"Despite more than a decade of development and a bill of $40 billion,
the GMD system is simply unable to protect the U.S. public," the
authors wrote.
The GMD system is intended to thwart a "limited" nuclear strike by a non-superpower adversary, such as North Korea or Iran.
In the event of an attack, rocket interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base
in Santa Barbara County in California and Ft. Greely, Alaska, would be
launched from underground silos. Once in space, the interceptors would
separate from their booster rockets and attempt to slam into and "kill"
enemy warheads.
The report notes that in "heavily scripted" flight tests that are
"set up for success," GMD interceptors have often failed to hit mock
enemy warheads. In the seven most recent tests, interceptors destroyed
their targets just three times, the report says -- a finding consistent
with conclusions of the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation
office.
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Text from Military.com, here.
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