Scientists Question U.S. Missile Plan

"It is hard to understand how they could get something so basic wrong."

Leading Physicists Challenge United States Claims on European Missile Defense Plans

By DESMOND BUTLER
The Associated Press

A number of top U.S-based physicists have concluded the United States used inaccurate claims to reassure NATO allies about U.S. missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

They say the planned Polish-based interceptors and a radar system in the Czech Republic could target and catch Russian missiles, thus threatening Russia's nuclear deterrent.

That view supports Russia's criticism of the system. Russia adamantly opposes the plan and the dispute has escalated U.S.-Russian tensions to the highest point since the Cold War.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense agency, which oversees the missile program, considers the scientists' analyses flawed. The U.S. says the missile system is intended to counter a threat from Iran and could not take out Russian missiles. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed Russia's concerns as "ludicrous."

But the six scientists whose backgrounds include elite American universities, research labs and high levels of government said in interviews that Russia's concerns are justified.

"The claim by the Missile Defense Agency is not correct," says Theodore Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a longtime missile defense critic. "And it is hard to understand how they could get something so basic wrong."

(More here.)