U.S. Knew Of China's Missile Test, But Kept Silent

[Hissyspit]

Source: New York Times

U.S. Knew of China’s Missile Test, but Kept Silent

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: April 23, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 22 — After a Chinese interceptor smashed into a target satellite in January, Bush administration officials criticized the test as a destabilizing development.

It was the first successful demonstration of an antisatellite missile by any country in more than 20 years. Pentagon officials warned that the test had increased the threat to American satellites. Space experts fretted that it had spawned a cloud of orbiting debris. American diplomats complained to their counterparts in Beijing.

What administration officials did not say is that as the Chinese were preparing to launch their antisatellite weapon, American intelligence agencies had issued reports about the preparations being made at the Songlin test facility. In high-level discussions, senior Bush administration officials debated how to respond and even began to draft a protest, but ultimately decided to say nothing to Beijing until after the test.

- snip -

But some experts outside government say that American officials might have been able to discourage the Chinese from launching the missile, had the officials been willing to enter into a broader discussion of ways to regulate the military competition in space. China had long advocated an agreement to ban weapons in space, an approach the Bush administration has rejected in order to maintain maximum flexibility for developing antimissile defenses.

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/washington/23satellite.html?hp

[katsy]

1. "had the officials been willing to enter into a broader discussion"

See a pattern here?

Maybe the government is incapable of engaging in discussions because no one understands the chimp's grunts and stutters.

:shrug:

[Mnemosyne]

2. Hey, * is not the listenerer/discusserer! n/t

[gratuitous]

3. We run (and fail) missile defense tests - that's national security

China runs a test, it's successful, and that's "destabilizing." Don't the Republican Dr. Strangeloves trust the Chinese to "share" the technology they're developing so that everyone's as safe as they are? Or was all that rhetoric from the 1980s just so much hot air, and the Chinese are perfectly justified in developing their own system rather than trusting the Republicans?

And isn't it curious that the Bush administration decided to keep silent about the Chinese test? I mean, they've been hyping every threat to national security, real and imagined, to produce the maximum fright in our populace. Did they decide to keep silent because this was one threat they didn't have a hand in producing for a change?

[truthisfreedom]

4. "Space experts fretted that it had spawned a cloud of orbiting debris." Why the f didn't China

practice on a sattelite with a falling orbit???

[thecrow]

8. Do we even know which satellite they hit?

Maybe it was one of those "see a flea's knee" ones or something more sinister...like a death ray satellite or a electrical pulse thingie....

[creeksneakers2]

5. They are willing to do anything

to find an excuse to pour money down the missile defense rat hole. I think the reason the Bush cabal told lies about North Korean nuclear abilities and refused to negotiate with North Korea was they wanted the North Korean threat to justify building a West Coast missile defense system.

Bush even had the missile defense system built before it was tested. He was so eager to sell the system that during the days before 9/11, while everybody else said our greatest threat was terrorism, Bush insisted our greatest threat was a missile from a rogue nation.

The latest squandering is a missile defense system in Europe to protect Europe from Iran. Iran doesn't have the means, intent, or even desire to hit Europe with missiles.

From the beginning, Bush pushed his missile defense ambitions even though that put us at odds with the rest of the world. Bush was unconcerned about starting another arms race. Now the latest project in Europe has upset the Russians. The Europeans don't even want to be "protected" unless Bush can make peace with the Russians about missile defense. So the Bush cabal proposed giving the technology to the Russians in exchange. If Russia went into serious development after that, it could undermine our deterrent against our real potential nuclear threat.

Now the Bush cabal says they can't negotiate with China because that might undermine missile defense options. The actions of the Bush cabal only makes sense if their real aim is to feed trillions to defense contractors. A Chinese anti-satellite weapon could be used to justify a wide array of space weapons and other systems to overcome the Chinese system. And future missile defense rip offs would not be disturbed.

[rodeodance]

6. There was a time-not to long ago when the US could use its moral authority

to dissuade stuff like this from occurring-----at least try.

[and-justice-for-all]

7. That might be because of Rumsfeld..

..whom chaired the company A.B.B Global Tech who built the reactors for North Korea.