US general 'very confident' on missile defense

Washington, June 24: The Air Force general responsible for building a U S anti-ballistic missile shield today voiced high confidence it could shoot down any U S-bound missile from North Korea, despite critics' doubts.

''From what I've seen from our testing from the last several years ... and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I'm very confident,'' Lt Gen Henry ''Trey'' Obering told reporters after a speech to a seminar.

Obering, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, declined to confirm reports that ground-based U S interceptor missiles had been put on alert for a possible effort to shoot down what U S officials say could be Pyongyang's first long-range missile firing in eight years.

But he said the array of interceptor missiles, satellites, radar stations and data relays had been moved from a test status to ''operational'' configuration many times since the end of 2004, when the initial elements were deployed.

A total of 11 interceptors are now in silos as part of a rudimentary, multibillion-dollar shield -- nine at Fort Greely, Al ska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Pentagon has shot down mock warheads in five of 10 highly scripted intercept tests of the ground-based system. The United States has spent more than billion on missile defense since then-President Ronald Reagan launched what critics called his ''Star Wars'' initiative in 1984.

'Our reality now'

Obering's stated confidence contrasted with views of the Pentagon's own top weapons evaluator as well as those of many outside experts.

''As reported last year, there is insufficient evidence to support a confident assessment of limited defensive operations,'' David Duma, the Pentagon's director of operational testing and evaluation, wrote in an annual report to Congress on U S weapons dated Febuary 1.

Obering said Duma's staff was coming at it ''from a different perspective -- how can you break the system, what are the limits?'' ''I'm telling you what is our reality now,'' he said.

Victoria Sampson of the private Center for Defense Information, which has been critical of the program, defended Duma's assessment.

''The operational testers do come at the problem from a different angle: their focus is to test the program as realistically as possible, while that approach seems to be an anathema to the rest of the Pentagon,'' she said.

Richard Lehner, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, said Obering based his confidence on four consecutive successful intercept tests in 2001 and 2002.

''The bulk of the know-how gleaned from those tests is what's deployed today, which is why we have a high confidence in our capability,'' he said.

Boeing Co is the prime contractor for the ground-based system, designed to shoot down incoming warheads in the middle of their flight, as they course through space. Other big U S missile-defense contractors include Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Raytheon Co.

Reuters

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