Friday, July 13, 2001
Pentagon launches airborne
laser plan
Defense department pushes
up schedule
By Tara Copp
Reporter-News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department
outlined a request for an additional $384 million to speed development
of the airborne laser Thursday, two days before the first missile
defense test of the Bush administration.
Under the proposal, the ABL would be developed
by 2003 and achieve the ability to down enemy missiles by 2004.
The ABL is a laser gun-equipped 747 jumbo jet that will shoot
down enemy ballistic missiles while they are still over the country
from which they were launched.
Abilene city leaders have vigorously lobbied
the Pentagon and Capitol Hill in hopes of landing the Airborne
Laser for Dyess Air Force Base. The ABL would give Dyess a third
mission along with the B-1 bomber and C-130 transport plane, an
addition that would further cement the base’s standing in
the nation’s defense.
The ABL request is part of an additional
$8.3 billion the Pentagon is seeking in 2002 to speed its efforts
to construct a “missile shield’’ to protect the
United States and its interests from attacks launched by rogue
nations.
“We intend to develop layered defenses
capable of intercepting missiles of any range at every stage of
flight,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told
the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday.
The initial construction of some elements
of the president’s missile defense system is scheduled to
begin within a few months at two Alaskan locations that would
be controlled from Colorado Springs, Colo., said Air Force Lt.
Gen. Ronald Kadish.
Kadish told senators that extra funding
would help ABL evolve from attacking short- and medium-range threats
to preparing it for strategic defense as well. Kadish explained
that with additional capabilities, each ABL aircraft would conduct
low-range, wide-area surveillance of regions from which threat
missiles might launch.
Kadish said the 2002 budget request would
allow for an initial test flight and a lethal demonstration of
ABL in 2003, Kadish said.
The extra funding request and expedited
schedule bothered the committee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin,
D-Mich. Levin said he did not want the expedited schedule to run
amok of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty limiting such a
missile defense system.
He said Congress needs time to consider
the “consequences of such funding and the responsibility
that goes with it,’’ both of which he deemed serious.
The budget request and outline came two
days before the first missile defense test of the Bush administration.
On Saturday, another facet of the administration’s
missile defense — ground-based defense — will be tested.
The Pentagon will launch a modified Minuteman
II intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force
Base, Calif. About 10 minutes later, a prototype missile will
launch from the Ronald Reagan Missile Test Facility in the U.S.
Marshall Islands.
If the test is successful, the Minuteman
will be intercepted over the Pacific Ocean.
A series of failed missile defense tests
during the Clinton administration pushed former President Bill
Clinton to decide late in his term that the technology was not
ready yet for further pursuit.
However, President Bush has pushed further
development of a missile defense shield. In his 2002 budget request,
Bush sought an additional $4.4 billion for the Pentagon. Of that,
$2.6 billion is earmarked for research and development.
Contact Washington bureau writer Tara
Copp at coppt@shns.com
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©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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