Pentagon report slams missile defense agency

"For mid-course intercept systems, the balance between qualitative improvements and deploying more of existing capabilities should be strongly in favor of qualitative improvements." Huh? According to Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione and Victoria Samson, senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, a new Pentagon report is sharply critical of the Missile Defense Agency and recommends, in Cirincione's and Samson's words, that we "take the current missile defense program back to the garage for some serious repairs. The report should help the next president redirect funds from this $13 billion a year boondoggle to weapons we need, and get the program back on track." For the record, that carefully worded sentence is a recommendation that the U.S. not proceed with building new bases in Poland and the Czech Republic until we know if the anti-missile systems work.