Missile Miss Is Military Mess

Hitting a bullet with a bullet is never easy, but when youve spent $15 billion trying, you might expect better than a 0-5 success rate. The military today recorded the fifth consecutive miss in testing of the costly THAAD anti-missile system. A booster rocket failure resulted in the Lockheed-built Theater High Altitude Area Defense missile's failing to intercept a Hera test missile.

The military could eventually feel the damage on Capitol Hill: To many legislators it looks like an awful lot of money to spend on a small problem, says TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson. A major deterrent against incoming missiles is that they carry a return address -- fire a missile at the U.S. and we will incinerate your country shortly thereafter.

The militarys spin doctors appeared to do no better than their expensive anti-missile missile today. Choice item from the Pentagon statement on the THAAD failure: The target worked fine.