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The Military’s $40B Missile Defense Program ‘Unable To Protect The U.S. Public’

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(DANIEL JENNINGS)  The Pentagon’s $40 billion anti-missile defense system is incapable of protecting American cities from an attack, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The story of this system is a cautionary tale about how the lack of appropriate oversight of a politically charged missile defense program has led to a system in tatters,” the report, written by physicists Laura Grego, David Wright and George N. Lewis alleged. It was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. “Despite more than a decade of development and a bill of $40 billion, the GMD [Ground-based Midcourse Defense] system is simply unable to protect the U.S. public.

The GMD consists of rockets that are designed to be able to hit and knock out incoming nuclear missiles. Its purpose is to protect America cities from smaller nuclear-armed powers, such as North Korea.

In theory, missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, and Ft. Greely, Alaska would launch and intercept a missile from North Korea or elsewhere. But in the seven most recent tests, there were only three successes, the Times reported. And those tests were “heavily scripted” and “set up for success.”

“Repeatedly,” the report said, “the Pentagon has sacrificed quality, shortened engineering cycles and sidestepped acquisitions best practices to meet a deadline imposed by political rationales rather than technical realities.”