| WASHINGTON
- October 29 - The Pentagon's recent announcement that it has postponed three missile defense "tracking tests" because they could violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty is intended to bolster the Bush administration claim that the Treaty -- rather than technology -- is preventing the US from developing an effective defense against long-range missiles. But the postponement is disingenuous because none of these tests would address any of the numerous critical technical issues facing the development of a national missile defense system against long-range missiles. Separate Bush administration plans to begin deploying five interceptors in Alaska next spring in violation of the ABM Treaty also have no useful purpose.
"The Bush administration is trying to invent reasons to force a withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and seems to be looking hard for a test that the Pentagon is technically capable of conducting that would violate the treaty," said Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, a physicist and UCS Senior Staff Scientist. "In fact, the US could conduct a vigorous test program without withdrawing from the ABM Treaty for several years."
The tests the Pentagon says it is postponing are three "tracking tests" in which an Aegis ship-based radar would track a long-range ballistic missile. The Aegis radar is currently part of the air defense system intended to protect the ship from attacks by aircraft, and will also be used as part of the Navy Area theater missile defense currently under development for use against short-range missiles.
Two of the tracking tests were to take place during the next long-range intercept test originally scheduled for October 24. According to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, that intercept test has been postponed for technical reasons, and should take place in late November.
The intercept tests the Pentagon has been conducting -- in which an interceptor missile fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific attempts to intercept a mock warhead released by a missile launched from Vandenberg, California -- are not prohibited by the ABM Treaty. However, to prevent its signatories from giving air defense or theater missile defense systems the capability to also intercept long-range missiles, the ABM Treaty prohibits radars like the one on Aegis ships to observe long-range missiles during intercept tests. Thus, the tracking tests -- in which the Aegis radar was scheduled to track both the target missile and the interceptor missile during the intercept test -- would violate the treaty.
"These tests would not address any of the fundamental and challenging questions about the technical feasibility of either a mid-course or a boost-phase defense against long-range missiles," said Dr. David Wright, a physicist and UCS Senior Staff Scientist. "There is no compelling technical reason to conduct these tracking tests now."
The United States and Russia are reportedly discussing modifications to the ABM Treaty that might allow some Bush administration testing plans to go ahead while remaining in the treaty. However, the five interceptors the Bush administration plans to begin deploying in Alaska next spring would also serve no purpose for testing the system and would offer no useful defense against a missile attack.
"The deployment of five interceptor missiles in Alaska as part of an untested and unworkable rudimentary missile defense system would be an unambiguous, pointless violation of the ABM Treaty," said Stephen Young, UCS Senior Analyst.
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