Defending America: A Non-partisan Issue

Erin Van de Voorde / October 06, 2009

Now that the President has abandoned the third missile defense site which was slated to be built in Poland, the question remains: what will be done with the money which was allocated in the FY 2009 defense budget for the system? Surely the funds should be used to boost the Ground-based interceptors which are already under-funded.

To be voted on as early as today, the bi-partisan Lieberman-Sessions amendment moves to allocate between $50 million and $151 million to be used for research, development and testing of the 2-stage ground based interceptor (GBI). This interceptor is needed to comply with the Administration’s intent to continue the development of the SM-3 Block IIA and IIB missile, which are the ones intended to replace the GBI in Europe. This amendment has come not a moment too soon. (more…)