Pentagon Spending vs Congress: Broken Gov't & War Funding

Congress Wars: Battle for the defense budget

In what is shaping up to be a classic congressional right vs. left fight over defense and war funding, both the House and Senate are gearing up to battle over some expected and not-so-expected items in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the bill, showing its hand to members of the House of Representatives on what it felt should be authorized for military spending.

The act authorizes spending limits and sets defense policy, but it does not actually appropriate the funds.

The committee version must still pass a full Senate vote. The House signed off on its bill this month. While a date has yet to be announced, both the final House and Senate versions will go through extensive negotiations to hammer out a final version of the legislation, expected in the fall.

Both bills have numerous amendments that will be debated and fought over in the coming months. Keep an eye on these five if you like political fireworks.

Clash of the cash

The first battle will come as no surprise, as the House and Senate versions put out two totally different bottom lines for Pentagon funding. The Democrat-run Senate version, announced Thursday, gives the military $631.4 billion under the president's trimmed-down Pentagon budget. It received full bipartisan support with a unanimous vote to pass it out of the committee.

But the House version passed this month comes in at $642.5 billion. Although it does not seem to be much more than the Senate version, it is over the president's Pentagon budget request, and it triggered a veto threat by the White House.

The measure adds $4 billion to the Pentagon budget, which is already targeted for almost $500 billion in cuts over the next 10 years to help reduce the nation's deficit.

Missile mess

Within the House version is a hotly debated missile defense shield for the East Coast of the United States.

The bill obligates $100 million to plan for the system, which is to be fully established by 2015. The cost of the entire system will be well into the billions.

Proponents, like Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, an ardent missile defense backer, say there is a need for the shield to protect against threats from Russia or Iran.

But House Democrats and Pentagon leaders who are against the plan say there is no threat to the eastern seaboard.

"Today's threats do not require an East Coast missile field, and we do not have plans to do so," Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, told Congress this year.

On Thursday, the Senate chose not to put money toward the plan and instead called for a study on the missile plan, which U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts, called the "East Coast fantasy 'Star Wars' base."

Combat for all

Another key item to watch for is how both sides address an amendment in the Senate version that would allow women in the U.S. military to fight alongside their male counterparts on the front lines of war.

The provision, added to the bill last week by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, orders the Pentagon to devise a plan to let women have an active combat role on the battlefield. As of now, the Pentagon bars women from joining the ranks of front-line combat troops.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that it was relaxing parts of the policy of barring women from direct combat positions. Gillibrand's provision would direct the Pentagon to develop plans to remove all of the regulations and open every combat position to female troops.

While the House National Defense Authorization Act does not have a similar provision, there is a separate bill pending in the House of Representatives that could be added to the final version of the bill when both sides come to the negotiating table.

"Though the Pentagon has taken some small steps to remove restrictions on female service, they have not yet made a real commitment to a formal repeal. It's time to do what is right and recognize these women for what they do every day in Afghanistan and around the world," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-California, who introduced the bill in the House.

Abortion debate

What is sure to be a hot-button issue in the coming months is a provision in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, lifting the ban on the Department of Defense paying for abortions in cases of rape or incest.

The measure was added by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, a member of the Armed Services Committee, and had bipartisan support in the committee.

"This is about equity," Shaheen said. "Civilian women who depend on the federal government for health insurance - whether they are postal workers or Medicaid recipients - have the right to access affordable abortion care if they are sexually assaulted. It is only fair that the thousands of brave women in uniform fighting to protect our freedoms are treated the same."

"It is an outrage and a national security risk that the women in our military do not have the same basic protections for reproductive health care as women across the U.S.," said Gillibrand, a co-sponsor of the amendment.

Quietly, staffers on the Hill say they fully expect fight between the left and right, especially with some members who face re-election in the fall.

But officials familiar with the issue on the Hill say it may not be an issue at all come negotiation time.

"It's a perennial issue. Almost every year, a similar provision is added, and every time it gets eliminated somewhere in the negotiation process," according to one Hill aide who was not authorized to speak ahead of the negotiations.

The problem with Pakistan

In one of the more unusual pieces of the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act, senators agreed to withhold Pakistan's part of a $1.75 billion aid package because of outrage over the imprisonment of a Pakistani doctor who helped with U.S. efforts to pinpoint Osama bin Laden in last year's deadly raid as well as the continued closure of NATO supply routes into and out of Afghanistan.

The provision calls for the aid package to be conditional on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta certifying that Pakistan opens the supply lines, no longer detains Dr. Shakil Afridi and is not supporting terrorist groups.

On Thursday, another bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee also withheld aid to Pakistan for similar reasons.

When asked whether there was a coordinated effort on the Hill to punish Pakistan through legislation, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said there was not, but there was a lot of anger on the Hill over these issues.

"What it shows is a common outrage, a common response to just about every place you can look," Levin said.

The House bill passed before the outrage in Congress erupted over Pakistan, so it does not contain any similar language.

So as Congress rages about Pakistan this week, it will be interesting to see whether that momentum holds and the Senate Armed Services Committee language stays in the final version of the bill, expected to be voted on by both chambers later this year.


Sources: CNN, Russia Today, Youtube

Pres. Obama Advocates Change & Real Help For Vets

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Youtube

BP Continues Business As Usual With U.S. Dept Of Defense

BP Has Steady Sales At Defense Department Despite U.S. Scrutiny


The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil company comes under scrutiny for potential violations of federal and state laws related to Gulf of Mexico well explosion, according to U.S. and company officials.

President Obama said last month that the company's "recklessness" in the gulf contributed to the disaster, and he promised that BP will "pay for the damage." Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking into possible violations of civil and criminal statutes. "If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," he said.

BP, meanwhile, remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. In fiscal 2009, BP was the Pentagon's largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to DLA spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher.

"BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs," Schirmacher said, without providing details. BP spokesman Robert Wine said he was aware of at least one "big contract" signed by the U.S. military after the oil rig explosion on April 20, involving the supply of multiple fuels for its operations in Europe.

So far, members of Congress have discussed barring BP from any new oil and gas drilling leases, not from fuel sales to the government. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who co-chairs the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, said last week that he would introduce legislation to shut BP out of such leases for the
next seven years, as punishment for what he described as "serial" legal violations.

But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a statement that "the U.S. government needs to look at all possible options when it comes to showing BP, or any corporate bad actor, that a continued culture of cost cutting and increased risk taking will absolutely not be tolerated."

Even before the gulf debacle, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun to explore cutting off BP from all federal contracts -- including those with the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which buys all fuel for the military services. The EPA plays the lead role in debarment proceedings related to the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and its probe was sparked by BP's 2006 oil spill in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas.



The EPA's deliberations, however, are suspended until the gulf spill investigations conclude, according to an EPA spokeswoman. The agency may decide to shut off federal contracts with specific divisions within BP, or with the whole company "if it is in the public interest to do so," it said in May. Any such action would be meant to punish "environmental noncompliance or other misconduct," it said.

Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently oversaw the review of BP's possible debarment, has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the Pentagon depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East. "My contact at DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces" in the region, Pascal said. She added that "BP was very fortunate in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in a military action or a war."

Pascal then sought a settlement to allow contracting with BP while forcing the company to elevate an internal office dealing with health, safety and environmental issues within its corporate structure. She also demanded that the company keep an ombudsman, retired federal judge Stanley Sporkin, whom BP first hired after the Alaska spill but had sought to let go. BP resisted both demands, and the talks were stalemated when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, Pascal said.

"At some point, debarment attorneys throughout the government need to look at BP's record," she said. "This is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. . . . Do we want to do business with this foreign corporation, which has a horrendous record of chronically violating U.S. law? You have to look at the overall behavior pattern."

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Wendy L. Snyder, gave a different account of the internal debarment discussions. She said the Defense Logistics Agency "informed the EPA that there are adequate procedures and processes to protect the U.S. military missions should EPA determine that BP should be debarred."

That claim was reinforced by Schirmacher, who said that "none of BP's current energy contracts are in direct support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan" and that the department could meet its requirements without BP fuel. But she indicated that the Pentagon had no intention of taking such action in the absence of an EPA decision.

Wine, the BP spokesman, said that although he is not familiar with details of the company's negotiations with EPA, Sporkin's tenure was extended earlier this year until the middle of 2011. He did not challenge Pascal's claim that BP's health, safety and environmental unit had been moved lower on the corporate structure before the gulf spill, reporting to the head of a business unit instead of directly to the top executive. But, Wine said, "what difference does that make?"

"Safety comes through the organization through every root," he said, and remains "paramount in every part of the business."

Several federal agencies have continuing contracts with BP, although none worth as much as the Pentagon's. Since 2008, the Federal Aviation Administration has contracted to spend at least $2.26 million to station weather, communications and aerial surveillance devices on several BP platforms in the gulf, including the Atlantis oil production platform roughly 100 miles from Deepwater Horizon's former location. Critics, including a former BP contractor, have alleged that the Atlantis was built without proper safety controls, which BP denies.

FAA spokeswoman Laura J. Brown said that BP's environmental and legal record was not a consideration in her agency's contracts. The Atlantis platform was selected "based purely on how it would support air traffic," she said.


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Sources: National Geographic, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

McChrystal Is Retiring From U.S. Army, No Date Set

U.S. Army Spokesman Says General McChrystal Is Retiring


Gen. Stanley McChrystal, removed last week as the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, has told the Army he will retire, Army spokesman Gary Tallman said Monday.

No date was set for the retirement of McChrystal, a four-star general who assumed command of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan last year.

McChrystal was replaced on Wednesday by President Obama after disclosure of a magazine article in which the general and top aides disparaged top administration officials including Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser Jim Jones.

Obama praised McChrystal's service record but said the general exhibited poor judgment. Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command commander, was named to replace McChrystal in Afghanistan.


Sources: CNN, Rolling Stone Mag.

Pres. Obama To Unveil Omnibus $3.8 Trillion 2010 Budget

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Five years, $5.08 Trillion In Debt


President Barack Obama’s new $3.83 trillion budget — on its way to Congress Monday — anticipates an even worse deficit this year than last and no big improvement until the economy improves and the nation sheds the crushing costs of two wars overseas.

It’s a bleak, nerve-wracking landscape for any White House, but the president is still betting on significant new spending for education and clean energy initiatives, including billions in loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry.

He would hire thousands of new personnel to process veterans’ claims faster, and amid everything else, wants billions to resolve the complaints of soldiers and airmen exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

But behind the brave face, Obama’s budget anticipates that Iraq and Afghanistan war funding will hover near $160 billion for both 2010 and 2011— far more than he had hoped when elected and only modestly less than in the last years of the Bush Administration.

The strain shows itself in the new deficit projections, far worse than what the White House forecast in its first budget at this time a year ago.

After a record $1.4 trillion shortfall in 2009, the administration now says the red ink will reach $1.56 trillion this year and be little better, $1.27 trillion in 2011.

In fact, it’s not until 2014 and 2015— when Obama hopes to be in his second term— that he has any hope of deficits approaching a sustainable level. Even then he is banking heavily on a new bipartisan fiscal commission to really finish the job.

The outlook— more pessimistic than Congressional Budget Office deficit estimates last week—adds up to $5.08 trillion in red ink over the next five years. That’s $1.32 trillion or 35% more than the White House predicted 12 months ago; about two-thirds of this deterioration can be traced directly back to lower revenues and the higher cost of the wars.

Obama’s response thus far has been to allow high-end Bush-era tax breaks to expire after 2010 for those earning more than $250,000 and to impose a three-year freeze on domestic spending. A new levy on big banks would help recoup government losses from the Treasury’s financial industry rescue plan, and he is again targeting oil, gas and coal tax preferences worth about $40 billion over 10 years.

In a conference call with reporters late Sunday, White House officials portrayed the budget as pragmatic and leaning neither to the left or right. But the president’s credibility is sure to be tested by the effectiveness of his promised freeze, impacting about $447 billion in annual appropriations.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new $10 billion budget reflects a cut of about 3% or $278 million, for example. This leaves less money to sustain the very rapid growth seen last year in clean water programs. And annual funding for the Great Lakes restoration initiative — a big priority for Obama’s Chicago friends and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) —will be scaled back from $475 million last year to $300 million now.

But on balance, the president’s plan seems less restrictive in many areas than lawmakers had anticipated. With the Senate having just passed a $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase last week, fiscal moderates in his own party may insist on even tighter limits.

Obama begins with a built-in cushion since about $5 billion in 2010 Census spending won’t have to be repeated in 2011. A big portion of expanded Pell Grant funding for low-income college students is being treated as a mandatory cost outside the freeze covering the Education Department’s discretionary budget. And both Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security are exempted altogether and are expected to get combined spending increases of $5 billion.

In the case of education, a top priority for the president, the department’s appropriations would grow by about $3.5 billion to $49.7 billion, a 7.5% increase. But when Pell Grants are counted, the total increase is closer to $11.4 billion or 16% above current spending.

The Energy Department’s budget would grow by about $1.8 billion or 6.8%. And to stretch these dollars further, Obama is devoting $500 million to a new credit program with the potential to generate up to $36 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry.

Other departments like Health and Human Services or Labor receive much smaller increases, more in the range of inflation or less. But within these totals, the National Institutes of Health would grow by about $1 billion or 3%. Community health centers and Head Start are also promised increases, and a teen pregnancy program would be expanded from $100 million to almost $180 million.

Mindful of the strain on state and local law enforcement budgets, the administration proposes increased funding for the COP’s program within the Justice Department. And the Homeland Security budget includes $200 million in new grant funding to help cities pay for beefed-up security in the event of a Guantanamo detainee being tried in a local federal court.

The budget’s increased war funding is not entirely surprising given Obama’s decision to add more U.S. forces in Afghanistan. And his early estimates for 2011 in last year’s budget were always suspect and more of a “plug” than real.

Nonetheless, seeing everything in a single budget brings the war costs more into focus. Democrats are increasingly agitated by the pace of withdrawal from Iraq, and the combined costs of the two wars is striking -– especially when measured against the much more hopeful rhetoric of Obama’s campaign.

The president’s 2010 defense budget a year ago requested $130 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and just $50 billion in 2011. The new budget ramps up 2010 spending to $163 billion and, for 2011, requests $159 billion in overseas contingency funds for the military.

This reverses the drop in war-related spending seen in fiscal 2009, which ended last Sept. 30 and was a transition year of sorts between the two administrations. When compared to the peak war spending of the Bush years, Obama is only about 10% below Bush’s annual average of $176 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008—the time of the Iraq war surge.

Core defense spending is also feeling the strain, and the president’s $549 billion request reflects less than 2% real growth over inflation,

At a time when Obama is emphasizing jobs creation, this sets up what could be bitter election-year fights with Democrats over plans to halt airplane and truck production important to employment California and the Midwest.

Indiana, for example, promises to be a tough battleground for Sen. Evan Bayh and fellow Democrats in the House, but the defense budget would terminate Army purchases of HMMWV vehicles built by AM General in the northern portion of the state.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to redouble his campaign against the C-17 transport plane this year, much as he successfully went after F-22 production last year. And while the Pentagon is committing still more money to the F-35 joint strike fighter, production will slip a year to allow more testing, and Gates seems determined to take on lawmakers again over their insistence that that there be a second manufacturer to produce engines for the fighter.

The 2011 budget debate won’t hit full stride until this spring, but Democrats may move earlier than usual on a supplemental spending bill for the current fiscal year.

The Defense Department is seeking $33 billion in additional war-related funding, on top of which the State Department will also be receiving additional funds for its beefed up operations in Afghanistan. Rep. John Murtha (D—Pa.), chairman of the House defense appropriations panel, wants to include any requests related to Haiti in the same package, and the budget reflects at least two supplemental spending requests for 2010 from domestic departments.

The Homeland Security budget anticipates $3.6 billion in disaster-related funds for FEMA, and the VA may seek another $13.4 billion, much of it in relationship with a fund to resolve health claims related to exposure to Agent Orange.


Sources: Politico, MSNBC

The Obama White House Has A Leak...Is It Intentional?

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Sources: MSNBC

Pres. Obama Abandons Bush's Cold War Missile Defense Program...Will Deploy More Advanced System

("Axis of evil" missile shield scrubbed. Republican critics called President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush Administration plan to base a missile defense system in Eastern Europe "misguided," but the Pentagon and NATO supported his push for "a smaller, smarter, swifter" system. NBC White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie reports.)

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(Defense Secretary Robert Gates discusses the rationale for a new shield system.)

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White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield


President Obama announced on Thursday that he would scrap former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead deploy a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting short- and medium-range Iranian missiles.

Pres. Obama decided not to deploy a sophisticated radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, as Mr. Bush had planned. Instead, the new system his administration is developing would deploy smaller SM-3 missiles, at first aboard ships and later on land somewhere in Europe, possibly even in Poland or the Czech Republic.

“President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat,” Pres. Obama told reporters at the White House. But he said new assessments of the nature of the Iranian threat required a different system that would use existing technology and different locations. “This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”

The decision amounts to one of the biggest national security reversals by the new administration, one that has caused consternation in Poland and the Czech Republic and pleased at least some officials in Russia, which had adamantly objected to the Bush plan. But Obama administration officials stressed that they are not abandoning missile defense, only redesigning it to meet the more immediate Iranian threat.

Pres. Obama called the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, both NATO member countries, before his announcement and said he “reaffirmed our deep and close ties.” He also reiterated America’s commitment under Article 5 of the NATO treaty that states that an attack on one member is an attack on the entire alliance. Aides later said that Pres. Obama would keep Mr. Bush’s commitment to provide Patriot anti-missile batteries to Poland.

The decision drew immediate Republican criticism. “Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more then empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.”

Anticipating the criticism, Pres. Obama said the decision was based on the unanimous recommendation of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then sent Mr. Gates, a Republican first appointed by Mr. Bush, to discuss the decision with reporters. Mr. Gates said the new system would actually put defenses in place seven years earlier than the Bush plan. He noted that land-based SM-3 missiles would eventually be located in Europe and said “we would prefer to put the SM-3’s in Poland.”

“Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing,” Mr. Gates said. He added that the new configuration “provides a better missile defense capability” for Europe and American forces there “than the program I recommended almost three years ago.”

The Bush missile defense architecture was better designed to counter potential intercontinental ballistic missiles by Iran. But officials said American intelligence agencies have concluded that Tehran’s development of such long-range missiles has slowed, while its progress toward short- and medium-range missiles has accelerated. The new system, they said, is adapting to that change. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the administration would jettison the Bush architecture.

The administration officials also made clear that one reason for the shift would be to get better defenses in place sooner and closer to Israel to mitigate Israel’s desire to take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities as it comes closer to building a nuclear warhead and mounting it on a missile. “We hope that it will reassure them that perhaps there’s a little more time here,” Mr. Gates said.

But the decision is sensitive in Europe and Russia. As details began to leak, the White House arranged for a post-midnight call from Pres. Obama to the Czech prime minister and a call in the morning to Poland’s prime minister. It also dispatched top officials to Prague and Warsaw to explain the decision and calm any anxieties.

But it made for unfortunate timing, as Thursday was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, a date fraught with sensitivity for Poles who viewed the Bush missile defense system as a political security blanket against Russia. Poland and many other countries in the former Soviet sphere worry that Pres. Obama is less willing than Mr. Bush was to stand up to Russia.

While the Americans always described missile defense as a hedge against Iran, the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as protection against Russia. Moscow strongly opposed the shield and claimed it was aimed against Russia and undermined its national security. The United States repeatedly denied such claims.

The announcement comes just days before Pres. Obama is scheduled to meet privately with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, in New York on the sidelines of next week’s United Nations General Assembly session.

Mr. Medvedev, in an address on national television on Thursday, said that he looked forward to the meeting with President Obama. “We will have a good opportunity to exchange opinions on all issues of strategic stability, including missile defense,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to give assignments to different bodies — Russian, American bodies — to begin cooperation, including the involvement of interested European states.

“We will together work out efficient measures for dealing with the risks of missile proliferation -- measures that take into account the interests and concerns of all sides and guarantee equal security for all states in the European space. We appreciate the responsible approach of the U.S. President toward implementing our agreements. I am prepared to continue this dialogue.”

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s Parliament, said in an interview that the decision would give a major boost to relations between the two countries. “For Russia, it is a victory for common sense,” he said. “It another positive signal that we have received from Washington that makes the general climate very positive.”

The Obama administration’s four-phase plan would deploy existing SM-3 interceptors using the sea-based Aegis system in 2011, then after more testing deploy in 2015 an improved version of the interceptors both on ships and on land along with advanced sensors. A still more advanced version of the interceptors would be deployed in 2018 and yet another generation in 2020, the latter with more capacity to counter possible future intercontinental missiles.

By doing so, officials said, they would be getting the first defenses in place far earlier than the Bush plan, which envisioned deploying in 2018 the bigger ground-based interceptors that are still being developed. The SM-3 missiles have had eight successful tests so far. And with more short- and medium-range missiles to counter, the administration said it may deploy hundreds of the SM-3s, compared to just 10 of the ground-based interceptors Mr. Bush planned.

Officials said they no longer need the large advanced radar installation that Mr. Bush wanted to build in the Czech Republic and would instead install a more limited version probably in the Caucasus. The system will also rely more on satellites in space and will develop new airborne sensors.

The Obama review of missile defense was influenced in large part by evidence that Iran has made significant progress toward developing medium-range missiles that could threaten Europe, even as the prospects of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States remain distant.

In May, Iran launched the Sejil-2, the first successful test of a two-stage, solid-fuel missile. With an estimated range of around 1,200 miles, it could strike Israel or many parts of Europe. Unlike Iran’s liquid-fuel missiles, a solid-fuel missile can be stored, moved around and fired on shorter notice, and thus is considered by military experts to be a greater threat.

The Obama team relied heavily on the work of a Stanford University physicist, Dean Wilkening, who presented the government with research this year arguing that Poland and the Czech Republic were not the most effective places to station a missile defense system against the most likely Iranian threat. Instead, he said, more optimal places to station missiles and radar systems would be in Turkey or the Balkans.

“If you move the system down closer to the Middle East,” it would “make more sense for the defense of Europe, Mr. Wilkening said in an interview.



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Sources: NY Times, MSNBC, CNN, TIME, NATO.int, US Dept of Defense, Wikipedia, Google Maps