Washington has not been able to brandish such a monopoly since the early 1950s when Moscow’s development of a hydrogen bomb robbed it of its ability to blackmail the workers states. Since then China has built a number of nuclear weapons, along with other countries, including India and Pakistan. Imperialist France and Britain, along with the Israeli colonial settler state, possess substantial nuclear arsenals.

The administration’s plans, publicized December 17, will convert the test site at Fort Greely, Alaska, into an antimissile facility. The military base will be equipped with six interceptors designed to shoot down missiles before they reach their target. The Pentagon aims to deploy 10 more interceptor missiles at Fort Greely by 2005 or 2006, according to Defense Department officials. A further four will be installed at the Vanderberg Air Force base in California.

Bush said the initial stage of the antimissile system will also include sea-based interceptors and radar sensors stationed on land, at sea, and in space. Navy cruisers and destroyers equipped with the Aegis system--the most up-to-date radar and satellite-linked surveillance technology--will be armed with 20 interceptors.

Pentagon officials described the missile system as "workable if limited," according to the Washington Post. The network of installations is not as far-flung as some original blueprints, and does not include any space- or air-based components that remain in the earlier testing stages. However, "the missile defense program...will evolve over a period of time," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a December 17 Pentagon news conference. "It will very likely involve a variety of different locations... and a number of countries," he added.

Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said that at this stage the antimissile program aims to "test, fix, test, fix, that’s what we’re doing." He noted that because of "progress in our overall hit-to-kill technology," the government "could take this next, modest step."  
 
Mixed results in testing
Washington is pushing to introduce the system even though the different aspects of the complex interceptor technology have performed unevenly in tests, with frequent misses alongside some successes. Developmental flight tests began in 1999. On December 11 the Missile Defense Agency conducted a test at Vanderberg, in which a Minuteman II missile was launched at an incoming warhead. The missile missed its mark.

Three weeks earlier a Standard Missile 3 fired from the warship USS Lake Erie hit a ballistic missile fired from the island of Kauai, Hawaii. That test "marks the beginning of a six-flight test series to develop an emergency deployment sea-based ballistic missile defense against short to medium range ballistic missiles," the Missile Defense Agency announced November 21.

Bush’s decision to deploy the interceptors came six months after Washington’s formal withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed with Moscow. Although the document officially restricted the development of this type of missile system, it had not stopped Washington from continuing its intensive testing and building program.

Through the withdrawal Washington intentionally left no doubt that it intended to drive ahead with construction and deployment of the missile shield. In his December 17 statement Bush invoked last year’s September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "We will take another important step in countering these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities," he said.

In reality, plans for such a system go back almost two decades before September 11, 2001, to the Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" space-based interceptor program undertaken by the Reagan administration. Although Star Wars was officially shelved, a modified version resurfaced as National Missile Defense under President William Clinton in the 1990s. Bush made the extension and acceleration of that program one of his election planks in 2000.

Since the Bush administration took office the U.S. Congress has approved $8 billion a year for research and development of the antimissile weapons system. Defense officials say the White House would be seeking an additional $1.5 billion over the next two years for the projects at Fort Greely and the Vanderberg Air Force Base and other missile system projects.  
 
Russia a target
Under Clinton the White House had justified constructing an antimissile system as a necessary measure against strikes by "rogue states" such as Iraq and north Korea. In expressing disapproval of the announcement Russian presidential adviser and former defense minister Igor Sergeyev pointed out that the location of the system indicates that it is targeted on the former Soviet Union. "We cannot disregard the fact that elements of the U.S. missile defense system are being deployed in the north, not in the south, where the threat is coming from the so-called rogue countries," he said.

Meanwhile, the Patriot anti-missile system has been deployed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Israel. Researchers in the latter country have assisted in modifying the missiles, producing a new variant called the Arrow.

The Patriot was deployed in Israel a decade ago during the Gulf War. The missiles were supposed to deal with Iraqi Scud missiles, at the same time as Washington denied the Israeli Air Force the friend-or-foe codes that would have enabled it to strike Iraq without fear of crossing swords with U.S. and British planes. Israeli generals concluded that the Patriots had caused more damage than they prevented, by bringing the wayward Scuds down over populated areas.

Since then the missile has undergone further development. Nevertheless, as they prepare to invade Iraq, "Pentagon planners are focusing their attention on how best to find and destroy [Baghdad’s] mobile Scud launchers before the missiles are fired, U.S. and private analysts say," reported Paul Richter in the Los Angeles Times.

The Army received 16 PAC-3 missiles--a full launcher load--in September. The Pentagon is authorized to initially produce 72 a year, with production increasing to 144 a year for a total of 1,159 interceptors.  
 
 
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