U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, head of MDA, said at a conference in late March, "We could certainly shoot down an incoming missile if we needed to."

He was referring to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system, which is supposed to protect the continental United States against an ICBM attack. With 11 interceptors fielded so far in Alaska and California, supporters have cited an emergency missile defense capability.

This bravado is perplexing; during flight testing, the GMD system intercepted the target in only five out of 10 attempts -- and this was under highly scripted circumstances that do not reflect a realistic attack. Plus, there hasn't been a successful flight test with an intercept, even of an artificial target, since October 2002.

Obering's statement raises obvious questions: if the MDA system is capable of engaging an incoming hostile missile, why hasn't that that been demonstrated by a realistic test already? Shouldn't the interceptors function properly during flight tests that cost $100 million each? And finally: on what is Obering basing his confidence in the system?

Sure, GMD hasn't achieved an intercept in three-and-a-half years. But maybe MDA has excellent developmental practices in place that provide it confidence in its assessments of the system's progress.

But in the two most recent flight intercept attempts, the interceptor rocket failed to get off the ground. The U.S. military has been launching rockets for decades; that should not be difficult to accomplish.

MDA did, finally, in December 2005, manage to get its interceptor off the launch pad, after undertaking several reviews to try to figure out what had gone wrong.

However, according to a Government Accountability Office report that came out this month, MDA's own auditors found that "the interceptor design requirements were unclear and sometimes incomplete, design changes were poorly controlled, and the interceptor's design resulted in uncertain reliability and service life." This does not evoke much certainty in the system's dependability.

Furthermore, the GAO report pointed out that the much-vaunted system of spiral development (which deploys technologies in the field before they have completed their development tests, with the idea that they will later incorporate changes based on lessons learned), leaves a good deal to be desired.

This process involves costly retrofitting at best or a return to the drawing board for re-design. By allowing "the GMD program to concurrently mature technology, complete design activities, and field assets before end-to-end testing of the system," MDA has acted "at the expense of cost, quantity, and performance goals."

The GAO report's title is telling: "Missile Defense Agency Fields Initial Capability but Falls Short of Original Goals." Even more significant is that it has done less with more money. Contractors overran their budgets by an average of 14 percent, with the GMD contractor coming up 25 percent over its budget. And by speeding the system through its development paces in order to get it out in the field, the GAO points out, "Quality control problems occurred."

Adding fuel to the fire are two reports from the Pentagon's Inspector General's office. One from February 2006 pointed out that because of a lack of basic security procedures for the GMD network, MDA "may not be able to reduce the risk and magnitude of harm resulting from misuse or unauthorized access or modification of information (on the network) and ensure the continuity of the system in the event of an interruption." In plain English, GMD missile defense could be hacked.

In an example of the Pentagon's leaping to cover up highlighted problems immediately, the report was yanked off of the Inspector General's Web site the weekend after Federal Computer Weekly reported on it. Instead, there is a Web page which reads, "The Missile Defense Agency requested that we remove this report from our Web site pending a security review;" the report is now marked "For Official Use Only."

Undeterred, the Inspector General's office issued another report condemning missile defense. This time, in a March 2006 analysis, it drew attention to the incomplete systems engineering plans for missile defense and cautioned MDA that it is "at risk of not successfully developing an integrated ballistic missile defense system."

Even more shocking was that MDA was not required to use components for the GMD system that had proven they could withstand the unforgiving space environment.

Accordingly, missile defense has a spotty test track record to draw upon; poor developmental practices; weak designs for key components; a lack of security; and the likelihood that the system will not mesh together as planned.

About the only thing it does have is an appalling amount of faith in itself. Is this enough to warrant continuing the premature deployment of an insufficiently developed and tested GMD system to counter an unlikely threat when programs that deserve a higher priority are undefended?

(Victoria Samson is a research analyst for the Center for Defense Information. Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, U.S. Army, Ret., is a senior military fellow for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

Related Links
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com