****THEIR SIMULATED ATTACK ON THE U.S. BY FIVE ICBMS SHOWS AMERICANS ARE
DEFENSELESS.****
COLORADO SPRINGS - It was only a simulation, but tension filled the Pentagon's Cheyenne
Mountain Complex here when soldiers watched China's long-range nuclear missiles streak
northward, heading toward the United States.
The oversized computer screen at the complex, known as the "Mountain," lit up as
red lines showed the flight path of the Chinese missiles as they traveled over the globe
to targets in the United States.
Hit: areas near Seattle, Colorado Springs, Chicago, New York and Washington.
"Sir, for the exercise, we have multiple missile launches," a voice announced
through speakers inside the Mountain. "Stand by for target report."
"Intel indicates the probable launch of five ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic
missiles) from China," an officer says. "Intel assesses this to be combat
against North America."
That was the scenario played out Friday in the U.S. Space Command's dimly lit command
bunker, located nearly a mile beneath the Rocky Mountains.
If China had actually launched a nuclear missile attack on the United States, the soldiers
inside this command center, who monitor missile launches around the world, 24 hours a day,
would have been the first to know.
The exercise highlights that Russia is not the only strategic nuclear threat to the United
States. China has a small arsenal of about 24 CSS-4 long-range missiles capable of hitting
all of the United States except parts of southern Florida.
Last year the CIA
reported secretly within the U.S. government that 13 of them were targeted at U.S. cities.
China, however, is
building three new ICBMs, including two road-mobile systems that the CIA believes will be
the first to incorporate stolen U.S. missile technology and small warhead design
information.
U.S. relations with China have grown tense since NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade last spring. China cut off all military contacts with the United
States in response and stepped up a propaganda campaign.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin criticized the United States during a speech in Bangkok
yesterday. He said Washington's "gunboat diplomacy" and "economic
colonialism" are threats to world peace and international security.
China's increased tensions with Taiwan also are a potential flash point. In 1995, Chinese
Gen. Xiong Guongkai told a former Pentagon official that the United States would not
intervene to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack because it "cares more about Los
Angeles than Taipei."
The remark was reported to the White House at the time as a threat to use nuclear weapons
against the United States. The Pentagon responded by saying China would be foolish to
attack America with nuclear weapons because it would face retaliation from the much larger
U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Ten years ago, this exercise in the command center probably would have shown long red
lines from Soviet missile fields heading toward the United States.
Air Force Col. Allen Baker, director of operations for the North American Aerospace
Command, said once the missile launches are confirmed with ground-based radar, he'd be
"telling the president how many minutes until Washington, D.C., is gone."
When asked if the
military has anything that can knock the missiles down, Col. Baker said, "Absolutely
nothing."
So why track them?
"We're tracking them so we can tell our commanders exactly what is happening so they
can figure out what their response is going to be," he said. "If they take out
Washington, D.C., do we want to take out Beijing? I don't know. That's their
decision."
If the United States deploys a limited national missile defense, "that system will be
able to destroy incoming missiles," Col. Baker said.
President Clinton
signed legislation earlier this year stating that it is U.S. policy to deploy a missile
defense as soon as technologically possible. But the president has said there is no
decision yet on whether to build a limited defense against long-range missile attack. A
deployment decision is expected next June.
Earlier, in a briefing, Canadian Air Force Brig. Gen. William Calbfliesch, deputy
commander of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, said the Wyoming center could
provide about 35 minutes advance notice before the Chinese missiles would impact.
The space command is not involved in retaliation. That job is carried out by another
military base, the U.S. Strategic Command, located at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
There have been two war scares at the mountain in the past. Col. Baker said in 1979 a
simulation tape of a massive incoming Soviet strategic missile attack was mistaken for a
real attack. The false warning data was sent out to other command centers and the response
was "Oh my God, there's an attack," he said.
National security officials in the Carter administration were informed that some 2,000
missiles were on their way. Under U.S. strategic doctrine, a retaliatory nuclear attack
must be ordered before the first missile hits.
Col. Baker said the mishap nearly led to the launch of U.S. nuclear missiles against
Russia.
"I was a captain in the Air Force in Grand Forks, North Dakota, sitting 60 feet
underground in a silo when the first one happened," Col. Baker said. "And there
was enough time that we actually prepared the nuclear warhead capsule for launch, we
actually put in launch keys, we actually pulled out our authentication system and strapped
our chairs down and strapped ourselves in and prepared for launch."
"No launches occurred, however," he said. "We all wouldn't be sitting here
if it did. But we were ready to go."
Army Maj. Michael Birmingham said a second alarming incident took place several months
later in June 1980 when a computer chip "went haywire," showing a missile
launch.
After radar ground stations showed no incoming missiles, "that's when they realized
it was a multiplexer in the system," Maj. Birmingham said. A multiplexer is a
computer chip.
The computer systems were upgraded afterward to prevent any further mishaps, he said.
About 1,200 troops work the Cheyenne Mountain, which has been operating nonstop since
1967. The complex uses space sensors and ground radar to monitor all aircraft flying over
North America, to warn of incoming missiles - both long-range missiles targeted at the
United States and short-range missiles fired abroad. The Mountain also has a center that
tracks objects in space. An intelligence center also operates in the mountain. Officials
said the center is closely watching North Korea in anticipation of a long-range missile
test.
"We are rarely surprised," Col. Baker said.
In a separate center in the complex, the U.S. Space Command keeps around-the-clock tabs on
the nearly 9,000 objects circling the globe in space. The objects include about 700 active
satellites and the rest is orbiting material that ranges in size from metal pieces of
defunct spacecraft to discarded rocket boosters up to 30 feet long.
"We're mostly tracking space junk," said Air Force Lt. David Levy, the center's
director.
What about space aliens?
The center's computer system can weed out fast moving objects, such as meteors, and other
unidentified objects are analyzed. Most turn out to be manmade objects, Lt. Levy said.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used
for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
All,
If you want to learn more see the:
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bump for records
Just checking in to add some background to this story. A good spin-off to this great Gertz article would be a summary of the Clinton/Gore resistance to a National Missle Defense. I have read the Les Aspen testimony before Congress defending the administration's position on the major funding cuts in 93-94, and Clinton and others assertions that we faced no threats in the near future from attack, and therefore we could worry about this later. The Democratic party was an accomplice to the spreading of this false propaganda. We now know that Intelligence community had briefed the administration on technology transfers and China/North Korea nuclear weapon advances in 94-95. Also, Russia was actively proliferating weapon tech to rogues like Iran, and unstable regions such as Pakistan and India....This is just another example of a deeply flawed foreign policy decision by the anti-nuke crowd that Clinton and Gore assembled to direct our national security.....I know you know all this Jolly, I just feel the need to vent...Hope all is well....
Here are some direct quotes from Floyd Spence last year that summarizes the Clinton politics of 95 in regard to national missle defense....
"The president ultimately vetoed the Defense Authorization Bill in December of 1995, based on his opposition to a provision which called for deployment of a national missile defense. In so doing, the president cited the NIE's assertion that Americans were safe from the threat of long-range ballistic missile attack for more than a decade. "
"For months following the veto, I tried unsuccessfully to have the General Accounting Office granted access to the intelligence community in an effort to independently verify the methodology and conclusions of the controversial NIE."
"The administration refused to grant GAO the necessary access. So the commission reporting to us today was created in legislation I authored in the fiscal year 1997 Defense Authorization Bill. Consistent with its mandate, the commission assessed the ballistic missile threat. "
"The report contains an especially disturbing conclusion that ballistic missile threats will likely manifest themselves sooner than we think leaving little time or ability for the nation to respond. In theworld of national security, when a worst-case assessment becomes a most-likely scenario, taking a business-as-usual approach to policymaking is indefensible."
"I'm also struck by the commission's finding that the ballistic missile threat to the United States is, quote, "broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has been reported in estimates and reports by the intelligence community." Unquote."
"Furthermore, as a longtime critic of this and previous administrations' export control policies, I am not surprised by the commission's finding that the progressive relaxation of our own United States export control policies has made the United States, and I quote, "a major, albeit unintentional, contributor" -- unquote -- to the proliferation problem."
"When I was working on the commission's charter back in 1996, my efforts were repeatedly resisted by the senior administration officials who argued that taking a Team B (ph) approach to this issue of the ballistic missile threat was not needed and would prove unproductive."
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FLOYD SPENCE (R-SC), CHAIR, JULY 16, 1998
"The acquisition and use of transferred technologies in ballistic and WMD programs has been facilitated by foreign student training in the US, by wide dissemination of technical information, by the illegal acquisition of US designs and equipment and by the relaxation of US export control policies. As a result, the US has been and is today a major, albeit unintentional, contributor to the proliferation of missiles and associated weapons of mass destruction....."
"One is technology transfer. We are living in a relaxed, post Cold War world. It's a different world. We've seen liberalized export controls, increased international exchanges of students and scientists, hundreds of Russian and Chinese academic people and students in our national laboratories. We've seen leaks of classified information from all branches of government......."
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Missle News July 1998 Article re: Rumsfeld Report
Key Findings of Rumsfeld Commission
Bump and tag for future reference!
I bump this also, great find.
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