US missile defence weaponry deeply flawed: Study

US missile defence plans are based on 'technical myths' and interceptors have failed to knock out incoming warheads in tests.

US missile defence plans are based on 8220;technical myths8221; and interceptors have mostly failed to knock out incoming warheads in military tests,a new study argues.

Two American scientists reviewed 10 tests of the SM-3 8220;kill vehicle,8221; designed to take out ballistic missiles,and concluded that the interceptor succeeded in directly hitting mock warheads in only one or two cases.

8220;This means that,in real combat,the warhead would have not been destroyed but would have continued toward the target and detonated in eight or nine of the 10 SM-3 experimental tests,8221; wrote George Lewis of Cornell University and Theodore Postol of MIT in the latest issue of 8220;Arms Control Today.8221;

The Pentagon had described the tests between 2002 to 2009 as successful.

The US administration8217;s claims about the missile defence system are 8220;nothing more than a fiction8221; and 8220;the policy strategy that follows from these technical myths could well lead to a foreign policy disaster,8221; wrote the scientists in an article titled 8220;A Flawed and Dangerous US Missile Defence Plan.8221;

But the US Missile Defence Agency MDA today rejected the findings of the study,calling them 8220;flawed,inaccurate and misleading.8221;

US officials and the academics disagreed over the importance of the interceptors striking the body of a rocket or its dummy warhead.

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The SM-3 tests 8220;showed that the interceptor8217;s kill vehicle impacted the target body or warhead within inches of the expected impact point that was calculated to maximize damage against a variety of warhead types,8221; the MDA said in a statement.

MDA spokesman Richard Lehner said some of the earlier tests did not use mock warheads at all because the goal was merely to hit the target missile.

One of the authors of the study,Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,is a long-time sceptic of US missile defence who previously helped expose the failure of most Patriot anti-missile weaponry in the 1991 Gulf War.

Much is riding on US missile defences based on land and at sea,with President Barack Obama arguing the system will help counter the threat posed by Iran8217;s missiles and will allow for scaling back the American nuclear arsenal.