Experts say U.S. is vulnerable to N. Korean missile attack

WASHINGTON -- Members of a White House commission say the United States has fallen behind in plans to develop a national missile defense system.

Richard Garwin of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the presidential commission to determine U.S. readiness against enemy missiles told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that the Pentagon does not have the capability to defend against the less sophisticated but long-range missiles of North Korea. He said the United States would not be able to biological bomblets dispersed over a wide area. It could also not detect decoy balloons that carry nuclear weapons.

"It would neither see nor be able to intercept short-range ballistic missiles launched from ships near U.S. shores, and it would neither be nor be able to intercept short-range cruise missiles launched from ships," Garwin said.

Garwin said North Korea could strike the United States with short-range cruise missiles or ballistic missiles launched from ships. He said such cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, Seattle, San Diego would be vulnerable.

The United States, Garwin said, could counter such missiles by developing a system to destroy them in their boost phase, the first three minutes of launch when the projectile has not yet attained maximum speed.

The experts, who include former leading Pentagon officials, said the failure to meet deadlines in developmental programs means the administration cannot approve in 2000 the billions of dollars needed to deploy the system.

David Wright, a fellow at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology said that both the administration and Senate have made technological readiness as the key criteria in the 2000 decision to begin a $3.8 billion program to deploy a national missile defense system.

"Is the technology ready to deploy?" Wright asked. "I will argue the answer is no. Will it be ready to deploy by next summer, when the Deployment Readiness Review is scheduled? Again I will argue the answer is no."

John Piotrowski, a former head of the military space command and now with Council for Foreign Relations, urged the use of lasers to destroy missiles in their boost phase.

The national missile defense system is largely based on the Theater High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, which has failed all of its test launches. Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman Jesse Helms said all of the failures were "quality control problems' -- a bent connector, a loose wire, a nozzle rupture. None had anything to do with the hit-to-kill technology upon which the NMD [national missile defense] system is premised.

Concluding that these failures demonstrate a national missile defense is impossible would be like concluding that a flat tire on an airplane proves that man cannot fly."