Critics warn Canada of missile shield fallout

[seemslikeadream]

CTV.ca News Staff

Heavily populated southern Canadian cities could be littered with the debris of nuclear warheads if missiles fired at the U.S. from North Korea were were shot down by a missile-defence shield over Canada, says a prominent U.S. physicist.

Ted Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Winnipeg Free Press that even if a defensive strike were launched immediately, there would be only about five minutes to pinpoint and demolish an enemy missile.

Missiles fired at the U.S. from North Korea would pass over Canada.

Postol said a destroyed warhead would disperse the radioactive material over a large area.

But University of Manitoba political scientist George Maclean told the Free Press that most of the debris would likely burn up in the atmosphere and the rest would disseminate over the northern hemisphere.

Critics of the missile-defence plan also released an open letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin on Monday, warning him "even future, expanded versions of the system would be vulnerable to enemy countermeasures and therefore unable to provide a real defense."

more
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1102338271606_16?hub=Canada

[rfranklin]

1. Radioactive debris dispersed across the northern hemisphere...

Now that's really comforting.

[Florida_Geek]

2. I am not a chemist but

Radioactive debris I think does not burn up in the atmosphere.

[seriousstan]

3. Starting with the premise that North Korea had already fired the missile

I'll take it.

[MatrixEscape]

4. Are we still talking plutonium?

It only takes one, microscopic speck of the stuff in your lung and you are assured of getting lung cancer.

[FloridaPat]

5. Missle defense doesn't even work. Just a $1 trillion boon to

Bush's defense buddies. In all the tests, the missle had a radio transmitter telling the defense rockets where they were. I'm pretty sure no enemy is going to do that with their missles.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tommie_kicks]

8. Do a google for many sources on this subject... Pay his buddies program...

Here's one, but there are many... just google "missle defense not work" and you will get many hits...
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097087

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[funnymanpants]

15. One of the stupidest responses ever

The poster provided you with support that the misile defense system wouldn't work.

You respond by saying that this information is deliberately planted by the military? If that is the case, how can we trust anything we ever read? If you point out a study that shows *anything,* I can simply claim that you are reading disinformation.

Take your own advice and think, please.

[bemildred]

16. Bwaaahaaahaaaa.

You've obviously never worked in defense. The "smartest, brightest,
most intelligent people we have in America" won't go anywhere near
a defense corporation. In fact, many are heading overseas where the
quality of life is better.

[seemslikeadream]

17. More for missle defense please!

[GHOSTDANCER]

22. Actually you might be correct but not for the reason you may think.

See they have a plan to push this kind of missle defense into space. And well, not just used for blowing up missles while they are up there. They are going google eyed over chemical lazers in space. you know the ones that combine a couple of chemicals to create a light thousands of times brighter than the sun. This kind of weapon with a tracking system would render most if not all nations in a check position. I personally believe that the 400 pounds of extra wieght in the x-prize contract was created specifically for this kind of thing. but without alittle fear they would never get this done.

nuclear fallout in Canada, walla.

[ixion]

13. It's well documented that the 'Missle Sheild' doesn't actually work

the only 'success' they've had with it has been in extremely controlled environments that would not exist were they to actually have to use the thing.


It always has been nothing more than a pork barrel project for the MIC.

[Spazito]

14. Here are some links detailing the lack of success of the tests...

unless they are 'fixed':

http://dir.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/07/31/test/index.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/157611_missiledefense22.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0803-03.htm

There are many more, just google and read, it is very interesting.

[rodeodance]

10. will not provide protection against long-range ballistic missile attacks,"

from the iniital post:

"Our analysis clearly shows that the missile defense system currently being fielded will not provide protection against long-range ballistic missile attacks," says the letter from David C. Wright and Jonathan Dean, both from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Dean is the former US representative and deputy representative to the NATO-Warsaw Pact force reduction negotiations in Vienna.

Wright is the co-director and senior scientist of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

[struggle4progress]

23. Exactly. eom

[seemslikeadream]

7. Missile defense is speeding ahead, but will it work?

Workers lower a ground-based missile interceptor into its silo at Fort Greely near Delta Junction, Alaska, in July as the first component of a national defense system designed to shoot down enemy missiles.

The Washington Post and The Associated Press

MARK FARMER / AP
Workers lower a ground-based missile interceptor into its silo at Fort Greely near Delta Junction, Alaska, in July as the first component of a national defense system designed to shoot down enemy missiles.

WASHINGTON — At a newly constructed launch site on a tree-shorn plain in central Alaska, a large crane crawls from silo to silo, gently lowering missiles into their holes. The sleek white rockets, each about five stories tall, are designed to soar into space and intercept warheads headed toward the United States.
With five installed so far and one more due by mid-October, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is preparing to activate the site sometime this autumn.

But what the Bush administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. Several key components have fallen years behind schedule and will not be available until later. Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.

Better than none?

Senior officials at the Pentagon and the White House insist the system will provide protection, although they use terms such as "rudimentary" and "limited" to describe its initial capabilities. Some missile defense, they say, is better than none, and what is deployed this year will be improved over time.

This notion of building first and improving later lies at the heart of the administration's approach, which defense officials have dubbed "evolutionary acquisition" or "spiral development." At the outset, the system will be aimed only at countering a small number of missiles that would be fired by North Korea, which is 6,000 miles from the West Coast of the United States.

more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002055193_missile06.html



New Delays in U.S. Missile Defense
Wade Boese

Amid a final push to deploy several long-range, ground-based ballistic missile interceptors this fall, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) again postponed a much-delayed inaugural test of two crucial components comprising the interceptor. Pentagon officials said the test delay would not upset deployment plans. Meanwhile, MDA confirmed that tentative plans to develop space-based interceptors have slipped behind schedule.

Nearly two years ago, President George W. Bush set 2004 and 2005 as the goal for erecting the first elements of a system to defend the United States from long-range ballistic missile attacks. To fulfill the president’s order, MDA is fielding up to six ground-based missile interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and two additional interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, before the end of the year. A dozen more interceptors will be added in 2005.
The interceptors consist primarily of a high-speed booster and an exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV). The booster carries the EKV into space and releases it in the path of an oncoming enemy warhead. The EKV is then supposed to zero in on and collide with the warhead.

...

The uninterrupted deployment has drawn the scorn of some Democrats. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services’ Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said Aug. 18, “The continuing delays indicate the immaturity of this system, which is still untested, unproven, and problem-prone.” A day later, Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) declared that “the system has not been realistically or consistently tested.”

But Lehner said in a Sept. 15 interview that the latest test delay should not diminish confidence in the interceptors being deployed and would not affect the deployment schedule. He said Obering’s concerns pertained only to “test-unique equipment,” which are not part of the interceptors being installed in Alaska. Lehner added that deployment of the interceptors and any decision to put them on alert was never tied to completing any specific test, but to determinations by military commanders on the military utility of such actions.

....

The environmental assessment revealed another schedule delay: a four-year slip in plans to deploy three to five space-based interceptors for testing purposes. Last year, MDA said that such a deployment could take place as early as 2008. Yet, in its latest report, MDA put the date at 2012 and described the concept as “too speculative” to warrant a thorough environmental impact assessment at this time.
Lehner said that the space-based interceptor schedule has been moved back due to more urgent priorities and a lack of funding support from lawmakers. As part of the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations Act, Congress cut $163 million from a $511 million request to develop the interceptor that might be placed on a space-based platform.

....

Some have already made clear they do not agree with MDA’s optimistic outlook. During preparation of its draft report, MDA said it received 285 public comments, mostly negative, about its missile defense efforts, particularly the prospect of putting weapons into space.
more
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/MD_Delays.asp

[maddezmom]

9. DoD Bars Inquiry on Fraud at Lincoln Lab

~snip~
DoD Bars Inquiry on Fraud at Lincoln Lab
By Keith J. Winstein
SENIOR EDITOR

The Missile Defense Agency has refused to allow MIT to investigate a professor’s longstanding allegations of scientific fraud in a Lincoln Laboratory-led study of the military’s missile defense system, according to statements released this week by MIT and the Agency, which is part of the Department of Defense.

As a result, MIT will not be able to begin the long-stalled investigation, the Institute said, despite a January 2003 decision by Provost Robert A. Brown that the allegations of scientific misconduct warranted a full investigation.

The Missile Defense Agency said yesterday that it denied MIT’s request because the subject matter of the disputed study has already been reviewed by three government agencies. “The multiple reviews by independent government agencies of essentially the same issues coupled with the extreme sensitivity of the information at issue precluded granting MIT’s request to use classified information for an internal administrative investigation,” the Agency said in a statement.

“If MIT does not have the necessary authority for access to classified information, or can not get it, then MIT has no business running a secret Laboratory that does classified work for the U.S. Government,” said Philip E. Coyle III, who was President Clinton’s assistant secretary of defense for test and evaluation from 1994 to 2001.

“I don’t think MIT can accept that conclusion from the MDA. MIT needs to have the authority to do its own investigation of its own conclusions,” said Coyle, who is now with the Center for Defense Information, an organization critical of the Pentagon’s design for national missile defense.

“You just can’t oversee the work of a classified research institution without access to the work that they’re doing,” he said. “MIT should have the necessary classified information and authority to do its job, and its contracts with the federal government should require no less.”

Dispute centers on “POET” study

The disputed study, released in 1999 and known as the “POET” study, concerns the ability of the Pentagon’s national missile defense system to tell the difference between actual warheads and balloon decoys in outer space. Critics argue that because warheads and warhead-shaped decoy balloons look so similar in outer space, the military’s national missile defense system will not be able to defend effectively against an enemy nation’s attack.


more: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N58/58missile.58n.html

[Sara Beverley]

11. We are going to militarize space and earth. It's time for the end!

Even if you are not a believer, the way things are going with this administration it would be a kind thing for humanity to have another flood again!

[Brundle_Fly]

18. can't wait for that nice warm

nuclear winter up here in canada.

Thanks America, thanks for everything.

[alexisfree]

19. wont work. even if ever u.s. city is destroyed bush will say it worked

[Ian David]

20. "Missile-shield" counter-measure

1) Modify the warhead by surrounding it with extra radioactive material, such as solid nuclear waste.
2) Calculate approximately where the missle would likely be intercepted
3) Program missile to detonate early UPWIND of population centers
4) Missile (with the extra nuclear material) will disperse extra fallout over a wide area

[Ian David]

21. Other "Missile Shield" counter-measures

1) Put angled tail fins on the warhead, which will cause it to spin and spiral on the way down. It would make it a lot less accurate, but how accurate does it really need to be, anyway? Cheap, easy and probably darned difficult to hit compared to a simple ballistic trajectory.

2) Expensive option (and maybe not possible): A ballistic missile comes down well short of target and out of interception range. Then the warhead becomes a low-flying cruise missile. It would be a bad idea to blow-up a nuclear warhead flying a few hundred feet above the ground on a flightpath that deliberately follows populated areas on its way to the target.

3) You can fit a nuke in a damn suitcase.

[seemslikeadream]

24. Garwin discourages the use of space weapons

Published Thursday, November 18, 2004
BY MAX GLADSTONE
Contributing Reporter

...

As part of the Yale Engineering Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, Garwin, a former member of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States and a recipient of the National Medal of Science, spoke Wednesday afternoon in Davies Auditorium. Garwin said he did not believe space weapons should be part of the United States' security strategy and the nation should lead the world in an effort to ban such weapons.

Garwin, who contributed to the design of the hydrogen bomb, has been involved in military science since he served on the President's Science Advisory Board from 1962-65 and 1969-72. He said the question of missile defense has been approached poorly since the days of President Nixon, the first to attempt the establishment of a missile defense system. Garwin said the issue has always been more political than strategic, and political concerns have led the government to make scientifically inadvisable promises.

"Missile defense continues to be difficult and continues to be problematic because of the countermeasures involved," Garwin said. "If you're trying to defend the country, you don't want to spend money developing a system to deal with the countermeasures that will be in place before your system is fully developed."

Despite its appeal in principle, space-based missile defense involves a host of problems, Garwin said. He said even the simplest defense -- using an orbital laser to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles -- is exceedingly difficult to engineer.
Most proposed space-based lasers would have to track a missile for around 10 seconds to be effective, Garwin said, and even then relatively simple measures, such as placing cork around a warhead, could render the defense useless.

Garwin said pursuing a space-based defensive strategy would be detrimental to national security. If the United States were to develop space weapons, he said, it would encourage other nations to attack U.S. space assets -- involving the international community in a tangle of orbital countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, which could destroy the global satellite network.

"Non-space weapons will provide more capability -- than space weapons," he said. "Military space, which we now have, is not space weapons, and indeed I propose that we keep weapons out of space -- I want to have an agreement -- one that is enforceable by individual action -- that people not destroy the satellites of other people."


more
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=27444

[moondust]

25. "five minutes"

Goat Boy sat dumbfounded longer than that on 9/11 after being informed that the country was UNDER ATTACK!!.

This goofy scheme should have been left in the comic books.

[seemslikeadream]

26. Former U.S. ambassador to arms talks warns against missile defence

Stephen Thorne
Canadian Press
December 7, 2004

Jonathan Dean, a former U.S. ambassador to disarmament talks, holds up a copy of his open letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin in Ottawa Monday. (CP/Tom Hanson)

OTTAWA (CP) - The proposed North American ballistic missile-defence shield will be ineffective against ground-based systems and could spur a new arms race, says a former U.S. ambassador to disarmament talks.

In an open letter to the prime minister, Jonathan Dean, who participated in reduction talks with Warsaw Pact countries three decades ago, says the system is vulnerable to simple countermeasures and therefore is unjustifiable. Its real impact will be as a stepping stone to space-based weapons, warns Dean, now a global security adviser to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"The missile defence program is already proving to be a major political driver for U.S. development of space weapons," Dean said in the letter, co-signed by David Wright, the organization's senior scientist.

"Many missile defence proponents in and out of the (U.S.) government see space-based missile defence interceptors as the ultimate goal of the program."

Prime Minister Paul Martin has said Canada is considering signing on to the continental missile defence program, but he maintains Canada adamantly opposes weapons in space.
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=27bc2d0d-fbd4-49e2-9eac-e549f5666316

[Jean Poutine]

27. Same crap different decade

Stop me if this sounds familiar:

"The Bomarc was an unmanned missile that carried a nuclear warhead. It wasn’t big on accuracy, so it could only take out a nuclear-missile-bearing enemy by detonating a nuclear explosion close to it. Needless to say, this wasn’t a particularly advantageous situation for Canadians, who would get most of the radioactive fallout on their territory."

http://www.exn.ca/flight/avro_arrow/story.asp?id=1999062877

The Canadian government scrapped the Avro Arrow, which would have been the most advanced fighter jet at the time, over that, and a lot of Canadians consider that a major mistake.

In round two, Ronald Reagan got heckled for Star Wars:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-676-3871/politics_economy/presidents/clip7

Trudeau was against Star Wars and the development of nuclear weapons. In the early 80s, he tried to get the US and Russia to talk, and agree to arms reduction, but he was basically brushed off as being naive. However, they did end up talking and entering arms reduction agreements years later.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-71-659-3734/conflict_war/diplomacy/clip6

It seems like we're now in round three.

When George Bush met with Paul Martin recently, he apparently said he didn't understand why people are against the missile defense program. Surely there must be some advisor around him that can put it into context.

[Megahurtz]

28. Uh oh............

better move to the Yukon.

[seemslikeadream]

29. "It is in the interest of all nations to avoid the weaponization of space,

Outer Space

"The missile defence program will not fade away any time soon," former US Ambassador Jonathan Dean, (left) told his Press Club audience Dec.6 while in Ottawa to deliver an open letter on missile defence to the Prime Minister. The letter provides background material and explains some potential consequences of the missile defence program. Mr. Dean's letter proposes several solutions to the space weapons dilemma including a code of conduct in space and an Outer Space Treaty for all countries to consider. He said that governments with nuclear arms potential will need to get together and neutralize their arsenals. "It is in the interest of all nations to avoid the weaponization of space," he concluded.

http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2004/december/8/tp/

Arms experts issue missile-defence alert

Former negotiators say Pentagon plans to launch weapons into space that can shoot down satellites

By JEFF SALLOT
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - Page A4

OTTAWA -- Arms-control experts from the United States and Canada warn that the Pentagon's missile-defence program is part of an elaborate strategy to use outer space as a battlefield in the future.

Meanwhile, federal Liberals from Quebec say a tide of opposition to Canadian participation in the program is rising in that province, elevating the political importance of the missile issue to the level of last year's debate on the Iraq war.

Jonathan Dean, who was a disarmament negotiator for the U.S. government during the Cold War, told the Commons foreign affairs committee that research on ballistic missile defence (BMD) systems is part of a Pentagon push to develop weapons to shoot down satellites.

Peggy Mason, Ottawa's former ambassador for arms control, told a news conference she fears the United States is trying to drag the federal government into BMD because Canadian territory is an ideal spot from which to launch anti-satellite weapons.

The U.S. Air Force recently released a military doctrine document on "counterspace operations" that describes the need for offensive weapons capable of destroying space stations and satellites.
more
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041207/MISSILE07/TPNational/Canada