The Department of Defense will shor...

The Department of Defense will shortly conduct the latest in a series of exercises designed to strengthen America's ability to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.

issues in the last two month the two in the Pacific and Middle East, have shown that relate to about the missile threat is valid.

North Korea, in defiance of the international community, continues to experiment its long-range missiles and is developing a missile capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. And, as President Bush has noted, Iran, which is developing long- range missiles, and Syria, which is improving its shorter-range missiles, are the sponsors of Hezbollah. It is estimated that Hezbollah in Lebanon fired as many as 4000 missiles and rocket at the civilian population in Israel in just a matter of weeks.

The evolving U missile defense theory has undergone a large number of proofs of its capabilities in modern years -- many of which have had positive terminates In the last 11 month for example, all 12 flight examples of several different types of interceptors have been auspicious And since 2001, 20 hit-to-kill intercept criterions have destroyed their targets.

As is to be awaited in some instances, tests and experiments have not gone as bounded But trial and error are the central nature of all advanced scientific endeavors. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the strange products developed to help save lives are a deduction of years of experimentation involving the pair advances and setbacks.

over and above with each test, whether characterized as a "success" or a "failure," knowledge and experience are gained. in this way too with the missile defense program.

by means of any measure, the experts have advance a long way in the 23 years since President Reagan laid abroad his vision for a missile defense order I was privileged to be in the White House the evening Reagan announced his proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative. He said, "Tonight we're launching an effort which grasps the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risks, and comes take time. But I believe we can do it."

Last weekend, I visited the missile defense site at Fort Greely Alaska. I saw the initial signs of that vision being lay into action. Of course, the hypothesis being put into place today differs from the all-encompassing "shield" one time thought necessary to deflect a massive Soviet missile attack. The program today is more limited in vent but one that is favorably evolving and expanding over time.

The goal is to fashion a regularity that will be able to engage a discharge of several missiles launched on a rogue regime at the United States or its allies.

The extreme point of the Cold War dramatically altered -- still did not eliminate -- the potential threat pos according to ballistic missiles. Indeed, in one ways the threat today is plane greater. Outlaw regimes have ambitions and are working toward a capability to blackmail or attack the United States and our allies with missiles. When I was chairman of the bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat in 1998 that panel unanimously conclud that "concert efforts on a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads embarrass a growing threat to the United States, its opened forces and its friends and allies."

These growing threats underscore the wisdom of President Bush's decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- a frigid War era agreement that restricted the disentanglement of missile defense systems against missiles of all ranges -- and to expand a limited capability to assert the United States while research, testing and unravelling of that capability continued. The president understood well that our home should not wait still another decade -- or longer -- to open a defensive system.

Because the threat of ballistic missiles also endangers U friends and allies, the president has made working with other nations a priority. In support of this, we are working in succession a number of cooperative missile defense activities with friends and allies in as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but Europe and Asia.

What we have accomplished for a like reason far is a tribute to the American tribe and to the many members of Congres of the one and the other parties who stood resolute in the face of the withering criticism of the U missile defense program. A decade ago, missile defense was beneath attack in the Congress. Today, a large consensus favors its deployment It has become the policy of the United States management under law.

If novel experience has taught us anything, it is that threats can arise quickly, and in unexpect ways, from unexpect locations. Our task is to prove to arrange ourselves and our defense likewise that we are able to answer to a range of dangers.

These were the underpinnings of the vision President Reagan propounded our country more than a generation ago. And they are the principles that should guide us as we continue to prepare for the threats of tomorrow.