Misplaced Priorities

For weeks the Bush administration has been beating back criticism that it was focused on toppling Saddam Hussein, not fighting terrorism prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Now comes evidence that another administration pet project, a missile defense system, also took precedence over terrorism.

On Sept. 11, 2001, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give a speech at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She was expected to address the future threats facing the United States. The text of the speech, which was never given as written due to the terrorist attacks that morning, focused largely on missile defense, not threats from Islamic terrorists, according to The Washington Post.

While the administration has clearly focused on fighting terrorism since Sept. 11, its obsession with missiles has not entirely gone away. It should. Money devoted to a fanciful missile defense shield, involving 10 separate high-tech systems, including six satellites and ships at sea, would be better spent strengthening our borders to keep out terrorists, for one. Providing health care, for another.

This was the message from a group of 49 retired general and admirals who last month urged the Pentagon to suspend plans for the missile defense shield. The military leaders, including former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Crowe, wrote that the system’s technologies remained unproven and that it is more likely that terrorists would smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States than launch a missile at the country. The “militarily responsible course of action,” the men wrote, is to use the funding for missile defense “to secure the multitude of facilities containing nuclear weapons and materials and to protect our ports and borders.”

Their sage advice should be heeded.

More than $130 billion has already been spent on the project and President Bush has asked Congress for $10.2 billion for the project in the next fiscal year, a 13 percent increase over the prior year. The administration plans to spend another $53 billion over the next five years. This despite the fact that the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recently found that only two of its systems have been fully tested. In its push to install part of the system by September, the Pentagon has waived some testing requirements.

The questionable effectiveness of the system should be enough to keep it from being built. If more evidence is needed, last month’s bombings of passenger trains in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people and recent news that authorities have arrested groups of alleged terrorists in Britain, Thailand and the Philippines show that extremist groups are actively plotting violence against countries around the world. This is a larger, real threat that demands an international response.

More terrorist attacks will be attempted. Missile firing remains a hypothetical possibility. It is obvious where the money and attention should go.