Another attack on the planned European (Ground-based) Midcourse Defense (EMD) shield to protect Europe and the United States against Iranian missiles has come from those who have criticized the program previously.

The latest criticism, in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (known for its Doomsday Clock), came from physicist George N. Lewis, associate director of the Peace Studies Program at Cornell University, and Theodore A. Postol, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of science, technology and national security policy.

Postol previously has said the EMD shield would be ill positioned to protect Europe against Iranian missiles; that the EMD interceptors would be able to catch and kill Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles headed over the North Pole to the United States — an assertion that U.S. leaders said is ludicrous — and that the overall U.S. missile defense concept is flawed.

Their article, entitled "The European missile defense folly," asserts that the EMD radar slated for emplacement in the Czech Republic wouldn’t be capable of adequately detecting and tracking Iranian missiles.

When the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) "description of how the system functions is subjected to a detailed technical analysis, it becomes clear that none of the system’s components can work as MDA claims," Lewis and Postol assert.

They argue that simple countermeasures, such as decoys or other confusing items deployed by incoming Iranian missiles would defeat the EMD system.

Further, the EMD radar is underpowered, they assert, saying it wouldn’t have the capability to aid other U.S. ballistic missile defense radars by differentiating between real warheads and confusing items.

Further, the radar might detect threats so late in the game that interceptors wouldn’t be quick enough to annihilate them, they assert.

They also repeat Postol’s earlier assertion that the EMD interceptors would be quick enough to knock down Russian ICBMs, as Russians have claimed.

To read their essay in full, please go to http://www.thebulletin.org on the Web.