The Billiken's Bluff

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - An important test of the United States' fledgling missile defense system ended in failure early Wednesday as an interceptor rocket failed to launch on cue from the Marshall Islands, the Pentagon said.

After a rocket carrying a mock warhead as a target was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, the interceptor, which was intended to go aloft 16 minutes later and home in on the target 100 miles over the earth, automatically shut down because of "an unknown anomaly," according to the Missile Defense Agency of the Defense Department.

This is the headline from the NY Times December 16, 2004, not some Cold War newspaper clipping that I found in my attic (Hell, I don't even have an attic). This is not Reagan’s Star Wars Program. We are really building a Missile Defense System. Right now.

I realize Putin is getting pretty rambunctious over in Russia. And I also realize that the day will come when China kicks Walmart out of Shanghai and we will be forced to invade the Orient. But surely that is decades down the line. See when I heard Bush talk about suring up our shores, tightening security at the borders, I was thinking more along the lines of agents at South Street Seaport and JFK. Can a Missile Defense Shield (I have to admit it sounds pretty snazzy) really be a top priority for this admisitration? Can they, with a straight face, talk about the War on Terror, protecting our children, and the need for a missile defense system in the same breath? Of course they can.

The missile defense program is to cost more than $50 billion over the next five years. Wednesday's failed test alone had a budget of $85 million. In fact, the Missile Defense Agency has spent $80 billion dollars since 1985, and the shield is still nowhere near operational. This has some in Washington questioning whether such a Shield is even possible.

I always like to do a little research of my own so I had my friend Singapore examine the proposed Missile Defense Shield.

He returned with this diagram-



And regretfully concluded that, “It's jus' naat feasabul!!!!”.


$85 million and they got an error message, probably not all that dissimilar from the one that I just saw pop-up on my desk top. I understand that $85 million just doesn’t buy as much as it used to (with the plummeting Dollar and whatnot), but how many bullet-proof Humvees and Kevlar vest could we supply our troops with for $85 million? A couple at least.

I don’t know, I’m sure a legitimate case can be made for having a missile defense system (I wouldn’t make it, but then again you already knew that). But is now the right time to be testing this program? I'm not saying scrap the program entirely, but why not put the Missile Shield on the backburner for a bit. $50 billion over 5 years could mean a lot of things. It could mean a few more agents patrolling the Mexican border, it could mean a few new scanners at the airport, hell if you want to get all fiscally conservative it might even mean a larger tax cut. How about we hold off on the $100 million-a-day Midway Island tests until after the Iraq conflict.

Not even a week ago Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke to our troops in Kuwait (as close as he dared get to the front lines) and was questioned about the abominable lack of body armor US troops are equipped with. Forgetting all his blunders and rhetorical missteps for a moment, he said something relevant to the Missile Defense Program:

“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.”

So my question for Rumsfeld, or better yet for his imminent replacement, is what kind of army do you want?