Obama's Dangerous Flip-Flops On Missile Defense

[Wehrwolfen]

03/19/2013

Missile Defense: The administration beefs up our Alaskan-based interceptors it once downgraded in response to North Korea's threat, while ending the final phase of the Europe-based defense against Iran it once supported.

We welcome the Obama administration's decision to place an additional 14 ground-based interceptors (GBI) at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., by 2017, as well as a second TPY-2 phased-array X-band long-range missile defense radar system in Japan following North Korea's deployment of a new road-mobile missile.

We are reminded that if President Obama hadn't scuttled President Bush's plans, these added interceptors would already be in their silos. Obama plans on boosting that force from the current 30 to 44.

The Bush administration had deployed the first GBI at Fort Greely in 2002 and planned on at least 55.

As a candidate, Obama said he wouldn't support "unproven missile defense." He canceled Bush's plans and cut back GBI deployment to the current 30.

The failure to dissuade Pyongyang from advancing its nuclear and missile program through sanctions, concessions and diplomatic pressure, one of many Obama administration foreign policy flops, has led us to the point where North Korea is a serious threat and the White House once again has to change its position.

An administration official said the North Korean missile threat was much less sophisticated when Sen. Obama was running for the White House and those who criticize the change of plans are engaging in "Monday morning quarterbacking."


Read More:
Obama Embraces Bush Missile Defense Vs. North Korea He Once Opposed - Investors.com

 

[Wehrwolfen]

By Baker Spring
June 29, 2009


On February 2, 2009, Iran successfully launched a satellite into orbit using a rocket with technology similar to that used in long-range ballistic missiles. On May 20, 2009, Iran test-fired a 1,200-mile solid-fueled ballistic missile. North Korea attempted to launch a satellite on April 6, 2009, which, while failing to place the satellite in orbit, delivered its payload some 2,390 miles away in the Pacific Ocean. This was followed by a North Korean explosive nuclear weapons test on May 25, 2009. The ballistic-missile threat to the U.S. and its friends and allies is growing. Under these circumstances, common sense would dictate that the Obama Administration support full funding for the U.S. missile defense program.

What does the Administration do? On April 6, 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the Obama Administration's fiscal year (FY) 2010 broader defense budget would reduce the ballistic-missile budget by $1.4 billion.[1] This reduction was applied against an undisclosed baseline. The defense budget itself was released on May 7, 2009.[2] The budget reveals that overall missile defense spending in FY 2010, including for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Army, will be reduced to $9.3 billion from $10.92 billion in FY 2009.[3] This $1.62 billion total reduction represents an almost 15 percent decline in U.S. military spending. This budget can be charitably described as a lackadaisical approach by the Obama Administration to meet the urgent requirement of defending Americans and U.S. friends and allies against ballistic-missile attack.

This weak response by the Obama Administration comes at a time when polls show that Americans, by overwhelming margins, want the federal government to protect them against missile attack. A May 7-10, 2009, poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance reveals that 88 percent of the respondents believe that the federal government should field a system for countering ballistic missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction.[4]

[Excerpt]

Read more:
Obama Missile Defense Plan Puts America at Risk

 

[HUGGY]

Obama's Dangerous Flip-Flops On Missile Defense


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