NEWPORT, Rhode Island – Yesterday, the Washington Times reported that Defense Secretary had nixed the use of one of the military's most advanced radar systems to monitor North Korea's recent missile launch - preventing "officials from collecting finely detailed launch data." Today, Robert Gates took issue with the report. "It really ticked me off," he told reporters at an informal gathering. The article implied that Gates kept the radar back, to keep from "provoking the North Koreans." Gates responded that it was really just a matter of money.

Gates said his military advisors – including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Vice Chairman General James Cartwright – had advised against using the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX). The $900 million system has a powerful tracking and discrimination radar that can pinpoint tiny objects thousands of miles away. But the SBX – sometimes referred to as the "giant golf ball" because of its bulbous, ten-story high radome – is also notoriously fragile. In the weeks leading up to the North Korean launch, the SBX was undergoing repairs. Hauling it up to Alaska, to track Pyongyang's missile, would have cost "50 to 100 million dollars," according to Gates. That didn't seem worth the cash, he added, when "all the intelligence – all the intelligence – said it was a satellite launch."

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