erecting such a defense shield is the Pentagon's single
most expensive development program, likely to cost hundreds of billions of
dollars over coming decades.
Last Wednesday, the
United States suffered its third failure in eight test attempts to shoot down
a long-range dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean, and scientific
critics of the multibillion-dollar program have charged it is not yet mature
enough to begin deployment.
But Bush and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have stressed the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and missile technology have sharply increased the need for such a
defense against attack from "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq and
North Korea, especially in the wake of devastating attacks on America using
hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001.
Withdrew
From ABM Treaty
In a first step
toward setting up a missile defense umbrella, the United States in June
withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that banned such
systems. The decision to begin
deploying a national missile defense, which has been criticized by Russia and
China, follows North Korea's announcement this month that it will proceed
with a controversial program to develop nuclear weapons.
The Fort Greeley
site would allow the U.S. military to try and intercept any attack by
long-range missiles being developed by the North. The initial deployment would provide the United States --
which has been examining several ways to shoot down medium- and long-range
missiles in flight -- with a limited defense against such attack.
In London, British
officials said they had received a written request from the United States
concerning its planned missile defense shield but had not yet responded. Washington wants Britain to upgrade an
early warning radar system at Fylingdales in northern England to enhance the
program to protect both the United States and allies from attack.
Bush had wanted to
put an Alaska-based "test bed" initially with five missile silos --
and rudimentary operational capabilities against real attack -- in place by
October 2004. The test bed was
the first leg of a planned layered shield against missile attack. Other
Pentagon projects involve overlapping systems that could be based at sea, in
space and aboard laser-firing modified Boeing 747 aircraft.
For each of the past
two fiscal years alone, Bush requested and the U.S. Congress approved $7.8
billion in research, development and testing funds.
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