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U.S. to reinstate sea-based missile defense system

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, January 10, 2002

WASHINGTON Ñ The United States does not plan to forget about its naval-based missile defense system.

The Bush administration cancelled the Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense System last month amid huge cost overruns and technical failures. The Pentagon said the system was as much as 65 percent over budget.

U.S. officials said the Pentagon will return to the Aegis system after a review of the cancelled program. The officials said the administration regards sea-based missile defense as an important component of a layered missile defense.

"What you had was a program that was simply out of control," a congressional staffer who monitored the project said. "There was no handle on spending and the system simply didn't work."

Officials said the key difficulties found with the Aegis was in the software design. They said mishaps in the software affected the Aegis radar.

Defense Undersecretary Edward Aldridge said Raytheon encountered difficulties in the missile interceptor, the Standard 4-B. The interceptor was meant to destroy Scud B and Scud C missiles.

"They have some problems in some areas and they're trying to address those," Aldridge said. "And we hope that they are successful in achieving that."

The review of the naval missile defense system will be conducted by both the U.S. Navy and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Officials said the studies could be launched over the next two months and will explore the prospect of using hit-to-kill technology used in the Theater High Altitude Area Defense system being developed by Lockheed Martin.

On Thursday, President George Bush signs the fiscal 2002 Defense Appropriations Bill into law. The bill provides the Pentagon with $317.4 billion in new discretionary spending as well as $7.8 billion for missile defense programs.

Earlier, the Pentagon awarded Raytheon a $95 million contract for three shipsets of Aegis weapon system. These include transmitter groups, fire control system and related equipment.

These three shipsets will be installed aboard the DDG 102, DDG 103 and DDG 104 Arleigh Burke DDG 51 class destroyers.

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