Missile Defense Whoppers

James Carafano /

A picture shows the test-firing of a new medium-range surface to surface missile, named Sejil-2, at an undisclosed location in Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully test-fired the new missile, drawing a warning from Israel that Europe too should now worry about the Islamic republic's ballistic programme.

Bradley Roberts, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, recently testified before a House of Representative Armed Services subcommittee, touting Obama’s plan for missile defense in Europe. His testimony is more noteworthy for the facts he conveniently left out.

CLAIM: Hearkening back to Obama’s campaign promise to give Americans “proven and cost-effective ” missile defense, Roberts boasted “….the Obama administration was putting ‘proven’ sea-based and land-based missile shields into Europe as quickly as possible as part of a revised shield announced last September to any Iranian ballistic-missile strike.”
FACT CHECK: The European Missile Defense proposed by the Bush administration was already proven technology. The “third-site” option would have used a two-stage variant of a three-stage missile already tested and deployed at sites in California and Alaska. The President, in effect, killed a proven technology option when he canceled the Bush plan for a missile defense system in Europe that would have protected both Americans and Europeans from a long-range Iran missile threat. (more…)