Focus 580; Hit to Kill: The New Battle Over Shielding American from Missile Attack

Good morning and welcome to focus 580 This is our telephone talk program. My name's David inch. Glad to have you with us this morning. In this first hour of our program we'll be talking about the issue of missile defense for the United States something that has been now a matter of debate for some time at least as far back as the presidency of Ronald Reagan although these systems actually predated Mr. Reagan he made some proposals that put them in something of a different light. But at any rate it's something that now over the course of several presidential administrations we have been discussing and debating and it seemed as though that in the waning days of the Clinton administration there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm for the systems. Mr. Clinton himself seemed rather ambivalent and in fact the the fall before he was scheduled to leave office. He actually decided not to decide and leave the decision about further implementation and deployment of such a system to whomever the next president would be. Of course it turned out to be George Bush who had previously said he intended to build and deploy such a system

regardless of the objections raised by allies and former adversaries. So that is the point where we are now and will try to talk a little bit about how this issue has developed over time and where we stand right now. As we talked today with Bradley Graham he is a reporter for The Washington Post and has spent more than 20 years working for the paper reporting on various sorts of subjects. Most of them though focusing on foreign and military affairs and most recently he completed a six year stint covering the Pentagon. He has authored a book that's out recently looking at this issue the title of his hit to kill the new battle over shielding America from missile attack. The publisher is public affairs and the book is out now in bookstores if you would like to look at it. And of course as we talk if you have questions or comments you want to be part of the conversation that's welcome. All we ask of callers is people just try to be brief so we can get as many callers in as possible. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free

line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 or if you match those numbers with the letters on the phone you get w while Main maybe not necessarily any easier. Three three three w y l l toll free 800 1:58 wy love. But those indeed are the numbers. Mr. Graham Hello. Good morning. Thank you for talking with us today. My pleasure. I wonder if we if we could perhaps talk a little bit about how thinking on this issue changes from one administration to the next but before. Before talking about Mr. Reagan it probably would be worth noting that it is even though we perhaps associate the idea of missile defense with him because he came along and said proposed a space based system for one and the other thing that he did that perhaps was new was he started talking about a system of us of a scope and a size that no one had ever imagined before and and it turned out perhaps to be not possible but let's say that for a second

because in fact that we did have a system of ground based missile defense back sometime before Mr. Reagan in fact I guess it would be back before the ABM Treaty came into effect in the 1980s. What was it that we had then. We had a system is actually just just after the ABM Treaty it was then that it became operable and that only lasted a few months so that was the safeguard system in the winter of 1975 76. It it. Lasted a few months as I said because there were questions about whether it would be effective against a Soviet attack and what the how much it would cost to operate. So it was disbanded very quickly by Congress. But you know the debate over missile defense does long predate Ronald Reagan that

actually goes back to the end of World War 2 when the the Germans brought in the missile age when they started launching fee to use it Britain and then the Americans discovered after the end of the war that the Germans had been working on a missile that might have spanned the Atlantic and been able to to reach the United States. Of course at that time we didn't really have the technology to build a missile defense system and research continued. On a back burner at the Pentagon and till the Soviets started building long range missiles. And so by the mid 60s the Pentagon was very very eager to put up some kind of missile defense. And it was actually President Johnson and his Defense Secretary McNamara who proposed the first what was then limited supposed to be a limited system. But it finally got approved by redesigned a bit by President Nixon at the end of the

1960s and got built. As I said when it became operable for a few months in 1975 76. Well is it the case I guess. As I said I think that what what President Reagan did that that changed the terms of the debate a little bit and perhaps the reason that it still has such a hold on people's imagination is that he proposed a system he did that he thought he talked about it in terms of an umbrella that a system that could protect the United States from a very large scale attack and making a promise virtually that we could build a system that nothing would get through. That's that's what he had in mind you know when he became the evangelist in chief of the missile defense movement. His enthusiasm for for missile defense was quite infectious but. The technology was certainly not there for that kind of space based shield

that would have guarded against a massive Soviet attack that he envisioned and hence that the nickname Star Wars after the popular science fiction movie of the time the by the end of his administration the Pentagon had had scaled back the focus of its technology to move from space based lasers to looking at space based interceptors and land based interceptors but still the cost was prohibitive at that point and then with the end of the of the Cold War it looked like the issue was. Had become a relic of the Soviet American rivalry. And when President Clinton took office in 1993 his defense secretary Les Aspin declared the Star Wars era debt. They pursued missile defense but it was for battlefield battlefield defense against shorter range missiles like if you remember during the Gulf war the Patriot

system that protected US troops in Saudi Arabia an Israeli population centers the Pentagon was all in favor of that so as they the Clinton mistrusted but the but the idea of a long range defense a defense that would protect the continental US states and Hawaii and Alaska that that was relegated to a back burner until the late 1990s which is when my book really really begins and and the Roques the rogue state threat presented itself and and that's what recharged the whole debate over missile defense. To some extent was it also the fact that we are now talking about this again has to do with that change of administration and the fact that within this Bush administration there were people who were we might label true believers who always thought that it was a good idea and thought that it was a good idea a long time ago. And what's happened now is simply that now they're in a position to. To actually do

something with their beliefs I mean is that is that part of the reason that I retired but it has certainly kept the issue very much alive. You know when the Republicans the Republicans a number of them it never lost lost hope and belief in the idea when they took charge of Congress in 1994 they continued to pressure the Clinton ministration and trying to step up research and development on a missile defense system and commit to a specific deployment date. And and George Bush made clear during the campaign in 2000 that if you got elected a missile defense would be a top priority. And it certainly has been for his administration. He has increased the spending on research and development he's he's begun a much more robust.

Program of testing of various kinds of approaches to missile defense and his idea is to see which ones look most promising in a little while and then and then go with them he's looking at land based interceptors at sea based interceptors at airborne laser a space based laser a whole whole host of different different approaches and he will you'll see which one looks most promising. I guess I find myself wondering whether also one reason that the this issue just never seems never completely went away and that we're now talking again about whether it is whether it's something we need whether it's something that can be accomplished technically and at what cost. But the reason that we're still talking about it is that for a lot of people the appeal of missile defense goes something goes somewhat beyond logic. That is it's it resonates with people on almost a

gut sort of all a level. Oh absolutely you know one question I kept asking myself throughout the research and writing of of the book was it was what is it about missile defense that is has made it so controversial for so long I mean it really is sort of the great Phoenix of American national security policy keep it it seems to keep rising from the ashes of Washington policy debates and. I concluded that there's there's really no one single reason but a number of factors I mean one of course is just look at what's at stake. I mean that survival in an age of nuclear weapons and for for decades we had this doctrine called mutual assured destruction or mad for short that that managed to avoid nuclear war and was based on the idea that you didn't need a defense in fact a defense was destabilizing all you really had to have was you know you have Washington in Moscow each be threatening to annihilate the other if either one

fired a nuclear nuclear weapon so there's a natural reluctance to change this kind of strategic balance and also there's no scientific certainty about whether missile defense is is even doable in a science. Scientists appear as divided sometimes as the politicians over whether this thing would work and the other factor is cost. I mean this is this is going to be very very expensive no matter how we do how we do missile defense but you know I think ultimately the passions that are aroused by this by this issue is as you say especially the enduring nature of this whole controversy. You can explain simply by differences over or deterrence theory or scientific capabilities or budgetary tradeoffs. The There's a. There's a certain sort of I think transcended almost symbolic significance that this issue's taken on it's kind of a comma a proxy between the political left and the right a sort of a sort of a litmus test for how you keep America secure. You know whether you do it by arms

advances or arms control or or military build ups or diplomatic building blocks. And and when you start when you get to this kind of level of argument there's a there's a kind of a fervor to it that kinda sort of clashes over over theology you know is oh almost almost religious ferocity to that to the partisan wrangling. And and you hear it in the terms that are thrown around and the proponents talk about about the morality of erecting a national defense you'll hear President Bush say he's for missile defense because it's moral it's the right thing to do. Whereas the critics will talk about the sanctity of existing treaties and especially that 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that bans a national defense and so and so you know you get the feeling sometimes you're actually you're actually watching at a deeply emotional theological debate.

Our guest this morning in this hour focused 580 is Bradley Graham he's a reporter for The Washington Post. He's the author of a recently published book that looks at. The debate over missile defense the title of his book is hit to kill. The new battle over shielding America from missile attack published by Public Affairs. And your questions are welcome and we have someone here ready to go. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Here's a caller. The line number one. Hello. Oh yes. Mr. Graham one of the things that seems to be missing from this the coverage of this issue is the absence of appetite to follow the money we're talking about at least what I read. One hundred billion dollars over the long haul. That's a lot of money available to a lot of a lot of companies. One of the reasons that missile the missile defense issue has been kept alive may well be the Heritage Foundation which is one of the most effective

GOP conservative think tank lobbies in Washington and it's been pushing this idea since 1980 and won't let it go. Now my question is can you please tell me who the companies are. Let's follow the money who the companies are who would benefit most from the outlay of that kind of cash pool. When you look at who's building or at least who's experimenting with the various missile defense systems you find it's a who's who of the defense industry find all the all the big ones Boeing the lead coordinator right now but Raytheon has a big chunk of it Lockheed Martin has a big chunk of it TRW is doing a lot of the computer work. They're all all in it. But but there's that there's a two edged sword to this for these companies. Certainly if this program ever really got off the ground. There would be big bucks in it

for them. And they see that on the other hand there have been so many stops and starts and stops and starts over the past few decades that that these companies have become somewhat wary of putting their best and their brightest on the project. This is what this is what the Pentagon found in the last few years. Even though the Clinton Strait a couple years ago said OK we're going to get serious now about testing and here's some more money to do it. And they gave this contract to Boeing to pursue this system after the first few failures. In the tests the Pentagon got very frustrated and found that Boeing and Raytheon the others hadn't put their A-team folks on the program. And they said look you know we this is this is intolerable. So that has changed there been some management shake ups. The last test couple tests the last test worked. Another one is coming up this weekend.

They are in their quality control. By all accounts has has improved. And and so it looks like there's a sense in the industry too that this administration the Bush administration is as serious as as any before it about actually actually erecting a system. But certainly as you suggest groups like the Heritage Foundation there are few others in Washington deserve a lot of the a lot of the responsibility for keeping this issue alive and and they do get some of their funding from industry. But the but I often hear it say that the one reason that missile defense has been kept alive is because you know they can do it conventional. Military Industrial Complex. I actually think missile defense may be an exception to that rule because of the deep

commitment that many in the Republican Party have many in certain conservative think tanks have to this issue. I don't think that they've needed help from from the defense industry all that much they don't need that kind of lobbying and certainly the Pentagon itself has through much of this period not been pushing this issue you know the Chiefs have been lukewarm at best to the idea of a national missile defense and they're worried that it's going to take away money from from other programs of modernization transformation programs that they say they prefer to see the funds spent on. How much. Has been spent so far. Well by one very thorough tally that was done several years ago the totals come to more than 100 billion dollars and current dollars over the last 50 years and that includes the safeguard system that existed

briefly in the mid 70s and all the work during the Reagan years and various various systems we. Course we still don't have a system in a lot of people. Surprisingly if you look at the public opinion polls actually think we do have a system you know about two thirds of Americans when polled will say will say that they believe we could already knock down a missile if it were launched the at the United States and you can't blame them because because they've been hearing talk about missile defense for years and years they see it. They see it in the movies you know and so they. They think we can we can do it but. But we haven't. We have no such capability secret or otherwise at this point we're still still quite a ways away from it. And we're spending right now several billion dollars a year still trying to develop some kind of approach that will work. We'll just have a caller and I promise I'll get to this person right. Just a second

just to take this one step further. Talked about the fact that the scientific community has is divided about whether technically such a thing is possible. And we talked about the fact that there's been a lot of work done a lot of money has been spent and we're not there yet. Is it the feeling do you think as you talk to people do you get the feeling that people believe that if we wrote a blank check if we said we will spend what ever it takes that it would be possible to get there or whether that it's not really a matter of money that it's more a matter of technology and it wouldn't matter how much we decided to spend that it's still not likely anytime soon we could get a workable system where you could probably get a debate over whether it's ever doable but even some of the some of the critics of the approaches that have been tried say that if we just tried some other approaches it might work I mean if we certainly if we had. Limitless amounts to spend on it.

It would be I think you'd see more progress. See the. The whole effort has been hampered by a number of considerations not just not just money. I mean we've had this treaty for 30 years that has prohibited research on some of the approaches that would be perhaps the most promising move many many experts say that if you could start from scratch and design a system what would they say that the best system would be something in space you know with lasers and so on you could get missiles just as they're lifting off and then you wouldn't have to worry about this problem of decoys. You know which. It's a problem with this land based system that we now have if you wait to try to hit a warhead when it's up and up in space it's got time to release all kinds of decoys that complicate the homing problem but so if you could just design a system based in space that would be that would be the optimal but that technology we haven't really

been able to pursue because of treaty concerns and so it's the it's the least the least developed so we've been fiddling with a system of land based interceptors. But and we've made a number of advances in sensors and computer processing that make it look. More and more promising but but it still has this very serious de quoi. The core problem that that has yet to be demonstrated we can surmount. We'll take a call here no person has been very patient we'll get to them. Champaign County Line 1. Hello. Yeah and you haven't even mentioned alternate delivery alternate attack and I'll add a cruise missile is still a fairly sophisticated but is not really known to attack of all by the methods I guess with the space based thing which is really the big the big motivation of Rumsfeld and all of the space commission work. But I want to

just the way you presented the patriot as you know defending our you know our troops in Israel and the. The Gulf War rang a bell. You know I soon you in an interview postal did a puzzle MIT gazes under under a lot of pressure now because of his willingness to. Discuss the negative aspects of this the Patriot didn't do anything. If it did anything it was by accident and everybody still it's a common place to hear it all the time that it you know and it was successful theater missile defense and it wasn't. So I mean there are a lot of common places built into the language. Well another thing you just said was a successful test. That's contested too. POSTEL will tell you that it was a cooked test and not a lot of other people would tell you. People on this campus. But you just blithely I don't want to make it a personal attack because. But you know that rang some bells. That's

that was not a successful to test. It was cooked. And that's why we don't hear that enough. And you're just mouthing the commonplace of the last caller's point to I think you deflected without really addressing it too well which is there is a lot of money backing backing this maybe it's you know it's the heritage doesn't get money dedicated from Boeing but the whole the whole industrial complexes is. It is really there and it's in it's really advocating this. Maybe it's not the first thing on our list when they're fighting over the tactical strike fighter and that sort of stuff but. It's definitely in their long range plans and there's there's any way of all that's enough for you to counter for a little while maybe I'll have a follow up. OK well the book is very thorough. What happened at each of these tests I had the rare

opportunity for a journalist in a way to actually be present for the last two Test out in the testing range of the quadrille and told so I go through a what went wrong and what went right and it and the case of the two out of the four tries where they actually hit they did hit. Now you can there has there have been questions legitimate questions raised about just what that shows. And in fact the tests were simplified in a number of ways. Not in ways that the Pentagon didn't talk about. I mean they were cleared. Anybody kind of you know taking the time to look at the details I think some of the reporting has been a little it's been a little confused about that but then some of the Pentagon accounts initially have been confused about just just what what went wrong. But

there's no question that there are many artificiality involved many surrogates used in these initial tests. And and that's that's the nature of these of these first tests and the Pentagon has presented them simply as proof of principle kinds of tests they're not saying that these these tests show that the system will be able to work under the more stressful conditions of of actual combat. There's a there's a long way to go. And I'm clear on that in the book and and those involved in the program have been clear have been clear on that. My reference to the Patriot was simply to wasn't I wasn't I didn't mean to suggest that the Patriot worked or not but it was simply to call attention to that how that issue became very much in the headlines. The issue of the battlefield defense and the threat to troops in the field

from shorter range missiles like the Scud was very was very much in the news during the Gulf War and it did have an impact particularly in Congress and and helped passage of the 1900 Missile Defense Act and for a very short time there was actually consensus between Republicans and Democrats about the need to move ahead with missile defense of it. And certainly that the images of Scuds attacking U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis reinforced the need for battlefield battlefield defense but of course the pitcher had many problems that post all of us. Lead took the lead in that lighting to the people. Well the point is that it was a fraud. Whether it was conscious or whether it was what I think it was consciously manipulated I think people knew that it really hadn't done any good and you know calling this test.

Well explained by the Pentagon and then saying that well maybe some of the initial stuff was confused. You know I think you're up to skating. And the point is that those tests were not a fair test of whether in the long run it's going to work I think that you can it's right but their network if you dump enough money on it but what cost maybe you do lay that out but I'm just saying what you're presenting to the casual listener is not very clear. The Patriot did push through this and it and it was a fraud and to call the last test without explaining it in the next breath. A very limited limited limited test I mean I don't feel like you're doing much on the air here too. Further debate now maybe in the text you have us all. But and then the point about the fence triangle and the amount of money

that's just constantly being spent sport more military spending and whatever shape to be able to say that that's not. Not really the case for missile defense. I don't buy it. Let me see if I can take one more pass at this issue of the tests that the tests have not been presented as proof that the long term this system can work. They have been presented as proof of principle of whether you could do it to kill under very simplistic conditions. But in the first case the first one that that actually hit the booster was not the real booster that is going to be used in the

test. The number that. Puter systems that are going to be used were not working I mean it was just a matter of sending up the skill vehicle this interceptor into the right pocket in space and seeing if once it opened its eyes it could home in on the on the on the target missile. That in itself is no small feat. And they managed to do that than they and they failed a second in a and a third time for reasons that had nothing to do with the new technology there were glitches in in the old technology very simple kinds of mechanical things that went wrong in one case the. The plumbing of the of the kill vehicle in another case the avionics in the in the in the booster that that failed to allow for separation. And by the fourth test where they did hit they had

more elements involved. It could be the Computer Management System had come on line they were using this as a prototype radar that would be in the actual system so it was more in the eye of an integrated test than the very first one but still still that there were many artificiality in the test that the booster was still not the one it was slower than the one that they had. They eventually expects expect to use the geometry has been the same in all 4 tests. They're using the same same pattern they intercept in this in the same place that the target is launched from California arcs over the Pacific interceptor goes up from the from an island in the Central Pacific. And and this is only testing one kind of scenario so there are many many artificiality that they've had to put up beacon on the target to provide some initial tracking not final homing information but additional tracking

information. Because of the artificiality of this of this scenario all of that is discoverable it's not. It's not hidden in the program the program over the years has indeed suffered from credibility prog problems in 1904 and again in 1901 tests on earlier systems were later revealed to have been rigged in ways that the Pentagon had not disclosed and and the current group of testers and officials managing the program are very mindful of this in the pain of what happened in the past. They do suffer sometimes from not explaining fully and not this. Getting down in and laying out everything at the first press conference that they give on these on these questions. But

I also then think that there is some distortion that ends up in some of the media accounts about just what is being done I mean for instance in this last test the presence of this beacon on the target missile was well-known to anybody who who studied the details of the test but it was presented as somehow rigging rigging the test. But it had been it had been explained and then the need for it and and also what the limitations were in it as a result in terms of attempting a test of it having that that that beacon there we just. Let me jump in here because we just are moving into our last 15 minutes and I have a I have two other callers that I want to try to get at let me and I hate to belabor this point just maybe maybe let me ask one for the question. It begins to sound as if. Whether one thinks missile defense is a good idea and can be made to work or whether one thinks it's a bad idea and can't be made to work. You could

either of these people take either of these positions you could use the tests that have been conducted so far to support your case. It sounds like you can argue either way. Is that where you can't write. It's a stretch to use the tests the say that this is proof the missile defense will eventually work in the way it has to work. You could take some encouragement that it will but you can't say that these tests have proven that so in that sense you know the critics are right to say you know show me you still haven't shown me. But by the by the proponents are saying is that look we've got to do this step at a time. Right now we're proving the principle of it to kill. We've gotten no closer to doing it than we have before. And and so and we're going to you know we're going to we're going to eventually demonstrated but you still have to take him on faith. We are talking this morning with Bradley Graham he's a reporter for The Washington Post has been at the paper for

more than 20 years reporting on foreign and military affairs. His book which has been out now for a little while is titled hit to kill the new battle over shielding America from missile attack published by Public Affairs. We have several callers will try to get everybody Next up is Savoy. Mine too. Hi how you doing. There's been several really good articles published over the years in Scientific American and throughout the articles. Were authored by Robert McNamara and it was really the calculation of just one of them. Are you totally assured destruction may be surprised at the assets of a small number of assets that have to be destroyed in a first strike to cripple an economy such as the United States. And this is the reason this offense is good it doesn't take 100 warheads to off a literate this country it only takes 10 or 12

warheads to explode over important targets to really destroy our way of life and economy and set us back 100 years. This is the reason that that missile defense is a good strategy. The key thing in a first strike is uncertainty. If your enemy is not certain that he. Can accomplish this path. He's not likely to attack. And then it's good to know that even one missile getting through during an attack is going to create the whole damage in this country and the costs are incalculable and therefore the system is very easy. If you could get one to even function. You know the 33 percent that what you Cohen do you don't shoot at what you shoot at nine times and you're bound to hit it. Well Mr. Graham you have a comment on that. Sure well you make you make a good point in

noting how the system is likely to work. We're not going to. It's not a plan that will just shoot one interceptor up to try to get one one warhead. The idea is is to take multiple shots and that should increase the chances of hitting an enemy warhead. And and it's certainly true that a. That if one gets through you'll have you'll have an incalculable damage but you hear that the Bush administration arguing that it's still maybe worth putting up a system that isn't 100 percent effective. The reason being that is that there is some value to just its dissuading and deterring potential adversaries in thinking that with that rating raising the cost for them and the risk

risk for them in trying to. To fire at us so that's another factor that has slowed the Pentagon down up to now it's that which is a requirement for 100 percent there close to 100 percent effectiveness that Bush administration has affectively remove that and it's made clear that they are ready to deploy a rudimentary system in this little as a few years even if it's far from 100 percent effective. Well that I think it still though there there is something in all of this that I think a lot of people simply don't under. Standard It doesn't make sense to them and that is that supposing that we build a system and a rogue nation it launches two or three or four or you know some relatively small number of missiles with nuclear weapons that the United States and even if the system you know maybe the system we have works pretty well but doesn't work completely well one gets through and it destroys New York City. Certainly the damage to New York and to this country would be

great and perhaps incalculable. However whoever launched that attack I think we would assume would not have a parallel system of defense and that the United States would be left with enough power so that if we used it to the maximum we could wipe that country off the face of the earth. So the question that I think most people ask is Why would any why would any rogue state knowing that we had that capability to retaliate. Why would they do it. Well this is always been the basis of deterrence there he was at this notion that we that whoever whoever shot at us would be risking annihilation. But the by the problem with that. They kill the seal of that series always been the you know the illogical the suicidal leader and somehow that seems much more of a possibility in the wake of the suicide terrorist attacks. And suppose that September 11th but there still is evidence out there that to those who we sometimes glibly think of as as as crazy for some reason we

think of third world some third world roads rogue state leaders as a somewhat less less rational than the Soviet leadership was but there's there's evidence out there that they would behave as rationally as the as the Soviets did and hold their fire. I mean Saddam Hussein is as often described as having withheld the use of chemical weapons during the Gulf War because of some very clear warnings from the United States that doing so would have brought annihilation on Baghdad. But but but apart from that what finally drove the Clinton ministrations I describe in my book to getting more serious about missile defense was the notion that deterrence even if you soom it it would work. It could use a little help these days. These days its own insurance policy it so why not. If you could show that the technology and the cost were.

Sick knowledge was there and the cost was affordable why not build a system it would make. Attack by a rogue state. Not only fatal but futile and and that was that was that was how that squared moving ahead with a missile defense with with traditional deterrence theory. Let's go to another caller this is Kim Mundy and it's Lie Number Four. Hello. Oh yes. You finds one is that it would be very easy to put decoys in with your missile put a missile in a Mylar balloon and put up another 10 or 20 or 30 balloons floating along with it so that you wouldn't be able to get to work ahead but secondly more important is the ease of smuggling him to the United States. All they have to do is put it in a cargo container and ship to any place in the United States they want to and have a drop off.

What are your views on that and I think the problem as you say is it's the biggest technological hurdle for for any kind of hit to kill system. It's why you see the number of people now looking at more time tensely at the at the boost phase kind of system where you try to hit a hidden enemy missile soon after lift off before it has time to. To dispersants it's decoys but they're there. There are great challenges and in the accomplishing that as well. And as for other threats this is a very very lively argument of course is is what is what is more likely you know a suitcase bomb or a nuclear device smuggled into this country. Or a long range missile. And I think the intelligence community. I mean they have they have to and those at the Pentagon have attempted to rate these various threats and missiles and

long range missile attack tends to rate you know lower on the list of likely occurrences that something like a smuggled a smuggled. But you know this argument has just been it's just been fanned by the events of September 11th. You have you have critics of the saying see we we told you so. The real threat the United States is not a high tech missile but but but a low tech attack prophets have been saying if if terrorists could do what they did just by hijacking several airliners imagine what they could do if they ever got their hands on or rogue state got its hands on a long range missile tipped with a nuclear weapon so the the while the likelihood of a missile launch may be less. The potential consequence of it could be much greater than

even the rule of some anthrax in a subway and in a major city. Well try to get one more caller quickly here in a car phone line 1. Hello. Hi I just wanted to make one very comment that that most people seem to have a perception that a third world countries are a rogue state that would have a crazy leader. There is in fact a considerable school of thought that says that that's actually really how the Soviets view Reagan but specifically after he made that on air comment I've declared war on Russia and will be bombing Moscow in five minutes. So the craziness can apply to major powers as well as any other nation. That's all I want to say thank you well Mr. Graham you want to comment on that at all. No I definitely think that's that. That's true it's not just. I mean those who have been critical of deterrence theory of some of you have said that we that we've just been very lucky that there has been in assuming that even

those who could who run big countries will behave logically. We're almost a point we have to finish I just. Real quick in in now. Where are we now in terms of funding that has recently been approved. The Bush administration had asked for an increase in missile defense funding from five point three to eight point three billion dollars in fiscal 2002 and Democrats and kind Congress were Bocking at that before September 11th but afterwards they they said well we're not going to we're not going to get into a partisan fight about this now so they they've given the administration all the money it wanted for testing for this year. And so the minute the administration is bucked on this very broad robust testing program for various various approaches and the next test of the land based systems coming up. Supposed to be tonight it's been postponed a couple days it's now due this Saturday night. Well thanks very much for talking with us. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Our guest Bradley Graham he's a

reporter for The Washington Post and if you're interested in reading his book again The title is hit to kill. The new battle over shielding America from missile attack is published by Public Affairs.