Missile Killer Still Toothless, Report Says

The Pentagon’s effort to develop an anti-missile system to defend the United States remains plagued by inadequate testing, spare parts shortages and management lapses, according to an independent panel appointed by the Defense Department.

In a stinging 40-page report, the panel warned that recent delays in testing and development have “compressed” the program’s schedule against politically imposed deadlines. If further delays arise, the panel advised, President Clinton’s planned decision next summer on whether to start building the system should be postponed.

The critical assessment follows a report by the same group in early 1998 that registered some of the same concerns and cautioned against a “rush to failure” in the nation’s renewed multibillion-dollar drive to erect a limited shield against ballistic missile attack, a legacy of President Reagan’s much grander “Star Wars” vision. While the Pentagon has taken steps since last year to delay the date of earliest deployment from 2003 to 2005, schedule additional tests and hire Boeing Co. to coordinate development, panel members said the program remains at high risk of failure.

The report faulted government and contract officials for exhibiting “a legacy of over-optimism” about their ability to invent a reliable interceptor that can soar into the sky and destroy incoming enemy warheads. Although it was written before the first successful intercept test last month of the latest prototype “kill vehicle,” the report noted that the Pentagon’s history of chasing missiles in space is littered with many more misses than hits.

In a program that ranks as the Pentagon’s most challenging development effort--fraught as it is with technological hurdles, political controversy and fierce international opposition from Russia and China--the panel also found troublesome management gaps.

“Instead of unusual clarity, there is unusual fragmentation and confusion about authority and responsibility,” states the report, which Pentagon officials quietly sent to Congress last week after taking more than two months to review it.

The negative critique comes in the face of strong Republican support for a national antimissile system and begrudging acknowledgment this year by the Clinton administration and congressional Democrats that a limited system--to protect against a few missiles at any one time--may be needed sooner rather than later to guard against a growing threat from such “rogue nations” as North Korea and Iran.

GOP proponents were quick to draw what encouragement they could from the panel’s blunt assessment. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who pushed a bill enacted earlier this year requiring deployment of an antimissile system as soon as “technologically possible,” issued a statement saying that, while the panel had rated the program’s inherent risks high, they did not appear “unacceptably” high. He also argued against delaying the program.

But critics of the antimissile program saw in the panel’s findings fresh cause to urge a go-slow approach.

“In our view, delaying the program until there’s more certainty of success is a reasonable course,” said Steve Young, deputy director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a nonprofit group of 17 arms control organizations.

At the Pentagon, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which coordinates the government’s various antimissile programs, issued a two-page statement concurring with most of the panel’s recommendations for additional tests, more hardware and tighter oversight. But it was silent on the prospect of delaying the president’s review if new delays arise.

In the system envisioned by the Pentagon, the launching of an enemy missile would first be detected by space-based military satellites, then tracked by ground-based early warning and X-band radars. Interceptor missiles based in Alaska would be fired to home in on the incoming warhead and collide at supersonic speeds in what the Pentagon calls a “hit to kill.”

But this approach to missile defense remains fraught with technical problems.