Bush Missile Defense

It has been suggested that the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, gave George W. Bush a concrete reason to be president. If that is so, then Dec. 18, 2002, gave President Bush a legacy.

"When I came to office, I made a commitment to transform America's national security strategy and defense capabilities to meet the threats of the 21st century," stated President Bush.

"Today I am pleased to announce we will take another important step in countering these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities to protect the United States as well as our friends and allies."

President Bush's act to deploy a national, and eventually a global, missile defense system is the final step toward achieving a dream announced nearly two decades ago by President Reagan. Reagan's dream of an America safe from missile attack will soon become reality.

However, Bush's action also illustrated the dark legacy of Bill Clinton's failed defense policy that left America with no protection against missile attack.

The contrast of current policy and vision over the Clinton years was demonstrated when President Bush boldly withdrew from the 1972 ABM treaty with the former Soviet Union. The ABM treaty was a centerpiece of Clinton's defense policy. That centerpiece left America with no defense and vulnerable to missile attack on purpose.

President Clinton concluded that the Russians would react swiftly and with hostile intent to any U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty. Clinton and his advisers predicted that Russia would deploy more missiles aimed at America.

Instead, Bush's withdrawal brought exactly the opposite reaction from Moscow and has since led to discussions between the two world powers toward a joint missile defense.

Where Bush has succeeded, Clinton failed. In fact, President Clinton cancelled talks with Russia on a joint missile defense.

Moreover, Clinton's U.S. ambassador to Moscow told the Russians that America already had a missile defense system. This little white lie was never revealed to the America public because the fact is America has no such system.

Yet, while leaving America vulnerable, Clinton also negotiated changes in the ABM treaty with Moscow, allowing Russia to develop advanced anti-missile systems while the U.S. continued to ban its own defense.

President Clinton also tried several failed policies to contain the growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea. First, by using Jimmy Carter, he attempted to bribe the North Koreans into halting their weapons programs.

When it became apparent that this approach had failed, Clinton resorted to lying, and tried to ignore the North Korean threat, declaring that the tiny nation did not have missiles or A-bombs.

The Clinton policy toward North Korea came apart when his Pentagon chief of staff declared that there was no indication of a missile threat from the DPRK. One week later North Korea launched a missile over Japan that landed off the U.S. Alaska coast.

Clinton's emissary, Jimmy Carter, did no better with Kim Jong-il. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the one-term president held confused and hopeless negotiations that gave us total failure.

At one point Carter declared that North Korea had no nuclear weapons and then a few months later he declared that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons if the U.S. were to disarm itself.

One result of the recent North Korean admission to a nuclear weapons program was a choice between two evils for U.S. Asian allies. Either submit to North Korean blackmail or build nuclear weapons. This bitter choice faced by Seoul and Tokyo would mean more atomic weapons and expanded political unrest.

Instead, President Bush has given Tokyo and Seoul a third, non-nuclear, option: Join us in a missile defense. The brilliant move gives both Japan and South Korea a way of defending themselves against North Korea without having to take up nuclear arms.

There is no question that the same shield can also defuse the powder keg of future war between Taiwan and China. By extending the same missile defense offer to Taipei, Bush can give Taiwan the ability to defend itself against the 650 Chinese missiles pointed at the tiny nation. The offer alone would remove the internal pressure inside Taiwan toward nuclear weapons development designed to counter the massive PRC threat of invasion.

One key element to the Bush missile defense is the U.S. Navy Aegis system. The old ABM treaty with the Soviet Union banned the deployment of anti-missile systems onboard ships. The move to put the Navy on the front line of American home defense was canceled repeatedly by the Clinton administration.

Again, the brilliant move by Bush allows the United States to take advantage of $60 billion worth of missile-firing warships already deployed around the globe.

The removal of the treaty restrictions allowed the U.S. Navy to successfully test the Standard Missile-3. The new Navy missile has performed three consecutive intercepts and is already deployed on the USS Lake Erie as a test bed.

Navy sources indicated that two such ships could defend the West Coast against a North Korean attack and a single ship could defend Hawaii. Additional warships can be stationed close to North Korea, providing local defense for South Korea and Japan.

Finally, the Navy's missile defense system is mobile. Ships can be re-deployed rapidly to areas of new threats around the world. The same warships can protect U.S. coastal cities from sneak attacks fired from cargo ships as well as cruise missile attacks.

At a recent missile defense conference held by the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), virtually all the participants agreed that the most immediate threat to America is a sneak attack from a short-range missile stationed on a cargo vessel.

According to Congressmen Curt Weldon, R-Pa., "that rogue threat is the most likely scenario for an attack on the U.S."

According to Weldon, the U.S. had monitored a ship-based missile test staged by Iran in the Caspian Sea. Both Weldon and Bush administration sources confirmed that additional funding for Patriot PAC-3 missiles had been approved in an effort to quickly counter the short-range sea-borne missile threat.

Weldon predicted that Bush's move to deploy a missile defense would be greeted by many on Capitol Hill with praise and promises of funding.

For example, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the likely chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, praised Bush's actions and stated that Congress would approve the additional $1.5 billion funding.

"We have been vulnerable. It cost us 28 lives in 1991 when Saddam Hussein fired a Scud missile into a U.S. Army barracks. We could not defend ourselves," said Weldon.

"America vulnerabilities have to be dealt with. It was the right decision. It is not an offensive system. It is all about defending ourselves," concluded Weldon.

Let me see if I can find some relevant links ( still limping along after a system crash last week; everything's scattered )--

Israel is worth talking to about this:

-Israel's Arrow Anti-Missile System and the THEL...--

Also, Charlie has his own site- very interesting... and a few more sites:

-Softwar!-- has tons of National Security info-

-Bill Gertz's Site--

-AviationNow--

-The Center for Security Policy--

-The S-300PMU [SA-10 land-based, SA-N-6 naval version] surface-to-air missile system --

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