The Fire Next Time: America’s Vulnerability to a Missile Attack

Accuracy In Media ^ | August 05, 2002 | Paul M. Weyrich

[Tailgunner Joe]

It is nearly twenty years since President Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI. Quickly dubbed "Star Wars" by the opposition, the program proved to be extremely popular. Still, Reagan would not opt out of our disarmament agreement with the then-Soviet Union known as the ABM treaty, so the best that could be done during the last six years of the Reagan Presidency was to research SDI and begin limited testing of it.

The same held true for the Presidency of the senior George Bush, who was distinctly less enthusiastic about SDI than was his predecessor. Moreover, the elder Bush felt himself bound by the ABM treaty, which he viewed as the cornerstone of our defense policy. President Clinton all but killed the SDI program and only a determined group in the Congress and some enthusiasts at the Pentagon kept it alive.

Now along comes President George W. Bush. He had raised hopes that a missile defense system would at last become a reality. Bush served notice to Russia, the successor state to the collapsed Soviet Union, that the United States is withdrawing from the ABM treaty. The presumed outcome of that initiative, that relations between Russia and the United States would disintegrate, did not take place. Russia accepted the U.S. position, even though it said it disagreed with it.

So everything appeared to be set for actually deploying a missile defense system. The majority of tests conducted with interceptors were successful. The tests showed that the system would work. This is not the massive system envisioned by Reagan who was dealing with a hostile Soviet Union which had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at the United States. Rather the system to be deployed by the USA now would be aimed at thwarting a single missile launched from a missile base located in a rogue state or from a freighter at sea.

Unfortunately for George W. Bush, Carl Levin (D-MI) took over as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from Sen. John Warner (R-VA). Levin is unremittingly hostile to a missile defense system for the USA. He has thrown every possible obstacle in Bush's way, and Bush has not fought for missile defense the way most of us presumed he would. The result is that we are beginning to go backward instead of forward in the deployment of a system that works.

Meanwhile the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis [http://www.ifpa.org] has produced a study that I wish every adult in this country could read. Short of that, I'd settle for mandatory reading by all Members of Congress.

The study is entitled "Scenarios Involving Various U.S. Cities Attacked by Al Qaeda Terrorists with Sea Launched SCUD Nuclear Missiles"

The study involves Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Norfolk, Va, Miami, Houston, San Diego, Hollywood, San Francisco and Seattle.

In each case, a rationale for the attack from Al Qaeda's point of view is provided. Boston, for instance, is a bastion of liberal western intellectual thought and ideas; science is viewed as greater than religion; critical elements of the U.S. high-tech, military/industrial complex are located there. And the same type of analysis is detailed for other cities too. Details of the attack are provided, the tonnage of the warhead, how it was obtained, how it was transported to an area close enough to be effective.

Then the impact of the explosion. Immediately 125,000 of Boston's 600,000 residents would be killed. Another 25% would be injured. Most buildings in a one-mile radius would be destroyed. The majority of buildings in a three-mile radius devastated. Fires that are started all over the city would cause another 60,000 dead and 120,000 injured. The study then details the causes of the fatalities.

This is done for all of the strategic cities covered by the study. This study has a chilling effect on anyone who doesn't believe that we are vulnerable to attack. The premise is that we would be attacked by a single SCUD missile, which we know the terrorists already have. Do they have nuclear capability? Experts who calculate threats to this country believe that the terrorists may indeed have nuclear capability based on the fact that nuclear scientists and materials are unaccounted for from the former Soviet Union. This study reveals just how vulnerable the United States is to a terrorist attack.

I don't know what it will take to turn Congress around. I don't know what will renew a sense of urgency on the part of the Bush Administration to deploy a workable sea based missile defense system. We don't have a moment to spare. If you see your Congressman or Senator during this summer recess, you must raise the issue with him or her. Our very lives may depend on it.

[First_Salute]

Already had one, in July of 1996, when TWA 800 was shot down.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Feds will never admit to a missile attack on a US airliner because they cannot pretend that hiring 80,000 high school dropouts off the welfare rolls and letting them root through your underwear and feel you up will prevent it.

Which is also why they imprison anyone who writes a book proving that Flight 800 was a missile attack.

[Alberta's Child]

Maybe I'm completely ignorant about this, but I was under the impression that a missile defense system would be practically useless against anything other than an intercontinental ballistic missile. Heck, last September 11th the U.S. was completely powerless against four slow-moving (compared to missiles) passenger jets.

[Doctor Stochastic]

None of the SDI stuff will intercept a sea-launched SCUD. (The Coast Guard may sink the ship before launch though.) There simply isn't reaction time. A trans-polar launch may take 15 to 20 minutes to impact but a sea launch could strike in much less time.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to SDI, just that one has to be realistic.

[Alberta's Child]

The result is that we are beginning to go backward instead of forward in the deployment of a system that works.

Mr. Weyrich should also note that the United States is moving forward with its missile defense system regardless of the posturing that these mediocrities in the U.S. Senate are doing.

[Tactical Thunder]

Not true ABL can hit an ICBM. In boost and they will be flying in 2003. Thank God G.W. made sure we have money for this program GO ABL and THEILL......

[Doctor Stochastic]

SCUDS are not ICBMS. These are very short range missles.

[Zeroisanumber]

How is an SDI system going to stop a missle launched from a surface ship? Or even a criuse missle? Hell, we're luckey if the SDI missles that we have can get out of their f*cking launchers, much less hit anything.

[Tactical Thunder]

You are right! They are slower and will be easier to shoot down. So do you even know that ABL and THEILL......are it doesn't sound like it.

[Tactical Thunder]

Thel will shoot down everything you want shoot down
and could be up and running if the DEM's didn't pull the funding out from under it. G.W. is trying to get the funding back right now.

Aerospace & Defense
Laser Systems
Government Products and Programs: Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL)

Defense at the Speed of Light 

Theater threats - short-range rockets and artillery, UAVs, cruise missiles, pop-up helicopters - can appear very late, without warning. Countering these late detection threats requires a weapon that is fast, accurate and close-in. It demands the speed-of-light engagement of a laser. 

We know it works; lethality has been demonstrated in live shoot-downs. A TRW-built high energy laser successfully targeted and shot down an operational short-range rocket in a 1996 flight test - on the first firing. That successful field test was made possible by 20 years of ongoing research and development in laser beam generation and pointing technologies - groundwork that has made THEL a mature short to medium-range air defense capability. 

The World's First Laser-Based Air Defense System 

TRW is, under contract to the U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command, building a THEL demonstrator. The system features mature technologies and a proven deuterium fluoride chemical laser. It will be field tested at the U.S. Army's high energy laser system test facility at White Sands Missile Range, NM. With lethality already demonstrated, the final steps in validating THEL as a weapon are field tests with its C3I control system and radar against live, flying threats. The effort, a collaboration between the U.S. Army and Israel, will use THEL to kill a number of short-range rockets. 

When you don't see a threat until very late, or unmasked time is short, you don't get a second chance. In field tests against short-range rockets, TRW's laser has never missed.  

[Tactical Thunder]

Here is an update on ABL
Aerospace & Defense
Laser Systems
Government Products and Programs: Airborne Laser (ABL)

TRW is a member of a team selected by the U.S. Air Force to develop and demonstrate a revolutionary new weapon system-Airborne Laser (ABL). Team ABL includes the USAF, Boeing, TRW and Lockheed Martin. TRW is designing and developing the system's Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) and providing ground support. Boeing, the team leader, is responsible for weapon system integration and supplies the 747-400F aircraft and BMC4I-battle management, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence. Lockheed Martin supplies the Beam Control/Fire Control system. 

ABL is one part of the DOD's robust "Family of Systems" architecture that addresses the world's growing theater ballistic missile (TBM) threat. Only ABL can destroy hostile TBMs while they are still in the highly vulnerable boost phase of flight-before separation of the warheads. ABL will operate above the clouds, where it will autonomously detect and track missiles as they are launched, using an onboard surveillance system. The Beam Control/Fire Control system will acquire the target, then accurately point and fire the laser with sufficient energy to destroy the missile. 

The TRW laser will use common industrial chemicals (such as hydrogen peroxide, chlorine and iodine) to create ABL's lethal beam.  Its fundamental building block is the Laser Module (LM).  The "engine" of the onboard laser, the LM generates power in the multi-hundred kilowatt range; several LMs will be linked together in series to achieve the megawatt-class power needed by ABL.  The demonstration unit of the first LM produced 110% of its design output power in performance tests.  Built of advanced, lightweight materials, the laser is designed for simple, safe theater operations and maintenance. 

TRW has been designing, developing and producing advanced laser technology since 1961. TRW produced the world's first high energy chemical laser and the nation's only megawatt class chemical lasers, MIRACL and Alpha. The company develops a wide range of chemical lasers (deuterium fluoride, hydrogen fluoride, oxygen iodine), diode-pumped solid-state lasers and excimer lasers for force defense against a broad spectrum of missile threats. 

[Mr. Jeeves]

I don't know what it will take to turn Congress around.

Losing a city. Which will immediately become "Bush's fault".

[Kozak]

Heck, last September 11th the U.S. was completely powerless against four slow-moving (compared to missiles) passenger jets.

I was just in DC over the july 4th holiday, despite all the "increased threat" talk. but something really bugs me, particularly when that light aircraft flew into the DC restricted air space.

We are at WAR. Why is there no air defence of our capital? There should be a 24/7 cap of fighters, a Patriot battery at each end of the mall and a Phalanx close defence weapon on the White House, Capital and Pentagon. What in Gods name do we have a military for?

[swarthyguy]

Thanks for posting info on the Boeing 747 with a laser.
Saved me the trouble...:))

[GOP_1900AD]

Depending on the range, a SCUD may well go exoatmospheric for a significant portion of the trajectory. That said, the real worry is over cruise missiles and other non-ballistic means of munitions delivery. More than simple kinectic kill systems are needed to create truly comphrensive air defenses. The US as it stands are woefully inadequate on all fronts in this regard simply because no one has ever seriously accounted for a massive or even significant but limited attack on CONUS. Ignorance is bliss...