After some digging around, I’ve learned that the brackets around the 68.0 M for NFIRE in the Senate Appropriations Committee Report mean the funding has been preserved, setting up a fight in conference.
Even an old wonk can learn new budget tricks.
For those of you who are interested, here are NFIRE briefings, with some basic technical information, from December 2002 and April 2003.
On the bright side, I’ve been told that MDA may kill NFIRE of its own accord, since the program has gotten such a rough time. I’ll believe that when I see it. Of course, if NFIRE does get killed, I am sure Bill Gertz will blame program manager Terry Little, who according to Gertz committed the unpardonable offense (in Moonie-land) of admitting to being a liberal Democrat and is now suspect of hating freedom and fighting missile defense:
So, many Pentagon officials and missile-defense specialists were surprised to hear Terry Little, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) manager of the major Kinetic Energy Interceptor Program, declare his political leanings at a closed-door conference in March.
“I’m proud to be a liberal Democrat,” Mr. Little told the gathering, several participants said. He explained to the conference that MDA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish is not interested in his political views.
Defense sources tell us, however, that Mr. Little has been active in blocking work on space-based missile defenses, a liberal bugaboo.
Liberal bugaboo? Who talks like that?
