Flaws in missile defense system reported

Pentagon, fearing delays, opted to postpone fixes

Tribune Washington Bureau

— Two serious technical flaws have been identified in the ground-launched anti-missile interceptors that the United States would rely on to defend against a nuclear attack by North Korea.

Pentagon officials were informed of the problems as recently as last summer but decided to postpone corrective action. They told federal auditors that acting immediately to fix the defects would interfere with the production of new interceptors and slow a planned expansion of the nation’s homeland missile defense system, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

As a result, all 33 interceptors deployed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, Calif., and Fort Greely, Alaska, have one of the defects. Ten of those interceptors — plus eight being prepared for delivery this year — have both.

Summing up the effect on missile defense readiness, the GAO report said “the fielded interceptors are susceptible to experiencing failure modes,” resulting in “an interceptor fleet that may not work as intended.”

The flaws could disrupt sensitive onboard systems that are supposed to steer the interceptors into enemy missiles in space.

Theinterceptorsformtheheartof the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD for short. Four of the massive, three-stage rockets are stationed at Vandenberg and 29 at Fort Greely.

They would rise out of underground silos in response to an attack. Atop each interceptor is a 5foot-long “kill vehicle,” designed to separate from its boost rocket in space, fly independently at a speed of four miles per second and crash into an enemy warhead— a feat that has been likened to hitting one bullet with another.

The GMD system was deployed in 2004 as part of the nation’s response to Sept. 11, 2001, and a heightened fear of attack by terrorist groups or rogue states. It has cost taxpayers more than $40 billion so far and has been plagued by technical deficiencies.

When Boeing Co., prime contractor for the GMD system, informed government officials of the problem last summer, they did not insist upon repair or replacement of the defective harnesses, according to the report. Instead, officials of the Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, “assessed the likelihood for the component’s degradation in the operational environment as low and decided to accept the component as is,” said the report, an annual assessment of missile defense programs prepared for congressional committees.

That decision minimized delays in producing new interceptors, “but increased the risk for future reliability failures,” the report said.

In a response included in the report, Assistant Secretary of Defense Katharina G. McFarland wrote that delaying deployment of the new interceptors “would unacceptably increase the risk” that the Pentagon would fall short of its goal of expanding the GMD system from 33 interceptors to 44 by the end of 2017.

Asked for comment on the report, aspokesmanfortheMissileDefense Agency, Richard Lehner, said in a statement that officials “have in place a comprehensive, disciplined program to improve and enhance” the GMD system “regarding the issues noted by the GAO. We will continue to work closely with our industry partners to ensure quality standards are not only met, but exceeded.” Boeing declined to comment. The GMD system is designed to repel a “limited” missile attack by a non-superpower adversary, such as North Korea. The nation’s defense against a massive nuclear assault by Russia or China still relies on “mutually assured destruction,” the Cold War notion that neither country would strike first for fear of a devastating counterattack.

Washington