Analysts Say Timing Couldn't Be Worse

For the third time in a row, the Bush administration's missile shield failed a critical operations test. While the Los Angeles Times reports the target vehicle launched without a hitch, the kill vehicle apparently failed to leave the pad during Sunday's test.

The New York Times quotes officials at the Missile Defense Agency as saying they took "consolation" from the fact that the kill vehicle itself didn't seem to have failed. Rather, it was a "malfunction in the ground support systems."

Whatever the reason, some analysts worry about the missile defense program's "dimished credibility" in light of the newly-escalating nuclear trouble in North Korea. Pyongyang last week admitted openly for the first time that North Korea does have nukes and was pulling out of six-way international talks aimed at getting rid of them.

"It's certainly embarrassing at a time when the administration has basically decided that its North Korea policy is missile defense," said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a nonprofit defense analysis group. He also told the LA Times, "You don't get second chances in nuclear combat."

FMI: www.globalsecurity.org