Pentagon Plans East Coast Missile Defense Sites
Military.com
by Kris Osborn
May 9, 2013
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is evaluating potential missile-defense sites on the East Coast to fortify existing interceptor locations in Alaska and California.
“The effort has started in terms of defining criteria and evaluating sites,” Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, the agency’s director, said during a May 9 hearing of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. “Some of the criteria that will be finalized and approved includes assessments of things such as booster drop zones, proximity to populations and the overall operational efficacy of the site.”
Senior Pentagon leaders told lawmakers that three or more locations may be identified, in accordance with last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which specified the need to explore a third U.S.-based interceptor location.
“The MDA is currently in the process of developing criteria to identify a candidate list of sites. From a candidate list of sites there will be a narrowing down to at least three. [Environmental impact statements] will be completed for all of those. Should there be a decision that we need an East Coast site, this would allow an acceleration of the time that we would need,” said Madelyn Creedon, assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs.
Discussion of a third U.S. site comes after the Pentagon announced that 14 more ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, will be added to the arsenal in Fort Greely, Alaska. The $1 billion effort, to be completed by 2017, will bring the total number of GBIs at Fort Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., from 30 up to 44. …
Read on: www.military.com/daily-news/2013/05/09/pentagon-plans-east-coast-missile-defense-sites.html
