 Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee this week slashed Pentagon funding for U.S. missile-defense programs in ways critics say will severely harm efforts to build an integrated system to defend against missile attacks. A total of $764 million was cut from the $8.9 billion missile-defense budget request during a mark-up hearing on the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill before the strategic forces subcommittee, headed by Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat.
| Who is a progressive and about as anti-military as they come. Good choice for an armed service sub-committee --- if you don't believe in defense. |
The Democrats' most controversial cut came in halving money for building a third ground-based interceptor site in Poland and Czech Republic, effectively killing plans for the site, according to Republican congressional aides. The subcommittee cut $160 million from the $300 million request for the third site and called for a study of the site.
| Wonder if the 'study committee' will have Russians on it. |
Plans for the third interceptor site are the focus of major U.S. diplomatic efforts to convince the Europeans of the need to begin thinking about countering the threat from Iranian missiles. It also comes amid U.S.-Russian tensions over Moscow's fears the interceptors would be used to counter Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, something the Pentagon has said repeatedly the interceptors are incapable of doing.
| Putin barks, the Dhimmicrats jump. |
According to House Republicans, the Democrats are biased against missile defense because they don't think it will work, and they don't want a third missile-defense site in Europe to upset the Russians and other anti-defense Europeans. The Democrats also don't think the missile threat from Iran poses a danger to Europe, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies say Tehran has medium-range missile now capable of hitting some parts of Europe and is working on longer-range missiles.
| So there's a 'yes but' to each objection, and the Dhimmis going to cut anyway. The system works -- SM3 and Thaad alone works -- Tehran has medium-range missiles that are only going to get better over time, and the anti-defense Y'urp-peons are being replaced one at a time by Euro politicans like Merkel and Sarkozy who see the sense in protecting their continent. |
The subcommittee also slashed $400 million from the $517 million budget of the exotic Airborne Laser Program, the most prominent "boost phase" missile-defense system that uses a laser gun mounted in a Boeing 747 to shoot down missiles shortly after launch. The cut effectively kills the program, aides said. The panel also voted to cut $45 million from the $119 million requested for a modernized nuclear warhead, needed to keep the U.S. nuclear arsenal a viable deterrent.
Mrs. Tauscher defended the missile-defense cuts, which likely will be approved by the full committee next week, saying the country needs a system that "works." She criticized Pentagon missile-defense testing as unrealistic.
| In what way? That they're testing one part of the system at a time to ensure it's reliable? That they're then integrating the tests? That they're proceeding methodically to solve remaining problems? That the tests more often than not have been successful? What's unrealistic about any of that? |
| All of it. Next question. |
|