Missile Defense expert says missile shield changes leave East Coast unprotected

Riki Ellison, one of the top missile defense experts in the world, just released this statement on the announcement released this morning by the Department of Defense. Ellison is the chairman and founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a local non profit based in Alexandria.

According to Ellison, the East Coast of the United States is being left unprotected by these changes.

"This morning the President of the United States Barack Obama, the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General Cartwright the Vice Chairman of the JCS announced the withdrawal of the 3^rd missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic as well laying out a new missile defense architecture for the protection of Europe and US deployed troops there.
The withdrawal of the missile defense sites in Europe and introduction of a new missile defense architecture addresses the second and third priorities of missile defense stated today by the JCS and Pentagon of protection for deployed troops and allies but does not address the first stated priority which is the missile defense protection of the United States homeland. The equal protection of the eastern United States from long range ballistic missiles from Iran must be addressed as it is not equal to that of the protection provided today for the rest of the country from long range ballistic missiles. The European third site addressed the protection of the Eastern Seaboard of the US Homeland, the new architecture does not.

We support the President’s new architecture of both sea based and land based SM3s coupled with mobile sensors along with the Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems to protect our deployed forces, friends and allies in Europe, to globally integrate this system and  to share the costs with other countries. The system provides mobility, adaptability and numbers of missiles that can stay with the short and medium range ballistic missile threats from Iran.

However we are dismayed and concerned that this administration did not put forward a alternative proven solution for the protection of the eastern United States from long range ballistic missiles thus leaving the Eastern United States Seaboard more vulnerable and less protected than the rest of the United States from long range ballistic missiles."

For more information on Riki Ellison, or the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, go to www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org.