The U.S. is taking needed \u201cprecautionary\u201d steps to bolster its missile defense system on the West Coast because of recent threats by North Korea, said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think they have the delivery mechanisms that are necessary to really harm us, but I think it’s really good that we’re taking those precautionary measures to make sure that they cannot do damage,\u201d Corker said yesterday on the \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d program.<\/p>\n
The U.S. is acting to \u201cstay ahead of the threat\u201d posed by North Korea, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on March 15. Among the steps being taken, he said, is the addition of 14 interceptors based in Alaska to the country’s missile defense system by fiscal year 2017.<\/p>\n
The U.S. has to take the threats from North Korea and its young leader, Kim Jong Un, seriously, said Representative Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, on CNN’s \u201cState of the Union\u201d program. Kim took over as the country’s leader upon the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a 28-year-old leader who is trying to prove himself to the military, and the military eager to have saber- rattling for their own self-interest,\u201d said Rogers, a Michigan Republican. \u201cAnd the combination of that is proving to be very, very deadly.\u201d
\n\u2018All-Out War’<\/p>\n
Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest since at least 2010, with North Korea threatening nuclear strikes and withdrawing from the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War. Earlier this month, after the United Nations imposed additional sanctions on Pyongyang following a nuclear test, Kim said that his military was ready for \u201call-out war\u201d and that the country would \u201creinforce as a nuclear weapons state,\u201d according to the Pyongyang-based Korean Central News Agency.<\/p>\n
The North Korean threat of a nuclear attack against the U.S. \u201cis problem enough,\u201d Rogers said. Add to that \u201ctheir military maneuvers along the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone, in North Korea,\u201d and that creates \u201ca whole new set of problems for us,\u201d he said, noting that North Korea has \u201cthe largest military in the world still in uniform.\u201d
\nMissile Defense Shift<\/p>\n
Hagel told reporters last week that the U.S. is shifting money from a Europe-based system to pay for the new U.S. West Coast-based interceptors and the development of an advanced warhead.<\/p>\n
While Corker expressed some concern about what he called the \u201cnon-deployment\u201d of the fourth phase of the Europe-based system, he said that \u201cmost all of us applaud the efforts to beef up our missile defense on the West Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ground-based system has interceptors built by Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) topped by hit-to-kill warheads from Raytheon Co. (RTN) Boeing Co. (BA) manages the $34 billion system that now has 26 interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n
Since the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency began testing the U.S.-based anti-missile system in 1999, the interceptors have hit dummy targets on only half of the 16 tests that have been performed.<\/p>\n
The last successful hit against a target was in December 2008. A test to intercept a target is scheduled for later this year to confirm that the category_idance flaw has been remedied. <\/p>\n
Source blomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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