US Says Alaskan Sites Could Serve as Rudimentary Missile Defense

The US.Defense Department said Tuesday that it seeks funds for a missile defense "test bed" in Alaska with interceptor missiles that might also be used as a limited defense against missile attacks in an emergency.

The Pentagon had not determined whether the plan would violate the 1972 ABM treaty because it was still "a work in progress," spokesman Craig Quigley said.

Quigley confirmed a network of sites in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California were possible test sites.

If the country needed it, the Alaskan test bed could be used as a rudimentary missile defense system, he added.

The Pentagon will conduct the fourth test of a planned missile defense system on July 14.

This will be the first test of the controversial multibillion US dollar ballistic missile defense for the Bush administration.

The test will involve the same components as the last one-- a dummy warhead and decoy launched from California's Vandenburg Air Force Base and a prototype interceptor with a 54-kilogram "kill vehicle" launched 6,919 kilometers away, from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Two of three US missile defense tests have failed to prove the system would work, most recently on July 8 last year when an attempt to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space failed because the weapon did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket. Those misses led former US President Bill Clinton on September 1 last year to defer the politically charged decision on when to take the first steps toward deploying a national missile defense.

The project is estimated to cost as much 60 billion US dollars for the land-based leg of interceptors, radar stations and battle management network.

The previous intercept tests have cost about 100 million dollars each. The Pentagon announced no price tag for the next one.

Arms control experts said that the U.S. missile defense plan, opposed by the international community, will not only spark a new arms race, but also threaten world peace and security, and stimulate nuclear proliferation.

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