Missile command

I have a feeling we will hear from the President soon about how he has protected American shores by deploying a missile defense system. Truth is, he's sold us a security blanket full of holes.

But what the administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. Several key components have fallen years behind schedule and will not be available until later. Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.

The paucity of realistic test data has caused the Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator to conclude that he cannot offer a confident judgment about the system's viability. He estimated its likely effectiveness to be as low as 20 percent.

"A system is being deployed that doesn't have any credible capability," said retired Gen. Eugene Habiger, who headed the U.S. Strategic Command in the mid-1990s. "I cannot recall any military system being deployed in such a manner."

In Bushworld, 20% is probably great achievement. Of course, that number is probably a little high considering the system has failed every single one of its tests. It's like appointing the guy with the lowest GPA to run the school academic team.

And God forbid that 100 billion dollars was spent on proper body armor or armored vehicles for our troop in Iraq. Maybe even hiring more translators for the FBI would have helped protect the country better. But I guess we don't need these things because we are winning the war on terror, and things are going great in Iraq. Right, Mr. Bush?