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Retired top brass say no to ’missile shield’
Filed under Politix as this is an early example of what will be come a pattern: disgruntled brass going after Bush.
Forty-nine retired generals and admirals yesterday urged President Bush to suspend plans for a national missile shield and instead use the money to secure nuclear materials abroad and ports and borders at home.
I’d respect this more if they said "use the extra money to lay waste to Syria and Iran.
The Bush administration plans to field a nationwide defense system in September to shoot down missiles armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and has budgeted $3.7 billion this year for the project.
Thus fulfilling a campaign pledge.
But the 49 former senior military leaders contend that the system remains unproven. They also said it is more likely that terrorists would smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States than a country would launch a missile at the United States, risking a devastating retaliatory strike. "As you have said, Mr. President, our highest priority is to prevent terrorists from acquiring and employing weapons of mass destruction," wrote the former officers, including noted peacenik who opposed GWI retired Admiral William J. Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired General Joseph P. Hoar, former chief of the US Central Command.
Apparantly, Kim Jung Il was unable to sign the letter, but has offered many supportive press releases over the years.
The retired officers added that "the militarily responsible course of action" is to turn national defense over to the customs service use the funding for the missile shield "to secure the multitude of facilities containing nuclear weapons and materials and to protect our ports and borders against terrorists who may attempt to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States."
Basically do what Kerry wants to do.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recently concluded that only two of the antimissile system’s 10 key technologies have been fully tested. Meanwhile, to make the September deadline, the Pentagon has waived some operational testing requirements. The military’s top weapons tester stated earlier this month that such testing is not planned "for the foreseeable future."
Please tell me this latter quote is out of context. Still, many lives have been saved by rushing new technologies into service during wartime. Providing CAS from a B-52 using JDAM was untested in Nov. 2001.
The letter calls on the president to "postpone operational deployment of the expensive and untested" system.
...as Sen. Kerry suggests.
It is one element of a larger missile defense effort -- estimated to cost $53 billion over the next five years -- that will use ships at sea and other methods to track and deflect missile launches. Navy Secretary Gordon England announced Monday that a specially equipped Aegis destroyer will be positioned this fall in the Sea of Japan, where it will be an alert for North Korean missile launches.
The retired brass would prefer that Japan builds a bunch of nukes.
Posted by: JAB 2004-03-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=29185