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Japan and the United States have tentatively agreed to expand co-operation in the missile defence field.. a [Japanese] spokesman said its scope is not expected to include Japan allowing the export of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA, which is currently being jointly developed....both sides said they wanted to further co-operation in jointly developing missile defence systems..[the US asked Japan to consider permitting export of jointly-developed missiles, most likely to Europe].

Japanese naval forces successfully shot down a medium-range missile off Hawaii in a test of Tokyo's missile defense weaponry, the US military said on Wednesday. A Japanese destroyer detected, tracked and knocked out the missile in mid-flight with an SM-3 interceptor rocket, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said in a statement. The missile was launched on Tuesday at 6:00 pm Hawaii time (0400 GMT) at a missile range site off Kauai in Hawaii and at 6:04, an SM-3 interceptor was fired in response, the MDA said. "Approximately three minutes later, the SM-3 successfully intercepted the target approximately 100 miles...

The U.S. Army has formed its second THAAD anti-ballistic missile (ABM) battery. The first battery was formed last year, and will be ready for combat next year. Next, the army will form two more THAAD batteries over the next three years. Three years ago, there was a successful test of THAAD (a SCUD type target was destroyed in flight) using a crew of soldiers for the first time, and not manufacturer technicians, to operate the system. Each THAAD battery has 24 missiles, three launchers and a fire control communications system. This includes an X-Band radar. The gear for each battery...

Key Findings --America’s support for a Missile Defense system continues at an extremely high level (88%), a 2 percentage point increase from 2008 and a 5 percentage point increase from 2007. More than 3 out of 4 adults, 77%, feel “strongly” about their support, also a 2 percentage point increase from 2008 and an 8 percentage point increase from 2007. Currently, support ranges from 82% in the West and 83% in the Northeast to 91% in the South and 94% in the North Central region of the U.S. Men and women are at the identical 88% support level. Republican support...

AMSTERDAM, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday he hopes his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in July in Moscow will promote a new nuclear disarmament treaty. "We are ready to cut our strategic delivery vehicles by several times compared to the START-1 treaty. As for warheads connected with these delivery vehicles, their number should be lower than the level envisioned by the Moscow Treaty of 2002," Medvedev told journalists. "We are for real, effective and checkable cuts," he said, adding that at the meeting with Obama they will also discuss economic and regional problems,...

MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov, for RIA Novosti) - The Czech government has suspended the ratification of its agreement with the United States on the deployment of a missile tracking radar. Some military analysts link this decision with the changes in the new U.S. administration's attitude to the plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems in Eastern Europe. Barack Obama said during his election campaign that the efficiency of the system should be scrutinized. When he was elected president, he said he might put off the ABM plans for Europe or bury the idea, especially if Russia would help convince Iran to suspend...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Friday it conducted a successful test of its missile defense system, but the target failed to deploy measures that experts said could have helped it avoid destruction. The test took place as the Pentagon braces for more scrutiny of the program after President-elect Barack Obama, a Democrat, takes office in January. The system, which officials say is to defend against states such as North Korea and Iran, is a flagship policy of the Republican Bush administration. In Friday's test, a target missile was fired from Kodiak, Alaska, and its warhead was destroyed...

(CNSNews.com) – Poland’s willingness to accept U.S. missile interceptors as part of a multi-layered network suggests Ronald Reagan’s vision for a protective shield is gaining momentum throughout the free world, according to a strategic defense expert who spoke to CNSNews.com from Warsaw, Poland. “This is a tremendous milestone and an historic moment,” said Riki Ellison, president and founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), which is based in Alexandria. Va. “If you look at this in the broader international context with 26 NATO nations now supporting this system, it is a very Reaganesque move, but it is no longer...

Missile Defense Agency director, announced today that testing of a key propulsion system component for the Agency’s Multiple Kill Vehicle-L (MKV-L) payload has been successfully completed. During an engagement with the enemy, this high-performance propulsion system maneuvers the carrier vehicle and its cargo of kill vehicles into the threat complex to intercept the targets. This technology will negate more advanced countermeasures that could be aboard hostile ballistic missiles. In the event of an enemy launch, a single interceptor equipped with this payload destroys not only the re-entry vehicle but also all credible threat objects,including countermeasures the enemy deploys to try...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is facing renewed criticism regarding his national security policies as he continues his campaign for his party's presidential nomination. In a YouTube video Obama made for a liberal pacifist organization last year, the senator called for major cuts in defense spending, slowing the development of future combat systems, and cutting investments in America's ballistic missile defense program. Some conservatives have expressed surprise at the degree of Obama's proposals on the video, and this past weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign released an ad criticizing Obama's alleged national security inexperience and trumpeting her as the...

WASHINGTON - Borrowing a theme from the presidential contest, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the possibility of a 3 a.m. emergency call to the White House is all the more reason for the next commander in chief to follow through on President Bush's plans for a national missile defense. "It's plain to see that the world around us gives ample reason to continue working on missile defense," Cheney told the conservative Heritage Foundation at a dinner recognizing the 25th anniversary of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed network of rockets capable of shooting down incoming intercontinental ballistic...

An attempt to blast a crippled U.S. spy satellite out of the sky using a Navy heat-seeking missile — possibly on Wednesday night — would be the first real-world use of this piece of the Pentagon's missile defense network. But that is not the mission for which it was intended. The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a weapon like a long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit. The three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests...

MOSCOW: Russia will set up a massive anti-missile shield in Iran that will virtually guarantee the country against military attacks. Moscow will supply Tehran with the advanced long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile complexes, informed Russian sources said. “Several dozen S-300PMU-1 complexes will be delivered to Iran under a contract signed several years ago,” the Interfax news agency quoted a defence industry source as saying on Wednesday. He said deliveries could start as early as next year. Another Russian defence source told the Kommersant daily that Moscow was planning to sell Iran five batteries of S-300 launchers at a price of $800...

Following are remarks pertaining to missile defense that President Bush made Tuesday in an address at National Defense University in Washington, D.C.The war on terror will be won on the offense — and that's where I intend to keep it, on the offense. Yet protecting our citizens is — also requires defensive measures here at home. It's a new kind of war. It's a different conflict that you're studying here at NDU. It requires us to use all assets to keep the pressure on the enemy. There should be no day where they do not feel the pressure of...

Lieutenant General Henry A. ‘Trey” Obering, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director, announced the successful completion today of MDA’s latest “hit to kill” intercept flight test conducted jointly with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. This was the 28th successful intercept in 36 missile defense tests since 2001. The test involved a “separating” target, meaning that the target warhead separated from its booster rocket. The event, designated as Flight Test Standard Missile -12 (FTM-12), marked the ninth successful intercept in eleven flight tests for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Program, the sea-based component of the Agency’s Ballistic Missile...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Bush administration is not willing to replace its plan for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe with Russia's counterproposal for a radar site in Azerbaijan. That's the blunt message Gates was to deliver to Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov during a private meeting Friday at the NATO gathering in Brussels. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Gates said that despite strident Russian opposition, the U.S. will proceed with its plans for a radar system in the Czech Republic to watch for missile threats and 10 interceptor rockets in Poland to shoot...

Czech Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanova has sung a song in support of the planned construction of the U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic, which she wants to present as a gift for U.S. President George W. Bush who will arrive in Prague this evening. Parkanova told CTK that the song is to counterbalance "the tense and negative campaign accompanying the debate about the radar base." She said she would personally give the CD with the song to Bush on Tuesday during the official talks between the Czech and U.S. delegations. Bush is to discuss with top Czech politicians especially...

The House of Representatives has cut more than $764 million from the administration's proposed spending of $8.9 billion on missile defenses in the next fiscal year. The development came as no surprise to Capitol Hill watchers who forecast that the Democratic majority in Congress was licking its chops to cut the legs out from under the administration's controversial plans to begin digging silos for 10 interceptors in Poland and ramping-up a tracking radar in the Czech Republic — all cogs in a system to defend Europe against the long-range ballistic missile threat from Iran. Some $160 million was cut from...

MISSILE DEFENSE Missile Defense Funding Reaches Compromise Point by Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst Washington (UPI) May 14, 2007 Was last week's congressional compromise on U.S. ballistic missile defense funding a disastrous defeat for the program, or was it a resounding victory for ensuring the survival and continued funding of key programs? Was it a bitter, short-sighted bipartisan fight of the kind that gives Congress a bad name? Or was it a triumph for constructive bipartisanship that forged a new and likely lasting consensus for the visionary program between Republicans and Democrats? On one hand, the program slashed overall...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that US plans to build a missile defence system in eastern Europe would raise the risk of "mutual destruction". Poland and the Czech Republic are keen to allow the US to site missile bases and radars on their territory. Mr Putin spoke a day after threatening to halt involvement with a treaty limiting conventional arms in Europe. "The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times," he told Russian media. "This is not just a defence system, this is part of the US nuclear weapons system," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted...

LIHUE, Hawaii, April 25 (UPI) -- The USS Lake Erie is set to attempt an ambitious anti-ballistic missile test against two simultaneous targets Thursday. The exercise will be a delayed test of the U.S. Navy's Aegis ABM system, the Honolulu Advertiser reported Wednesday. "A similar test was aborted in December because of an incorrect setting in the Aegis missile system aboard the cruiser Lake Erie. This is the 10th intercept attempt. Of the previous nine, seven resulted in successful intercepts," the newspaper said. In one of the tests, the interceptor will be fired from the warship at a simulated short-range...

Russia is preparing its own military response to the US's controversial plans to build a new missile defence system in eastern Europe, according to Kremlin officials, in a move likely to increase fears of a cold war-style arms race. The Kremlin is considering active counter-measures in response to Washington's decision to base interceptor missiles and radar installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move Russia says will change "the world's strategic stability". The Kremlin has not publicly spelt out its plans. But defence experts said its response is likely to include upgrading its nuclear missile arsenal so that it...

If you thought the United States had a secure, state-of-the-art ballistic missile defense shield deployed around Fort Greely, Alaska, that could have shot down any North Korean ICBM during the crisis last July, think again. Pyongyang's attempt to test fire an ambitious Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile failed and the ambitious giant rocket exploded not long after take-off. But at least it got off the ground. The much-vaunted Ground-based Midcourse Interceptors, or GBIs, around Fort Greely never even got that far. For this week, the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO -- a non-government U.S. watchdog body founded in 1981 --...

The U.S. anti-missile shield project, which is strongly opposed by Russia, risks creating “new lines of division in Europe,� French President Jacques Chirac warned March 9. �The project raises numerous questions which require consideration before they are answered,� the French leader told a press conference following a summit of EU heads of state and government in Brussels. �We have to be very careful not to encourage new lines of division in Europe,� said Chirac, attending his last formal European summit. The United States wants to build a bank of 10 interceptors in Poland from next year to shoot down missiles...

Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Modifications Posted 01-Mar-2007 11:08 Related stories: ABM, Americas - USA, Contracts - Awards, IT - Software & Integration, Lockheed Martin, Missiles - Surface-Air, Protective Systems - Naval, Radars, Surface Ships - Combat Also on this day: 01-Mar-2007 » AEGIS-BMD: CG-70launches SM-3(click to view full) Feb 28/07: Lockheed Martin Maritime Sensors and Systems in Moorestown, NJ received a $979.2 million cost-plus-award-fee contract modification to continue design, test, and deliver the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Block 2006/2008 (Consolidated) Weapon System capability (BMD Baseline 4.0.1). Updates will include an improved signal processor, and continue...

Russia’s First Vice Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov set an unusual goal for the national defense complex, which he is personally in charge of. The official ordered to design a new air defense missile system that would guarantee air, missile and space protection at once. The development of the new Russian super weapon was entrusted to air defense concern Almaz Antei. The concern will be used for the creation of a special design bureau that is set to unite all scientific and technical air defense schools used in the Air Force, the Navy, land troops, automatic control systems and anti-missile defense....

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is a long-range, land-based theater defense weapon that acts as the upper tier of a basic 2-tiered defense against ballistic missiles. It's designed to intercept missiles during late mid-course or final stage flight, flying at high altitudes within and even outside the atmosphere. This allows it to provide broad area coverage against threats to critical assets such as population centers and industrial resources as well as military forces, hence its previous "theater (of operations) high altitude area defense" designation. This capability makes THAAD different from a Patriot PAC-3 or the future MEADS...

U.S. Must Move to Full Missile Defense by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.Posted Oct 09, 2006This week, HUMAN EVENTS begins an occasional series of exclusive articles in which leading conservatives who served in the Reagan Administration explain how they believe the principles of Reagan conservatism ought to be applied today and in the coming years. This week, Frank Gaffney, who served in Reagan’s Defense Department, addresses the issue of missile defense. Ronald Reagan is now esteemed around the world for having the vision and the leadership skills to bring about the demise of the Soviet Union. He is less widely appreciated...

US missile defense nearer to Korean threat WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. Army missile defense system has proven it can hit enemy ballistic missiles and has been moved from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii, closer to North Korea, a top program official said on Monday after a reported nuclear test by Pyongyang. The Missile Defense Agency, which oversees the program, also expects to sign early next year a contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. for additional units of the developmental system, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Col. Charles Driessnack said at the annual meeting of...

Lost in Space By Henry F. Cooper and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr.,The Wall Street Journal, reprinted in Missile Threat.com in toto, August 31, 2006 Consider the implications of North Korea's July 4 missile tests. While the Taepondong-2 failed, Pyongyang has already demonstrated (in 1998) that it can launch long-range rockets. Meanwhile, the six short- and medium-range missiles it successfully tested can be sold to other rogue states and terrorists -- who could launch them at us from ships off our coasts. When North Korea launched its missiles in July, what President Bush has properly termed our "modest" missile-defense system was...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- The Boeing Company Friday announced the successful test of a Ground-Based Interceptor against an incoming, or long range, ballistic missile. The interceptor was launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska at 1:22 p.m. Eastern time Friday. At 1:39 pm, an interceptor was launched from from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. "After flying into space, the interceptor released its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, which proceeded to track the target warhead. ... ," Boeing said. "Although not a primary objective of the test, the kill vehicle intercepted the warhead and destroyed it. This was the first intercept...

Symposium: Star Wars DefenseBy Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | August 25, 2006  The critical issue of Missile Defense now confronts our nation. The key questions remain: How mandatory is it? What is the threat that we need to protect ourselves against? What kind of system do we need? Is the one that is in the plans effective enough? How expensive will it be and how long will it take to build? And do we have the political will and leadership to get it done?   To discuss these issues with us today, we have assembled a distinguished panel. Our guests are: Thomas Karako, the Director of Programs...

Base may go to CR, Poland or U.K. By: Pavla Kozáková, 21. 08. 2006, Opposition to hosting an anti-missile base has led the United States to look beyond its preferred option of locating interceptor units – capable of knocking out a ballistic missile fired by terrorists or hostile nations – in the Czech Republic or Poland, with British officials saying U.S. defense planners are making discreet inquiries. Two separate public opinion polls conducted by Median in July and Stem in August found 83 percent and 51 percent of Czech, respectively, opposed to hosting a U.S. base. The Stem poll also...

US to double anti-missile ships in Pacific Reuters News, Wed Aug 16, 2006 By Jim Wolf HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - The United States, concerned about North Korea, will double to six by the end of the year the number of its ships in the Pacific capable of shooting down enemy ballistic missiles, the head of the Pentagon missile-defense project involved said on Wednesday. "I think it gives the nation more options," Rear Adm. Alan Hicks, program manager for Aegis ballistic missile defense, told reporters here after speaking to a conference on the fledgling U.S. shield. In coming years, a growing...

Report Supports Sea-, Space-Based Missile DefensesGlobal Security Newswire, August 4, 2006 The United States should focus on developing sea- and space-based missile defenses rather than expanding ground-based systems beyond the interceptors already deployed in Alaska and California, according to a experts’ report issued last month (see GSN, May 11).“Near-term options exist for developing viable sea-and space based defense within the next decade resulting in a comprehensive, global layered missile defense system,� says the 202-page report from the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the 21st century.“This option would complement the [Ground-based Midcourse Defense] system currently being...

Russia has successfully test launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from its northern space-vehicle launching site, Plesetsk. The intercontinental Topol class ballistic missile (CC-25 under Western standards) was launched on Thursday at 1:38 p.m. Moscow time from a mobile launching installation, sources from the northern cosmodrome told ITAR-TASS news agency. The aim of the test was to assure that the exploitation period of the missile could be extended, a Russian space forces’ press-service representative told Regions.ru online daily. The flight of the missile was strictly controlled by Russian space force devices. The launch and the flight of Topol have met all...

On the Fourth of July, North Korea's Kim Jong Il tested a series of ballistic missiles. Two days later, when questioned about the test, President Bush acknowledged that America's missile defenses were "modest and new." That they are new is understandable, since only in the last year has America begun to field missile defenses. The modest part, however, is of greater concern, since they are likely to remain modest by design throughout the administration's tenure.

Going on Offense for Missile Defense Defending ourselves has never made more sense. by Fred Barnes 08/07/2006, Volume 011, Issue 44 SENATOR CARL LEVIN of Michigan had a grim and unhappy look on his face. For years, he had led Democrats in an effort to slash funding for missile defense. He had planned to seek a cut of $68 million. But with North Korea poised to launch missiles and Iran's relentless drive to go nuclear, the situation had changed. So much so that Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama proposed to boost spending on the missile defense program, now more than...

Defanging Hezbollah: A Directed Energy Defense Could Help by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and David D. Gentilli WebMemo #1169 July 20, 2006 | Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks have killed and wounded dozens of Israelis, destroyed property, and sent thousands to bomb shelters. They threaten to plunge the entire region into conflict. There is a way to shoot these missiles out of the sky, limiting the danger to innocents and mitigating the serious threat of one of the region’s most dangerous terrorist groups. The U.S. Army and Israeli Defense Ministry have a joint program that has developed a high-energy laser that...

: Report: China Won't Curb North Korean Missile Program Defense Daily International 07/21/2006 Author: Dave Ahearn Even as the United States implores China to use its leverage to restrain North Korean ambitions to develop nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, China has no intention whatever of wielding its influence to that end, a new report states. In other words, the United States is left to its own devices, forced to erect its own missile defense when confronted by a rogue regime bent on acquiring awesome military powers. While China postures by voicing "concern" that North Korea on July 4 fired a series of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is far along in its preparations for testing a long-range ballistic missile but the United States would not necessarily use its missile defense system to shoot it down, U.S. officials said on Thursday. After a week in which unnamed American officials had stoked alarm about activities at a missile site in eastern North Korea, the U.S. government appeared ready to ease tensions somewhat. White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said it remained uncertain if North Korea actually planned to test-fire the missile, an act which Washington has warned would be seen as a provocative...

Quietly, almost imperceptibly, outside the glare of the Beltway and beyond the daily chaos of the war on terror, the US military is continuing to piece together an international missile defense system (IMD). Indeed, spring 2006 has brought with it new support and new partners from Europe, deeper cooperation in the Pacific, hopeful signs from friends in North America, steady advances on the technology front, and ever more ominous threats in the Middle East and Northeast Asia. First, the good news. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush vowed to begin operating the IMD's "initial capabilities in 2004 and 2005."...

Sea-Based Missile Defense System Works, but Will Congress Fund It? by Baker SpringPosted Jun 16, 2006In 1995, The Heritage Foundation’s Missile Defense Study Team proposed to Congress a comprehensive plan for developing and deploying an effective global defense against ballistic missiles. The panel was chaired by the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, and among its recommendations was a proposal to evolve the existing AEGIS weapons systems onboard Navy surface ships for air defense into a missile defense system. Last month, the Navy demonstrated the wisdom of this approach by successfully testing modified versions of...

Star wars II 20.04.2006 Media reports suggest that Washington has sent high-ranking CIA officials to Warsaw to discuss the possibility of stationing a US anti-missile defense system on Polish soil. Report by Bogdan Zaryn Discussions on stationing a US anti-missile defense shield on Polish soil surfaced in the media two years ago. But the issue has once again picked up momentum. Earlier this month Polish foreign ministry officials went on record saying that Washington has already proposed holding detailed talks in Warsaw on planting part of the US anti-missile defense shield somewhere in Poland. Polish dailies speculate that top brass...

Russian airforce chief warns Poland 22.12.2005 The chief commander of the Russian air force has warned Poland against involvement in the construction of an anti-missile shield. General Yuri Baluyevskyi intends to raise this issue with the Polish military during his planned visit to Warsaw. Since the parts of the Son of Star Wars system may serve to fight Russian missiles, Poland and other east European countries where they are to be installed should think about the possible consequences, the general told a Russian daily.

Russia annoyed at Poland missile shield plan: paper WARSAW (Reuters) - Russia is annoyed at Poland's plans to host a U.S. anti-missile system, a top Moscow general told a Polish newspaper, adding that such a space umbrella in central Europe would only make sense in a conflict with Russia. In what critics said was a diplomatic lapse, Warsaw's new conservative government said last month that it was considering hosting the U.S. anti-missile system, making public what had previously been a subject of discreet talks with Washington. "Of course (such a system) would be aimed against us," General Yury Baluyevsky, chief...

Russia sells anti-missile systems in Iran MOSCOW - Iran signed a contract with Russia on the sale of 29 Russian systems anti-missile Tor M-1, affirmed Friday the financial daily newspaper Russian Vedomosti, quoting sources in Russian military industry. "Iran will defend itself against the United States and Israel with the Russian systems Tor M-1", titrated Vedomosti with the one. According to the sources of the daily newspaper, expressing itself under cover of anonymity, 29 systems' anti-missile Tor M-1 able to intercept cruise missiles and airborne bombs were manufactured by the military factory Koupol with Ijevsk (the Volga) for Greece...

USA plans to deploy ABM base in Poland to control Europe 11/18/2005 17:28 The Nobel Prize in geography was given to George W. Bush for his ability to learn the names of several Arab and Mideastern countries The USA is ready to build ABM bases beyond its territory. An official spokesman for the Pentagon said that the USA had started active consultations on the matter with the government of Poland. The Polish authorities in their turn have already agreed to let the USA deploy one of its bases on Poland's territory. German magazine Spiegel wrote on November 17 with reference...

The deal on confirmation of judicial nominees seems to have been struck by seven Democrats essentially supported by their party's base and seven Republicans at odds with theirs. It contains one crucial phrase — Democrats will filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances" — and it is undefined. Unless it is defined by the Democrats' recent behavior. But can anyone contrive to tickle coherence from that behavior? Democrats have agreed to stop filibustering the confirmation of three judges they have hitherto identified as extraordinarily dangerous to fundamental American liberties. One of the three, Priscilla Owen, is an impeccable representative of mainstream conservative...

American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 17, 2005 - Pentagon leaders charged with protecting the country against a ballistic missile attack asked Congress March 15 for $7.8 billion to sustain development of the nation’s first missile defense system through fiscal 2006. The request is approximately $1 billion less than the fiscal 2005 budget. Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told lawmakers the billion-dollar request will help his agency further develop and field a joint, integrated, multi-layered ballistic defense system. That system, he said, “will defend...