Dear Members and Friends,
In the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013 that has just come out of conference yesterday between the United States Senate and House the Representatives, the United States Congress has requested the Secretary of Defense to put forth an evaluation and environmental impact assessment for an additional third site for our U.S. homeland in defense against both North Korea and Iran. The evaluation will require that two of the three sites be on the East Coast of the United States. Fort Drum, in upstate New York, and Grand Forks, North Dakota will most likely be selected as two of the three sites as both were established missile defense sites for the protection of the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Having an additional forward based missile defense site outside of Alaska and California, where the two current missile defense sites are located, provides extra reliability and more battle space time that would provide additional intercept shots and give assurance for adequate and equal protection of all of the nation’s population against the threat from both Iranian and North Korean future ICBMs. Due to distance, physics, location, and dynamics of the current missile defense sites in Alaska and California, the Eastern United States does not have the same protection as the Western United States
President Obama’s current plan for additional protection of the United States homeland is to have an additional forward based site placed in Poland with a new missile that is yet to be developed and to be deployed by 2021. Due to U.S. intelligence agencies assessments of the United States who state that Iran could at the earliest threaten the United States by 2015 and the concern of North Korea miniaturizing its nuclear weapons to go on ICBMS, the United States Congress has requested a “hedging strategy” to give the U.S. Homeland additional protection before 2021 on a projected site and a projected missile in Poland.
Coming off of last week’s successful North Korean space launch and last February’s successful Iranian space launch, both proving fundamental ICMB capability, it is pertinent that our Congress, government and military seriously investigate and look into protecting our entire population and homeland equally and with the most competence.
It is a step in the right direction for the right reasons at the right time.
