The Bush administration today outlined details of an aggressive program to develop missile defenses, including new test facilities in Alaska that would be developed next year and built in 2003.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee that in pursuing missile defense the administration expected to "bump up" against the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty "in months rather than in years."
But before that he expected the United States to reach agreement with Russia, the other party to the 1972 arms control treaty, so that Washington could avoid violating the treaty but at the same time "move beyond it."
At the same hearing Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said the new test facilities the administration is planning would make use of early warning radars at Beale Air Force Base and Cobra Dane at Shemya Island, both in Alaska, and use the Kodiak Launch Facility in Alaska to launch targets and interceptors.
"The test bed will also include up to five ground-based silos at Fort Greely, Alaska. We anticipate a prototype ground support capability, to include launch facilities, sensors and networked communications, will be developed in FY 2002 and built in FY 2003," he said in a statement to the committee. The U.S. financial year begins in October.