Maine considered for missile defense site

WASHINGTON – Maine could be home to an array of missile interceptors several years from now as part of an extensive national missile defense system, according to Pentagon officials, military analysts and published reports.

The Bush administration announced this week that it would deploy a limited land- and sea-based missile defense system designed to knock down missiles that are heading for America or its allies.

Under that plan, scheduled for completion in 2004 or 2005, missile interceptors would be stationed at military bases in Alaska and California, as well as on Navy warships.

But the Pentagon also is planning to set up another interceptor site somewhere in Maine to confront possible threats from Europe and the Middle East, The Washington Times reported Thursday.

Officials at the Missile Defense Agency say they currently are focused on implementing the limited missile defense system and have no immediate plans for interceptor sites outside Alaska and California.

“There’s nothing planned after 2005. We’re only concerned with the next two years,” said agency spokesman Lt. Col. Rick Lehner. “That’s not in the cards right now, but anything’s possible.”

Pentagon officials and military analysts say an interceptor site in Maine could become more important over the next few years if a new missile threat emerges in Europe or, more likely, the Middle East.

The sea-based Aegis system only defends against short- and medium-range missiles. And some analysts say the ground-based interceptors planned for Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California might be unable to kill an intercontinental ballistic missile that is streaking toward the eastern United States.

“Alaska would be pretty hard-pressed” to hit an incoming missile from the Middle East, said Baker Spring, a missile defense expert at the Heritage Foundation. The Vandenberg site simply “wouldn’t work” for intercepting a Middle Eastern missile.

“It’s logical that they’d want a distributed ground-based system in Maine,” Spring said.

Lehner disputed Spring’s assertion that the California and Alaska sites could not knock down a missile from the Mideast, but he acknowledged that “if you’re having war in the Middle East, it may be advantageous” to have an interceptor site in Maine.

Because of its high latitude, a site in Maine would be well positioned to hit a missile crossing the Atlantic, said Baker. He added that because of Maine’s sparse population missile testing would be less disruptive there than in denser populated states.

In addition to its geography, Maine’s existing military infrastructure also makes it an attractive location for missile interceptors.

During the Cold War, the Air Force’s Backscatter system, which used to track incoming Soviet missiles or planes, was based in Maine. The Backscatter was taken off-line in 1997, but its computer and radar systems in Maine – located in Bangor, Moscow and Columbia Falls – could be revived within a year.

The former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, on the New Brunswick border, is another potential site in Maine for missile interceptors. The base, shuttered since 1994, was home to a fleet of B-52 bombers as well as a facility for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

Aides to U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins say the possibility of an interceptor site in Maine is too far in the future to be a major cause of concern.

Still, some Mainers are unenthusiastic about the prospect of the military returning to Loring.

Since the base closed, the Limestone area has benefited from an influx of new businesses and the new Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, comprising several thousand acres of forest on the eastern edge of the old base.

Brian Hamel, the president and chief executive of the Loring Development Authority, which now owns the land, said the base was purchased in a deal that does not permit the federal government to buy it back.

“We’re right smack in the middle of a pretty successful development project, and we wouldn’t want to do anything to hamper that,” Hamel said. He noted, though, that the government probably could seize the property in the interest of national security.

Ilze Petersons of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, based in Bangor, called the possible plan a waste of money that would be better spent on education and health care.

The Bush administration says that emerging missile threats from countries such as Iran, Libya, Syria and Iraq mean that a more comprehensive missile defense system must eventually be deployed.

But Rep. Tom Allen, a Portland Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said foreseeable threats do not justify a missile defense system based in the Northeast. Iran poses the greatest danger, he said, and its longest-range missiles can travel at most 3,000 miles – leaving them nowhere near American soil.

“Iran is a long way from having a missile that could hit the U.S.,” Allen said. “I believe this rush to deploy has more to do with politics and less to do with actually defending the country.”