US Congress wants more testing for anti-missile system

US missile defense systems may not have faced testing rigorous enough to ensure they would work during an attack, a congressional study said.

The report, released Friday by the General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, calls for the military to conduct more realistic testing before making the systems operational.

The first of a series of interceptor missiles, designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles launched by North Korea or other belligerents, are expected to be ready by the end of the year.

A spokesman for the military's Missile Defense Agency disputed aspects of the congressional report. Rick Lehner said Friday that the military is fulfilling a congressional mandate to deploy missile defenses as soon as it can -- even though the program is still in a research and development phase. That means additional testing will take place after the first interceptors are deployed, he said.

Right now the military would have little hope of stopping an incoming missile if it were fired at an American city. That could change by the end of the year, military officials say.

"We're providing this capability where we have no capability now," Lehner said.

The Bush administration has made the deployment of missile defenses a key aspect of its national security policy, saying it is vital to defend the nation against missiles launched by hostile nations. Critics say the technology is immature and too expensive, and fails to address the greater threat of weapons of mass destruction being brought into the country by terrorists or other means.

The initial system of long-range interceptors would be placed in Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. A set of shorter-range interceptors will be deployed on Navy destroyers.

More advanced missile defenses, including a laser cannon mounted on a Boeing 747, are also in development.

Citing figures from the Missile Defense Agency, the GAO report says missile defense programs will cost US$53 billion between this year and 2009.

The GAO report says several programs are over budget or delayed. It also criticizes the military's development strategy, saying the program lacks firm milestones and estimates of its total cost over its lifetime.

"As a result, decision makers in DOD and Congress do not have a full understanding of the overall cost of developing and fielding the Ballistic Missile Defense System and what the system's true capabilities will be," a summary of the GAO report says.

Earlier this week, Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he expects to meet President George W. Bush's goal of having 20 interceptors in place by the end of next year.