Dear Friends & Members,

Over the last few weeks some of the world’s leaders have spoken up on the issue of missile defense and proliferation.

Canadian newly elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper has discussed reopening the issue of missile defense for his country prior to his appointment.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to pursue nuclear proliferation in the face of United Nations sanctions. He said the West “can’t do a thing” to stop Iran’s progress.

President Vladimir Putin of the Soviet Union has clearly understood the reality of a United State’s missile defense system. Though his words are meant more for internal consumption than international marketing.

Here in the United States President George Bush kept silent on the issue of missile defense in his state of the union address. MDAA agrees with the Washington Post’s editorial board when it states that “Today Iran and North Korea pose greater threats than they did in 2002; yet Mr. Bush failed to mention North Korea’s nuclear weapons in his speech, while assigning responsibility for stopping Iran’s bomb program to “the nations of the world.”

Action has always more merit than any choice of words by world leaders. For this country the action was the release of 2007 budget. In this budget missile defense received $ 10.4 billion, a much needed $ 2.6 billion increase over this current year’s budget of $ 7.8 billion. MDAA endorses and will aggressively support this new budget amount. We endorse this 25% increase and hope that these new funds go towards deployment of near term systems that will protect our troops and public safety. We at MDAA aggressively support this new budget amount and encourage you and our membership to do so as well.