Test Failures Slow U.S. Missile Defense

Posted on: Jan. 19th, 2006 || Source: abcnews.go.com | E-mail Article | Print Article

FORT GREELY, Alaska Jan 18, 2006 — Behind the heavy barbed wire at this snowy range are silos containing eight interceptors designed to shoot down incoming enemy missiles. There were supposed to be as many as 16 in place by now.

But after an embarrassing series of test failures in the ambitious, expensive and highly criticized program to build a national missile-defense shield, the U.S. military is slowing the deployment of interceptors while it conducts more testing.

Fewer interceptors than the military had hoped for have been installed at Fort Greely, an 800-acre complex at the edge of an old burned spruce forest, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Vandenberg has just two interceptors instead of four.

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