GAO: Pentagon Fudged Missile Test

WASHINGTON –– The Pentagon and contractors exaggerated the success of the nation's first missile defense test in 1997, ignoring a flawed sensor that had trouble distinguishing a warhead from a decoy, congressional investigators said Monday.

The Pentagon called the findings outdated.

Contractors TRW and Boeing, who jointly built the system that was tested, played down the problems as did a Massachusetts Institute of Technology review team, said investigators from the General Accounting Office.

But Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who released the findings by Congress' investigative agency, said, "If we can't tell the warhead apart from a decoy, what good is it?"

The latest disagreement surfaced as the costs of an anti-missile system, strongly favored by President Bush, continues to grow. Designing, testing and building a land- and sea-based missile defense system would cost between $23 billion and $64 billion by 2015, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated this year.