.Obama, General in Missile Defense Showdown? (Updated)
The first fight between the Obama team and a member of the military leadership may be brewing -- over missile defense. Yesterday, outgoing Missile Defense Agency chief Lt. Gen. Trey Obering appeared to take a veiled shot at the incoming national security team yesterday, calling their knowledge about the interceptor effort "dated."
"What we have discovered is that a lot of the folks that have not been in this administration seem to be dated, in terms of the program," Obering told reporters. "They are kind of calibrated back in the 2000 time frame and we have come a hell of a long way since 2000. Our primary objective is going to be just, frankly, educating them on what we have accomplished, what we have been able to do and why we have confidence in what we are doing."
"We are standing by to answer questions from the transition team," he added. "Those that have not been intimately involved in this over these past several years typically don’t have that accurate information."
Over the weekend, President-elect Obama refused to commit to putting interceptors in Eastern Europe; the Bush administration has been pushing such a plan for years.
Obering "warned against moving away from the proposed deployment of missile defense assets in Europe," Inside Defense reports. Such a move, the general said, "would severely hurt, No. 1, our ability to protect our deployed forces in that region and our allies and our friends in that region from what we see as an emerging threat."
Earlier this year, Obama pledged to "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems." On his campaign website, Obama said he would "support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public."
In today's Wall Street Journal, former U.N. ambassador, Obering ally, and missile-defense-in-Eastern-Europe promoter John Bolton called that "an excuse never to deploy missile defenses -- because nothing in the military field is ever conclusively proven for all time."
Was Bolton speaking for some in the military brass?
UPDATE: "Despite the unsustainable half-trillion-dollar military budgets during this period of dire financial hardship, the services will cling to their favorite big-ticket programs with an icy death-grip," our boy Spencer Ackerman notes. He quotes a Pentagon official, who says that "the new leadership must make clear that shirking and lobbying and leaking to keep these projects going — as the Army tried to do with Crusader in 2002 – will not be tolerated."
Wired
"What we have discovered is that a lot of the folks that have not been in this administration seem to be dated, in terms of the program," Obering told reporters. "They are kind of calibrated back in the 2000 time frame and we have come a hell of a long way since 2000. Our primary objective is going to be just, frankly, educating them on what we have accomplished, what we have been able to do and why we have confidence in what we are doing."
"We are standing by to answer questions from the transition team," he added. "Those that have not been intimately involved in this over these past several years typically don’t have that accurate information."
Over the weekend, President-elect Obama refused to commit to putting interceptors in Eastern Europe; the Bush administration has been pushing such a plan for years.
Obering "warned against moving away from the proposed deployment of missile defense assets in Europe," Inside Defense reports. Such a move, the general said, "would severely hurt, No. 1, our ability to protect our deployed forces in that region and our allies and our friends in that region from what we see as an emerging threat."
Earlier this year, Obama pledged to "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems." On his campaign website, Obama said he would "support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public."
In today's Wall Street Journal, former U.N. ambassador, Obering ally, and missile-defense-in-Eastern-Europe promoter John Bolton called that "an excuse never to deploy missile defenses -- because nothing in the military field is ever conclusively proven for all time."
Was Bolton speaking for some in the military brass?
UPDATE: "Despite the unsustainable half-trillion-dollar military budgets during this period of dire financial hardship, the services will cling to their favorite big-ticket programs with an icy death-grip," our boy Spencer Ackerman notes. He quotes a Pentagon official, who says that "the new leadership must make clear that shirking and lobbying and leaking to keep these projects going — as the Army tried to do with Crusader in 2002 – will not be tolerated."
Wired
posted by madtom at 9:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home