(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-18 10:20

The Kongo, armed with its SM-3 interceptors, will return to Japan to provide an "operational" antimissile capability to complement ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles already installed in Japan, Taylor said.

Shield Against Iran

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency is building a multibillion-dollar, layered shield it says is designed to defeat warheads that could be fired by Iran and DPRK. Japan is the leading US partner in the effort, involved in joint research and development, including for a more advanced interceptor.

In addition, the US and Japanese navies have worked out common tactics, techniques and procedures for their Aegis-equipped ships to shoot down enemy missiles, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet said last week.

The Kongo "is emblematic of a complex weave of US and Japanese anti-missile capabilities," said Paul Giarra, a former Pentagon senior country director for Japan who inaugurated a US-Japan missile-defense working group in the early 1990s.

The Lake Erie, a Pearl Harbor-based US guided-missile cruiser, tracked the missile target and fed data on it to a command center while simulating a shootdown of its own, MDA's Taylor said in an email response to questions from Reuters.

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