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 wouldn't be completed by the time the president has to decide whether to go ahead with deployment. Based on the problems of incomplete testing, the General Accopunting Office said it did not believe the ``will be able to give the president enough information to support a 1993 decision to deploy Phase 1.'' The incorporation of the ``Brilliant Pebbles'' concept into the strategic defense system in January drastically changed its design, leaving it in a state of flux. ``Brilliant Pebbles'' are several thousand interceptors that would orbit the Earth to seek and destroy a target by smashing into it at high speeds. The House committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., warned that Brilliant Pebbles could become the next version of the ill-fated Hubble telescope, the $1.5 billion telescope whose primary mirror is flawed and provides a blurred view of its viewing targets. Responding to the reports, the SDIO said the 1993 decision was never a decision on whether to deploy but rather a choice on moving toward full-scale development. ``Given recent budget cuts, all decisions have been delayed by at least two years - and deployment of Brilliant Pebbles would not begin before late in this decade,'' the SDIO said. The organization also contends that the General Accounting Office exaggerated the changes in design of the system after the introduction of Brilliant Pebbles. It also said the president could make a decision on the system with the tests planned. The organization added that cost estimates are continuing to drop, ``a trend which we believe all in Congress should support.'' ``The recent House Goverment Operations Committee report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is essentially a rewrite of a fundamentally flawed GAO report released earlier this year,'' the SDIO said.
