Setback to Pentagon as missile fails to hit warhead

WASHINGTON, JAN. 19. The proposed U.S. Anti-Ballistic Missile System (ABM) failed a major test when an intercept weapon missed a speeding warhead high over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, the Defence Department said.

``An intercept was not achieved,'' the Pentagon said in a brief statement after a projectile fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific missed the warhead launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, 6,900 km away. The anti- missile weapon, built by Raytheon Co., had hit a similar warhead in space last October in the first test of the system.

The Pentagon conceded last week there had been technical problems associated with that test that were not disclosed at the time. Tuesday's test was more difficult because it was to include and integrate the use of space and ground-based radars in Hawaii and Kwajalein. The radars, along with global positioning systems, will become more important as the system evolves.

There was no immediate announcement on prospects for a third test of the system, which is being integrated by Boeing Co., scheduled for April or May. But Tuesday's failure could affect a planned decision by the President, Mr. Bill Clinton, on whether to begin deploying a National Missile Defence System over strong objections from Russia.

Mr. Marc Raimondi, spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation, said it could take weeks to determine the cause of the miss. The target warhead was launched on a Minuteman missile from Vandenberg at 6:19 p.m. Pacific time (7.40 a.m. IST) and the prototype interceptor was fired from Kwajalein about 20 minutes later. ``Government and industry programme officials will conduct an extensive review of the test results to determine the reason for not achieving an intercept and any other test objectives that were or were not met,'' the Defence Department said.

``It's hard to hit a bullet with a bullet at closing speeds of 15,000 miles an hour (24,000 kmph),'' the Defence Department spokesman, Mr. Ken Bacon, said before the test, stressing the difficulty of the costly and yet unproven missile defence programme.

Mr. Bacon confirmed reports that the Pentagon planned to ask Congress soon to approve an additional $ 2.2 billions in spending on the missile defence plan, pushing the planned cost to at least $ 12.7 billions in the years ahead.

The test had international implications and was watched closely by Governments as well as contractors, including Boeing Co. and Raytheon. Russia has warned that a U.S. National Missile Defence System would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Moscow has refused a U.S. request to modify the treaty to allow the system and cautioned that a go-ahead by Washington could threaten current nuclear arms reduction agreements.

But the White House and Pentagon have said that what would be a very modest successor to the former President, Mr. Ronald Reagan's ``Star Wars'' defence plan would only protect U.S. cities from limited attack by countries such as North Korea or Iraq that Washington considers ``rogue states'' and would not neutralise Russia's massive nuclear arsenal.

Washington's European allies are worried that a revolutionary U.S. defence against strategic missiles might isolate the world's remaining superpower from its friends and cool America's military commitment to Europe. Both critics and supporters of the programme agree the system is technically extremely difficult and the price of a miss in the real world would be catastrophic if an enemy missile was carrying a nuclear, chemical or biological warhead.

The Pentagon plans a total of 19 intercept tests of the system, which is now using prototype interceptors and rocket boosters because the final versions to be deployed will not be ready for testing until at least 2003.

- Reuters

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