| http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/
U.S. air borne laser hampered by limited range The U.S. Air Force's air borne laser, a featured objective of Bush administration funding efforts, is expected to be insufficient against missile threats from Iran and North Korea. Missile experts have told Congress that the ABL will have a range of 400 kilometers, insufficient to strike against Iranian launchers and missiles fired from deep within that country. The Pentagon has asked Congress for an additional $153 million for the U.S. Air Force program. Congress originally allocated $234 million for the ABL, scheduled to be completed in 2008. Officials said the administration now sees the ABL program as the key to national missile defense plans. The ABL would relay a high-powered laser beam from the nose of a Boeing 747 jet toward launchers or missiles fired in their first stage. Infrared sensors aboard the jet would automatically detect the missile launch. "We think it's a revolutionary capability," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan said. "We think to be able to put a high-powered laser, to be able to acquire, track and destroy missiles in their ascent phase, is terribly important to future capabilities in defense and force protection." But the range of the laser would not meet the threat from the two most ambitious missile and weapons of mass destruction producers. North Korea has already developed intermediate- and long-range missiles as well as several nuclear bombs. Iran, developing a missile with a range of 6,000 kilometers, is expected to have nuclear weapons by the middle of the decade. Ryan told a Senate committee on June 6 that the request for additional money for the ABL would help ensure that the Pentagon could test a prototype within as early as two years. The administration has told U.S. allies in NATO that Washington wants to establish a layered defense that will confront enemy missiles in every phase of flight and use aircraft lasers. Such a system would contain laser weapons. "We certainly want to do that and hold to that schedule, and hence that's the reason that we put more money into it," Ryan said. In a related development, the air force reported the success of a test of an experimental cruise missile defense system. Officials said radars from land, air and sea locked on to unmanned air vehicles that simulated cruise missiles that flew over the Gulf of Mexico in an exercise held last week. Officials said two of the systems meant to protect the United States and Canada from cruise missiles could be operating by 2005. The radar units are meant for point defense against cruise missiles fired by terrorist groups. |
