Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency, peers inside a silo containing a missile interceptor at Fort Greely, Alaska, U.S., on January 11, 2010. Source: Missile Defense Agency
By Elliot Blair Smith and Gopal Ratnam
In tunnels under Fort Greely, Alaska, workers wearing hazmat suits and respirators are fighting to keep America safe from missile attack.
They are battling mold in corridors leading to six underground silos that house rockets for shooting down enemy warheads. The mold and leaking pipes mean the installation must be replaced this year as part of a $1.16 billion fix for the national missile defense shield, senior defense officials told Congress.
No one knows whether the $35 billion program would work. It has never been tested under conditions simulating a real attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile deploying sophisticated decoys and countermeasures. The system has flunked 7 of 15 more limited trials, yet remains exempted from normal Pentagon oversight and so far has been spared the cuts Congress is demanding in other areas of federal spending.
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