The president was expressing extraordinary faith in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, currently the country’s sole guard against intercontinental ballistic missiles that carry nuclear warheads. But his faith was woefully misplaced, and facts belie his claim. U.S. military testing data show there is no basis to expect GMD interceptors to work more than about 50 percent of the time. Using multiple interceptors against each target could in some cases improve these odds but will not funda- mentally change the situation. The chances of a nuclear weapon getting through in a real-world attack using multiple missiles is still dangerously high. Our analysis of all 19 tests done—the most recent one was in late March—as well as several government re- views of the program, shows an alarmingly high failure rate.