Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sea Based X-Band (SBX) Radar Not Used to Monitor North Korea's Missile Launch

Robert Gates (Defense Secretary) denied a request from a general to use the Sea Based X-Band (SBX) Radar to monitor the North Korean missile launch (Berman Post: North Korea Fires Missile). The two reasons given were that other radar systems were already in the area and the fear of provoking North Korea.

This seems a huge mistake. Critics of our missile shield program site the lack of real world experience. It is hard to get real world experience when the most advanced system is purposely kept away from the location in which it could get that experience. As for the 'other systems in the area'; that reason does not hold up either. The SBX system is much more advanced than the others that were in that area and would have been able to give us much more information on the launch. That last point about not wanting to antagonize the North Koreans. Well, they decided to pull out of the talks and rebuild their nuclear plant(Berman Post: North Korea Ending Talks And Restarting Nuclear Plant).

More at http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/15/us-failed-to-use-best-radar-for-n-korea-missile and http://closingvelocity.typepad.com/closing_velocity/2009/04/no-we-cant-us-military-request-to-use-sbx-radar-during-north-korean-missile-launch-denied.html.

Past related posts:
Berman Post: North Korea Fires Missile
Berman Post: North Korea Releases Rocket Launch Video
Berman Post: Biden to Israel - it Would be "Ill Advised" to Strike Iran
Berman Post: North Korea Ending Talks And Restarting Nuclear Plant

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