Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
by Jeff Richardson
February 6, 2011

Two rival teams of defense contractors will compete for a huge contract to manage part of the U.S. missile defense system, including the interceptor site at Fort Greely.

Teams led by Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Corporation submitted proposals last week to manage the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Development and Sustainment Contract for the Department of Defense. The contract, known informally as GMD, covers high-tech workers at various missile-defense sites throughout the country.

The value of the contract is estimated at $600 million per year…

Reda on: http://newsminer.com/bookmark/11291041-Defense-contractors-compete-for-missile-work-including-site-at-Fort-Greely-

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NTI: Global Security Newswire
January 26, 2011

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov today said the nation would move ahead with preparations to build its own antimissile defenses, RIA Novosti reported …

“As far as our missile defense system is concerned, we have been developing it and will be further developing it,” the defense chief told the upper house of the Russian parliament, which today voted to approve the New START nuclear arms pact with the United States …

Previous reports said Moscow was aiming for an “impenetrable” missile defense system by 2020.

The Kremlin is in discussions with NATO on potential collaboration for a missile defense shield intended to safeguard the European continent from potential short- and medium range missile strikes from the Middle East. Russia has warned it would withdraw from the negotiations if it feels it is not being treated as an equal partner …

http://globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110126_1141.php

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al.com (Blog)
By Shelly Haskins, The Huntsville Times
January 6, 2011

Ahead of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement of up to $178 billion in cuts in military spending, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions joined a democrat and an independent senator today in asking Gates not to cut missile defense.

Gates briefed key lawmakers and reporters this afternoon on his plans for defense spending cuts, which add $78 billion to the already anticipated $100 billion in cuts. …

“We write to urge you as you work toward improving efficiencies within the Department to take no action that would impair the development of the missile defense architecture as outlined by the Missile Defense Agency in the FY11-15 Future Years Defense Plan,” the senators wrote. “Such reductions would be inconsistent with the President’s support for missile defense as outlined in his December 18, 2010, letter to Senators (Harry) Reid and (Mitch) McConnell during debate on the new START treaty …”

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/01/sen_jeff_sessions_asks_defense.html

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Asahi.com
By Kuniichi Tanida
January 3, 2011

A joint U.S.-Japan research program to develop software for a ship-borne ballistic missile defense system has collapsed after the two sides failed to agree on conditions for exporting the technology, sources said.

Tokyo’s insistence that the United States obtain prior consent from the Japanese government before selling the software to a third country caused the breakdown, the sources said. The United States has decided to continue with the project alone.

The software on which the two countries were working is meant to improve the ship-board Aegis guided missile system, which is supposed to intercept ballistic missiles, by improving onboard computer displays and providing a backup system in case of system failure.

It was being developed jointly by the governments and private sectors of the two countries under the Ballistic Missile Defense Open Architecture Research (BMDOAR) program.

While cooperation on the system was just the second in a series of planned joint ballistic missile defense projects between the two countries, its collapse could have implications for other programs. …

www.asahi.com/english/TKY201101020016.html

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Space News
By Turner Brinton
December 30, 2010

The U.S. defense policy bill passed by Congress Dec. 22 is generally supportive of the nation’s missile defense programs, but it would prevent the Pentagon from spending money in 2011 on a European missile shield until certain requirements are met, including firm agreements by European countries to host the necessary assets.

Numerous congressional hearings were held over the past year to analyze the overhauled plan to deploy a European missile defense system that was announced by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama in September 2009. The 2011 Defense Authorization Bill supports the White House’s vision for the shield, calling it an “appropriate response to the existing ballistic missile threat from Iran to the European territory of [NATO] countries, and to potential future ballistic missile capabilities of Iran.”

The House of Representatives and Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent on the same day and it now awaits the president’s signature into law.

The United States in 2006 first announced plans to field a system to protect European allies and deployed forces from ballistic missile attacks. The original plan would have placed 10 fixed-site interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. The Obama administration’s revamped plan, called Phased Adaptive Approach, calls for the deployment of interceptor-equipped Aegis ships to European waters and a radar system in southern Europe in 2011. Land-based derivatives of the Standard Missile 3 interceptor, which today is fired exclusively from ships at sea, would be deployed in Romania and Poland starting in 2015 and 2018, respectively. …

www.spacenews.com/policy/101230-bill-sets-spending-missile-shield.html

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SpaceDaily.com
Washington (AFP)
December 18, 2010

President Barack Obama vowed Saturday to pursue the deployment of US missile defense systems and rejected Russia’s claim that doing so would justify withdrawing from a new nuclear arms control treaty.

“Regardless of Russia’s actions in this regard, as long as I am president, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners,” he said.

Obama’s strong message on an issue that has at times deeply angered Moscow came in a letter to top senators as his Republican foes called for killing the new Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) over missile defense concerns.

Republicans have rallied behind an amendment by Republican Senator John McCain to strip out language in START’s preamble tying offensive nuclear weapons to defensive systems.

The preamble is non-binding but, because it resulted from talks between Washington and Moscow, passing the amendment would have forced the accord back to the negotiating table, effectively killing the agreement. …

www.spacedaily.com/reports/Obama_vows_to_pursue_US_missile_defense_plans_999.html

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Washington Post
Associated Press
December 15, 2010

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — An interceptor missile launched from California on Wednesday failed to hit a target fired from a Pacific atoll 4,000 miles away during a test of an anti-ballistic missile defense system, the Air Force announced.

The missile, called a ground-based interceptor, lifted off from coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base at 12:03 a.m. and released a device called an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, or EKV, that was to plow into a target missile fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The interceptor’s sensors worked and the EKV was deployed, but it missed, according to a statement from Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

The cause of the failure will be investigated before another test is scheduled, Lehner said. …

Read on:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/15/AR2010121505427.html

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UPI.com
December 9, 2010

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE …

Demonstration satellites built by U.S. companies Northrop Grumman and Raytheon successfully detected and tracked an ICBM test launch.

The U.S. Air Force said the Space Tracking and Surveillance System Demonstration program satellites tracked the Minuteman III through the boost and post-boost phases for the first time.

The single re-entry test vehicle from the missile traveled about 5,300 miles to a pre-determined point about 200 miles southwest of Guam.

The missile defense satellites transmitted tracking data to the Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., where the information is being analyzed. …

“This test demonstrated the ability of STSS to track cold-body objects post-boost, an important capability needed by the Missile Defense Agency for the Ballistic Missile Defense System.”

Read in full here: www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/12/09/Demo-satellites-detect-track-missile/UPI-36501291905355/

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The Washington Post
By Mary Beth Sheridan
December 13, 2010

With only days left in the lame-duck Congress, President Obama is pushing hard to accomplish something never before done by a Democratic president: successfully get a nuclear-arms-reduction treaty through the ratification process.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “the support is there” to pass the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) if it comes to the floor. The White House said Friday that Obama is willing to postpone his vacation until the U.S.-Russia pact is ratified.

But it has become clear that Obama is facing a fight over the same issue that derailed President Bill Clinton’s quest for a similar accord – missile defense, a cherished Republican goal dating back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. When Republican senators now say they need a fuller debate on the treaty, this is an important part of what they want to discuss.

“Missile defense remains a major point of disagreement between the United States and Russia, and this treaty only makes the situation worse,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) wrote recently on National Review Online.

Some Republicans say they want to tweak the Senate resolution of ratification with the goal of then supporting it. Others argue the treaty itself needs amendments , which could kill it.

Treaty supporters say the outcry over missile defense is unfounded – and suspect it is a tactic to score political points. They note that there is almost nothing on missile defense in the treaty, which runs more than 300 pages with annexes, and Obama has continued many of George W. Bush’s missile-defense policies.

“One of the great ironies is, he made sure there was no way to attack the treaty as being tough on missile defense,” Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, said of Obama. “And yet that’s exactly one of the main rationales used by treaty critics.” …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121204151_pf.html

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Xinhua
December 9, 2010

President Barack Obama on Wednesday committed the United States to basing land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland in the 2018 timeframe as part of its NATO- wide missile defense system.

In a joint statement after meeting with visiting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski at the White House, Obama expressed his gratitude for the commitment by the Polish government to host this system, saying Poland’s commitment is “an extremely valuable contribution to the development of a NATO missile defense capability.”

At a November summit in Lisbon, Portugal, NATO’s 28 member states agreed to develop “the capability to defend our populations and territories against ballistic missile attack as a core element of our collective defense.”

The Phased Adaptive Approach to European missile defense, unveiled by Obama in September 2009 to replace the Bush-era controversial missile defense shield program in the Czech Republic and Poland, will be deployed in four stages from next year until 2020 and would be capable of intercepting long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Under the plan, U.S. interceptor missiles and radar will be stationed in Europe, for which NATO member states have to invest 200 million euros (280 million dollars) to link their existing anti-missile systems to the U.S. system. …

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-12/09/c_13641045.htm

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