Pentagon Criticizes ‘Star Wars’ Reports

WASHINGTON —  The Pentagon on Monday charged that a House committee’s report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is basically a “rewrite of a fundamentally flawed” congressional report released in July.

“There are a number of problems with the conclusions and finding of both reports,” the Pentagon’s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization said in a one-page statement responding to the study done by the Government Operations Committee.

The panel report, issued Sunday, cited a General Accounting Office study issued this past summer that raised serious questions about deploying the first phase of the strategic defense system, commonly known as “Star Wars,” in 1993. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said detailed tests planned by the SDIO would not be completed by the time the President has to decide whether to go ahead with deployment.