Last night, Members of the United States Senate passed, with overwhelming support, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, directing Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, to provide options by February 1st next year to deploy an additional Ground-Based Interceptor site in Europe or the United States to provide defense for our nation against future long-range missiles from Iran. The Amendment SA 2616, further appropriated $151 million for the development and testing of the two-stage Ground-Based Interceptor, which was developed for the recently canceled European missile defense site, at Redzikowo, Poland. This two-stage Ground-Based Interceptor missile is in place as two are built and one of them is due to be launched and tested next June, as there remains “high-confidence” in its capability, since it is exactly the same technology as the currently deployed three-stage Ground-Based Interceptor without the third stage. (photo: Getty)
From Reuters: Riki Ellison, President and Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/ has reviewed the missile defense vote in the Senate on Tuesday, October 6th, and concluded that the Senate wants to keep open the option for developing and potentially basing the ground-based interceptor in either Europe or the U.S…