From UPI, 3/7/06:
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060307-054056-1192r
DOD spending $1 billion on space programs
WASHINGTON (UPI) --
The Bush administration is pushing ahead energetically with its space
weapons program.
The Pentagon's Fiscal Year 2007 (FY 07) budget request funds nearly a
billion dollars in programs that could provide dual-use space weapons
capabilities, according to a new joint-analysis by the World Security
Institute's Center for Defense Information and the Henry L. Stimson
Center.
In the absence of a clear national strategy and policy on new military
missions in outer space, the administration is funding these programs
that would create "facts in orbit," the report says.
These facts -- the development and testing of space weapon
technologies and the deployment of dual-use systems without any codes
of conduct or rules of the road for their operation -- will drive U.S.
policy toward space weapons without a debate in either Congress or the
public, it says.
According to CDI Director Theresa Hitchens, one of the report's
authors, "Congress must become more aware of these efforts, hidden in
plain sight within the Pentagon's Byzantine budget request, and ensure
that such programs do not go forward until a proper, in-depth and
intergovernmental policy-making process, including congressional and
public input, is concluded."
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The kiddies have gotta play with their billion dollar toys, ya know.
Harry
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