PRESIDENT BUSH’S ambition to protect the US with an anti-missile defence shield was dealt a heavy blow yesterday when a key test ended in failure.

The interceptor rocket, intended to bring down a hostile missile 100 miles above the Earth, failed even to launch.

It was the first test in more than two years of the “Son of Star Wars” missile defence system that has already cost $80 billion (£41 billion).

The result makes it all but impossible for Mr Bush to deploy the existing technology by the end of the year as he had planned. In the longer term the mock warhead, which yesterday enjoyed an uninterrupted trajectory, may take the entire project with it to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The Pentagon insisted that the failure was little more than a glitch and that work on the project would continue.

No one expects Mr Bush to weaken his support for a project that has become an article of faith among many Republicans. But analysts said that they expected sceptics in Congress and in the Pentagon to try to whittle down the vast sums being spent on the project, some $10.2 billion this year alone.

It is the largest item in the Pentagon’s budget. “This is a programme marked by failure,” said Joe Cirincione, the director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Every single part of the system is over budget, behind schedule and under- performing. There’s not one success story. At a certain point that catches up with a programme.”

The Pentagon had no immediate answers to what was behind this week’s failure.

The interceptor — a booster rocket and a “kill vehicle” supposed to detach itself and explode the enemy missile — was housed on Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.

It was expected to blast off 16 minutes after the “enemy” warhead was fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska.

But 23 seconds before blast-off, an undetected anomaly prompted the automatic system to shut itself down.

It was to have been the ninth test. Three of the previous eight also ended in failure.

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