Missile defense in 2006: now more controversial than ever

Published: Jan 30, 2006
Source: www.thespacereview.com



Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, coupled with its existing missile development efforts, will bring more attention onto the state of missile defense efforts in the US. Taylor Dinerman examines the options the Defense Department faces given its decision not to pursue space-based systems.

If the pronouncements of Iran’s leaders are anything to go by, they will be depending on their force of ballistic missiles as well as their terrorist allies to deliver the nuclear weapons they hope to build. While space-based intelligence satellites can help with the fight against terrorists, it takes active weapons to either destroy a missile on the ground or after it has taken off. There have been reports from some sources of dubious reliability that the Iranians are already moving their Shebab missiles every few hours to protect them from a surprise attack. Obviously if anything happens, the first thing they will do is launch as many as possible against Israel as well as American and other targets within range.

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