A Hit Is Not Essential in Test of Missile Shield, Pentagon Says

Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they may judge the proposed U.S. antimissile system to be technically ready for deployment even if it fails to strike a dummy warhead in a flight test next month.

Easing away from previous statements, officials said that a failure of the test due to a minor glitch would not necessarily signify that the multibillion-dollar system would not work if it were built for deployment by 2005. “Depending on the type of failure, we may still be able to say that it’s technically feasible,” said Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon’s acquisition and technology chief.

President Clinton is due to decide this fall whether to build the controversial system, which has been criticized by arms control advocates and many foreign leaders. They argue it would have a destabilizing effect by potentially encouraging other nations to build more missiles to overcome America’s defense system.

The upcoming test has been the subject of keen interest, especially since defense officials previously have said that they would need to see two successful tests before signing off on the system.

With Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumed GOP presidential nominee, stressing the risk of missile attack and urging deployment, the issue has been thrust into the political spotlight.

Yet Gansler’s suggestion that the test’s outcome will not be definitive will have the effect of giving Clinton more room to maneuver on the issue.

During a briefing, Pentagon officials sought to lower expectations of a successful strike, pointing out that the technology still is in a relatively early stage of development. A flight test conducted last fall intercepted a warhead, but a January test went awry; 16 more tests remain before the project is completed.

“It’s not a high probability of being able to precisely get everything to work on this flight,” Gansler said. And he emphasized that the missile shield, which is being accelerated because of a perceived threat from North Korea and Iran, “is clearly a high-risk overall program.”

In a written statement, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen also called the test “our most demanding to date.”

The system, an offshoot of President Reagan’s more ambitious “Star Wars” program, would use a system of 100 interceptor missiles, satellites, sophisticated radars and other sensors to track and strike incoming warheads before they could plunge through the atmosphere.

In the July 7 test, a modified Minuteman II missile will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, heading toward the central Pacific. Directed by a command and control system in Colorado Springs, Colo., an interceptor rocket will be fired from Meck Island in the Pacific in pursuit of the target.

A 130-pound “kill vehicle” atop the interceptor rocket will be released in space and will try to maneuver into the path of the target, 144 miles above Earth. If all goes as planned, the kill vehicle will collide with the mock warhead at a speed of 12,000 mph, smashing it into particles of dust.

In recent years, the administration and many members of Congress have become increasingly concerned that potential adversaries might launch a small number of missiles at the United States. Congress has set a target date of 2005 for deployment, but Clinton must decide on deployment this fall to give the Pentagon time to finish construction.

Some critics of the project reacted sharply to Gansler’s words.

John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, a Washington arms-control group, said the Pentagon was trying to shift the criteria on the test to make success more likely. He asserted, however, that opposition to the proposed system in the United States and abroad would make it impossible for Clinton to order deployment if the test flopped.

But Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington said it is “foolish to go ahead with such a high-risk technology, based on the most favorable interpretation of the tests, which are already structured for success.”

He speculated that Clinton could order deployment, even after a test failure, because of his interest in keeping the GOP from attacking Vice President Al Gore as being soft on defense.

In recent months, conservatives also have criticized the administration’s plan, arguing that the land-based, limited system would offer too little protection for the nation, and have called for sea-based or space-based systems.