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Theodore Postol is a Professor of Science, Technology, and International Security at MIT and a prominent critic of the effectiveness of missile defense. He received both his undergraduate degree in physics as well as his PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT. Postol worked at Argonne National Laboratory, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. He also worked at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment studying methods of basing the MX missile, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. After leaving the Pentagon, Dr. Postol helped to build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study developments in weapons technology of relevance to defense and arms control policy. In 1990 Dr. Postol was awarded the Leo Szilard Prize * from the American Physical Society. In 1995 he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize * from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2001 he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility * for uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses.
Patriot Missile Performance in Operation Desert Storm Postol testified before a April 1992 house committee that "the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero." * The House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security later reported, The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives during and after the war. * Postol later went on to criticize the Army's "independent" Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness as being "seriously compromised" by the "selective" and "arbitrary" use of data to support claims about the Patriot's effectiveness. * The Army ultimately downgraded its assessment of the systems' effectiveness. National Ballistic Missile Defense In 1996, Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer at defense contractor TRW blew the whistle against TRW for exaggerating the capabilities of an antiballistic missile sensor *. The sensor was subsequently used in a "successful" missile test in 1997. The then Ballistic Missile Defense Organization launched an investigation in 1998 and asked a Pentagon advisory board called POET (Phase One Engineering Team), which included two staff members from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, to review performance of TRW software, using data from the 1997 flight test. These engineers concluded in their report that Schwartz's allegations were untrue and despite failure of the sensor, the software "basically worked the way TRW said it worked" *. In December 1998, TRW's contract was not extended by the government, which chose a competing system built by Raytheon. In 2000 Postol received an unclassified version of the POET report from Schwartz, from which sensitive text and graphs had been removed. Based on this redacted report, he notified the White House * and senior MIT officials of possible fraud and research misconduct at TRW and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The Pentagon responded by classifying the letter and dispatching Defense Security Service members to his office *. Postol demanded the MIT administration under President Charles Vest and Provost Robert Brown conduct an investigation per MIT policies on research misconduct. The administration initially resisted *, but later appointed another faculty member to conduct a preliminary investigation. In 2002, this professor's investigation found no evidence of a credible error, but he subsequently recommended a full investigation when Postol provided a statement of additional concerns. In May 2006, a panel composed of MIT faculty members concluded that the investigator recommended a full investigation "because of his inability to exhaust all the questions that arose during the inquiry", not because it appeared likely misconduct had occurred, and that a full investigation had not been waranted *. Under National Science Foundation regulations governing research misconduct, a preliminary inquiry should be completed within 90 days of an allegation, and a full investigation within 180 days subject to penalties as severe as suspension of federal funding. * By December 2004, no formal investigation had been performed, and the Missile Defense Agency formally rejected MITs request to investigate the classified data.* Postol asserts that the MIT administration has been compliant with the Pentagon's attempts to cover up a fiasco by dragging its feet on an investigation because defense contracts through Lincoln Laboratory constitute a major portion of MIT's operating budget *. In early 2006, a compromise was reached whereby MIT would halt any attempt to conduct its own investigation and senior Air Force administrator Brendan B. Godfrey and former Lockheed Martin chief executive Norman R. Augustine would lead a final investigation. Postol disputes the impartiality of this new investigation as Augustine was CEO while Lockheed was a contractor with NBMD. * In May 2006, an MIT Ad-Hoc Committee on Research Misconduct Allegation * concluded delays in the investigation were caused by a number of factors, including: "initial uncertainty about the applicability of MIT's research misconduct policy to a government non-MIT report"; government classification of relevant information, possibly in an attempt to make it unavailable to plaintifs in the TRW whistle-blower trial; and Postol's failure to provided a clearly written summary of his allegations, which changed repeatedly during the investigation. The committee also found that Postol repeatedly violated MIT confidentiality rules "causing personal distress to the Lincoln Laboratory researchers, their families and colleagues". | ||||||||
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