Shooting Down a Loser

What to do with a $4.8-billion battlefield air-defense system that can’t, as the saying goes, hit the broad side of a barn? Shoot it down. And that, at long last, is what Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger did Tuesday with DIVAD, for divisional air defense, a loser almost from the start.

To be sure, the long-delayed cancellation will “save” the taxpayers $3 billion because “only” $1.8 billion has been spent so far. But the effort to save the system, inaptly nicknamed for the World War I sharpshooter, Sgt. Alvin York, also made the military’s effort to present the system as a best-buy item look both scandalous and ridiculous.

In one recent test, according to congressional investigators, sensing devices that guide the system’s guns were programmed to zero in on spinning helicopter blades, but they focused instead on the blades of an exhaust fan in a field latrine--presumably blowing it to bits.

That should be the end of DIVAD as a weapon. In his announcement, Weinberger said, in effect, that it is back to the drawing board to find something that works to protect troops in the field against attack by aircraft and helicopter gunships.

But it must not be the end of DIVAD as a very expensive object lesson. Congress must now go back and find out who strung out the DIVAD disaster, who certified test results that made the system look better than it was and, in both cases, why. Then procedures must be changed to prevent supporters of other weapon systems from saying that all they need is a little more time and a lot more money.