A scarecrow defense.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's become abundantly clear to everyone that rogue nations and terrorists have a full spectrum of options for attacking this country. They don't need nuclear missiles. In the wake of 9/11 and, now, Madrid's 3/11, planes and trains come immediately to mind.

If terrorists are really intent on going nuclear and have the means to do so, a suitcase in a New York City hotel or a shipping container on a Los Angeles dock are more likely delivery options than ballistic missiles.

Congress is earnestly seeking ways to trim the military budget, which at $420 billion is beginning to make even hard-core hawks queasy. The first place lawmakers should look is the $10.7 billion for missile defense, more than twice the amount allocated for any other single weapons system and the single biggest item in the 2005 defense budget.

In the next few months, the Pentagon plans to start deploying the first elements of a missile defense system, including six "anti-missile missiles" in Alaska and four in California. Next year, it intends to install 20 more in locations yet to be identified.

So far, the missile defense program has been marked by many more technical failures and budget overruns than successes. Reports by the General Accounting Office and the Pentagon's own director of operational testing indicate these weapons will not be capable of shooting down incoming enemy missiles. Yet President Bush is insisting on rushing ahead with plans to open the first missile defense sites, arguing that the technology eventually can be improved to attain former President Reagan's original Star Wars vision.

Rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran may someday develop intercontinental missiles. Recent revelations about Pakistan's clandestine network for distributing nuclear technology suggest that no one should discount that possibility. But until anti-missile defense tech- nologies have been tested and proven workable, the Bush administration is installing what one former Pentagon official has aptly characterized as "no more than a scarecrow" defense.

The president's fast-track strategy appears to be motivated more by a desire to polish his homeland-security credentials before the November election than by the possibility of creating a viable missile defense system.

Six years of missile defense tests and $75 billion have so far established only that a missile can strike another missile under strictly controlled situations. The list of conditions necessary for a successful anti-missile test would make prime material for a stand-up comedian: The missile attack must be conducted in broad daylight and consist of only one missile. Missile defense operators must know the target missile's origin and destination, and the target missile must be traveling at an unusually slow speed and emitting an exaggerated radar signature.

To put it another way, if North Korea, Iran or another enemy nation were thoughtful enough to ask Pentagon officials to design and launch a nuclear missile attack for them, then the new U.S. system might - emphasize might - have a chance of knocking it down.

The Pentagon plans to spend more than $50 billion on this unproven system over the next five years - $50 billion for a system that, even if it might someday be workable, cannot protect the United States from countless other methods of attack.

President Bush should consider that deploying such an unproven, unworkable and enormously costly defense system could prove more of a liability than a political asset in the upcoming election.

At the very least, Bush should order more time and testing to show that the system works. Better yet, he should scrap this dubious endeavor and put those billions of dollars to a better use.