Alaska post to be major player in U.S. defense plan

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- It spreads across a remote chunk of Alaska's vast interior, where winter temperatures can drop to 60 degrees below zero, and once was on the list of mothballed military bases.

These days, Fort Greely is a major player in the Bush administration's missile defense program.

President Bush announced this past week that he plans to deploy a limited missile defense system by 2004. Among the key elements of the plan, six interceptor missiles would be based in silos at Fort Greely by the end of that year, with 10 more by the end of 2005.

"Alaska is kind of at the top of the world," which makes it an optimum location to intercept missiles aimed at the United States from North Korea or the Middle East, Lt. Col. Rick Lehner of the Missile Defense Agency said Thursday.

Other sites were considered, but Greely had the infrastructure already in place, plus stable geology and weather extremes that offer a wide range of conditions for testing, said Lt. Col. Jay Smith, who heads the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Site Activation Command at Fort Richardson in Anchorage.

"Reopening Fort Greely is a success story," Smith said.

The post covered 170 square miles next to Delta Junction, a town of 840 that had feared an economic collapse when Fort Greely began shutting down in the mid-1990s.

Pete Hallgren, Delta's city administrator, hailed the expanded missile defense work as a welcome boost to the local economy, creating jobs and stability.

"It ensures Delta Junction has a future," he said.

"It's the type of thing necessary for people to spring loose in private investments here."

The area is about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks on a narrow, two-lane highway that parallels the Tanana River. There's little between Fairbanks and Delta Junction but a couple of roadside lodges.

In the summer, the region is inviting to campers and backpackers, with daylight lasting 21 hours and temperatures in the 80s. Sightseers can watch moose and grizzly bear. But winter brings darkness and cold. The sun barely rises above the horizon at the winter solstice, and on a good day the temperature might reach 10 below.

At the June groundbreaking for the Fort Greely silos, two dozen people went all the way to Delta Junction to protest the project as an offensive, rather than defensive, program.

Hallgren said he didn't know of any locals opposed to the project.

"A lot of military people have retired here," he said. "We're an extremely, openly, patriotic community."

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On the Net:

Missile Defense Agency: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/