Missile Defense Agency, since Rumsfeld took over has spent billions[ $7.8 billion] on land based star wars for continual testing, none of which has proved operational. Another $7 billion was appropriated for fiscal 2006. In 2004 MDA ran $370,000 over budget, despite the dire needs in Afghanistan and Iraq. The worst part of this is that there are no guidelines to spending, such as “prove weapons are operational and then buy.”

Now, I am not one to fault the Defense Department to try to make new technology work, but in light of the immediate needs of war and no particular threat lurking from future superpowers, it seems to me — and it’s not that we don’t already have strategic missiles — that MDA should put “star wars” on the back burner and pursue it logically and thriftily until new technology and software can be perfected before costly testing. In the meantime, support our troops in battle with the best equipment available. After all, it is not like the Manhattan Project whereby we were in a race to outpace Germany’s rush for the atomic bomb.