A lawsuit by a longtime critic of the nation's controversial antimissile defense system was dismissed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles after government attorneys argued that the case could jeopardize national security.
The 7-year-old suit, brought by former TRW Inc. senior engineer Nira Schwartz, alleged that the defense contractor falsified 1996 test results to show that its missile-detection software worked even though it was incapable of differentiating incoming enemy warheads from decoys or airborne debris.
Although a subsequent FBI investigation found that TRW had not tried to defraud the government, critics of the government's missile defense system have held out Schwartz's allegations as evidence that the program doesn't work and that its backers -- including the Bush administration -- are trying to ram it through for political and economic reasons. (The Times reported Monday that the Bush administration is seeking to exempt the antimissile defense system from federal law requiring operational testing of new weapons systems before they are deployed.)
Last year the General Accounting Office said that TRW had exaggerated the test results. And last month, the Pentagon's director of operational testing said the ground-launched missile interceptor system developed by TRW rival Raytheon Corp., which was selected by the Pentagon as the centerpiece of an antimissile defense system, has not been proven capable of discerning between real missiles and decoys.
Missile defense system critics, including physicist Theodore Postol of MIT, have said that Schwartz's case is relevant today because Raytheon's system uses the same type of recognition technology as TRW's. Schwartz and Postol have claimed that the technology does not work because it cannot collect enough independent pieces of data to make valid decisions in identifying incoming missiles.
"The whole thing is a travesty," Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the case dismissal. The Washington-based lobbying group has long been a critic of the missile defense system and has worked with Schwartz on her suit.
Government attorneys, who argued that documents requested by the chief defendant in the case could jeopardize national security, declined to comment Monday.
Schwartz said she would appeal the court ruling.
"They say it will endanger national security, but I say that if this doesn't go to trial the national security will be in danger," Schwartz said in an interview.
