您正在看的时事英语是:美国重视民航客机防导弹袭击。
美国重视民航客机防导弹袭击

(中文大意)

　　正当美国政府为恐怖分子可能使用肩扛式地对空导弹袭击民航机一事愁闷时，美国8家军火承包商向国土安全部(Department of Homeland Security)提交了一份保护民航客机免遭这类武器袭击的建议。然而，政府还是未能对是否存在着一种节省成本的防止恐怖分子从地面袭击方法表示信服。该部门发言人称，政府确实正在考虑是否有一种能够在商业飞机上利用，可行的防卫技术过程中。该发言人没有透露这项提议究竟是哪8家承包商提交的。安全部认为，在不久前逮捕的出售地对空导弹的英国人后，美国近期遭到这类武器袭击的可能性不大。同时，政府计划今年开支200万美元研究这项建议，可能在明年进行样品的实验。该发言人还称，参众两院拨款委员会已经批准数个计划，以6000万美元拨款资助研究反导弹技术。

As the government presses its case against an arms dealer charged with selling missiles to federal agents posing as terrorists seeking to shoot down an airliner, the Department of Homeland Security is assessing proposals from eight defense contractors to protect commercial aircraft from shoulder-fired-missile attacks.
 
 
But the department isn't convinced that there is a cost-effective method to thwart a determined terrorist on the ground aiming at an aircraft overhead.

"We are in the process of determining if in fact there is a viable technology that could be deployed on commercial aircrafts," said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman. The department declined to identify the bidders, but Raytheon Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and BAE Systems North America Inc. confirmed that they were pursuing the technology.

The department is not proceeding with any greater urgency because of the arrest of Hemant Lakhani, a Briton who was charged with selling a shoulder-fired missile to federal agents posing as terrorists, Roehrkasse said. Because the arrest was the result of a sting operation, federal officials do not associate any new threat with it, he said. "The U.S. intelligence community does not have any specific intelligence that al Qaeda or any other terrorist organizations possess these weapons for use in a plot to shot down a commercial aircraft in the United States," he said.

The missile used in the sting was a dummy, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said.

Homeland Security plans to spend $2 million this year studying the proposals and could award contracts to develop prototypes next year, Roehrkasse said. The House and Senate Appropriations committees have approved separate plans to fund contracts valued at up to $60 million to deploy the antimissile technology. The agency does not know when the technology could be deployed, Roehrkasse said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called the administration's approach to the issue "all too halting, slow and incomplete." Arguments that the technology is not ready for commercial aircraft are faulty, Schumer said last week in a letter to President Bush.

The military already uses this technology, and "this year alone, it has helped foil at lease three shoulder-fired-missile attacks on military cargo planes in Iraq," he said. Schumer estimated that it would cost $7 billion to $10 billion to outfit civilian airplanes with the technology.

The Pentagon has long used high-tech "countermeasures" on military planes to detect and destroy shoulder-fired missiles and other heat-seeking surface-to-air weapons. Several Army helicopters are outfitted with a laser-based system developed by BAE. When t