Centcomm Commander Abruptly Resigns

Few Russian submarines make it out of the ports as for MIRVs they can also be tracked (plus in Joint Vision 2020 plan they are destroyed in the stage where they gain orbit - one target per missile)
If what I say doesn't happen, I will be one happy ****er. I guess we just have to wait and see.

Russia is already developing missile types designed to evade a SDI type of missile defense - think nuclear missiles flying close to the surface instead of going into orbit or stealth technology.

They could just place nuclear weapons close to US coastlines underwater and detonate them - goodbye to New, York, Los Angeles, Washington, Miami, San Fransisco, Seattle etc. Then there are the suitcase nuclear warheads which we know Russia has stored away somewhere - no missile needed. What about biological and chemical weapons that do not need a missile to travel to their destination?

One thing is for sure - the design of the SDI missile defense is so flawed compared to the threats it is supposed to neutralize, it will not make much of a difference anyhow. It is false security. I cannot understand how the US taxpayers are pouring 1000s of billion of dollars into this project which should have went quietly away, when Reagans time in the White House was over and the USSR seized to exist.

The US is basically making the same mistake as USSR did - they spent a fortune beyond your belief, to build an extensive and effective radar/anti-aircraft network, which was pretty much rendered obselete when the US introduced the Stealtbombers capable of transporting nuclear weapons deep into enemy teeritory without detection.
 
Thats good, since that isn't happening.

They are not spending that kind of amount on SDI right now, but:

A selected acquisition report (SAR) sent to Congress on April 13 indicated that the total missile defense development cost for 2002 through 2009 will be $62.9 billion, not $47.2 billion as was projected last year. The total, which includes only research, development, testing and evaluation, was included in the FY 04 budget request in February but was not broken down into elements at that point.

http://www.cdi.org/missile-defense/costs-updates.cfm

$62.9 billion dollars from 2002 to 2009 on research, development and testing alone. How much will it cost to actually build the SDI components and install them over the next decades? How much does it cost to implement a single operational inteceptor missile station with radars or build and launch a single SDI satellite? I've read that a single SDI intercepor station including radars could cost as much as $20-25 billion during it's lifecycle to build and maintain.
 
$62.9 billion dollars from 2002 to 2009 on research, development and testing alone.

No, that acutally includes the building of sites in Alaska and California. And in any case what is 62.9 billion out of the total US budgets for 2002-2009?

I've read that a single SDI intercepor station including radars could cost as much as $20-25 billion during it's lifecycle to build and maintain.

Exactly over its lifecycle. Don't numbers get REALLY BIG when you just arbitrarily inflate the measuring time frame. How clever! Just imagine all the money you will wast on . .. .. .. . paper over 50 years!

And of course your assumption that it is a waste is based on your personal views, not reality. You might think your mythical 1000 billion is a lot, but when the system saves London from nuclear holocaust lauched at it by the resurgent Visogoth Hegemony during the Slavic War of 2043, it will be considered a steal.
 
No, that acutally includes the building of sites in Alaska and California. And in any case what is 62.9 billion out of the total US budgets for 2002-2009?

Those are test sites - not actual finalized National Missile Defence interceptor/radar stations.

$62.9 billion is just about the same as the entire UK defence budget or what it would cost the US taxpayers to build and maintain 12 Nimitz class aircraft carriers for 7 years. Yeah, peanuts...:D


Exactly over its lifecycle. Don't numbers get REALLY BIG when you just arbitrarily inflate the measuring time frame. How clever! Just imagine all the money you will wast on . .. .. .. . paper over 50 years!

And of course your assumption that it is a waste is based on your personal views, not reality. You might think your mythical 1000 billion is a lot, but when the system saves London from nuclear holocaust lauched at it by the resurgent Visogoth Hegemony during the Slavic War of 2043, it will be considered a steal.

You don't think effective countermeasures to systems like the National Missile Defence are being developed right now? How will a Missile Defence system save a city from a nuclear strike not delivered by a traditional detectable missile? :rolleyes:

The whole basis for developing a US SDI Missile Defence will be obseleted before such a system will ever be succesfully implemented. I will refrain to reprint here just how utterly poor testresults the prototype SDI testlaunches have achieved so far.
 
Those are test sites - not actual finalized National Missile Defence interceptor/radar stations.

No, those are the actual sites. Can you think of any reason why you wouldn't locate the test sites where the actual sites would be? And btw, there are not plans to add much more than is already built, so again, your numbers are crap.

$62.9 billion is just about the same as the entire UK defence budget or what it would cost the US taxpayers to build and maintain 12 Nimitz class aircraft carriers for 7 years. Yeah, peanuts...

What was the design pricetag for the Nimitz class carriers? How about the upgrades between each unit? What is the R&D for the Ford-class up to now? I am not sure why you think the fact that world dominating first class weapons systems are expensive is a revelation.

The AMD system is going to do a very physically hard and extremely technically challanging thing. It is quite amazing what it can do even now actually. Why exactly should that not be an expensive thing to develope?

You don't think effective countermeasures to systems like the National Missile Defence are being developed right now? How will a Missile Defence system save a city from a nuclear strike not delivered by a traditional detectable missile?

1.) It is not designed to defend against the Russias and Chinas of the world, since as you have pointed out it is entirely possibe (not garunteed however) that that such powers will develope countermeasures. The North Korea and the Irans of the world, however, will not.

2.) We are not trying to destabilize the nuclear detante with this obviously. I can not say the same for the Russians though, which are blatantly developing weapons that threaten world peace for absolutely no reason.

Tell me what defensive use does an undetecabtle lauch capable ICBM provide? It is a first stike weapon plain and simple. So if you want to harp on someone for developing useless (since Russia has no need for a first strike capability) and destabilizing weopns, take to the Ruskies.
 
And of course your assumption that it is a waste is based on your personal views, not reality. You might think your mythical 1000 billion is a lot, but when the system saves London from nuclear holocaust lauched at it by the resurgent Visogoth Hegemony during the Slavic War of 2043, it will be considered a steal.

God Dammit the Germans are at it AGAIN !!!!
Well at least the UK have a ton of nukes backing them up and any attack will be repaid in kind. Its call "nuclear deterent" or for those with ironic humour M.A.D

Seriously research into a missle shield i can probably support as long as its not wasteful. Building sdi while it can only stop single missle warheads = stupid.
 
So you believe the Admiral when he says he is resigning merely because of "inaccurate perceptions" that he is at odds with Bush? :lol:
So you believe FriendlyFire's post when his news article says the opposite?

I'm the one who asked "hey guys, what is the Admiral actually saying here?" Most of the rest of you went right ahead and took FriendlyFire's article as gospel.

The problem is on your end. You're the one who's automatically believing whichever article is telling you what you want to believe. And that doesn't just go for Jolly. Lots of you did this.
 
I thought you had been around the block enough to not to take a person on the way out at their word.
When the guy on his way out says "Bush is an idiot", you (no, not just Jolly either) take the guy on the way out at his word.

Here's the actual criteria a lot of you are using: "Did this guy say something that agrees with my opinions? If so, then he's telling the truth. If not, he's lying."

wrong01.jpg
 
No, those are the actual sites. Can you think of any reason why you wouldn't locate the test sites where the actual sites would be? And btw, there are not plans to add much more than is already built, so again, your numbers are crap.

Even though the Alaskan sites are as 'operational' as it gets today with regards to the US Missile Defence, they were designed and build as test beds - just as they are refereed to as 'test beds' at Pentagon and other defence related websites. To add, they are hardly operational since most missile tests by far, have missed the intruder missile or even failed to launch the interceptor vechicle.

The Alaskan site is only a small part of the proposed Missile Defence - airborne lasers, seaborne radars and missile bases and missile defence capable satellites are planned and being tested right now.

What was the design pricetag for the Nimitz class carriers? How about the upgrades between each unit? What is the R&D for the Ford-class up to now? I am not sure why you think the fact that world dominating first class weapons systems are expensive is a revelation.

The AMD system is going to do a very physically hard and extremely technically challanging thing. It is quite amazing what it can do even now actually. Why exactly should that not be an expensive thing to develope?



1.) It is not designed to defend against the Russias and Chinas of the world, since as you have pointed out it is entirely possibe (not garunteed however) that that such powers will develope countermeasures. The North Korea and the Irans of the world, however, will not.

2.) We are not trying to destabilize the nuclear detante with this obviously. I can not say the same for the Russians though, which are blatantly developing weapons that threaten world peace for absolutely no reason.

Tell me what defensive use does an undetecabtle lauch capable ICBM provide? It is a first stike weapon plain and simple. So if you want to harp on someone for developing useless (since Russia has no need for a first strike capability) and destabilizing weopns, take to the Ruskies.

The Russian are just evening the score and trying to catch up, while spending a lot less money than their US counterpart.

Just because you can develop certain weapon systems from a technological point of view, doesn't mean you should. The system will be obseleted by the much, much cheaper countermeasures developed to circumvent it.

I just read an article of the existence of Russian nucleartipped ramjet missiles (Yahont/NATO SS-N-26) able to avoid radar completly by design and by flying in very low altitude at Mach2. They are designed to be launched from ships or submarines and at Mach2, the missiles can hit their targets in a matter of minutes.

That article was from 1999 where the first missiles went into service in Russia and China - how advanced have those stealth missile types become today?

I'm just saying those billions of dollars would be much better spent elsewhere. This discussion is getting off topic, so i'll stop here. :)
 
Credit where credit's due: it seems that Patroklos is right (thank god).

Source:

Admiral William "Fox" Fallon -- CentCom Commander -- has been fired for insubordination, for not stewarding his own views about war and peace privately and in a way that did not embarrass his commander in chief.

By numerous accounts, President Bush was absolutely enraged by an Esquire article -- since amended noting Fallon's demise -- that posited that Admiral Fallon was not on the same page as President Bush and that he was the single military man standing between war and peace.

Rumors are running rampant now in the aftermath of Fallon's resignation today that Bush called a war room gathering on Saturday this past weekend -- and launched plans to hatch a strike of some sort on Iran this spring. Internet bulletin boards, listserves, and chatter among many on the left and the right are hyperventilating (and some excited) about the prospects of a hot conflict with Iran.

My sources in the intelligence arena, in various command staff operations, near Defense Secretary Gates, and even in the White House tell me that nothing structural has changed in America's stance towards Iran. The US is still engaged in an effort to get Iran to the negotiating table if it stops its nuclear enrichment activities. It is continuing to apply UN sanctions pressure via unanimous consent of the UN Security Council to bring Iran into compliance with international obligations. And as Bush, Gates and others have said -- other options can be on the table.

But the diplomatic course is still dominant and preferred -- and there has been no decision to launch a war despite the opportunistic bravado that will no doubt soon be uttered by Vice President Cheney, John Bolton, Richard Perle and others who have long pined for a conflict with Iran's mullahs.

But the pieces are not there to support a full conflict with Iran, or even a near term military strike. That is not where Bush is headed -- but he felt he needed to remove someone who was undermining his authority and direction.

As one source told me shortly ago, "if there was a real chance we were flipping into war mode, there would be six Fallons commenting -- and six fired."

This source said "Fallon's real mistake was going public with what was common banter among many of the senior military officials about America's engagement in the Middle East and with Iran. His views are not atypical -- no matter what the Esquire article asserts -- but he made the mistake of being publicly vain and indulgent about his own take on this."

From my reading of the situation, Bush had to fire Fallon for his comments. I admire Fallon's sense of America's strategic situation -- but the sad thing about this incident is that the combined efforts of Gates, Rice, Hayden, McConnell and others to bring a new direction to America's national security course had worked. Bush had bought in. Fallon had to brag about it -- and that was a mistake.

-- Steve Clemons

(Right-winger Prophylactic: Yes, it's a liberal-leaning site, but since they're the ones who would be more likely to criticize the Bush administration, when they don't, I'm more likely to believe it.)

Cleo
 
Credit where credit's due: it seems that Patroklos is right (thank god).

Source:



(Right-winger Prophylactic: Yes, it's a liberal-leaning site, but since they're the ones who would be more likely to criticize the Bush administration, when they don't, I'm more likely to believe it.)

Cleo
Speculation that he was pushed out would also be right.

I think we are talking past each other here. I think the truth falls somewhere between his happily taking his pension on an extended fishing trip and the way you have characterized the article. He likely had some disagreements with the adminastration and the article gave the administration just enough reason to tell him to go out and resign. Being the loyal 41 year guy, that's what he did.
 
JollyRoger,

Well I think he was pushed out not because he opposed war with Iran (it seems that lots of the military do), but because he talked about it to Esquire in those terms. So it's not, "We're doomed!" but it's not "I want to spend more time with my family," either.

Cleo
 
JollyRoger,

Well I think he was pushed out not because he opposed war with Iran (it seems that lots of the military do), but because he talked about it to Esquire in those terms. So it's not, "We're doomed!" but it's not "I want to spend more time with my family," either.

Cleo
I never really asserted a belief in the Esquire article as gospel despite what some have tried to pin on me - even going so far as posting silly attachments to highlight their selective reading that misses my point. The point I have been making in this thread was that it was not a happy departure and that the Esquire article gave the administration just enough cover to push him out (the article does not have to be true for it to work as cover). Looks like that's exactly what happened. I was never arguing the truth of the Esquire article, just the unreliability of the Admiral's statements on his way to being kicked to the curb.
 
JollyRoger,

I guess my statement that Patroklos was right wasn't so much aimed at the JollyRoger vs. Patroklos debate as the general idea that this doesn't mean that we're going to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran now. In your case, I guess you're both right. :)

Cleo
 
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