Missile defense test successful against dummy Nork type missile

Reuters:

A U.S. interceptor missile on Friday shot down a dummy warhead replicating an incoming North Korean missile in the seventh successful test of Boeing Co's long-range missile shield, the Pentagon said.

The Missile Defense Agency said in a statement it completed a test "involving a successful intercept by a ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack."

The interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's central coast, and its target was fired from Alaska's Kodiak Island.

"We got it," said test witness Riki Ellison, president of the private Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a group funded in part by missile shield contractors. "It was a success."

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Other components of the emerging anti-missile shield are based at sea, in the air and in space.

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U.S. critics say the missile defense tests prove little because they are highly scripted. An attacker would use decoys that would likely foil U.S. defenses, they say.

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That is why it is multi layered. The sea based systems will probably have lift phase capability hitting the missile when it is most vulnerable and destroying the whole package before decoys can be deployed. Tests of those systems have also been successful. The Democrats' case for defenselessness makes little sense beyond their desire to spend the money on buying votes through some social program.