This is good news for the United States National Missile Defense Program:

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The results will help improve the performance of a multibillion-dollar shield against an attack that could target a U.S. city with a weapon of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect large amounts of data rather than shoot down the target. But in a news release sent 24 minutes after the intercept, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, the Pentagon's missile-defense chief declared it a success, apparently even before the data could be analyzed.

Look for the US media to down play the results from the test because that has been the constant chorus by the US press that the system is to costly and a failure, not to mention President Bush has been pushing the system which only encourages the media to down play the NMD program that much more.

However, if this system is continued to be developed and tested this really decreases Kim Jong-il's blackmail power against the US. Especially if USFK is withdrawn from South Korea. Without US troops in Korea, if Kim Jong-il decides to threaten South Korea with a nuclear strike, this threat would have no impact on the US. The South Korean government would have to solely pay the consequences of nuclear blackmail from North Korea. The South Korean government wants independent defense let them have it and enjoy it.

Kim Jong-il may not currently have the ability to strike the US which as evident by his failed missile test, but that doesn't mean he won't in the future, so a system to counter these limited missile attacks I feel is definitely in the US's national interest.


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