from http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Missile defense
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took a jab at critics of U.S.
missile defense efforts during a speech last week in Huntsville, Ala.
When he joined a commission on ballistic missile threats in 1998, "I
was stunned by how theological the missile defense debate had become.
It was really a hair knot," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Everyone felt
something very, very strongly about it. Even the proponents disagreed
very strongly. And the opponents disagreed very strongly. And things
were pretty much on dead center as a result of it. It was a shame."
Mr. Rumsfeld said President Bush ended the impasse by junking the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He noted that two years after Mr. Bush
announced the decision to finally deploy a missile defense system, "in
the past few weeks, the first interceptor has been put in place in
Fort Greeley, Alaska," and that "by the end of this year we expect to
have a limited operational capability against incoming ballistic
missiles." Mr. Rumsfeld said the initial deployment represents "the
triumph of hope and vision over pessimism and skepticism." The
deployment probably is "somewhat of a disappointment for those who
were convinced it would fail," he said. He noted his cordial
discussions days earlier with Russian officials on missile defense and
said that critics, primarily liberal weapons-control advocates, who
think U.S. missile defenses would be destabilizing were wrong. "The
sky-is-falling group was wrong. The sky did not fall. It's still up
there." Mr. Rumsfeld also was asked about the danger of terrorists or
rogue states attacking the United States by putting a short-range
Scud-type missile on a freighter and firing it close to U.S. shores.
He said one Middle East nation already has "launched a ballistic
missile from a cargo vessel." "They had taken a short-range, probably
Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in,
taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it,
fired it, lowered it, covered it up. And the ship that they used was
using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50,
60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area." Other U.S.
officials have said the nation was Iran, which tested a
freighter-launched missile in the Caspian Sea in the late 1990s. "It
is true that the big distinction we make between intercontinental,
medium-range and shorter-range ballistic missiles doesn't make a lot
of sense if you're going to move the missile closer to the target," he
said.