‘Star Wars’ Defense Is a Colossal Waste
Your Dec. 20 editorial “Ill-Starred ‘Star Wars’ Tests” is right on the mark. As if the string of failed tests weren’t enough, the current missile defense system uses a strategy that is “utterly useless” and that “would have zero effectiveness against even a few warheads,” according to Richard Garwin, former chair of a State Department nonproliferation commission and former member of the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission on the missile threat.
Garwin asserts that a nuclear warhead equipped with countermeasures can effectively thwart such a defense system.
Probably the greatest threat is not from long-range ballistic missiles but from nuclear-armed cruise missiles launched from a small ship amid the maritime traffic along our shores. At a September 2002 press conference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged this vulnerability.
The missile defense system doesn’t begin to address this threat.
This colossal waste of money should be ended immediately.
John Howard
Ventura
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