House Armed Services Committee Says No to Missile Defense Interceptors

Diem Salmon / June 16, 2009

Today, the House Armed Services Committee was marking up the FY 2010 budget for the Defense Department. The liveliest debate was over Congressman Turner’s (R-OH) amendment to re-insert $120 million to fund the remaining 14 ground-based interceptors. For the past several years, the plan was to have 44 interceptors dispersed among California and Alaska bases. As of right now, we have 30. Because the House Armed Services Committee rejected Congressman Turner’s amendment, the Department of Defense will stop any further deployment of the 14 interceptors.  Defense Secretary Gates spurred the decision when he said that the current number of interceptors (30) is sufficient to protect against the North Korean threat. The same Secretary Gates who budgeted for and approved the construction of 44 interceptors the year before. Over the past year, the threat has increased, so why would it be sensible to reduce the number of planned interceptors from 44 to 30? (more…)