More than a year after the Bush administration’s self-imposed deadline for deploying an antimissile system, the program appears in limbo, with no signs that the system will be declared operational. There are even signs the administration is giving up on the system.

Given the administration’s history, this is surprising. In 2000, George Bush campaigned on a pledge to deploy antimissile systems. It was the key national defense issue of his presidency until September 11, 2001.  Even then, he linked the 9/11 attacks to the need to quickly deploy a system, declaring on December 17, 2002, that the United States would begin operating antimissile weapons in 2004. The Pentagon subsequently announced a goal of commencing “initial defensive operations” on October 1, 2004. The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency shifted its primary focus from developing the system to meeting that goal. By the end of 2004, eight interceptors were in silos in Alaska and California.

The administration, however, never declared the system operational.

“I don’t know that such a declaration will ever be made,” said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita in January 2005.

Several factors may explain why not.

First, intercept test failures continue to trouble the system. The two most recent tests, in December 2004 and February 2005, failed when the interceptor did not leave its silo. The test prior to those, six days before President Bush’s 2002 deployment announcement, failed when the kill vehicle did not separate from its booster.

These failures pushed the Missile Defense Agency to conduct two top-to-bottom reviews of its ground-based antimissile program. Only the findings of the Independent Review Team were made public, and they echoed numerous other reviews in recent years. Decisions to push ahead with antimissile systems were too often based on external, political timetables rather than test results. The Independent Review Team called for a new approach that “makes test and mission success the primary objective” and that is “event-driven rather than schedule-driven.”

Rush to Failure
This conclusion mirrors the findings of the 1999 commission headed by Gen. Larry Welch, which warned of a “rush to failure” approach to antimissile systems during the Clinton administration.

As the October 2004 deadline approached, a Missile Defense Agency spokesperson gave a new deadline for initial defensive operations. They would begin after U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Northern Command, which will together assume responsibility for the operational system, completed Military Utility Assessments to evaluate the system’s capabilities.

Those assessments were never made public, but some indication of their findings came from Gen. James Cartwright, the commander of Strategic Command. In October 2004, he said the “alignment of three consecutive miracles” would be required to get a successful intercept using the current system. The three miracles were that the system is turned on, configured so it could fire, and given enough time to get through the required protocols for launch.

After the October deadline passed, Pentagon officials announced that the system was in a “shakedown” period to develop operational guidelines, iron out bugs, and finalize lines of authority.

The shakedown period apparently led to a new operational approach. Officials began to speak of an “initial defensive capability” or of “limited defensive operations.” In these models, the system would not be operational 24 hours a day, but could be turned on in an emergency. This limited capability, according to Pentagon officials, was achieved in late 2004. Still, no formal operational announcement was made.

The Military Balks
At the same time, the Government Accountability Office was investigating the system. In a September 2005 report, the GAO found that the Missile Defense Agency and the military services could not agree on how to transfer some missile defense assets to the services. Moreover, the services were unwilling to fund some assets, such as stand-alone missile defense radars, because these assets are not on service platforms or do not perform core service missions. These issues have yet to be resolved.

Now, a Senate committee is concerned that the administration is abandoning plans to improve the ground-based interceptor (GBI). The Defense Appropriations subcommittee found that: “After many years of investment in this midcourse interceptor, [the Missile Defense Agency] has now essentially decided that the first generation GBI will also be its last generation GBI.” The Missile Defense Agency, it continues, “at best plans only marginal improvements to the capability of the . . . program’s ground-based interceptor.”

According to its report, the committee based its findings on statements from Missile Defense Agency officials. The committee strongly opposed this decision and required a report from the Missile Defense Agency detailing plans to improve the interceptors and the overall antimissile system.

If all this sounds familiar, it should.  After costing $25 billion (in today’s dollars), the antimissile system built in Grand Forks, North Dakota was fully operational in 1975 and 1976 for only four months before it was shut down.  The Army did not think the military capabilities justified paying to keep the interceptors at full operational status.  The secretary of defense who shut down the Safeguard system?  Donald Rumsfeld.

Stephen Young is a Senior Analyst/Washington Representative for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.