WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The director of the US Missile Defense Agency, US Vice Admiral James Syring, warned on Wednesday that the recent successful test of the country's ICBM system did not erase his concerns about the reliability of the system, particularly in view of the growing threat of a North Korean missile strike.
"I have reliability concerns with the system that have been systematically addressed in large part over the last, I'll say, six years, bit by bit. It's just not the interceptor, it's the entire system. We are not there yet… We are not done yet," Syring told a hearing of the House Committee on Armed Services.
n Tuesday, the US Air Force successfully carried out the first live-fire test of its Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) target over the Pacific Ocean. During the test, the target was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
A representative of the North Korean army's Strategic Firces told Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in an interview that the US GMD test is a "dangerous military provocation."
According to open sources, the GMD missile defense complex entered into service back in 2005. It is designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles and their combat units in outer space beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
At present, 30 anti-missile rockets are deployed in Alaska and California to protect the continental territory of the United States; another 15 missiles are expected to be completed in 2017.
