The Hill News

Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee fully funded the Obama administration’s $407 million request to develop what some are sarcastically calling “Might Eventually Almost Do Something” (MEADS), a program the Department of Defense has no intention of buying. The other three defense committees--the House Armed Services, Defense Appropriations and the Senate Armed Services-- already eliminated funding for it, or shrunk its budget. On Wednesday Senator McCain addressed the full Senate, rebuking the Appropriations Committee for once again funding programs the it explicitly did not authorizeâ€"like the MEADS program, whose real name is the Medium Extended Air Defense System.
MEADS is a multinational program still in development between the US, Italy, and Germany, although the US pays for nearly 60 percent of the program. It has had major technical set-backs and cost-overruns.  The system it was meant to replace, the Patriot anti-missile system, could be impr! oved to do what MEADS has failed to do.  Four NATO countries and seven other U.S. allies already deploy the Patriot system. These 11 allies shoulder 60 percent of the cost to sustain the system.

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