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U.S. Navy to Deploy Ships Near N. Korea
In the first step toward erecting a multi-billion-dollar shield to protect the United States from foreign missiles, the U.S. Navy will begin deploying state-of-the-art destroyers to patrol the waters off North Korea as early as next week. The mission, to be conducted in the Sea of Japan by ships assigned to the Navy's 7th fleet, will help lay the foundation for a system to detect and intercept ballistic missiles launched by "rogue nations." Washington hopes to complete the network over the next several years. "We are on track," Vice Admiral Jonathan Greenert, commander of the 7th Fleet, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday aboard the USS Coronado, which is based just south of Tokyo. "We will be ready to conduct the mission when assigned."

The deployment will be the first in a controversial program that is high on President Bush's defense agenda. Bush cleared the way to build the system two years ago by withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned ship-based missile defenses. He said protecting America from ballistic missiles was "my highest priority as commander in chief, and the highest priority of my administration." The project — likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet, only at three times the speed — is exceedingly complex, prompting many critics to argue that it will never be reliable or effective. It is also expensive, with an estimated price tag of US$51 billion over the next five years.

When it comes to dollars and self-preservation, I'll usually choose self-preservation.

It's my ambition to die in bed, at home, from heart failure brought on by over-extertion, between two comely 25-year-old women who're precisely a quarter my age. So I've still got a few years to go. Unlike "many critics," I don't equate "exceedingly complex" with "impossible," so I'll work on the details of my eventual demise and the engineers can work on the details of preventing me from going out in the boom from a cheapass Juche-fuelled missile, and we'll all be happy. Except for the NKors, and they don't count. And the babes, who'll be devastated until the reading of the will.

Posted by: Fred 2004-09-24
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=44170