Critics of the system have long contended the interceptor's so-called "kill vehicle" could easily be spoofed with simple decoys because of the difficulty of distinguishing a warhead from other objects in space.

But Lieutenant General Henry "Trey" Obering showed reporters a video of the view from the kill vehicle in Friday's test in which it is seen sorting through a variety of objects before zeroing in on the mock warhead.

The other objects included the missile's re-entry vehicle and other as yet unidentified debris, said Obering, who heads the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

"We did not have countermeasures on this flight," he said, but based on the system's performance in the test, "we will be put them on the next flight."

The next test could come as early as February or March, or as late as May, a spokesman for the agency said.

Obering said Friday's success will make it easier to put to rest questions about the system's viability as the United States negotiates to install a missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has vehemently objected to the European site, insisting it poses a threat to its nuclear deterrent, while offering the United States access to an early warning radar in Azerbaijan as an alternative to the Czech radar.

Obering said Russian officials were invited to observe Friday's test and watched it with him in Washington.

In the test, an interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California deployed the kill vehicle into the path of a mock warhead from an incoming target missile launched from Alaska.

Using infrared sensors, the kill vehicle then steered itself into a pulverizing collision in space with the mock warhead.

"We do know we scored a direct hit on the warhead," Obering said.

General Gene Renuart, head of the US Northern Command and of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) command, said the test also was used to validate operational procedures to be followed in a real-life attack.

They included conference calls among key leaders authorized to release the interceptor missiles.

It was the seventh intercept since the program began. Four other attempts have failed.

But the program has met with skepticism from outside experts who say testing has not been realistic enough to validate the system, particularly against warheads protected by even primitive counter-measures.

Eight tests between 1999 and 2002 included a single balloon decoy deployed with the target warheads, of which five resulted in successful intercepts.

But they were discontinued to focus on improvements in the design of the kill vehicles and the command and control system, while awaiting the deployment of more powerful targeting radars.

Obering said the counter-measures in the next test will be similar to those used in the earlier tests.

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