March 15, 2002

GAO Faults an Analysis by MIT of Disputed Missile Test

By JEFFREY BRAINARD

In two reports released last week, the General Accounting Office said that scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did not have a sufficient scientific basis to support their conclusion that a 1997 missile-defense test was largely successful.

The reports do not deal with allegations by an MIT professor who has accused the institute of covering up technical flaws in the test, which was one in a series cited by the U.S. Department of Defense as showing that the