Text Fwd: Japan To Open Interceptor Missile Command On U.S. Base In Spring

* Text informed by Rick Rozoff on Feb. 2, 2011

Stars and Stripes
February 2, 2011
Japanese Air Defense Command center set to open on Yokota this spring
By Charlie Reed


YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan: As construction of Japan’s new Air Defense Command headquarters nears completion, officials here are still working out exactly how U.S. and Japanese troops will share the base.

The ADC will begin operations on Yokota by the end of March, and all 800 Japanese troops associated with the command will be on base by the end of the year, Yokota officials said.

Along with a 1.3 million square-foot operations center, the Japanese are also building a dormitory for about 200 single enlisted troops who will live on base, a dining facility, a Japanese military exchange store, an auditorium and other support facilities for the ADC, which is transferring from Japan’s nearby Fuchu air base in metropolitan Tokyo.

The ADC commander and vice commander along with four other general officers and their families will also reside at Yokota, home to U.S. Forces Japan headquarters and 5th Air Force. U.S. and Japanese officials could not provide figures for how many dependents will accompany the 800 Japanese troops and civilian employees assigned to the ADC.
....
A headquarters command, the ADC controls air operations and missile defense for all of Japan and coordinates air support for Japan’s naval and ground forces.

The project, which broke ground three years ago, has been touted most for enhancing U.S.-Japan cooperation on missile defense.
....
The U.S. and Japan began partnering on missile defense in the wake of North Korea’s 1998 missile test over Japan. In December, Japan announced plans to further expand its anti-missile system as part of a new “dynamic” defense policy.

The relocation is “necessary to share useful information between the U.S. and Japan,” a spokesman for Japan’s Ministry of Defense said this week.

Text Fwd: US Exploited Korean Test For Global Interceptor Missile System

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090712/NEWS08/907120361/How+U.S.+exp\
loited+N.+Korea+missile+tests
Honolulu Advertiser, July 12, 2009
How U.S. exploited N. Korea missile tests
Navy ship grounding detailed
By Richard Halloran

Publicly, President Obama and senior officials in his administration berated
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last week for firing 11 ballistic missiles
eastward into the Sea of Japan, four short-range missiles on July 2 and seven
medium-range missiles on July 4. It was the biggest North Korean missile barrage
seen so far.

Secretly, U.S. officials informed on missile defenses were pleased, for two
reasons. First, the elaborate U.S. missile defense in place in Japan, Alaska,
California, Hawai'i, aboard Navy ships and in satellites was severely tested and
worked well. In particular, the fusion of data from sensors based on land, at
sea and in space produced swift and clear images of what the missiles were
doing.

Second, U.S. intelligence gathered information about the missiles that otherwise
could not have been had. An official in Washington said: "We learned an
incredible amount about where exactly North Korea is in their long-range missile
development program." Because North Korea has only aging radar, he doubted that
North Korea "learned anything close to what we learned about their tests."
....
The missiles were sighted by U.S. radar in northwestern Japan near the remote
village of Shariki, then picked up by radar on Shemya in the Aleutian chain of
Alaska and another encased in what looks like a giant golf ball aboard a
seagoing base in the mid-Pacific. A satellite and an Aegis destroyer on patrol
in the Pacific also tracked the missiles.

Missile data were transmitted to a U.S. command center at Yokota Air Base west
of Tokyo, where much was shared with Japan's Self-Defense Forces. The data went
to operations centers in Hawai'i, Northern Command in Colorado, Strategic
Command in Nebraska, the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, and
to the situation room in the White House.
....
Had Obama given the order to shoot, computers in a fire-control suite in Alaska
would have selected interceptors in Alaska, California, or aboard an Aegis ship
at sea to shoot at the missiles while in mid-course. As a last resort, an
anti-missile missile would have been fired from Hawai'i at the incoming warhead
hurtling down from space.
....
Richard Halloran, formerly a New York Times correspondent in Asia and in
Washington, is a writer in Honolulu.

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