Missile Defense corruption

October 12, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Alabama, Alaska, Congress, MDA, S&T, SMDC, U.S. Army, crime, development program, missile defense 

Last year the US Government arrested two employees of the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) on charges that they were taking bribes to steer contracts to selected companies. Now the New York Times has done some further research on the issue and have found out that the main figure, the head of SMDC S&T center, had created a whole scheme to make Congress fund a large test program that would then be self-perpetuating. As part of this he broke Federal law by lobbying Congress directly.

The scheme he concocted was one that when I worked supporting the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), now Missile Defense Agency (MDA), never made much sense to me. The MDA had an issue with testing the systems against long range targets. They targets required could not be tested in the United States as there was no range big enough to hold them. The Navy invested in improving their range on the West Coast of Kuaii in Hawaii that faced a broad open area. Targets would be air launched and fired into the range. The Army looked at building a launch facility on Midway to fire that targets at their main range in Kwajalien. The gentlemen at the core of the scandal, Mr. Cantrell, worked a proposal directly with Congress and various contractors to build a facility in Alaska on Kodiak Island and then use an old Navy helicopter carrier to fire the targets at Kodiak. This never really made sense due to its cost and the creation of all new facilities and modifying the ship at some cost.

Ultimately the idea went nowhere, although a launch facility has been built at Kodiak which supports Air Force operations right now. MDA made the sensible decision to begin testing US Army systems in Hawaii using the range there. Now that it turns out the Mr. Cantrell and various Senators using the earmark system was doing this for personal gain.

See an article in the Huntsville Times here.

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