This post is from February 2005. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Life Imitates Art: Another Missile Defense Test Failure

In the popular television program Sex and the City, Trey MacDougal, the husband of a principal character, has a little problem, um, performing under pressure.

The Missile Defense Agency’s own Trey, Henry “Trey” Obering III, seems to be having a little trouble getting the old missile up and on course, himself.

For the second time in two months, a missile defense interceptor failed to launch from Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean.

Again, the target, perhaps representing a North Korean ICBM hurtling toward a U.S. city, performed flawlessly.

MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said the early indications pointed to a malfunction with the ground support equipment, not the missile itself.

That’s usually the excuse in these situations, huh?

Jeffrey Lewis

Writing on ACW 2004–2026

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.com. He is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor to Survival.

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