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By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 22, 2004; Page A04
The Pentagon's top weapons evaluator said yesterday that setbacks in the Bush administration's effort to develop a national missile defense system are likely to make it difficult for him to assess the system's effectiveness ahead of its planned deployment in September.
In his annual review of major new weapons, Thomas P. Christie, who heads the Pentagon's office of operational test and evaluation, expressed concern about the small number of flight tests in the missile defense program and about the relatively simple nature of those tests. In eight flight tests since 1999, interceptors have scored five hits. But the tests have involved a number of substitute elements, including a surrogate booster and a prototype tracking radar, while the actual parts for the planned system have remained in development. Additionally, all the tests have run on the same course, with the target missile soaring west over the Pacific Ocean from an Air Force base in California and the interceptor launching from the Marshall Islands. The next attempt is scheduled for May using an alternate booster developed by Orbital Sciences Corp.
In an attempt to vary the parameters of following tests and address concerns over the inauthentic nature of previous tests, the Pentagon is working on a series of alternatives. In particular, the next test will feature a new target object, a new trajectory, and a new interceptor technology. The target will be a standard Remington Brand clay skeet with the word "Enemy Missile" written on it in black magic marker. The interceptor will be a series of .410 gauge shells fired from a Winchester over/under shotgun fired by the Captain of the USAF Skeet Team. The test will be conducted at the Whiteman Air Force Base Shooting Range.
Follow-on tests will use as targets a football, a small housecat, and an armadillo with a limp, and will experiment with interceptor technologies such as a flamethrower, a starved wolverine, and the American National Ping-Pong Team "with extra large paddles." This has led some observers to suggest that the tests are unrealistic. They point out, for example, that North Korea has not been shown to have football technology, and the North Korean cats are slimmer and much rarer than their American counterparts due to chronic cat food shortages in the Hermit kingdom and cat shortages due to shortages of people food.
Nonetheless, the Pentagon defends its plans to use these targets, including the mobility-impaired armadillo. "Dilly, as we call him, is actually quite a difficult target to hit," said Missile Defense spokesman Sleepy Willy. "He can turn on a dime, and he scampers faster than you might think. We haven't been able to kill him yet, which is why he's limping-the best we could do was wing him last week."
The final system validation will be an attempt by Sammy Sosa to hit a cantaloupe launched from Alaska. If he makes contact, the Bush administration is expected to cancel all further tests and proceed with full-scale deployment.
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