The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued two reports Monday regarding a 1997 missile defense system test and government studies of it that have been criticized by MIT Professor Theodore Postol, among others.
The GAO reports--"Missile Defense: Review of Allegations about an Early National Missile Defense Flight Test" (GAO-02-125) and "Missile Defense: Review of Results and Limitations of an Early National Missile Defense Flight Test" (GAO-02-124)--are available online at the GAO "Today's Reports" web site under the date of March 4, 2002.
The MIT News Office issued this statement: "MIT and its employees have been fully cooperative with the GAO investigation. Our internal inquiry regarding alleged scientific misconduct associated with this matter is ongoing."
Scientific misconduct inquiries are confidential under MIT Policies and Procedures.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, in its report on the GAO studies Tuesday, said, the reports "cast no critical judgment on any of the participants in the missile test or on the outside reviewers."
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 6, 2002.
