- The Guardian,
- Saturday July 8 2000
The environmental pressure group said the proposed $60bn national missile defence (NMD) scheme would undermine existing disarmament treaties and "provide additional justification to Russia and China to retain their existing nuclear arsenals, while developing new nuclear weapons that can penetrate any future missile shield".
Greenpeace said its team at the base was equipped with survival gear and supplies for several days.
The test was the third in a series, but its timing in the midst of a presidential election campaign was expected to have a significant bearing on President Clinton's decision on whether to go ahead with the system, which is intended to provide a shield against missiles fired from "rogue states".
A Greenpeace spokesman said a team of activists had entered Vandenberg air force base and reached the silo from which a Minuteman II missile was due to be fired as part of the test.
Meanwhile, a Greenpeace vessel, an icebreaker called Arctic Sunrise, entered one of five "hazard zones" off the coast from the Californian base under the missile's trajectory in an effort to stop the countdown.
John Sprange, a Greenpeace activist on board the ship, said the organisation "will continue to use every non-violent means to convince President Clinton to stop Star Wars".
The US air force was quoted as saying that the approaching vessel would be "dealt with". In 1989 a navy ship rammed another Greenpeace vessel challenging a Trident test.
The Minuteman was expected to release a mock warhead into space, which would then be targeted by a rocket fired 20 minutes later from the Marshall Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The rocket was supposed to launch an interceptor in space which would then track down and target the incoming warhead.
Criticism of the scheme has come from all corners. Russia and China have complained it would undermine the deterrent value of other nations' arsenals. America's allies in Europe have also expressed unease about the project, concerned that it would trigger global instability.
Meanwhile US scientists and intellectuals have criticised NMD as an expensive waste of time. In a letter to President Clinton, Theodore Postol, a professor of science and national security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, accused Pentagon officials of covering up flaws in the scheme and making "numerous technologically illiterate and highly misleading statements" about the system.
A spokesman for the National Security Council said it had seen the letter and had asked the Pentagon to analyse the questions raised.
