Confidence Of BMD System For US Homeland Lacking: "Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org, has released a statement on the shortcomings of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system in its ability to protect the U.S. homeland. Ellison is one of the top lay experts in the field of missile defense in the world. His comments are the following:
'The protection of the United States from the threat of ballistic missile attack is a critical national security priority' was a statement released by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates earlier this year. Secretary Gates' statement was part of the introduction of the Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR), the Department of Defense's current policy on missile defense. That policy lists six priorities, with the number one priority being 'The United States will continue to defend the homeland against the threat of limited ballistic missile attack.'
Of the $8.24 billion or 1.2% of the 2011 Defense budget requested by the President for the Missile Defense Agency, 16.3% or $1.35 billion of it goes towards the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system that is responsible for protecting our homeland against ballistic missile attacks."
