A general who oversees homeland missile defense said recently he sees no military need to place missile interceptors on the East Coast of the United States.
Army. Gen. Charles Jacoby, who establishes requirements for homeland missile-defense capability, told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) the Iranian missile threat does not warrant the emplacement of ground-based interceptors along the U.S. Atlantic coast.
“Today’s threats do not require an East Coast missile field and we do not have plans to do so,” Jacoby told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) during a hearing on the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2013 budget. He commands U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Levin, the SASC chairman, noted some lawmakers have suggested deploying at least one ground-based interceptor on the East Coast because of the potential threat of a long-range Iranian missile reaching this country.
NORTHCOM is the combatant command that operates Boeing’s [BA] Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD) made up of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California that are intended to protect the United States from long-range ballistic missiles. Lawmakers are monitoring the GMD system. Its last two GMD flight tests, using the latest model of the exo-atmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) vehicle, resulted in failures and upcoming tests have been delayed.
Levin cited the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) work to ensure the new EKVs are reliable and effective before producing refurbished versions of them, in line with recommendations from the SASC.
He also acknowledged work the Pentagon is doing to improve the GMD system’s reliability to enable fewer interceptors to be needed, as well as the development of the Standard Missile 3 Block 2B that is intended to defend against potential long-range Iranian missiles and augment the GMD system.