That North Korean long-distance missile launch proves that the United States requires a vigorous missile defense system, according to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to news reports.
North Korea has built and tested nuclear-weapon capabilities, though it may not yet have miniaturized a nuclear weapon to fit atop an intercontinental ballistic missile.
In that test this month, the North Korean Taepo Dong-2 rocket traveled more than 1,200 miles, arcing over Japan, before falling into the Pacific Ocean — a distance short of its ultimate 4,000-mile range, but an immense improvement from a Taepo Dong-2 failure in a 2006 test. McCain’s comments also came after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed cutting some missile defense programs aimed at destroying long-range enemy weapons. (Please see stories in Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, April 6, 2009.)
McCain, in Tokyo on a congressional delegation trip, spoke with reporters.
His objections are interesting, because he generally supports the immense defense procurement funding cuts that Gates proposed. (It remains to be seen whether President Obama will accept those recommendations when Obama completes his budget proposal for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, and sends it to Congress.)
“I strongly support Secretary Gates’ decision to restructure a number of major defense programs,” McCain said earlier. “It has long been necessary to shift spending away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow,” he said.
Backing the highly controversial Gates proposals to slash defense acquisition programs, McCain said, “I believe Secretary Gates’ decision is key to ensuring that the defense establishment closes the gap between the way it supports current operations and the way it prepares for future conventional threats.”