WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison,
President and Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org
has reviewed the missile defense vote in the Senate on Tuesday, October 6th,
and concluded that the Senate wants to keep open the option for developing and
potentially basing the ground-based interceptor in either Europe or the U.S. He
informed MDAA members of this in an Alert . His comments and observations
include the following:
"Last night, Members of the United States Senate
passed, with overwhelming support, an amendment to the National Defense
Authorization Act, directing Lt. General Patrick O'Reilly, Director of the
Missile Defense Agency, to provide options by February 1st next year to deploy
an additional Ground-Based Interceptor site in Europe or the United States to
provide defense for our nation against future long-range missiles from Iran.
The Amendment SA 2616, further appropriated $151 million for the development
and testing of the two-stage Ground-Based Interceptor, which was developed for
the recently canceled European missile defense site, at Redzikowo, Poland. This
two-stage Ground-Based Interceptor missile is in place as two are built and one
of them is due to be launched and tested next June, as there remains
'high-confidence' in its capability, since it is exactly the same technology as
the currently deployed three-stage Ground-Based Interceptor without the third
stage."
"This is a positive first step by our nation's
congressional representatives to address the lack of equal and adequate long
range missile protection to our Eastern and Southeastern regions of our nation
from Iran that was not adequately addressed in President Obama's 'new missile
defense architecture.' In President Obama's plan, equal long-range missile
protection of the United States from Iran would be provided by a sea- and
land-based, non-existent and untested SM-3 Block-2 missile starting in 2020. In
addition, these future mobile SM-3 interceptors with ICBM capability have
recently become controversial with Russia as they will be deployed in mass,
suggesting a diplomatic possibility that they may not be deployed. To provide a
'hedge' against Iran ballistic missile development, President Obama needs to
rapidly accelerate the SM-3 Block 2 missile development and provide an
additional ground-based missile defense site with interceptors in the United
States or Europe."
"It should be noted that two years ago, the Combat
Commander of NORTHCOM General Renuart, who is directly responsible for the
protection of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, completed a
NORTHCOM GBI study to look at other alternatives to the recently canceled site
in Poland to provide adequate long-range missile defense to North America. This
study concluded and recommended that a previous Nike Zeus missile defense site
of the 1960's at Fort Drum located in upper New York was the most preferable
option. A missile defense site at Fort Drum, New York would provide the
necessary 'high confidence' and equal protection to the Eastern and
Southeastern United States from a long-range ballistic missile threat from Iran
that is not in place today. Having a site located in the United States in a
previous missile location would lower the risk, expedite the deployment and
provide added necessary long-range protection to the United States within three
years from now, seven years or more faster than the current missile defense
architecture plan announced by Secretary of Defense Gates and President
Obama."
Ellison closed his remarks saying: "We at MDAA concur
with the Members of the Senate who drafted this amendment and all those who
overwhelmingly voted for it."
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