WASHINGTON — The U.S. territorial missile shield would have a 92 percent chance of intercepting an ICBM launched from Iran, and plans formulated under former President George W. Bush to put interceptors in Europe would have increased the shield’s effectiveness by only three to four percentage points, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Sept. 25 hearing. Cartwright was responding to claims that the United States was abandoning protection of its homeland by moving away from the previous administration’s plan to place 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.
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