[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF MISSILE DEFENSE (PART 3): QUESTIONS FOR THE MISSILE
DEFENSE AGENCY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 30, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-150
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.oversight.house.gov
----------
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DAN BURTON, Indiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SALI, Idaho
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JIM JORDAN, Ohio
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
------ ------
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
Lawrence Halloran, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DAN BURTON, Indiana
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
Dave Turk, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 30, 2008................................... 1
Statement of:
Coyle, Philip E., III, senior advisor, Center for Defense
Information, associate director emeritus, Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory; Henry F. Cooper, Ph.D.,
chairman, High Frontier; and Joseph Cirincione, president,
Ploughshares Fund.......................................... 150
Cirincione, Joseph....................................... 192
Cooper, Henry F.......................................... 181
Coyle, Philip E., III.................................... 150
Obering, Lieutenant General Henry A. ``Trey'', III, USAF
Director, Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Secretary
of Defense................................................. 79
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cirincione, Joseph, president, Ploughshares Fund, prepared
statement of............................................... 194
Cooper, Henry F., Ph.D., chairman, High Frontier, prepared
statement of............................................... 184
Coyle, Philip E., III, senior advisor, Center for Defense
Information, associate director emeritus, Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, prepared statement of....... 152
Obering, Lieutenant General Henry A. ``Trey'', III, USAF
Director, Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Secretary
of Defense, prepared statement of.......................... 83
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut:
Information concerning U.S. missile defense program...... 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 4
OVERSIGHT OF MISSILE DEFENSE (PART 3): QUESTIONS FOR THE MISSILE
DEFENSE AGENCY
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, McCollum, Van Hollen,
Hodes, Welch, and Shays.
Staff present: Dave Turk, staff director; Dan Himilton,
fellow; Davis Hake, clerk; Hank Smith, graduate intern;
Christopher Bright, Benjamin Chance, and Todd Greenwood,
minority professional staff members; and Nick Palarino,
minority senior investigator and policy advisor.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing entitled,
``Oversight of Missile Defense (Part 3): Questions for the
Missile Defense Agency,'' will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements. Without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all of the members of the
subcommittee be allowed to submit a written statement for the
record. Without objection, so ordered.
Good morning, and welcome to everybody that is here,
particularly our witnesses. Today's oversight hearing is the
third in our series on the Nation's missile defense program. As
I have noted before, the National Security Oversight Committee
is undertaking this extensive and sustained oversight of
missile defense for three primary reasons.
First, the Missile Defense Agency operates the largest
research development program in the Department of Defense,
consisting currently of about $10 billion or more a year. Since
the 1980's taxpayers have already spent $120 to $150 billion,
more time and more money than we spent on the Manhattan Project
or Apollo Program, with no end in sight.
Second, the broader history of missile defense efforts
teaches us important lessons. The nonpartisan Congressional
Research Service put it this way, ``efforts to counter
ballistic missiles have been underway since the dawn of the
missile age at the close of World War II. Numerous programs
were begun, and only a very few saw completion to deployment.
Technical obstacles have proven to be tenacious, and systems
integration challenges have been more the norm, rather than the
exception.''
Third, the excellent analysis and work of those who
testified at our previous two hearings and others like them
have raised very serious concerns about the effectiveness,
efficiency and even the need for our country's current missile
defense efforts.
Today we will continue those conversations with the head of
the Missile Defense Agency, General Obering. I want to thank
you, General, for your service to the country and for your
testimony here today.
For your benefit and for others who weren't able to attend
the other hearings, I wanted to provide a short recap of what
we have learned and what serious questions have been raised.
Our first hearing focused on the threats facing our country
from intercontinental ballistic missiles versus other
vulnerabilities we face, a discussion which should form the
foundation for any wise policymaking, but which too often gets
ignored, distorted or manipulated.
Joseph Cirincione testified, ``the threat the United States
faces from ballistic missiles has steadily declined over the
past 20 years. There are fewer missiles in the world today than
there were 20 years ago, fewer states with missile programs,
and fewer hostile missiles aimed at the United States.
Countries still pursuing long-range missile programs are fewer
in number and less technologically advanced than 20 years ago.
Mr. Cirincione also dissected the threat our troops and allies
face from short and medium-range missiles versus the threat or
lack thereof the U.S. homeland faces from long-range missiles.
Dr. Stephen Flynn, currently a fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations and formerly the director and principal
author of the Hart-Rudman Commission report, testified that the
``non-missile risk . . . is far greater than the ballistic
missile threat'' because ``it is the only realistic option for
a non-state actor like al Qaeda to pursue;'' it provides
anonymity, something a ballistic missile simply cannot; and
there are a rich menu of non-missile options to exploit for
getting a nuclear weapon into the United States,'' options
which could have the additional bonus from the al Qaeda
perspective of generating ``cascading economic consequences by
disrupting global supply chains.''
This comparative threat assessment is nothing new. In fact,
in 2000 the CIA itself came to the same conclusion, ``U.S.
territory is probably more likely to be attacked with weapons
of mass destruction from non-missile delivery means (most
likely from non-state entities) than by missiles.''
Dr. Flynn concluded the hearing by basically begging us to
use any crumbs that could be taken from the billions of dollars
we lavish on our ICBM missile defense efforts to plug existing
and dangerously urgent homeland security vulnerabilities.
Our second hearing tackled head-on the question of what are
the prospects of our current missile defense efforts and what
are the costs. One of the most eminent physicists our country
has ever produced, Dr. Richard Garwin, the 2003 recipient of
the National Medal of Science from President Bush, testified,
``Should a state be so misguided as to attempt to deliver
nuclear weapons by ICBM, they could be guaranteed against
intercept in mid course by the use of appropriate
countermeasures.''
Philip Coyle, the longest-serving director ever of the
Defense Department's testing and evaluation office testified,
``Decoys and countermeasures are the Achilles Heel of missile
defense. . . . From a target discrimination point of view,
during the past 5 years the flight intercept tests have been
simpler and less realistic than the tests in the first 5 years.
None of the GMD flight intercept tests have included decoys or
countermeasures during the past 5 years.--In the past 5 years,
there have been just two successful GMD flight intercept tests.
At this rate it would take the Missile Defense Agency 50 years
before they could be ready for realistic operational testing.''
Other witnesses referred to a recent report by the
Government Accountability Office that concluded, ``GAO was
unable to assess whether MDA met its overall performance goal
because there have not been enough flight tests to provide a
high confidence that the models and simulations accurately
predict ballistic missile defense system performance. Moreover,
the tests that have been done do not provide enough information
for Department of Defense's independent test organization to
fully assess the BMDS's suitability and effectiveness.''
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that assuming
the Missile Defense Agency continues on its present course, the
taxpayers will spend an additional $213 to $277 billion between
now and 2025. I need to stress that this is in addition to the
$150 billion that have already been spent.
In a time of economic hardship, budget deficits and many
pressing and expensive challenges, both foreign and domestic,
we need to all ask ourselves, whether you are a conservative
Republican or a liberal Democrat, are we wisely spending the
taxpayers' money here, is there a real threat we are trying to
guard against, and are we actually going to have something
useful at the end of the day?
That is why we are here today. Mr. Shays, I recognize you
for 5 minutes.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Tierney, for scheduling this
hearing today and continuing the subcommittee's oversight of
efforts to defend our Nation. I am pleased that today we will
hear from the key person at the Defense Department who is
responsible for designing, developing, testing and deploying
our country's missile defenses. Obviously General Obering's
perspective is critical for this subcommittee to properly
discharge its oversight function. I look forward to hearing
General Obering's explanation of the threat this Nation faces.
Earlier this year, another senior military leader testified
before a House committee that, quote, the spread of nuclear,
chemical and biologic weapons and the ballistic missiles to
deliver them is one of the central security challenges
confronting the United States and its allies. This echoed the
assessment given a few weeks before by Thomas Fingar, the
Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Dr. Fingar informed
the House Armed Services Committee that, ``Iran continues to
deploy ballistic missiles inherently capable of delivering
nuclear weapons and to develop longer-range missiles.'' He
acknowledged that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and
has, ``already sold ballistic missiles to several Middle East
countries and to Iran.'' Dr. Fingar also observed that one type
of North Korean missile, ``probably has the potential
capability to deliver a nuclear weapon sized payload to the
continental United States.''
This then is the situation that intelligence and military
experts believe the United States confronts now and in the
future. It was in light of these dangers that the Congress
approved the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 which
established, ``the policy of the United States to deploy as
soon as is technologically possible an effective national
missile defense system capable of defending the United States
against limited ballistic missile attacks.'' This is the law of
the land.
Last year the chairman of HASC, House subcommittee with
responsibility for missile defenses, declared that there was
always, there has always been partisan, bipartisan support for
developing and deploying an effective missile defense system.
Mrs. Tauscher made it clear that Members from both sides of the
aisle, ``believed that effective missile defenses are an
essential component of our country's overarching defense and
national security strategy.'' Mrs. Tauscher's points were
endorsed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law again
recently.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year
2008, which was overwhelmingly approved by this House, clearly
recognizes the threat of ballistic missile attacks and codifies
support for an effective missile defense system. Thus, it is
not surprising that 2 months ago the Secretary of Defense
declared that past doubts about missile defenses have been
resolved. ``The question of whether this capability exists has
been settled.'' Secretary Gates said, but he also noted that,
``the question is against what kind of threat, how large a
threat, and how sophisticated a threat.''
I am concerned that if this subcommittee overlooks the
consensus for missile defenses and succeeds in delaying or
curbing the program, we may regret this action. There was a
time when missile defense critics said the system, ``could
never hit a bullet with a bullet. The Missile Defense Agency
has proved the skeptics wrong on this point. I suspect they
will do so again on other aspects.''
This notwithstanding, I believe our subcommittee has a
vital, important role to play in overseeing the missile defense
program. However, I believe we need to frame the debate
differently. We should post queries such as, what is the proper
mix of technologies available to us? Which systems perform
better and are more cost effective than others? Are our
international partners sufficiently engaged? Can factors which
inhibit testing, such as target price and availability, be
addressed in order to offer more meaningful exercises? Is there
a way to better encourage sales of component systems to allies,
thus bringing our production costs down while offering a
measure of protection abroad?
Over the past weeks in this hearing series, we have heard
wildly varying assessments of the threat this Nation faces, the
capability of our current missile defense system, and the
testing regime to which it has been subjected. I am eager to
hear from General Obering to learn the facts, and I am
interested in hearing contrary views from our second panel.
Mr. Chairman, again, I sincerely thank you again for
holding these hearings.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Shays. The subcommittee will
now receive testimony from our first panel before us today,
Lieutenant General Henry A. ``Trey'' Obering III. General
Obering is the Director of the Missile Defense Agency in the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and has held this position
since July 2004. He entered the Air Force in 1973, receiving
his pilot wings in 1975, flying F-4 Phantoms. Among other
assignments, General Obering participated in 15 space shuttle
launches as the NASA orbiter project engineer. He was
responsible for integrating firing room launch operations.
Prior to his assignment at MDA, General Obering served as the
Mission Area Director for Information Dominance on the Air
Staff.
General, again, thank you for being with us today. We look
forward to a frank and robust discussion. We do have a policy
of the subcommittee to swear everybody in before they testify.
So I ask you to please stand and raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
witness has answered in the affirmative.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could just insert
into the record two letters endorsing the current system from
General Kevin Chilton and General Kevin Campbell, an MDA
response to recent criticisms regarding the U.S. missile
defense program; and finally, an independent report refuting
the criticism lodged by Professor Ted Postal.
Mr. Tierney. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. General, I do have to make some preliminary
comments. One is that your full written statement will be in
the record, and I know it's quite extensive.
We have several issues going on here today. One is that Mr.
Ahern from Ireland is over here talking. Some Members will want
to come and go to that. So I want to move the hearing if we
can. We have a second panel as well and votes coming in. So I
want to give you your full 5 minutes for your opening statement
and then go to questions.
But I understand--I look at your statement, it's certainly
longer than 5 minutes, and I understand you also want to show
some slides or a video or whatever. So how you manage that and
get it within the 5 minutes without making me look like an ogre
for shutting you down will be appreciated because we will
pretty much keep it to 5 minutes, maybe with a little bit of
leeway. But it is up to you how you want to work on that. Then
we'll let people ask questions and go from there.
I appreciate that. And you are recognized.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Chairman, could I make a request that he be
given 10 minutes? This is the gentleman who is responsible for
the entire program. It would seem to me that there's no logic
to confining his testimony and letting us hear what he has to
say.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Shays, we'll be as generous as we can
within the confines. We have those issues that are around here
this morning. Certainly it's the witness' choice to use video
or to testify. He can use his time as he wants. General, you
are recognized.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL HENRY A. ``TREY'' OBERING III,
USAF DIRECTOR, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE
General Obering. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Representative
Shays, and other distinguished members of the committee. As the
Director of the Missile Defense Agency, it is my role to
develop, test and initially field an integrated, layered
ballistic missile defense system. And I want to emphasize the
integrated and layered nature of these capabilities which our
critics overlook and which I will expand upon later.
I am happy to report that 2007 was the best year we ever
had and it reflects the hard work of thousands of men and women
across the country. This past year we've made progress in our
fielding and testing and we've taken major steps to defend our
homeland as well as our deployed forces and allies in the
Pacific. With NATO's recent recognition of the merging missile
threat by all of its member nations, its endorsement of our
long-range defense proposals, and its tasking to propose
options for shorter-range protection and integration, we will
be able to defend our deployed forces and allies in that
important theater as well.
In addition, we have active cooperation efforts with 18
nations worldwide. Our success to date has also affected our
increasingly complex and realistic test program which we will
continue to expand over the next several years. With the 10 of
10 successful intercepts in 2007, we have now achieved 34 of 42
successful hit to kill intercepts since 2001. We have not had a
major system failure in our flight test program in over 3
years.
Two relatively recent milestones are worth highlighting.
One was the success of our allied partner, Japan, in their
first intercept flight test off the coast of Hawaii in
December. And while it was not a test of our missile defense
system, we were able to modify our sea-based element to destroy
the errant satellite in February with just 6 weeks notice.
Now I would like to address some of our critics' opinions.
The fact is that many of our critics disagree with the policy
choice that we ought to deploy strategic or tactical systems to
counter the ballistic missile threat. They have other
approaches, to include denying that the threat exists or using
more destabilizing or destructive solutions.
In pursuing missile defense even in a limited fashion, we
are following a commonsense approach. To illustrate, let me
quote a recently declassified draft Presidential memorandum,
``a number of arguments for deployment of a less than perfect
ballistic missile defense are most persuasive. A ballistic
missile defense, even though of limited capability, could be
very effective against a simple attack by a minor power, a
small accidental attack, or a small attack constrained by arms
control measures. Such a defense would contribute to the
deterrence of blackmail threats and to the stability of arms
control agreements. A ballistic missile defense of limited
capability would contribute to the deterrence of large attacks
by raising doubts of the attacker's ability to penetrate. Such
a defense, even though limited, greatly complicates the design
and tactics for offensive systems.''
This memorandum was written 45 years ago on October 6,
1962; the President was John F. Kennedy. Signs of similar
logic, the Congress passed and the Clinton administration
signed into law the National Missile Defense Act of 1999. What
we've seen from our critics is an attack of the overall policy
to deploying missile defense using technical arguments, stating
originally that we can't do hit to kill or that we cannot be
effective against countermeasures or that in the future we
cannot make boost-phased defenses work. But the fact is that we
can do hit to kill. We can be effective against countermeasures
and we are making boost-phased defenses work. So we are taking
these technical arguments off the table one at a time through a
comprehensive test program.
Our critics are also out of step with the mainstream.
There's been bipartisan support by 11 Congresses, four
Presidents, combatant commanders, a growing number of allies,
including all NATO nations, not to mention the majority of the
American people. Successive military commanders such as the
head of U.S. Northern Command testified to Congress that our
long-range defenses have made great strides and that the system
is standing ready to defend the United States and its allied
infrastructure and population centers. Indeed, for several
years now a number of our combatant commanders have placed
missile defense near the top of their needed capabilities list.
Defying the predictions of critics who maintained for years
that we could not hit a bullet with a bullet, we have now shown
that we can successfully do so. In fact, we can show that we
can hit very precisely, within centimeters of where we're
aiming.
Also contrary to what critics maintain, we are using
realistic test criteria developed by the test community and the
warfighter. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation
concurs that we've increased the operation and realism of all
our testing, to include an end-to-end test of our long-range
elements with operational assets.
The critics claim that the threat is not realistic unless
it has simple or advanced countermeasures. We take
countermeasures seriously and we have tested against several
versions in the past. Our flight tests will include more
complex threat suites in the future as our development program
produces new sensors, algorithms and Kill Vehicles. However,
the fact remains that there that are hundreds of missiles
deployed today that we do not believe carry countermeasures and
we have been successful against these types of threats.
What would our critics have us do, return this country and
our forces to its previous state of complete vulnerability to
missile attack? Missile defense must be considered within the
entire balance of forces within the United States. It will
complement our arms control and other dissuasive actions. It
can bolster our defense capability. It can stabilize crisis
situations, and when all else fails and a warhead is in the
air, missile defense and only missile defense can save innocent
lives.
Now, sir, with your permission I do have a few charts if I
could go to illustrate this point.
Mr. Tierney. You still have time.
General Obering. This is the integrated, layered system
that I was talking about before. It comprises defenses in a
boost phase, the mid-course phase of flight as well as the
terminal phase. And we are building the integration and the
engineering for these all to work together so the distinction
between tactical and strategic blurs considerably supported by
an entire family of sensors.
Next slide, please. This is the deployment of the system
today, to include radars as far forward as Japan, Aegis ships
of which we've modified 17 through long-range tracking, 12 to
be able to launch sea-based interceptors and a whole host of
elements, to include more than 24 interceptors that we've
placed between Alaska and California, radars that we've
modified, as well as new radars that we've deployed across the
globe as well as a modified radar in the United Kingdom to be
able to protect initially from threats from Iran.
Next slide. Now on our testing. If you go ahead and click
on this first one very quickly. The first one--no, I'm sorry.
Can you back up? The first one right here. OK. It's not in
there? Go ahead to this last one then. I want to show just the
last long-range testing we did in September. This was a test to
emulate an attack. Go ahead and click on inside the frame
there, please. To emulate an attack from North Korea into the
United States. That's fine. It should start.
The target was launched from Kodiak, AK. This was a three-
stage target emulating what we believed the North Koreans are
capable of doing. This geometry was to emulate an attack from
North Korea into Texas with an intercept from Alaska. We flew
from Kodiak Island, AK down into the Pacific and we intercepted
with an interceptor from Vandenberg, CA. Here is a target
camera looking aft on the target. The next you are going to see
the interceptor flight leaving the silo in California. Now, I
remind you that this was done by soldiers on the console
operational hardware and software, operational interceptor, and
the configuration that we have deployed to our interceptor
silos in Alaska and California.
Again, the next you'll see is the silo being--the silo
interceptor being launched from Vandenberg. We have a clamshell
protection over the silos. This is a long-range shot from
there. Here are the clamshell doors opening and the egress of
the interceptor. Now this is our largest interceptor. It's
about 60 feet long, three stages. It is capable of defending
from either the East or the West. So we can use these
interceptors to protect from both North Korea as well as Iran.
This is a three-stage version, as I said. We are proposing
a two-stage, which we will remove the third stage for Europe.
Here's the separation of the first stage, and you fly up. And
the next shot you are going to see are some of the intercept
scenes. This intercept occurred several hundred kilometers in
space. So the first is an IR image that you'll see of the
intercept. We know that we destroy about 50 percent of the
warhead immediately, about 40 percent burns up in re-entry, and
only about 10 percent debris hits the ground. This is just at
30 percent speed.
The final frame, you will see three boxes come up here and
this is exactly what the Kill Vehicle sees. What you'll be able
to see is that it's tracking multiple objects in those boxes
with the three sensors. There's a little box that comes up. In
every one of the boxes that you see here are objects that are
in the focal plane of the Kill Vehicle. It's having to go
through and determine what is a warhead, what is the third
stage, what is debris that is in that field of view? In these
two frames, you will see it selects the warhead just before we
hit.
Sir, that's all I have. I just wanted to use that to
illustrate I think the tremendous progress that we've made in
our program.
[The prepared statement of General Obering follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, General.
We're going to proceed to questioning and a 5-minute rule
on that basis, but I suspect that we'll have more than one
round if Members wish.
General, I have a lot to go through here. So I want to
start and sort of do it systematically if we can and go back to
some of it. We talked a little bit about the threat that the
country faces today and a number of people at the Defense
Department point out that over two dozen countries currently
have ballistic missiles. I know Vice President Cheney likes to
say there are 27. But I want to break that down a little bit.
Because as I said to you yesterday, we want to make some
distinctions here between short-range, middle and medium-range,
and long-range. We're really focusing on the GMD here. And
that's what we're talking about.
So of the 27 or so countries that currently have ballistic
missiles, how many only have short-range capability? And that
is 300 kilometers or less.
General Obering. Well, sir, first of all if we are going to
address the $120 billion or $115 billion that--I want to remind
the committee that is the entire program. So that includes----
Mr. Tierney. I understand. And I think you broke it down in
your written testimony to $64 billion or so in the mid-course
or whatever. And that is on the record, and I appreciate that.
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. I'm not trying to get into a debate with you.
I just wanted to focus on the question, of the 27 countries
that the Vice President likes to refer, how many of those only
have short-range capability?
General Obering. The majority of those have short-range
capability. There's two nations that are of very much concern.
That is Iran and North Korea because they've been able to take
the shorter-range SCUD technology and they've been able to grow
that into longer and longer ranges. And so North Korea, in
particular, was able to launch a long-range weapon in the
summer of 1998 which, by the way, the intelligence experts did
not believe was going to happen for 8 to 10 years. So the
majority of those are short range and short to medium range to
intermediate range. So we do know they're growing those
capabilities.
Mr. Tierney. When you say North Korea has the capability of
a missile, you are not trying to lead people to believe that
they've tested it thoroughly and that every aspect of it and
every component of it has been tested any particular number of
times to show effectiveness, are you?
General Obering. Sir, as a very robust development and test
program in those countries that I mentioned. In fact just this
year, for example, Iran fired a 2,000-kilometer missile in
November. They again attempted a space launch vehicle in
February. And as I stated, North Korea----
Mr. Tierney. You are conflating again. So I want to stick
to one topic at a time if we can. And I think that's--I don't
want to be sarcastic with you or anything, but I think there's
been a tendency for some people to just conflate a lot of
different issues.
General Obering. Sir, I'm not trying to----
Mr. Tierney. I appreciate that. But I want to ensure we
don't. I don't want to conflate long with middle with short. I
don't want to conflate North Korea with Iran and 27 other
countries. I want to focus down here if we can. Let me just ask
the questions if I might and try to focus your answers on those
specific questions. Likely you are talking about North Korea
and Iran outside of France and Great Britain and China and
Russia.
General Obering. China and Russia, right.
Mr. Tierney. We then don't have a concern that they're
going to start lobbing missiles at us any sometime soon, China,
Russia, France or Great Britain. The system you have designed
is not focused on them, it is not directed at them, right?
General Obering. Right.
Mr. Tierney. So the system that you are talking about now
would be the prospect of somebody might have 5,500 kilometers,
or 3,500 miles capacity in a missile. You think at some point
in time North Korea or Iran might get to that point?
General Obering. Actually, yes, sir. And also when you
start getting above 3,000 to 3,500 kilometers you now start to
get in capabilities where you need the long-range defenses that
we've produced.
Mr. Tierney. I get mixed up with kilometers and miles here.
So it's 5,500 kilometers, 3,500 miles roughly equivalent.
General Obering. No, sir. About 3,500 kilometers--about
3,500 kilometers or greater, you start getting into the long-
range capabilities that you need.
Mr. Tierney. OK. We've had assessments from the
Congressional Research Service and a lot of them saying that
any number of intelligence estimates or studies have predicted
that there would be more than five nations that have
accomplished this capability in the next 40--at various times
in the last 40 to 50 years. But that number hasn't really
increased. You've got two, North Korea and Iran, and other than
that it really hasn't increased beyond what was there quite a
while ago.
General Obering. Yes, sir. Again the facts are that those
predictions oftentimes are not very accurate. You have to look
at what is the sharing, the collaboration that's going on. And
that's what makes it difficult to try to judge those.
Mr. Tierney. The other question we have, if Iran had the
capability, if they had it, and which they currently don't,
we'd know exactly where that missile was coming from, wouldn't
we?
General Obering. Well, sir, obviously it depends. It
depends on whether or not--if it was fired from within their
country, we would know the launch location of the missile.
That's true.
Mr. Tierney. But we're not purporting that they have the
capacity to launch it somewhere other than a country on an
intercontinental ballistic missile, are we?
General Obering. Well, one of the videos that I thought the
folks loaded but they didn't, shows the fact that we can
shoot--we actually launch shorter-range missiles off of our
ships in our test beds.
Mr. Tierney. Again we're talking about intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
General Obering. I am talking about short range.
Mr. Tierney. I'm talking about intercontinental ballistic
missiles. You are not purporting to tell me that Iran is
setting them off from anywhere other than their own soil.
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So that would be the case, if they sent one
off purposely or whatever, they could expect to have some
pretty severe retaliation.
General Obering. Yes, sir. And of course the warhead would
land on our soil without missile defense that we would do
nothing about. So we would have to apologize----
Mr. Tierney. What I'm talking about, General, obviously is,
you know, you would have to think that somebody would be that
crazed to send over something like that. Now Iran, last time I
checked, is a country with a government, an elected government.
They have roads. They have bridges. They have buildings. They
have business. They're a functioning society over there. And
you would have to make a leap of faith to believe that they
would purposefully send off a missile, knowing there was going
to be severe retaliation. That's the point that I make.
General Obering. May I, sir, address that?
Mr. Tierney. Sure.
General Obering. No. 1, just the possession of a long-range
weapon would allow coercion of our allies or coercion of the
United States to allow them to operate under a nuclear umbrella
that I think would change dramatically the geopolitical
situation in the world and would have severe policy
consequences on the United States and our ability for
unrestricted movement.
We saw what happened in Iraq where you had just the hostage
taking of a number of individuals change the national policy of
one of our allies. If you had a country that could hold entire
cities at risk in Europe or other nations, what would that do
to be able to coerce us? If I could get to your point directly.
Mr. Tierney. I wish you would.
General Obering. What happens if they do not exercise
control of those weapons? And we cannot guarantee that. So what
happens if you have the equivalent of a nation state suicide
bomber that wants to make a blow for their cause? And they
don't care----
Mr. Tierney. Russia and China?
General Obering. I'm talking----
Mr. Tierney. France?
General Obering. I'm talking about Iran right now.
Mr. Tierney. In the case you are talking about, that could
happen anywhere, whether it's Pakistan, Russia, China, France.
General Obering. Yes, sir. Which is even--which is even
more----
Mr. Tierney. But the system you are building is only
focused on Iran and North Korea?
General Obering. Actually the system that we are fielding
is focused on Iran and North Korea for very good reason. Those
are the two nations that have made very aggressive statements
about their intent as well as the capabilities that they're
backing that up within their program.
Mr. Tierney. So I guess your case is that you think that if
they had the capacity, ever eventually got the capacity to
throw a missile up there, that you think the threat to do so,
knowing that there would be severe retaliation, would be
effective enough to change U.S. policy?
General Obering. I believe it could be effective enough to
change ally policies. I think it would have severe consequences
for our dealings in the alliance. And I think that's something
that when we can close off that vulnerability, why wouldn't we?
Mr. Tierney. Well, I guess you would have to factor in a
lot of other things in a cost-benefit analysis. We'll probably
talk about that later, how many billions and hundreds of
billions of dollars you want to get to that prospect at some
point with all those factors thrown in.
We've had witnesses come in here, in fact, going back
before that, back in 2000, the CIA's point person on missile
threats, Robert Walpole, testified to Congress that in fact we
projected in coming years U.S. territory is probably more
likely to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction from
nonmissile delivery means, most likely from nonstate entities,
than by missiles, primarily because nonmissile delivery means
are less costly and more reliable and accurate. They can also
be used without attribution.
The National Intelligence Council report in 2000 entitled,
``Global Trends 2015,'' reiterated that point. Other means to
deliver weapons of mass destruction against the United States
will emerge, some cheaper and more reliable and accurate than
early generation ICBMs. The likelihood of an attack by these
means is greater than that of a weapons of mass destruction
attack with an ICBM.
Do you disagree with that, General?
General Obering. Well, sir, first of all those are dated
assessments. So I would recommend that you might get an updated
assessment from the CIA and the DIA.
Mr. Tierney. I've had them, General. I serve on the
Intelligence Committee as well. So having them, I still give
you, this is the most recent written public assessments since
2001. And I notice that there has been no national intelligence
assessment with respect to overall threats and prioritizing
them and identifying them. And I have my own feeling that
there's a reason for that, knowing what I know from the
Intelligence Committee and what is real and what is not. We'll
have to save that for another day because it's only insinuation
at this point. But with respect to those two statements, do you
disagree with that?
General Obering. Sir, I don't disagree. What I would say is
that we have to be prepared for both of the alternatives in
terms of either a ballistic missile attack from a medium or
long-range missile from a ship or from a smuggled nuke into a
port. We can't pick and choose that. I think that the
significant lesson from 9/11 was not how we were attacked. It
was the fact that they expressed and acted on a will to attack.
So the means by which that happens we have to be prepared for.
So as soon as we say that we're not going to develop a long-
range missile defense for this country, we are inviting that
avenue of attack for our future adversaries.
Mr. Tierney. So you are an advocate of not making any
priorities and not making distinctions and just spend every
dollar we have on defense for every possible contingency you
might have without deciding which one is more realistic than
others?
General Obering. Sir, what I would say is this, if you look
at what we're spending on missile defense for the entire
program, not just our long range, the entire program, it's less
than 2 percent of our defense budget, less than 2 percent.
Mr. Tierney. It's about $150 billion to date with another
anticipated over $200 billion going forward. And we'll talk
about effectiveness and other things later. But my time has
expired.
And nobody being on Mr. Shays' side, Ms. McCollum, you are
recognized for 5 minutes. I'm sorry. Mr. Van Hollen is
recognized. I didn't see him over there.
Mr. Van Hollen. No. That's OK.
Mr. Tierney. You are recognized for 5 minutes, Mr. Van
Hollen. You're not ready. Ms. McCollum, you are recognized
after all.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I am ready.
After the expert testimony from the first two hearings, I
believe it would make more sense to move the Missile Defense
Agency to the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives.
It's hard to believe and it's impossible for me to explain
to my constituents why we're spending $10 billion every year on
a cold war program that's based on a series of very
questionable assumptions. In general, just from the last bit of
the conversation that was going between you and the chairman, I
would have to ask you, do you have any real fears that al
Qaeda, who is our No. 1 enemy, would ever be able to build or
launch a nuclear-tipped missile at the United States?
General Obering. Ma'am, you put your finger on a very
important concern, and that is, while the number of countries
that have grown since----
Ms. McCollum. I asked you about al Qaeda.
General Obering. I'm getting to that, ma'am.
Ms. McCollum. I only have 5 minutes. I asked you, do you
have a fear that al Qaeda could be in possession----
General Obering. I have fear that as the access to these
weapons have grown because of the lack of missile defenses, I
do believe that organizations like al Qaeda have a likelihood
of getting their hands on them and being able to launch these
weapons.
Ms. McCollum. In the near future?
General Obering. We've already seen states pass missiles to
nonstate actors in the Middle East. We've seen Iran and Syria
handing over short-range missiles to----
Ms. McCollum. Our allies are the ones who possess the
technology. Do you think al Qaeda's going to get this from our
allies. Syria doesn't have--does Syria have this capability of
giving this to al Qaeda?
General Obering. North Korea has the technology. The
experts agree, there was an article in the Washington Post just
this year.
Ms. McCollum. General, I am going to move on because you
and I disagree on this. I don't think al Qaeda has immediate
capability on this.
Are there cheaper ways to strike the United States with
weapons of mass destruction than long-range missiles? Yes or
no.
General Obering. Well, ma'am, first of all, I think that it
depends on a number of different factors. No. 1, would it be
cheaper or easier? I'm not an expert in smuggling in weapons of
mass destruction. What I can say is it was very cheap,
relatively speaking, for us to launch a target off of a ship
off the coast of Hawaii.
Ms. McCollum. Sir, I asked you a question. This is hard for
me to do this. I want you to know, we were stationed at Wright
Patterson when my sister is born. This is with the utmost
respect, but I only have 5 minutes. OK?
Are there cheaper ways to strike the United States with
weapons of mass destruction than with long-range missiles?
General Obering. Ma'am, I'm not an expert other than the
missile threat. So I can talk about the missile defenses to
those threats.
Ms. McCollum. So you are not aware that there are any more
reliable or accurate ways at all than long-range missiles to
attack the United States?
General Obering. I do know that by launching a missile from
the coast you control everything up to the launch of that
missile----
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to focus then on cost
in the next round when I can go into it serving on the
Appropriations Committee. Thank you for trying to answer my
questions, General, for your attempt.
General Obering. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Van Hollen, do you want Mr.
Welch to go? We're trying to accommodate your schedule. Mr.
Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you. General, first of all, it's your job
to obviously develop this. You've been assigned to do that, and
you're doing the best you can. And I happen to have major
reservations about the effectiveness of it. But Congress has
approved it. So I think we bear a lot of the responsibility for
this policy. But on this question of the threat, we don't have
infinite resources. And it is possible to conceive of an
infinite number of threats to our national security, and
decisions have to be made about the deployment of limited
resources to protect us. Would you acknowledge that there's a
significant tactical use of asymmetric warfare-type tactics by
adversaries of the United States that we're seeing throughout--
in the whole war on terror?
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. And wouldn't it be the case, as some witnesses
have testified, that there is a serious threat that somebody
may try to bring a nuclear device into this country on a ship
or across a border and then detonate that device here in the
homeland?
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. And would you be in agreement that it would be
important for us in terms of addressing that threat that we
have a focus on some of the vulnerabilities at our ports and
along our borders?
General Obering. Oh, yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. Do you have an opinion as to whether the threat
of that type of means of delivery is greater than the threat
posed by a long-range ballistic missile delivery system?
General Obering. I do have an opinion. Yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. And what's that?
General Obering. I do believe that from our own experience,
being able to launch a weapon from a ship into the United
States in which you controlled everything up until the launch
of that weapon and not have to rely on trusted agents or
sneaking past sensors and these things is a real threat. That's
something that can in fact happen.
Mr. Welch. And the question I asked is whether--do you
think that threat is a greater threat than delivery by these
asymmetric means?
General Obering. Sir, I don't know if I can quantify that.
What I can say is that it is a threat that we can do something
about.
Mr. Welch. I actually think it's important to have some
quantification. If there's limited resources and we have to
decide to put those resources into protecting ports from a
delivery by means of backpack or cargo container versus put our
resources into acceleration of the missile defense program, and
we can't do both, which do you think is a more imminent threat?
General Obering. Again, sir, I'm not an expert in that
regard. I'm only an expert in the missile portion of that, the
missile defense portion of that.
Mr. Welch. Well, I understand that. And again, this is not
just you. That's your job, so that's what you've got to do. And
I think all of us respect that and appreciate your history
here. But from the perspective of threat--I mean obviously it's
very important for national security reasons that people with
experience like you and policymakers have threat assessments,
right?
General Obering. OK, sir, if I can answer it this way: I
look at the intel books every day.
Mr. Welch. You look at what?
General Obering. I look at the intel assessments every day.
I don't recall seeing any testing of a nuclear suitcase weapon
in those books in the last 4 or 5 years--4 years that I've
been--almost 4 years I have been Director. I have seen year
after year after year, test after test after test, last year
120 of those missiles from a variety of countries around the
world. So I'm paying attention to that capability. And if we
have countries that are producing that capability in those
tests and then some of those countries, a small subset are
making very hostile statements against the United States, it's
something that I am being paid to pay attention to and to see
if we can do something about that.
I'll leave it up to the Congress and others to make a
determination of how much is enough of what. All I can say is,
from my personal perspective, I see this progression across the
globe, and I see it's something that we can actually do
something about.
Mr. Welch. What countries are you focused on as a threat to
our security through the delivery of missiles?
General Obering. I think today Iran and North Korea have
made very hostile statements against both the United States and
our allies. They are backing that up with capability
demonstrations. One of the lessons learned from the summer of
2006 is the North Koreans had carried on their Taepodong-2
program much beyond what we were anticipating and they
attempted a launch of that long-range weapon. But more
importantly, the shorter-range weapons that they fired, they
showed a dramatic improvement in the reliability and the
accuracy of those weapons as well.
Mr. Welch. Do you believe that our capacity for massive
retaliation if there were a missile attack by Iran would serve
as any deterrent on the launch of a ballistic missile against
the United States from Iran?
General Obering. If the controlling authorities were
deterrable, yes, sir. If they're not, then the only thing you
can do is protect yourself against that missile. And I think
that is what I am trying to convey, and maybe not very well, is
that we are no longer in the cold war. We no longer can rely
solely on deterrence because we may face in this century
organizations or countries that are nondeterrable.
Mr. Welch. Right. Well, I actually agree with that. I mean,
actors that are nondeterrable. And that's what the problem is
with the asymmetric warfare tactics of folks who use terror as
a political tactic. But our--as I understand it, our recent
National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, our November 2007
intelligence estimate concluded, ``Tehran's decisions are
guided by a cost-benefit approach.'' Do you agree with that
conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate?
General Obering. I will give you my opinion of that. There
are three things that are necessary to deliver a nuclear weapon
or weapon of mass destruction. You have to have--in a nuclear
weapon, you need to have the enriched uranium to be able to
produce the material. You have to have a weaponization of that
and you have to have a weapons delivery vehicle. Now if you
look at the cost-benefit analysis that is going through the
Iranians right now, why are they investing so heavily in the
weapons delivery vehicle systems; i.e., the missiles, if
they're only interested in a small conventional warhead?
Knowing the accuracies that they have, it doesn't make a lot of
sense to me. That's my assessment. So I think that--and I think
there's been followups to the NIE since then that talk about
what that really meant in terms of halt and whether they've
restarted etc. But I don't think it makes sense to say that
they're going to stop weaponization and yet they're going to
accelerate their missile programs.
So I believe that it doesn't make sense. I think it's
something that we really have to pay attention to.
Mr. Welch. So what's your threat assessment of the
likelihood of Iran launching a first strike missile attack on
the United States?
General Obering. I believe that the ability to do that is
several years away. The ability to do that is probably not
before 2015 based on the intel experts that inform us. The
problem there is, we have to be prepared for that because
capability takes years to develop, both offensive as well as,
by the way, defensive to be able to build a defense for that.
But intent can change overnight. So I can't guarantee the
Congress and can't guarantee the U.S. people that we will be
protected from attack because they choose not to do so.
Mr. Welch. What is my time?
Mr. Tierney. Your time has expired. We're going to have
another round.
Mr. Welch. OK. Thank you.
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Van Hollen, you're recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank
you for holding this series of hearings. And welcome, General.
Just to frame the discussion, and it already has been, I
think, very well framed by my colleagues, this is not a
question of whether the United States should be spending any
money at all in this area. The question is, the amounts of
money that's being spent, especially given the other threats
that are out there.
Now you have said that this represents 2 percent of the
Defense Department budget which, as you know, is a huge budget.
If you take the $10 billion, it represents one-third of the
entire budget for the Department of Homeland Security. And
that's the issue being raised here because according to most
intelligence analysts, while I understand what you've been
saying, that you're not an expert on comparing the risks, the
intelligence folks who do make it their business to do that
have indicated that you're more likely to have a threat,
especially in the near to mid-term of a nuclear weapon being
smuggled into this country. And the fact of the matter is we're
spending very little to defend against what is a more probable
and realistic threat at this time compared to what's being
spent to look at what may be a threat way out there on the
horizon. But I want to focus on the effectiveness issue as well
because if we're going to be investing this kind of money, we
would hope that it would be an effective system.
And you state in your prepared remarks that under the
Missile Defense Act of 1999, ``it became U.S. policy to deploy
missile defenses as soon as technologically possible to defend
the United States against limited ballistic missile attacks.''
There's also another portion of that language in that
directive that says, ``but it should be an effective national
missile defense system.''
Now in a prior hearing in this committee we heard from a
number of experts and scientists in this area, including
Richard Garwin--and I'm sure you are familiar with Mr. Garwin.
He's been focused on this area for a very long time--who said
that should a state be so misguided as to attempt to deliver
nuclear weapons by an ICBM--and I assume he said that for the
reasons Mr. Welch was talking about, because if you're a state
launching an ICBM against the United States, for example, we
know where it came from. We have overwhelming ability to
retaliate. But if they were to be so misguided as to do that,
they could be guaranteed against intercept in mid-course by the
use of appropriate countermeasures.
A 1999 NIE judges specifically that Iran or North Korea
could have such measures at the time of their first ICBM task.
Now you were talking in your remarks about the year 2015. Would
you judge that by that timeframe that any of these potential
threats that you've been focused on North Korea or Iran would
have very effective countermeasures if they were to at that
time be able to have this missile capability?
General Obering. We are anticipating that to be the case.
Mr. Van Hollen. OK. Let me ask you this: Do you believe
that the systems you've tested to date would be able to defeat
the countermeasures that would--and this is a total
hypothetical. It wasn't a hypothetical at the time of the
Soviet Union. It's obviously much less likely now. But I'm just
asking you the technology question.
Would your system be able to defeat the type of
countermeasures that could be deployed by Russia if,
hypothetically, it were to launch an ICBM against the United
States?
General Obering. In 2015 or today?
Mr. Van Hollen. Today.
General Obering. Not today. So very complex
countermeasures. The system would not be able to handle for
either the short, medium or long-range system.
Mr. Van Hollen. Right.
General Obering. But the types of countermeasures that we
would anticipate a country like Iran or North Korea to be able
to employ, we believe it can.
Mr. Van Hollen. So you are not testing now against the kind
of countermeasures that hypothetically Russia----
General Obering. Yes, sir, we are. But not in our intercept
program. We've had a very robust countermeasures test program.
So we've actually flown very complex countermeasures against
our sensors and our systems. We've had eight flights over the
past several years in which we have collected immense amounts
of data and being able to--that's how we're deriving our
algorithms for our sensors and radars to be able to counter
those in the future.
And in addition, one thing that I mentioned in my opening
remarks, we can't lose sight of the fact that we're building a
layered system. So what we would like to do is destroy that
missile before it ever is able to deploy or employ a
countermeasure. That's what our boost phased defenses are for.
Once they do that, we have the ability to deal with those more
complex countermeasures by virtue of what we're doing with our
sensor programs, our algorithms development, and our Multiple
Kill Vehicles where we're able to take out the credible objects
that we're able to discriminate.
So in answer to your question, I believe that today we are
able to counter the simple countermeasures that we would
anticipate from a country like Iran or North Korea. And for the
future, we have a robust program laid in to be able to counter
those.
Mr. Van Hollen. But in the year 2015 that you are talking
about, what kind of countermeasures capability would you
anticipate from----
General Obering. I would have to go into a classified
session to talk about that.
Mr. Van Hollen. OK. But are you suggesting that by the year
2015 you would be able to effectively respond to
countermeasures that could be deployed by--again, this is
hypothetical--but by Russia, Russian ICBMs?
General Obering. We should have a pretty good leg up, yes,
sir, based on our algorithms, based on our sensors and then
based on the follow-on Multiple Kill Vehicle programs and then
eventually the boost-phased defenses just shortly thereafter.
Mr. Van Hollen. Last question, Mr. Chairman. What would you
do to fully deploy the kind of system----
General Obering. Sir, can I make one clarification?
Mr. Van Hollen. Yeah.
General Obering. It would not be directed at Russia because
that presents a different challenge. I'm talking about a
country like Iran and North Korea that would have the kind of
countermeasures on their fleets. So for example, if you're
talking about trying to counter a Russian attack, absolutely
not because you are talking about hundreds of missiles and
thousands of warheads. That's not what I'm referring to. I want
to make sure you are talking about the kind of countermeasures
themselves that would be deployed on a single missile.
Mr. Van Hollen. Well, then, based on that assessment, what
kind of missile deployment are you basing your calculation--
with respect to Iranian or North Korea missile capabilities in
terms of numbers? Because the point you are making, I
understand, you know, if you are talking about one missile, you
may have that ability but--so based on your estimate here, what
kind of fleet of missiles are you, in terms of your
hypotheticals, are you using for this assessment?
General Obering. Well, actually we get that from the intel
community and what they think and assess their abilities would
be. And we factor that into our force structure that we
recommended to the Department. So right now that consists of
about 44 missiles in the United States, 10 in Europe. So a
total of 54 of the long-range missiles. We would have--by 2013,
we would have approximately 133 of our sea-based interceptors.
We would have approximately 100 of our THAAD interceptors with
four or five units capable of deployment. Then shortly
following that, we would begin to ramp up with a long-range
sea-based missile that we call the SM-3 Block IIA, and those
numbers have yet to be determined in terms of what that would
be.
Mr. Van Hollen. And again, we're going to hear some more
testimony after you. But there are obviously serious questions
have been raised about whether the testing program that you've
undertaken really tests under realistic type scenarios with
respect to the countermeasures. And I understand your testimony
here. But I think----
General Obering. I can address that if you like.
Mr. Tierney. We're going to do that I'm sure in the course
of questioning, sir.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General
Obering. I am pretty stunned by the fact that given that you're
in charge of this program that you wouldn't have been given the
opportunity just to make a presentation. If it took 5, 10, 15
or 20 minutes, I would have thought you would have been given
that opportunity. And I can't imagine why this committee would
be reluctant to do that. You're in charge of the program. We've
had a number of hearings where all we've heard from primarily
have been critics with one witness that we're allowed to
introduce as a counter. And the only reason we introduced a
counter in support of the program is, we want there to be a
counter. If they had all--only people favoring it, we would
have had a counter the other way. But it strikes me, one, that
you have a lot more to say and you would have had a lot more to
introduce that should have been made part of the record, and I
deeply regret it. I can't even tell you how deeply I regret it.
It makes me feel that this committee does not want to really
know how this system works. They just want to score points.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Shays, you will have ample time to ask
your questions.
Mr. Shays. No. No. I don't have ample time.
Mr. Tierney. We're going a number of rounds.
Mr. Shays. I'm just going to make a point to you.
Mr. Tierney. You've made your point.
Mr. Shays. You have interrupted me and I will claim back my
time. I have deep respect for you, Mr. Chairman. But when it
comes to this, I think this is a fraud. I think this is an
absolute joke. You should have been given as much time as you
needed. And had I been chairing this committee and it was the
other way around, I would be doing that. It's no sense to bring
in someone of such expertise and tell him he has 5 minutes and
then we'll give you an extra 2 or 3 minutes and make him rush
through a presentation that he was not able to finish. It's
just a fraud.
I found myself not being a supporter of this program when
it started out because I didn't think you could hit a bullet
with a bullet. I didn't think you could do some of the
technology. And it's really a surprising thing to me, frankly,
that it is unfolding the way it has. I have been one that says
it should not be deployed until it works. I have to tell you,
though, when Iraq was sending SCUD missiles into Israel, I
thought, oh, my God, we didn't--the PATRIOT didn't work all
that great. But it did serve some function. Does this system
have any capability in a much shorter-range theater? And if
Israel had the kind of technology today, would those SCUD
missiles have penetrated the way they had penetrated?
General Obering. Sir, what I can do is talk about the
latest fight in Iraqi Freedom. There were several missiles
launched against coalition forces. They were all totally
destroyed. Those that were going into defended areas were
totally destroyed by the PATRIOT systems that we had deployed.
That included the PAC-3 by the way. One of those--at least one
of those trajectories we now know would have impacted a very
heavily populated area in the coalition force arena. So that--
the money we're spending is for the short-range defense as well
as the medium and the long-range defenses.
And may I say that, you know, obviously other nations than
the United States are making the cost-benefit analysis to go do
this. Because we are--we are, frankly, being inundated by
several countries to help them to build missile defenses very
rapidly. As I said in my opening statement, there are actually
18 nations around the globe that we're working with to help
them build a missile defense system as well.
Mr. Shays. Explain to me the support of NATO because I'm
surprised. I thought some of our NATO allies were pretty
critical of this system. So I don't know how to interpret your
comment that there's support among NATO for a missile defense
system.
General Obering. Sir, in the Bucharest Summit Communique
that was released in April, there was a statement in there--I
think it was paragraph 37, and what they did is they basically
welcomed the U.S. long-range defense proposals that we are--
that's the proposal to put 10 interceptors in Poland and a
radar in the Czech Republic to provide--to begin to provide
long-range protection for our deployed forces in that region
along with our NATO allies. And they also went--they took it a
step further and they tasked their own infrastructure to come
back at the 2009 summit with options for how they build
shorter-range defenses, missile defenses to integrate with the
longer-range systems. And we are helping that process. In fact,
we had a demonstration in January of how we could take the
command and control system that we have deployed for the U.S.
components and what NATO is building. NATO is building a
theater missile defense program today that's called an active
layered theater missile defense program. And the NATO Air
Command and Control System is the command and control system
for that. We're showing how we can integrate those two together
by taking radar track data, mission data, those types of
information, and running that on the NATO system, then taking
the NATO data and running it on our system.
Mr. Shays. Is it conceivable that contrary to the wishes
of, say, the leader in North Korea or the powers that be in
Iran, that someone could direct a missile at the United States
without their leadership knowing about it?
General Obering. Sir, that would have to do with the
command and control of the weapons in the country. It's
something that I'm not an expert in. But it certainly is within
the realm of the feasible that could be done without the
knowledge of a government, depending on how loosely or how
tight those controls are.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Thank you, General.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Shays. Mr. Hodes, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General I want to talk
a little bit about some of the testing that's been done. But
I'd also like to put this in the context of costs. We've spent
approximately $125 billion over the last 25 years. For missile
defense last year, $9.9 billion, the CBO estimates that if the
MDA continues on its course, the taxpayers are going to spend
an additional $213 to $277 billion between now and 2025. So in
the context of those kinds of numbers, I want to ask some
questions about testing.
Is it true that over the past 5 years, there have been only
two successful GMD flight intercept tests?
General Obering. In the new configuration, yes, sir, but
the total configuration, including the prototype of what we
deploy today, there are now six of nine over the last--since
2001.
Mr. Hodes. How many GMD flight intercept tests will you do
before you introduce flight intercept tests with more than one
mock enemy missile in the attack, when do you plan to do that?
General Obering. Well, first of all, I think we have that
plan for later in our program. But in reality, the ability to
deal with multiple missiles is better tested in our ground
tests and our modeling simulation. Because looking at the
geometry and physics of these attacks, each--each attack, each
missile attack is, in essence, an isolated event, so we learn
more from that from our flight tests.
Mr. Hodes. We have heard--we have had testimony that in
March 2002, the MDA told Congress that the first GMD tests with
multiple targets, that is, with several mock enemy missiles
launched at once could take place as early as 2005.
You're now saying that's going to take place later in the
program, and you say that other means are better than mock
tests. When did you make the determination that the other means
were better than the mock tests that you said would take place
as early as 2005?
General Obering. So that says we gain more and more
confidence in our modeling and simulation program that's what--
that's what would prompt that.
Mr. Hodes. In other words----
General Obering. I want to--I'm sorry, go ahead.
Mr. Hodes. I just wanted to make clear. In other words, you
switched, after 2002, your assessments of what kind of testing
you wanted to do?
General Obering. Sir, we do that all the time.
Mr. Hodes. And when was that change made?
General Obering. I don't recall. I would have to submit
that for you for the question for the record.
Mr. Hodes. And when you say later in the program, what do
you mean by later in the program terms of when you're going to
be conducting the actual tests with multiple, multiple targets?
General Obering. I'll have to submit that. I want to make
sure I'm accurate in that. I know it's what we call our
Integrated Master Test Program, but let me get back to you on
that.
Mr. Hodes. All right. And I'm sorry, I didn't want to cut
you off, you were going to add something.
General Obering. Sir, just the fact that we do salvo
testing, which is what you're referring to. In--in our short
range--in our short range defenses, we have done that with our
sea-based where we launched two targets in the air
simultaneously, and we've engaged with two inceptors because it
makes sense in a tactical situation.
In the long range by the time you've grown that geometry
over thousands and thousands of miles having two intercepters
in the air at the same time, against two different targets.
What I'm trying to say is each one of those is like an isolated
engagement that is fully capable of being tested in a single
engagement.
Where we really are--what you're really stressing there is
your commander control, your sensors, that type of thing and we
can inject and we can do a better job with our simulations to
be able to--to stress that system, not just with two but with
10 or 20 at the same time.
Mr. Hodes. When do you plan to conduct a flight intercept
test to demonstrate that the GMD is effective at night?
General Obering. Let's see, sir, we had--we actually had a
night launch, as I recall, that was--that was scrubbed because
of--because of one of the intercepting issues, but that was
several years ago. Again, I will submit the answer for the
record in terms of when that will be.
Mr. Hodes. And just to jog your memory, our understanding
is that according to previous testimony the first nighttime
test was to have been back in December 2002. So we haven't yet
had a successful nighttime test, and that's just that we're
about 6 years behind schedule on nighttime testing?
General Obering. Sir, it depends. We went to a different
configuration on the kill vehicle between the 2002 timeframe
and the 2004 timeframe. So I'll have to--again, I would have to
submit that answer for the record.
Mr. Hodes. What about conducting a flight intercept test to
demonstrate that the GMD system is effective in bad weather?
General Obering. We will probably not do that with respect
to actual flight tests because we want to make sure we gain as
much information as we can from these launches because of the
money we spend on them. And, for example, we want to make sure
we have optical tracking in case we do have a problem that we
can gain the data from that.
Mr. Hodes. So you--I'm just going----
General Obering. It is not something that we're very much
concerned about frankly.
Mr. Hodes. You're not very much concerned about whether or
not the system is effective in bad weather, or not concerned
about sort of in flight testing for bad weather?
General Obering. We're not concerned about--we're not
concerned that weather will have a major impact on the system
is what I'm trying to say. For example, I mean we've launched--
well, we've launched out of Vandenberg in heavy inter--in heavy
cloud layer of marine layer. We did that in FTG-2, which was a
year ago, a little over a year ago now, a year and a half ago.
There is some--you can get some degradation with some
climate effects on sensors. But in order for that to be a
factor, it would have to be every sensor that you have in the
program at the same time, which is not a high likelihood. And
in addition, you can test those effects in our modeling and our
simulation and our test program much more--with much more scope
and much more expansiveness than doing in a flight test. And it
is much cheaper to do it that way. Does that answer your
question?
Mr. Hodes. Yes and no. Perhaps I'll followup at a later
time. My time is out. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Hodes.
General, I just want to follow in that same vein. That 1999
National Intelligence Estimate on accounting measures, I don't
know that Mr. Hodes read the whole thing. ``We assess that
country's developing ballistic missiles would also develop
various responses to U.S. theater and national defenses. Russia
and China have each developed numerous countermeasures and
probably are willing to sell the requisite technologies. Many
countries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq probably would
rely initially on readily available technology including
separating RVs, spin stabilize RVs, RV rear orientation, radar
absorbing material, boost-er fragmentation, low powered
jammers, CHAF, and simple balloon decoys to develop penetration
aids and countermeasures. These countries could develop
countermeasures based on these technologies by the time they
flight test their missiles.''
I assume that you agree with that, that by the time they
flight test the missiles, they could develop those kinds of
technologies.
General Obering. They could, sir. Yes, sir, but go ahead.
Mr. Tierney. So let me ask you--I don't--I didn't hear if
this was asked. Have you had a test against a flight incept
system test where you introduce decoys that resemble the target
RV in the infrared signature size or shape?
General Obering. Sir, if I answer that, I will have to do
it in closed session in terms of what we have actually flown
against, but we have flown against countermeasures in our
program.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I think I have that--in unclassified
form here. I'm going to go over it in detail and it's certainly
public record out there. So we can wait until then if you'd
like.
General Obering. But--what--when you get to an operation
and deployed system what you can and can't do with respect to
capabilities and limitations becomes classified. And the
ability to deal with certain types of countermeasures. What I
can say is that we are, we have flown against countermeasures
in the past to try to decoy the kill vehicle. We are flying
against countermeasures in our next flight test for the long
range system, for next two this year. And we will continue to
expand that in our future test program. So if that answers your
question.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it does and doesn't. I mean, we have
information about what you've flown against, it is public
information. It's out there and publicly gone.
General Obering. Sir, we changed the kill vehicle
capabilities since those tests were done. We have an
operationally deployed kill vehicle now that is different than
the prototype that was flown in the countermeasure tests. We
learned what we wanted to learn from that testing.
Mr. Tierney. But against which there have no real
operational tests taken, right? But you have not done realistic
operational tests.
General Obering. Sir--again, we believe that there are
missiles that have been deployed that do not have the
countermeasures, in fact, the vast majority. And this argument,
by the way----
Mr. Tierney. We're not talking about short range and medium
range here. We're talking about intercontinental ballistic
missiles. And in that sense, you don't even think that Iran or
North Korea has the current capacity to send those against the
United States. So, we're talking here I think about, what you
think is going to happen on 2015.
General Obering. Sir, to have this conversation in a
genuine fashion I need to go closed. Because I can tell you
what--I can tell you what we have seen, and what we have
experienced, and what we have flown against.
Mr. Tierney. I have to tell you, General, this stuff, you
know, how the American public's supposed to decide on something
with this kind of enormity and expense and speculation on some
of the capabilities is mind boggling when it goes on a
classified sense. We overclassify so much in this country.
Back when the President made the decision that he wanted to
try to deploy this inoperable system back in 2004, we asked for
Government Accountability Office to study this. It was done.
There were 50 questions. Mr. Coyle, you know, had 50 of the
questions in previous testimony that were addressed in that
study. It came back, and the minute that it came back it was
classified all of a sudden.
I have to tell you they don't classify stuff when it is
good news around here these days, they classify what is bad
news apparently. I don't think it does a service to the
American people at all to this Congress to keep classifying
everything on that basis. And I think we just have to go on
from here. But I hope that's not going to be your answer to
every question about the capability of these systems.
General Obering. Sir, I am being as honest and candid as I
can. First of all, and I'll repeat, we have flown against
countermeasures in the past with prototypes of the kill
vehicles that we deployed. And we are successful in those
tests. We actually identified the warhead and we engaged the
warhead in those tests. And that included not just the ability
to do that using infrared data, but we also used our radar data
to be able to make that determination so that is a fact.
The particular types of countermeasures and the particular
capabilities and the signatures and everything else are
classified. When we now move into the operational
configuration, which is the big difference, that's what
happened in 2004 is it became an operational system. It was not
an open research and development system. And we changed the
capabilities. We frankly robusted the capabilities of the kill
vehicle in terms of algorithms that we're using. And what you
saw in the video in terms of the discrimination techniques that
we were using, that became classified. Because I'm sure, Mr.
Chairman, you would not want us to transmit in an open hearing
to enemies around the world in Iran and North Korea any kind of
data that they could take advantage of in trying to overcome
the system for the future. I know you wouldn't want to do that.
Mr. Tierney. Of course not. And that's a tremendous red
herring that we're not even talking about here. So----
General Obering. That's exactly what we're talking----
Mr. Tierney. What we're talking about is the capacity of
this and people in this country spending hundreds of billions
of dollars on a system. They ought to know against what it will
work and against what it won't work. And I'm not sure that
information is going to affect any other country's capacity
going on here on that basis, but it should effect our
decisionmaking process how to spend the taxpayers money. Let me
go on for a little bit, if I can, on this as far as we can go
before we find out that everything is classified here. Have you
tested against booster fragmentation?
General Obering. Pardon me?
Mr. Tierney. Have you tested against booster fragmentation?
General Obering. Yes, sir. We have--not in an intercept
test, but again, in our flight tests we have.
Mr. Tierney. But not an intercept test?
General Obering. Right.
Mr. Tierney. How about low power jammers.
General Obering. No, sir, not yet.
Mr. Tierney. How about CHAF?
General Obering. We have tested it in our flight test and
we also tested low power jammers in our flight tests, but not
intercepts.
Mr. Tierney. Ms. McCollum, you are recognized for 5 minutes
and I'll come back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sir, I'm going to read
from your testimony on page 17. ``There's one real world
example of where missile defense did not play a role and that
provides an important lesson. September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks on our country. According to the Government
Accountability Office, the direct cost of the September 11,
2001, attacks in New York City was $83 billion. That was an
attack that did not involve Weapons of Mass Destruction.'' And
I know you and I also reflect a great sadness of the loss of
life on September 11th.
So this is my dilemma, we need to have a comprehensive
threat assessment across all sectors, ballistic missile
threats, smuggled nukes in cargo containers. So General, I want
to find out, have you been part of interdepartment
considerations that involved both defense and Homeland Security
to try to figure out the right funding mix across this entire
country? We have limited resources.
General Obering. Ma'am, that--my role in that is to provide
what the costs would be to protect against a ballistic missile
attack both by deployed forces for short range, intermediate
range and long range.
Ms. McCollum. Do you believe as a citizen, as a patriot of
this country, as a person in your capacity, though, that
funding decisions should be based on the overall threat
assessment to all threats----
General Obering. Obviously.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. To the United States?
Over the next 5 years the Pentagon has requested another
$62.5 billion for missile defense. If Congress supports this
spending on missile defense by the end of 2013, over $110
billion will have been spent since 2003. I want to say that
again. $110 billion will have been spent just since 2003.
That's not counting the missile defense spending and the
previous 10, 20, 40 years.
So I have a couple of questions that maybe you can help
with me, as I point out, I also serve on the Appropriations
Committee. How much money is it going to cost to complete the
overall BMD system? And when will the overall BMD systems be
complete? How much money will it cost to complete the ground-
based GMD system? And when will the GMD system be complete?
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated for us that
if the Missile Defense Agency continues course, the taxpayers
will spend an additional $213 to $277 billion between now and
2025. Do you agree with this assessment? And if not, could you
tell me as specifically as you can why you do not. I would like
to get down to the money because there are other defense needs.
General Obering. OK. If I go back to your first question,
am I concerned or would I be interested in or as a citizen or
patriot in terms of the overall flight assessment, the answer
is yes. Do I believe that we have the option or the freedom to
pick and choose which one of those that we can ignore? No,
ma'am, I don't.
Ms. McCollum. General I didn't say about ignoring, I just--
I just wanted----
General Obering. OK, but I'm saying maybe if I can answer
it. I think it is important that we cover all of those threats,
because as soon as we announce that we are not going to cover a
missile defense threat or a missile threat, that would be the
avenue by which we are attacked, No. 1. You asked me about what
it will take to finish the program. If you can tell me what the
threats are going to be in the next 10, 15, and 20, to 25
years, I can answer that, but nobody can.
Ms. McCollum. Sir, did we not have a goal with stated
objectives when we started this program of where we would be?
General Obering. Yes, ma'am, I can tell you we're meeting--
we're meeting our goals for the first phase of the ground-based
midcourse system is the way I describe it, which is, we are
buying with the 2009 budget the last of the missiles we would
need for the installation in the United States, the 44
interceptors.
Ms. McCollum. So----
General Obering. We've already paid--we've already paid for
the sensors. Pardon me?
Ms. McCollum. Everything is on track.
General Obering. It's on track for the ones that we have in
place, or that we have planned to place in the United States.
Ms. McCollum. On track with no cost overruns?
General Obering. Ma'am, actually that cost for the GMD
contract would have been, right now, 9 percent estimated
completion of that cost, which is pretty good in terms of the
Department standards. That's an effort that's been ongoing over
10 years now. It is about an 8- to 10-year contract. The next
phase, if you want to call it that, would be the deployment to
European site. We have costed that to be anywhere from $3\1/2\
to $4 billion, that includes the interceptors, the radars, the
support for that, the communications and everything.
Ms. McCollum. Let me go back then. Do you agree with the
Congressional Budget Office that we're going to spend an
additional 2----
General Obering. No, ma'am, I don't, I don't. I don't
agree.
Ms. McCollum. Can you submit to the committee why you
disagree with the congressional----
General Obering. Yes, ma'am I can. I will do so. I will
tell you why I would not agree with that. Because they are
making assumptions about what we will continue and what we will
not continue that I don't think are accurate so I'd like to do
that in writing.
Ms. McCollum. Sir, with all due respect, you just said that
this program has no end because you have to completely be
reassessing----
General Obering. Yes, ma'am, but I'm talking about a matter
of degree. About which programs you carry in total. Let me give
you an example. Do we need two boost phase defense programs?
The communicator sat there in the airborne laser, the answer is
no. If the airborne laser works and if we can make that
operation affordable, then we would pursue that program. So I
believe what we're talking about is a matter of degree in terms
of what we carry forward.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I realize my time is
up, but I want to note that your budget of $10 billion is one
third of the total budget for Homeland Security and that is the
dilemma this Congress faces. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.
Mr. Welch, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you. General, one of the concerns I have
is that the budgeting for this program is in the research and
development component of the Defense Department; is that right?
General Obering. Pardon me? Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. And obviously this program going on 25 years at
this point has a pretty strong life of its own. My
understanding is that there are plans for very substantial
purchases. According to the information I have, this is for new
interceptors between now and 2013. It includes interceptors for
the GMD system in Alaska and California, 111 SM-3 interceptors,
100 terminal sea-based interceptors for the Aegis BMD system,
96 THAAD interceptors, 400 Patriot Pack 3 interceptors. It adds
up, left a few out, to about 635 new interceptors proposed to
be bought in the next 5 years.
I have two questions. First, why can taxpayers be confident
that our money is being well spent when this very significant
acquisition plan is not in the regular procurement sections of
the DOD budget?
General Obering. Well, first of all, the fact that it is or
is not in a regular procurement mode I would submit is not an
accurate measurement of whether it is being well spent frankly.
I think that is a matter of looking at----
Mr. Welch. What's the point of having a regular procurement
system?
General Obering. Well, first of all, sir, the procurement
system that you are referring to is one that has grown up over
the years primarily out of the cold war timeframe, and in the
missile defense era, and in the missile defense mission area,
the reason that we are using our RDT&E money for the majority
of our program, although we are transitioning that to
procurement for a portion of that beginning in 2010----
Mr. Welch. Well, my understanding of a budget is that the
real world decisions and choices have to be made with cost and
benefits weighing the opportunity costs. If you choose to spend
dollars here, you're not going to be able to spend them there.
In my understanding of a basic procurement and budgeting
process is that it is intended to impose some discipline so
hard decisions about threat assessment, something that we were
talking about at the beginning of your testimony have to be
made.
General Obering. But they can be made at the RDT&E level as
well is what I'm trying to say. And there's Defense wide
accounts that you can make those decisions and determinations
in. But if I can answer your question----
Mr. Welch. Well----
General Obering. We have a good track record in being able
to manage these programs with respect to cost and schedule No.
1. No. 2, in terms of the number of interceptors, the ones that
you quoted we actually are being asked for more of those by the
warfighters, and that has been approved recently by the Joint
Requirements Oversight Counsel that's chaired by the vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They are not only asking
for what you just quoted, they are asking for about double
those in the land mogul and the sea-based area.
Mr. Welch. We have a bit of a disagreement here.
Mr. Chairman, my concern is there is not some centralized
approach where some people who are looking at the information
coming in from the warfighters and folk advocating for this
program are also hearing from folks who are who are concerned
about Homeland Security and the threat that comes perhaps from
a backpack delivery of a very serious nuclear device. So this
is isn't an argument really I have with the General, it's a
concern I have with the process of budgeting where hard
decisions and threat assessments are not made.
Just with respect to a second question, General, that is--
655--635 new interceptors. What is it that you describe as the
threat for which we're purchasing 635 interceptors?
General Obering. If I could for the budget that the Defense
Department oversees and is responsible for, there are hard
decisions made. And those budget trades are being made within
the Department.
With respect to what are those numbers of interceptors
geared for, they are geared for the numbers of missiles that we
see, the North Koreans and Iranians deploying, and capable of
using in the regional fights, along with the anticipated long-
range missiles that we believe that those countries will be
capable of producing over the next several years.
Mr. Welch. Is it fair to say--I've been listening to your
testimony carefully, and what I hear you say is that this
program is essentially necessary in order to deal with the
threat that has been assessed to be presented by Iran and North
Korea.
General Obering. For the missile defense program that we
have fielded, yes, sir.
Mr. Welch. Already. And--that's it, my time is up. And I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Hodes, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, I would like to continue down some of the line I
was following before about reality testing for our systems. I
understand and note your testimony that modeling is something
that you are relying on as opposed to flight intercept tests
primarily.
When do you plan to conduct flight intercept tests to
demonstrate the GMD systems effective when multiple attempts
are needed to bring down a single target and can work when more
than one missile is launched?
General Obering. Sir, we do that already in term of our
ground testing. We already test how many missiles, which
locations, what the stressing conditions are. We do multiple
runs of those over a period of days and dozens and dozens of
runs within our system.
Mr. Hodes. When you say you do dozens of dozens and dozens
runs, are those in flight tests or are those the simulations?
General Obering. Those are simulations.
Mr. Hodes. OK, and so you're--and my question was when do
you plan to take from simulation to real life testing?
General Obering. We don't have any plans to be able to fly
dozens and dozens of targets against--our interceptors against
dozens of targets. That would be too cost prohibitive.
Mr. Hodes. So you're going to rely solely on simulation for
that?
General Obering. Sir, that's not unusual. We do that in
many other programs in the United States, including reliance on
modern simulation for space shuttle for other programs.
Mr. Hodes. The answer to my question is yes, you're going
to rely on simulations?
General Obering. But it is anchored by flight tests, sir.
So I want you to--I want you to understand that. We are in the
process of going through, validating and verifying our models
and our SIMs. We should have that process complete by October
of next year. But in that validation verification process, we
use the flight test that we conduct to make sure that we anchor
those. If we could--if I still have my briefing I would like to
show you a chart and I would just like to show you one example
of what I'm talking about.
Could we bring up my briefing please, if that's OK. And if
you could please go to slide--this is just one very, very small
example, but it is illustrative. And could you go to slide No.
9, please. Keep going, right there, stop.
OK, I'll use the satellite interceptor we did in February.
We did this in about 6 weeks as I mentioned in my opening
statement. And what you see here is these are modeling and
simulation predictions of what the intercept would look like if
we engaged that satellite. With--first of all, on the left is
without hitting the tank. And the one on the right is as if we
hit the hydrazine tank that was posing the threat. So we ran
through our models and our SIMs, what would that look like if
we did that?
Now, let me show you a clip one more time. This is the
actual image of the intercept. So our ability to predict what
that was going to look like in real-time was pretty
significant.
We also used our models and SIMs to predict performance as
they do fly outs to predict where we're going to hit on the
target and we know that very precisely within centimeters. We
use it to predict how it's going to operate in different
environments. We use it to predict how we can stress the
systems with respect to different trajectories, geometries,
etc., so that's what I'm referring to.
Mr. Hodes. On April 1, 2008, the GAO testified that they
were unable to assess whether MDA met its overall performance
call because there have not been enough flight tests to provide
a high confidence that the models and simulations accurately
predict BMDs, ballistic missile defense system performance.
Moreover, the test that have been done do not provide
enough information for DOD's independent test organization to
fully assess the BMD's suitability and effectiveness. And we
heard testimony at a previous hearing that the Pentagon has yet
to demonstrate the U.S. ground based missile defense [GMB]
system, is capable of defending against a long range ballistic
missile in a real world situation, because the tests have
demonstrated the kill vehicle is able to hone in and collide
with an identifiable target but under highly scripted
conditions.
Are these valid criticisms of the progress to date your
program?
General Obering. No, sir, I don't think so.
Mr. Hodes. And why not?
General Obering. Let me attack them one by one, or answer
them one by one. All right. No. 1, the one--the validity in the
assessment by the GAO of the models in SIMs is correct, it is
what I talked about. We're going through the process of doing
that verification. Now, do we have validated and verified
models? The answer is not yet. Do we have any problems though
in what we have seen in terms of the predicted data, in terms
of our flight testing and in terms of what we're seeing in
terms of real world performance? The answer is no, we have not
seen any show stoppers. We have not seen anything that would
have an affect with respect to our program that would tell us
we're on the wrong path.
I think that if you ask the Director of Operations, Test
and Evaluation today he would agree that we're on the right
path to do this verification and validation of our models.
In terms of the numbers of flight tests, again the Director
of Operational Test Evaluation, also testified that he felt
that we are on the right path, that we have, in fact, conducted
a test of our long-range system with the operational assets.
And this includes, as I tried to point out in the video,
operational realistic conditions. The one condition that we did
not have on the--on the target was complex countermeasures. And
I've already gone through that doesn't necessarily have to--you
don't have to have complex countermeasures to be operationally
realistic is my point. You will for the future, but you don't
necessarily have do for today and they've agreed with that.
Mr. Hodes. So just to put a final point on it. The GAO's
assessment is just wrong.
General Obering. I didn't say it was wrong. What I said was
I don't agree in total with what they came to conclusions. We
meet with the GAO all the time. In fact, I met with them
yesterday. You can have people come to different conclusions
based on the data. But we do know our data better than anybody,
that's a fact.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Thank you. General, there have been
some questions raised in some of the earlier hearings about
what some people said was lack of clarity of discourse with
respect to MDA and public announcements. And one example that
recently the MDA pointed out that there five early flight
intercept tests that used simple round balloons as decoys. Your
public affairs director then told the press that five
successful intercept tests from 1999 to 2002 used the type of
decoys we would expect from countries such as North Korea and
Iran. But the decoys in those tests did not resemble the target
reentry vehicle. With respect to the five early tests the
decoys used were round balloons, not ice cream cone shaped like
the marked target with much different infrared signatures.
The information we have is that MDA has never done a GMD
flight intercept test where decoys resemble the reentry vehicle
in shape or infrared signature. In the report that was issued
on February 28, 2002, the Government Accountability Office
reviewed the technical challenges of conducting flight
intercept tests with decoys that closely matched the target.
And then they explained why the MDA decided then to use decoys
that did not resemble the target reentry vehicle. Basically
they said the MDA and its advisors felt that such tests would
be too stressing, so why take the chance that the test might
fail?
Let me go over those five tests, because I want to find out
if your public relations person was given the direct scoop on
that or whether there might be some misunderstanding. The first
in October 2, 1999, is IFT3. That test was labeled successful.
The only decoy used in that test was a large 2.2 meter diameter
balloon from IFT1-A and IFT2. It had an infrared signature six
times higher than that of the marked warhead. Because the decoy
was so much brighter than the marked warhead the EKV saw at
first, once the EKV realized that the balloon's infrared
signature did not match up with the target that it had received
prior to the test the interceptor shifted to the nearby target.
IFT-4, January 18, 2000. In this test the interceptor
failed to hit the target. The failure to intercept was because
the cryogenic cooling system failed of the EKV failed to cool
the IR sensors down to their operating temperatures in time
because of an obstructed cooling line. The only decoy used was
a single large balloon from the previous test. Smaller balloons
originally had been planned but they were dropped in an attempt
to simplify the test presumably because the Welch Panel made
those recommendations.
In IFT-5 July 8, 2000. This test also failed. The failure
to intercept was a direct result of the EKV not separating from
the surrogate booster due to an apparent failure in the 1553
data bus in the booster. The decoy balloon did not inflate
properly causing the MDA official to decide to use a different
decoy in the future.
The IFT-6 on July 14, 2001, was a repeat of the IFT-5, but
this time was mostly successful. Over the prototype X-Band
Radar the XBR used did not process all the information it was
receiving properly causing it to falsely report that the
interceptor had missed its target. I guess if that had happened
in a non-test situation, more interceptors would have been
launched to assure a hit of the target and probably needlessly
so in that case.
One large decoy balloon was used, this one was 1.7 meters
in diameter, so it's slightly smaller than the largest balloon
used earlier as a decoy. It still had an infrared signature
much brighter, about three times brighter than the marked
warhead.
An IFT-7 on December 3, 2001. That was a successful test,
so labeled. The only variable change from IFT-6 was the target
booster. Instead of Lockheed Martin's Multi-Service Line
System, the Orbital Target Launch Vehicle was used. Targets--
that was a modified MinuteMan ICBM carrying a mock warhead and
a single decoy which did not change from the previous one. It
was the same one used in IFT-6.
And then March 15, 2002 IFT-8. A most successful test,
three decoyed balloons, one large, two small, were used to
increase the difficulty in determining the target's location,
the critics have pointed out that the infrared signals of the
balloon is different from that on the marked warhead. The large
balloon had a much larger infrared signature than that of the
mock warhead. Whereas the two smaller balloons had much smaller
signatures.
The IFT-9 October 14, 2002 that is said to have included
the same three decoy balloons, one large, two small as target
cluster. But specifics are unknown as you started classifying
your decoy details in May 2002.
In the IFT-10, May 11, 2002, that failed when the Raytheon-
built Exo-Atmospheric Kill Vehicle did not separate from its
booster rocket. And a modified Minuteman ICB was being used as
a surrogate until a more advanced booster rocket could be
developed.
The failure to separate precluded the EKV from attempting
to intercept the target missile. That was the first night test
that you mentioned earlier, because the intercept failed the
objective of IFT-10 was to demonstrate it effective at night
was not demonstrated.
All of that, I guess, leads to the question of, if North
Korea or Iran or anybody else were to attack the United States,
wouldn't it be reasonable to think it would also try to confuse
our missile systems? I think we pretty much agreed on that
previously, right?
General Obering. Yes, sir, but you have some inaccurate
information there toward the end. The signature of the warhead
was embedded in the signatures of the decoy--the decoys that
were used for the last, I believe it was the last two flight
tests if not the last three. Otherwise we had objects that were
slightly dimmer and objects that were slightly brighter. But
you're not going to be able to have--unless the attacker fully
understands the capabilities of our system, that means the
capability or our radar in detail and degree or with our
infrared focal planes and with our sensors to be able to
exactly identify and accurately model that would be very
difficult. So having it embedded as much as we can justify or
as much as we can anticipate what that would be is perfectly
reasonable and perfectly realistic.
Mr. Tierney. If the signature is sometimes six times
greater or three times greater?
General Obering. Oh, what I said was that they were much
more closely aligned than what you describing there toward the
end of the those series of flight tests. Again, it is a crawl,
walk or run approach that I wasn't the director then, but
that's how--that's how they were approaching their test
program.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it seems to make sense that if North
Korea is smart enough to make a balloon of one particular
diameter, they could make it of other diameters as well and
make it resemble the warhead.
General Obering. Yes, sir. And then there, as I said, there
are techniques we're using today that are more advanced than
what we used then. There are capabilities that we are
integrating and merging together as part of our program. And it
was--one thing I want to make sure you understand, is when we,
after IFT-10 and the failure to separate, my predecessor,
General Kaddish, made a determination and an assessment based
on all the data that they had learned as much as they were
going to learn especially after IFT-9 which was so very
successful, including the decoy programs, as well as the
ability of radar and kill vehicles to work together. That was
an incredibly successful test. So he decided to make the
determination to go to the operational--the full operational
configuration.
Now while we maintained 75 percent of the same kill vehicle
in terms of characteristics, we did modify about 25 percent of
the hardware and software on the kill vehicle. And then we went
to a totally now booster that we began to fly in the 2002, 2003
timeframe. And so when we went back into the air--attempted in
December 2004, when I was a director, we had a failure of a
ground support--at that time was a software timing failure in
that test on the interceptor. It was a one parameter one line
of code change to fix that.
We attempted again in February 2005 and that's when we had
a piece of ground support equipment. And again, when you went
to a new configuration, new locations, a different
configuration of silos you are going to have these kinds of
glitches, but to make sure that we did not have a systemic
problem across the board, I'm the one that said we're going to
stop, and we're going to reevaluate, and start from scratch.
And I asked for an independent team to come in and take a
look at that. And the independent team recommended the series
of flight tests that were on today, getting back into the air
with a flight test of the vehicle because it was in the new
operational configuration first without a target. Next flying
against--they actually recommended that we do not fly against a
target for another two flight tests. We accelerated that
because of the success of the first one. So this idea that we
somehow found countermeasures too hard and we shied away from
it is just flat wrong. We did it for totally different reasons.
And now we are reintroducing it as we understand the
performance of our kill vehicle. Based on our testing, we are
reintroducing the countermeasures to be able to fly against
what we think are the kind of threats that we would be facing
from Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. No more questions.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Hodes.
Mr. Hodes. General, there has been testimony about the
launch against the satellite, the errand satellite. It's
really--that wasn't really a test of our defense capability,
was it?
General Obering. It was not a test of our missile defense
capability because we don't have an operational capability to
do that. We were able to--if you want to go ahead and ask your
question maybe I can get to the answer.
Mr. Hodes. I just wanted to clarify that--I mean that
wasn't a test of our defense capability.
General Obering. No. Let me tell you why, we modified the
interceptor to be able to achieve that intercept. We also had
to modify the radar and we had to modify the ship's weapons
system, because the ship could not execute that test by itself.
It had to have off-board information that was integrated into
the ship's fire control system to be able to accomplish that.
Now, but were tremendous lessons learned from that, that
were indeed applicable to our missile defense system.
Mr. Hodes. I've seen chart of the FTG-3A that you showed
us. And there was a chart the BMDs hit to kill testing history,
and my understanding is that since 2001, it explains that in
test FTG-3 the target failed to reach sufficient altitude; is
that correct?
General Obering. FTG-3.
Mr. Hodes. Yeah.
General Obering. Yes, that was in May--May 2007.
Mr. Hodes. How high did it get?
General Obering. I don't recall. I do recall it was about 1
to 2,000 kilometers short. So it was not in the engageable box
so to speak.
Mr. Hodes. Short does that mean that was how far short of
down range it failed?
General Obering. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hodes. You don't have the altitude figures.
General Obering. No, sir. We had to--we could not launch
against it because for range safety purposes it was not within
the range safety area.
Mr. Hodes. Was the interception scrubbed because the target
didn't go to the place it was expected to go?
General Obering. Because it as not within the safety
constraints. We issued notifications to mariners in our flight
test about areas to stay away from in terms of our flight test.
And this would have come outside of that area.
Mr. Hodes. OK. One of our previous witnesses stressed the
importance of MDA having so called independent red team when it
comes to testing our capabilities. An independent red team who
would play the role of North Korea or Iran. Do we have one? If
not, why not? And are there plans to institute a red team in
the future?
General Obering. Yes, sir. We have used red teams in the
past, in the agency, yes, sir.
Mr. Hodes. Do you plan to continue using them?
General Obering. Oh, we have a variety of independent teams
in addition to just the red team.
Mr. Hodes. We've also heard testimony that the current GMD
program has no operational criteria for success. Is that so and
if not, what are the operational criteria that you've
established?
General Obering. Sir, we didn't establish them, the
Director of Operational Assessment Evaluation established them.
And that--there's--as I recall, there's about seven or eight
criteria that--that they have outlined. We include that in our
integrated master test plan. And in fact, I think in the last
DOT report it annotated what those were and what the track
record was against the various interceptors.
Mr. Hodes. Since I don't have that here----
General Obering. I'll provide you a copy.
Mr. Hodes. That would be--that would be great.
For my purposes today if I boiled this down to sort of a
layman's question, how good is the GMD system supposed to be?
In percentage terms, how good is it today and how good is it
expected to be and when?
General Obering. I can't give you a percentage because,
again, of the classification. But I will tell you this, it was
good enough that when the North Koreans stacked their tapered
on to it in the summer of 2006, the President was relying on
this as opposed to taking the advice of some senior, former
senior officials to preemptively strike that site. And so
that's what I mean by previous testimony about being a
stabilizing factor in crises.
We believe that the capability of the system is very high
against the threats that we are designed against. That will
improve over time as we get more and powerful, and more capable
centers, and algorithms into our system, that will only
increase, but it is very high today.
Mr. Hodes. Can you quantify the effectiveness of the
currently employed GMD system in the event of an actual attack?
General Obering. Yes, sir, we can. And we can do that in a
classified document.
Mr. Hodes. And is it your testimony that if the additions
you proposed to the GMD system is funded by the Congress that
quantitative effectiveness would increase?
General Obering. Yes, sir. And in fact, most of those have
already been funded by the Congress, and we're in the process
of completing those.
Mr. Hodes. And this information you say would need to be
done in a classified section?
General Obering. Yes, sir, to give you the specific data.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Hodes.
General, going back to our comments earlier about there
being some clarity issues here. I want to get your best
assessment of the current effectiveness of the program. In July
2006 North Korea tested the Taepodong-2 missile. Two days after
that test, President Bush was being interviewed by Larry King,
in part on the capability of the missile defense system. And
the President stated, ``If it headed to the United States,
we've got a missile defense system that will defend our
country.''
A year and a half later, the Missile Defense Agency's own
fine print in the fiscal year 2008 budget estimate stated,
``This initial capability is not sufficient to protect the
United States from the extant and anticipated rogue nation
threat.''
Can you describe for me the discrepancy in those two
statements?
General Obering. Oh, well, first of all the flight, the
flight of the Taepodong-2 could have been one missile. And that
was based on the number of interceptors that we had deployed at
the time. So it is probably, in terms of the number of rates of
missiles and where we were on the deployment of interceptors.
And as I stated earlier today, we have two dozen that have been
placed.
Mr. Tierney. I guess the discrepancy is that in July 6,
2006, the President was saying, if headed to the United States
we have a missile defense system that will defend our country.
And in a fiscal 2008 budget estimate, you're saying this
initial capability is not sufficient to protect the United
States from the extant and anticipated rogue nation threat. So
have we gone backward or----
General Obering. No, sir. Again, it is in term--remember
rate size and the number of missiles that could be launched,
but I will have to get you an answer for the record.
Mr. Tierney. I hope so. Because so far we haven't gotten
the answer to that.
General Obering. I don't know what you're referring to when
you're--you are talking----
Mr. Tierney. I'll give it to you again, on July 6, 2006,
the President----
General Obering. No, sir, I understand that part. The
other----
Mr. Tierney. The Agency's own fiscal year 2009 budget
estimate. ``This initial capability is not sufficient to
protect the United States from the extant in anticipated rogue
nation threat.''
General Obering. I'll have to get back to you, because
obviously there is a matter of degree probably in terms of the
number of missiles that we would think of all ranges that could
be deployed by North Korea and Iran. And----
Mr. Tierney. We're talking about ones that reach the United
States, that's the specific one that the President----
General Obering. OK, I'll have to get back to you on that.
Mr. Tierney. We had testimony from a Congressional Research
Services expert on this, of course, only five countries to date
have successfully developed and deployed the operational
nuclear round ICBMs. And the fact that more nations have not
done this is perhaps witnessed in part to the extraordinary
technical effort it took. He noted that you need sophisticated
propulsion system, a completely self-contained guidance system
that's immune to jamming. A miniaturized and hardened nuclear
bomb, a reentry vehicle that can survive a field of ionized
plasma, and the management capacity to integrate and test all
these systems together. And he went on to talk about how many
tests would have to be done and how visible and obvious it
would be.
So it would seem, going back to this point that a few
balloons that roughly match a warhead size is not something
that would be in the capacity of a country that could do all of
that to get a missile up there, that's why we keep going back
to that countermeasure issue.
General Obering. Sir, could I address that?
Mr. Tierney. Sure, yeah, sure.
General Obering. There are aspects again that I can't go
into in this open session. But what I can say is there are a
lot of assumptions that were just stated that do not come from
concrete hard evidence. I just said that we flew against
countermeasures, in our--of use countermeasures in our flight
test program eight times. I can tell you that's not very easy.
It's not as easy as the analyst is assuming it is, especially
to get the effects you want to get in terms of that test
program.
Mr. Tierney. I'm not sure the analyst is assuming it is
easy at all. What he's talking about is how difficult it is to
put a missile up. Are you are telling us it is more difficult
to put a decoy or a countermeasure up than it is to----
General Obering. When you add that complexity to it, it
makes it even more difficult. And there's also payload
penalties that you pay, trajectory penalties that you pay from
that. So I agree it's not easy to do and there are a handful of
countries that can do that. However we see that handful
growing. And we see countries that we have not paid attention
to in the past and we think we need to today.
Mr. Tierney. But you see their capacity growing in terms of
being able to have missile technology, but you don't seem to
see the capacity growing in terms of having decoys and
countermeasures. I think the point he makes is if you are
sophisticated enough to go over all of those burdens and
hurdles to make a missile program, then you are probably
sophisticated enough to have some pretty good decoys and
countermeasures.
General Obering. So I can give you an answer directly as to
why I don't think that's true necessarily. But I will also tell
you that we are growing our ability to deal with those
countermeasures as well.
Mr. Tierney. I think we just want to wrap up a few other
things. Mr. Hodes has an area he wants to go into. I just
wanted to address a couple of things that were in your written
testimony that we haven't really talked about today. One of
those is the Multiple Kill Vehicle program that you were
talking about. Now we've had testimony about how difficult it
is for a single target with a single inceptor to hit, and
that's been done. What we're talking about here with the
Multiple Kill Vehicle is sort of hitting a lot of targets with
a lot of bullets to speak the vernacular on that all at once.
The difficulty, I guess, would be that each smaller
interceptor, each one of those multiple interceptors has to
carry sensors, guidance, propulsion systems, all that added
weight; is that correct?
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So won't that limit the number of--the number
of kill vehicles that you have on a particular system?
General Obering. The limit there will be primarily on the
mass that will be required and the volume that you have to be
able to launch those within your interceptor shroud volume. But
the numbers that we can achieve in that program are what we
believe to be very effective.
Mr. Tierney. And you don't believe it would be overwhelmed
by somebody who is anticipating that this might be the case
that you have these Multiple Kill Vehicles.
General Obering. We believe that through a common--again,
we keep wanting to isolate on a particular aspect of the
program and then say, well, that's not going to work. And you
can't do that. You have to look at the entire program. So by
the time an attacker has flown through our the layers. By the
time that he's gone through the mid course discrimination that
we would be able to accomplish and boiled that down to the
credible objects where we ignore those things that are not
credible and then use those Multiple Kill Vehicles to go after
that, yes, sir, we did believe that would be effective.
Mr. Tierney. How costly is that going to be?
General Obering. We are just into that program in terms of
what that would be. And we are doing the cost estimates now.
One of the things that we do that we actually did at the
recommendation--well, it wasn't a recommendation, but it was a
recommendation made in other programs is we picked up the idea
of knowledge points.
So we try to drive down the risk before we build a major
acquisition program to go off and to be able to accomplish
whatever the program is, Multiple Kill Vehicle or Kinetic
Energy Receptor or whatever. It is a technique that we believe
it is prudent to try to make sure we make these as least as
expensive as we can.
So I can't answer your question until we've outlined our
ability to detail the knowledge points and then get a good idea
of what we're going to do and how we're going to go about
accomplishing those. And we're at the beginning of that journey
of the program today.
Mr. Tierney. I would hope that it would take some--there
was at one point of time, standards with this program back in
the 1980's, when Nimsky was there, and having it be less costly
to build your defense than it would be for somebody to build
something that could overwhelm your defense. I hope that's
going to be a consideration going forward.
General Obering. We always want to try to make the attacker
have the cost imposing penalties as opposed to us, that's true.
Mr. Tierney. On the Airborne Laser, if we could just touch
on that for a second because it is also something that you put
in your testimony. There was testimony at an earlier hearing
that we had here that the Airborne Laser an enemy might use
white paint as a countermeasure. And there was some objection,
apparently by your public relations, public affairs guys seem
to be pretty active. He was talking about the United States--he
sort of mocked it, he said, well, if the United States will
spend more than $4 billion on a weapon system that could be
defeated by a coat of paint, it might make a good sitcom, but
has no basis in fact. That was his clever response.
The issue is, though, that the testimony that was had here
it is about $8 billion, not $4 billion that's anticipated. But
also, it's not just reflective white paint, that it could be
dark colors that absorb almost all the laser energy and allow
only 10 percent to be reflected.
The white paint, I guess, would be pretty durable on that,
but also another countermeasure would require more laser power
and those things could be added as well. If it rotated, it
would be almost no effort and that would be a problem for us.
So what kind of testing has been done against the darker
objects or lighter objects. One expert calls it the ablative
coating that burned off the outside of the enemy missile. What
about all of those things in your laser program.
General Obering. We have evaluated literally hundreds of
coatings and ablatives and paint as part of the program. And we
have tested using laser facilities against those.
Mr. Tierney. When you say testing, what kind of testing are
you talking about?
General Obering. We are talking about very small scale
testing, and we're in the process of doing much larger scale
testing.
Mr. Tierney. Now the ABL aircraft is anticipated it will
fly at a reasonably safe distance----
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. From that.
And you are going to some issues as well with keeping the
laser focused over that time--that area?
General Obering. No, sir. We have actually demonstrated the
fact that we can do that.
And by the way, that is a technique that we've been using
for many years, so----
Mr. Tierney. So the atmosphere doesn't weaken the beam?
General Obering. Yes, sir. Let me explain how it works. We
actually have three lasers that will be on the aircraft and
we've flown. We have fired the high energy megawatt class over
70 times in a 747 fuselage at Edwards. That--and that, by the
way, required almost simultaneous ignition of the laser
modules, synchronizations that many of our so called critics
said we could never do. Well, we did that. And we achieved the
full duration and operational power in that laser.
We then took in parallel--we took the aircraft and we
heavily modified that to obviously fire the laser. But there
are two other lasers on the aircraft. There is a tracking laser
and atmospheric compensation laser. This last year, we flew the
aircraft with those two lasers along with a surrogate of the
high energy. And we demonstrated all the steps that we need to
do the shootdown.
What that entails is being able to track the end point on
the missile. In this case it was a simulated target that we
used both the Big Crow aircraft as well as a boosting
accelerating F-16 for that tracking. We then used the
atmospheric compensation laser to go out and measure the
distortion that you're talking about in the atmosphere, and
feed that information back and we deform the mirrors onboard
the aircraft. And then we fire the high energy in a diffused
state. And then it uses the atmosphere just like your glasses
to focus the beam on the target. And we demonstrated all of the
technical steps to go do that.
Mr. Tierney. And when you say demonstrated that, you did it
in a real life----
General Obering. In flight testing.
Mr. Tierney. In the right atmosphere and the whole thing?
General Obering. Yes, sir. And then we're going to--we have
the aircraft back on the ground, we've had it back on the
ground for several months. We now install the high energy laser
modules on the flying aircraft. We are in the process of
cleaning up the installation. We should be back in the air by
the first part of next year. And then we intend to shoot down a
boosting missile in midyear.
Mr. Tierney. And if the missile's rotating or is shiny or
reflects off or sloughs off some of the laser energy, that
doesn't create a problem.
General Obering. That's all part of the test program that
we have data on, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So we tested, all that happening so far or are
you going to test that?
General Obering. We have tested a major portion of that and
others. We have done the analysis, but we feel like we're on
the right track.
Mr. Tierney. The Boeing 747 is it a potential that may not
be big enough?
General Obering. Oh, it is big enough. In fact, we would
most likely use a 747 8F version for the next one. But we are
going to take it in a transition period. We'll collect up all
the information that we've learned, and we will apply that to
ensure that we can make an affordable capability.
Mr. Tierney. So it is too premature to ask you how long the
laser has to stay focused on the target to actually kill it, or
if it is rotating in flight what happens, that's all the
testing?
General Obering. What I can tell you is the time it takes
to do that is certainly within the operational--it is
operational realistic, I'll put it that way.
Mr. Tierney. From a distance.
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So there's no pros--these plays are up there,
if we're going to have this effect, are they going to be over
North Korea or are they going to be flying around there 24/7,
right?
General Obering. It would be the concept of operations. If
you are familiar with AWACs or Joint STARS, it would be very
similar. Otherwise, you'd get indication and warnings. You
would deploy the aircraft, it would be a 24/7 orbit that would
be obviously you'd have to swap aircraft as part of that. But
we do that, as a matter of routine, at AWACs and Joint STARS.
Mr. Tierney. So how many of these particular ABL systems do
think are going to have to have filled to keep something up
there 24/7?
General Obering. I think it's--the estimates--the initial
estimates were two and a half to three-aircraft orbit. But
again, once we do the initial shootdown we continue a very a--
what I call a continuous flight testing program. But then we're
going to go in and we're going to take this data and understand
what it is we can do to make this operational and operationally
affordable.
Mr. Tierney. What are the prospects that one of these ABLs
is going to exhaust the chemicals and have to go back and
replenish.
General Obering. It is a matter of routine. If it shot out
its load, but again, it is the only--it's the only intercept,
if you'd like a capability we have in which we can shoot down
multiple missile with a single component.
Mr. Tierney. It looks to be another fairly complex and
expensive aspect of this. You estimate about $5.1 billion on
the first aircraft through 2009, but now you think you need how
many aircraft to make this operation----
General Obering. I can't tell you until we go through this
operational affordability. We are going to go through a
redesign transition not unlike what we did with the THAAD, sir.
It will be a revolutionary capability, not just a complex one.
Mr. Tierney. The information that was provided to the
Congressional Budget Office led them to estimate $1.5 billion
per production aircraft. The Air Force Air Combat Command
proposed that the Air Force would buy seven production
aircraft.
General Obering. Right.
Mr. Tierney. But the Pentagon didn't support it.
General Obering. Sir, that's because it was premature to do
that, not until we get the information I just talked about.
Mr. Tierney. The plan now is that the MDA will build the
first two prototypes before Boeing goes into production. Is
that still on track?
General Obering. We do not have money funded right now
against a second aircraft tail member.
Mr. Tierney. The ABL program office has estimated that each
aircraft will take a couple years to build.
General Obering. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Seven aircraft at about $1.5 billion would be
about $10.5 billion, probably the price is escalating on that.
If it takes 2 years to build each one of these, it will take
the Air Force 14 years to get the first fleet if they had
budgeted one per year.
General Obering. Again, that's data based on existing
configurations, not necessarily what we would come out of the
transition program with.
Mr. Tierney. But if that holds true, you are looking really
until 2025 before this thing is up and operational. That means
that it meets all the tests and it is actually doable on that
basis. OK.
Mr. Hodes, do you have any further questions?
Mr. Hodes. I wanted just to followup a little bit sort of
the discussion we were having about the assessment of the
effectiveness of the system, understanding your reluctance to
tell us in open session a quantitative assessment, so to speak.
And I would point out that the head of the Missile Defense
Advocacy Alliance has stated, I believe we have a ballistic
missile defense system that is at least 90 percent effective
against limited attack. When we're talking about a single
attack from a single missile, we're probably higher than 95
percent because we can do multiple shots, and we have increased
our efficiencies and capabilities.
General, do you agree with that assessment of our current
effectiveness?
General Obering. Sir, again, I will be happy to give those
numbers to you in private in terms of what they actually are.
Mr. Hodes. Well, all I'm asking you now in this session as
to whether you agree or disagree with the number that has
already been put out there by somebody else.
General Obering. Sir, but if I validate or not validate
that number, that's the same thing as releasing classified
information, and I will not do that.
Mr. Hodes. Your predecessor as head of the MDA was asked to
comment on statements made by Pete Aldridge who was U.S. Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics
who assessed the effectiveness of the deployed GMD system
before the Senate and ended up saying, as of today, the
projected effectiveness would be in the 90 percent range. Am I
correct that you don't want to voice an opinion as to whether
you agree with that assessment?
General Obering. No, sir.
Mr. Hodes. He also said--your predecessor as head of the
MDA, was asked about the Aldridge statement. And he said, if
you assume a certain level of success for each interceptor
missile, which doesn't have to be very high, not greater than
50 percent, and if you did a math probability calculation and
you used six of those interceptor missiles to attack a single
incoming warhead, Secretary Aldridge was very correct on a pure
math basis; Aldridge was correct.
So your predecessor, as head of the MDA, apparently did his
math calculations and agreed with Mr. Aldridge's assessment of
a 90 percent effectiveness.
My question to you is, has the MDA ever conducted a GMD
flight intercept test where you have demonstrated the
capability in flight, actual flight intercept test, to bring
down an enemy missile by firing six interceptors?
General Obering. By firing, I'm sorry, how many?
Mr. Hodes. Six interceptors, as was suggested by your
predecessor as head of the MDA.
General Obering. Six interceptors?
Mr. Hodes. Correct. Have you ever conducted a flight test--
--
General Obering. I don't understand where you are getting
the number six from, sir. Could you help me there?
Mr. Hodes. Yes. Let me go back briefly. Your predecessor as
head of the MDA was asked about Mr. Aldridge's previous
statement about 90 percent effectiveness. In his answer, he did
some calculating and said, if you did a math probability
calculation and if you use six of those interceptor missiles to
attack a single incoming warhead, Secretary Aldridge was very
correct.
In other words, your predecessor as head of the MDA was
commenting on the 90 percent effectiveness testimony that had
been given. And apparently under--using his calculations--and
he knows a lot more about this, certainly, than I do--was
saying, yeah, it's 90 percent effective if you use six
interceptor missiles to attack a single incoming warhead.
So my question to you is, has the MDA ever conducted a GMD
flight intercept test where you've demonstrated, actually
demonstrated, the capability to bring down a single incoming
enemy warhead by firing six interceptors----
General Obering. In a flight test, no, sir.
Mr. Hodes. OK. Have you done it in simulation?
General Obering. I would have to go check that. I know that
we do, in our simulations, we do fire at times multiple
interceptors against single targets.
Now if you want me to help you with the math a little bit,
if you have an interceptor that is 70 percent effective on a
single shot or 80 percent effective on a single shot and you
fire two, you are now at a 91 or 96 percent effectiveness for
the overall engagement. So that's just a simple probability of
statistics in terms of the performance. But that does not
relate to what I would call a realistic performance because I
won't get into that in the open session.
Mr. Hodes. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thanks, Mr. Hodes.
General, I want to try to wrap this up for you. You've been
good to spend all this time with us. We appreciate it. You
answered Mr. Hodes's question about operational criteria
earlier. But I didn't hear you say whether or not that existed
in writing somewhere.
General Obering. Oh, yes, sir. It does.
Mr. Tierney. What would that publication be?
General Obering. Pardon me?
Mr. Tierney. What would that publication be termed?
General Obering. As I recall, it's in the DOT&E report for
this year. And I believe, if I am not mistaken, it is also in
our integrated master test plan, but we can provide that
documentation for the committee.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I appreciate that. Does it indicate
how good the system is supposed to be, whether its
effectiveness is supposed to be 1 percent, 10 percent 90
percent?
General Obering. It talks about the characteristics--I mean
the criteria that would need to be achieved in the flight test
to be operationally realistic.
Mr. Tierney. Does it talk about percentage of
effectiveness?
General Obering. I don't remember it doing that. But again,
that is normally derived from our testing.
Mr. Tierney. Does it indicate how many interceptors should
be required to defeat a single target?
General Obering. No, sir. That is what we call shot
doctoring, and that is derived from the specifications and the
performance of the specifications that have been demonstrated
in our flight test and our ground test.
Mr. Tierney. The so-called Clinton era tests, that was a
four-parter: One was whether the test, you know, material on
whether the challenges are materializing. The other is a status
of technology based on the initial series of flight tests and
proposed systems' operational effectiveness. The third is
whether the system is affordable. And the last is implication
that going forward with the national missile defense deployment
would hold for the overall strategic environment and our arms
control objectives. Are those four criteria incorporated in any
way in the current objective criteria?
General Obering. You are talking about in terms of
deployment of the overall system. No, sir. We're well beyond
that. We're well beyond that stage in terms of deployment.
Mr. Tierney. And on Mr. Nitze's criteria, the three
systems. That he had back in the Reagan years: that the system
should be effective; that it be able to survive against direct
attack; and that it be cost effective at the margin. So I
mentioned earlier about it being less costly to increase your
defense than it is for the opponent to increase their offense
against it. Are those incorporated in any way in the current--
--
General Obering. Again, that's for deployment, which we've
already achieved.
Mr. Tierney. All right. So the operational effectiveness
for deployment is different than operational effectiveness for
another reason?
General Obering. Yes, sir. It is. Again, in the environment
and in the world we live in, when you have a mission area in
which you are totally vulnerable and you have no defense, that
is a different calculation than you may do in a cold war era
where typically you are replacing your weapons system in the
field with one that's supposed to be better. And so you have a
different calculation.
What I can tell you is the calculation that the
administration went through on deployment was, did we have an
emerging threat? The answer was yes, and what we saw happening
in North Korea and Iran, that was of concern. Were they making
hostile statements? The answer was yes. Did we have a
technological capability to achieve an intercept? The answer
was yes. And we had demonstrated that in our flight testing
with the prototypes of the interceptors that we deployed.
Mr. Tierney. Without decoys or anything of that nature?
General Obering. That was using decoys in the flight test.
Mr. Tierney. Were those the ones I was talking about
earlier?
General Obering. Yes. And did we fly an operational
configuration of the booster? The answer was, yes, we had done
that. And was it affordable? And the determination by the
administration and by the Congress, by the way, was, yes, it
was.
Now it goes back to the statement that Ms. McCollum made
earlier about what is the relative cost not just to an
adversary but more importantly to the innocent people that
could be killed if you don't defend them as well as the damage
that could be done to a single American city on the order of
hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars if you can't stop
that missile, even one missile? So I think that was the
calculation that went into the deployment.
Mr. Tierney. And in that consideration, somewhere was the
political consideration, I guess, about the implications of
going forward with that kind of deployment and how that would
effect the overall strategic environment----
General Obering. Oh, sir, in fact, I think that's one of
the strongest arguments for what we're doing.
Mr. Tierney. You may think that, but that was a political
consideration that was made.
General Obering. Well, sir, I hope so because what we're
trying to do is change the politics.
Mr. Tierney. No, I understand your position on it. I'm
just----
General Obering. If I may----
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Makes a decision on that.
General Obering. We've had tremendous proliferation of
these weapons over the past several years. Access to them has
gotten much greater.
Mr. Tierney. You are talking--you are conflating again on
me, General. You have two countries that you think may some day
join the club of the existing five that have intercontinental
ballistic missiles. All the rest you are talking about is short
range and medium range.
General Obering. Yes, sir. But that's part----
Mr. Tierney. But it's not part of what we're talking about
focussing on here, is the $64 billion being spent on an
intercontinental ballistic defense system that has not had
realistic operational tests yet under a number of conditions
that we continue to procure on. We're buying things. We're
putting them on the ground. And it's not been shown that it's
going to work in that sense.
Let me ask you, just to wrap it up here, suppose this
administration's negotiations with North Korea have success.
Suppose that they some day wake up and decide they want to talk
to Iran, and they have success in those negotiations. What
happens to the budget of the MDA at that point?
General Obering. Well, sir, that's not--that's a
hypothetical. I would say that would be up to the
administration and the Congress at that point. I will say that
historically you have always--always--been better off at being
able to negotiate from the position of strength and not
weakness. So if you are walking in on negotiations against an
adversary in which you have a glaring vulnerability against
missile attack and they have an capability to exploit that, you
are not in a very good position. That's something that I think
is also a part of the calculation as we go forward in the
future.
In addition, if you can assure me that is the only threat
that we'll be facing in this century over the next 10, 15
years, I'd be happy with that. But I don't know that we can do
that.
Mr. Tierney. Well, General, if you can assure me that we
have an endless supply of money that we just want to keep
putting on and on and on, I guess that would resolve
everybody's issue on that.
I thank you for your time and for your testimony here today
and for your service to the country.
General Obering. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. We'll take a brief recess before the next
panel comes on. A couple of minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. OK. The subcommittee will now receive
testimony from our second panel of witnesses.
Philip E. Coyle III: Mr. Coyle is the senior advisor for
the Center for Defense Information. As the former Assistant
Secretary of Defense, Mr. Coyle was the longest-serving
director of the operational tests and evaluation in a 20-year
history of that defense office. He oversaw the tests and
evaluation of over 200 major defense acquisition systems and
reported to the Secretary of Defense and to Congress on the
adequacy and results of Defense Department testing programs. He
is the associate director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory where he started in 1959. He was appointed
by President George W. Bush to serve on the 2005 Defense Base
Realignment and Closure Commission. Mr. Coyle is an expert on
military research, development, and testing on operational
military matters, and on national security policy and defense
spending, including defense acquisition reform and defense
procurement. He has an extensive background in missile defense,
in military space systems and nuclear weapons.
The Honorable Henry F. Cooper: Ambassador Cooper is
currently the chairman of the High Frontier Organization. He
served as the first civilian director of the Strategic Defense
Initiative [SDI], from 1990 to 1993. President Reagan appointed
Ambassador Cooper as deputy and then chief U.S. negotiator at
the Geneva Defense and Space talks with the former Soviet Union
from 1985 to 1989. Ambassador Cooper is also currently chairman
emeritus of Applied Research Associates, a visiting fellow at
the Heritage Foundation and a private consultant.
Joseph Cirincione: Mr. Cirincione is president of
Ploughshares Fund. He was most recently vice president for the
National Security and International Policy at the Center for
American Progress. He is the author of an article in the most
recent issue of Foreign Policy entitled, ``The Incredible
Shrinking Missile Threat,'' and the recent book ``Bomb Scare:
The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.'' He also teaches at
Georgetown University and was some years ago a staffer on the
predecessor of this subcommittee as well as on the House Armed
Services Committee.
We want to thank all of you for being with us today.
Obviously your experience, your knowledge of the topic's going
to help us address the questions that were raised in the
earlier hearing and generally. As you all know from previous
experience, it's our policy to swear in witnesses. So if you
please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. The record will please reflect all
of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
You know from past experience as well that your full
written statements will be put in the record by unanimous
consent.
We ask you that you try to keep your oral statements to 5
minutes in duration or as close thereto as you can so there
will be plenty of time for questions. We will be a little bit
limited. We know people's sensitivity of the time, and we want
to be able to have some questions for the panel and get you
folks out of here at a decent hour as well.
So if we might, Mr. Coyle we'd benefit from your testimony,
if you would.
STATEMENTS OF PHILIP E. COYLE III, SENIOR ADVISOR, CENTER FOR
DEFENSE INFORMATION, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR EMERITUS, LAWRENCE
LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY; HENRY F. COOPER, Ph.D.,
CHAIRMAN, HIGH FRONTIER; AND JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, PRESIDENT,
PLOUGHSHARES FUND
STATEMENT OF PHILIP E. COYLE III
Mr. Coyle. Thanks Mr. Chairman.
My opening remarks are quite brief. Chairman Tierney,
Representative Shays, distinguished members of the committee, I
very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before you again
to support your examination of Department of Defense programs
and missile defense.
In my testimony 2 weeks ago, I raised a number of issues
that the Congress should examine. They are: the limited and
inadequate technical and operational performance of the ground-
based missile defense [GMD] system, and the lack of operational
criteria by which the Congress can judge success; inconsistent
and inaccurate information from the Pentagon with respect to
system performance and the threat; the lack of demonstrated
performance of the GMD system against realistic threats
involving decoys and countermeasures as well as in common
operational environments; the cost, which you've already spent
some time on in this hearing; the vulnerability of the GMD
system to direct attack; the successes of U.S. diplomacy, which
have been our most effective missile defense; and, finally, the
ways in which missile defenses can undermine America's arms
control and nonproliferation objectives.
In my formal testimony today, I expand on my earlier
comments regarding the GMD program, also on the proposed U.S.
missile defenses proposed for Europe and on the airborne laser
and add new comments regarding the Multiple Kill Vehicle
program which you had brought up earlier this morning.
Today I only touch briefly on the Navy's Aegis program and
do not discuss at all the THAAD program, the PATRIOT PAC-3, or
the PATRIOT/MEADS Combined Aggregate Program, which I hope will
be topics for future hearings and increased oversight and
review by the U.S. Congress.
The DOD Missile Defense Agency programs need to be re-
established as bona fide R&D programs, which they are presently
purported to be but are not. The Congress and the American
taxpayer are being misled about the capabilities of these
programs both in terms of their effectiveness to provide
dependable defenses and in terms of their readiness for
procurement.
The MDA programs have become large program--large
procurement programs masquerading as R&D programs with hundreds
of new interceptors, not to mention scores of other systems,
subsystems and support facilities proposed to be bought between
now and 2013.
Through these large procurements, the American taxpayer is
being misled that these systems defend the United States when
they do not. And our friends and allies in Europe are also
being misled that the proposed U.S. missile defenses would
defend Europe as well.
This is all the more troublesome as these programs have no
demonstrated effectiveness against realistic threats and under
realistic operational conditions. This applies to the GMD
program in Alaska and California, to the new missile defense
system proposed for Europe, to the Multiple Kill Vehicle
program, and especially to the airborne laser program.
Several other programs also require increased oversight and
review by the Congress, including the Aegis BMD program, the
THAAD program, and PATRIOT PAC-3, and PATRIOT/MEADS programs.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks. Thank you
very much for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coyle follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Dr. Coyle.
Dr. Cooper.
STATEMENT OF HENRY F. COOPER, Ph.D.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Tierney,
distinguished Members--oh, I'm sorry.
Chairman Tierney, Representative Shays, distinguished
Members, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to
discuss our missile defense programs.
As SDI director in the 1990 to 1993 time period, I
redirected SDI away from defending the U.S. homeland against a
massive attack by thousands of nuclear re-entry vehicles to
protecting the United States and our overseas troops, allies
and friends against a limited ballistic missile attack. And I
advocated that we work with Russia to build such a global
system.
I believe a global defense still should be the goal of our
missile defense programs. And I now would include among the
threats of concern terrorists who might launch SCUDs or cruise
missiles from ships off our coast.
As SDI director, I was privy to all the classified
information related to dealing with offensive countermeasures,
against all potential missile defense system concepts, at least
of that time. And I concluded then and remain confident today
that we can build a layered defense that would be effective and
affordable.
My prepared testimony summarizes the nature of the
complementary measure-countermeasure tension between the boost,
midcourse, and terminal phases of the ballistic missile's
flight. Taken together, a mature layered defense against
ballistic missiles in all their phases of flight can achieve
many intercept attempts and frustrate attempts of the offense
to focus on one or the another of these phases of flight. For
example, boost-phased defenses, which work while the hot slowly
moving rocket is very vulnerable, can destroy a threatening
rocket before it can dispense its warheads and associated
decoys, defeating such midcourse countermeasures. If the
offense develops a higher-acceleration booster to defeat the
boost-phase defense, it will pay a weight penalty that reduces
the midcourse countermeasures suite, thereby reducing the
challenge to a midcourse defense. Furthermore, a terminal high-
endo-atmospheric defense can defeat the midcourse
countermeasures as re-entry strips away light decoys and chaff.
If a maneuvering re-entry vehicle is designed to defeat high-
endo-atmospheric defense interceptor, the weight penalty will
also degrade the midcourse countermeasures suite.
My prepared testimony discusses the legacy of the ABM
Treaty in frustrating the development of such a layered defense
which has left the current program focused on the most
difficult midcourse defense problem, largely to the exclusion
of the other two phases. This is not surprising because the
purpose of that treaty was to keep the United States and the
Soviet Union vulnerable to ballistic missile attack, each with
their single ground-based sight. Still, our original program on
my watch included a follow-on combined endo-exo-atmospheric
interceptor, which we called E2I, to strip away lightweight
decoys that might get by an exo-atmospheric-only defense.
Development of sea-based, air-based, and mobile land-based
defenses had to be limited to a theater missile defense role. A
legacy of these constraints is that the sea-based defenses
today continue to be restricted to a theater defense role, even
though they have an inherent capability against long-ranged
ICBMs, as shown by numerous theoretical studies over the past
decade and to some degree demonstrated by the recent adaptation
of the Aegis standard missile to shoot down a satellite
traveling faster than an ICBM. Space-based defenses could not
be limited to a theater missile defense role. Still, space-
based sensors were permitted and needed to support ground-based
defenses but research and development on space-based
interceptors had--I'm sorry--had to be limited by technology-
to-technology demonstrations for which Congress appropriated in
1993 some $300 million before the Clinton administration ended
research and development on what I believe was the best product
of the SDI years and the only one with the prospect of meeting
the so-called Nitze criteria, to which you referred earlier,
that effective defenses should be survivable against direct
attack and cost effective at the margin against offensive
countermeasures.
Thus ended the technology pathway that could have long
before now led to lightweight Kill Vehicles that, for example,
would have enabled the Navy sea-based interceptors to reach
substantially higher velocities, providing greater reach to
defend much larger areas, including against ICBMs.
Even though President Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty in
2002, the current missile defense program has not been
redirected to reflect the basic lessons that I further
elaborated in my prepared testimony. Instead, most of the
resources have been placed against the 1993 scaled-back ground-
based defense program, albeit expanded to include mobile
components previously prohibited by the ABM Treaty and with
ground-based interceptors at other than the Grand Forks site
permitted by that treaty.
Given the 1999 congressionally mandated policy to deploy as
soon as technologically possible an effective national missile
defense system against limited attack, continuing debate should
not be about whether to build a system and sustain it but
rather about how. I believe a return to basics would include a
reinvigorated technology development effort to assure viable
missile defenses into the future, whether at the Missile
Defense Agency, at DARPA, or in the services as their
respective components of a global defense architecture matures.
Increased funding for sea-based offenses to exploit fully
their inherent flexibility of operating in international waters
and to provide defensive options in all three phases of flight
is an important objective. In many ways, the Navy's sea-based
defenses are the closest to an operational global defense
capability today, but they have been limited arbitrarily I
believe to a theater defense role. A revival of efforts to
exploit the obvious benefits of the space-based defense,
beginning with the President's proposed test bed in space, is
also I think a good idea.
Finally, I want to emphasize the possibility that
terrorists could purchase SCUDs or cruise missiles and use them
to launch weapons of mass destruction at our coastal cities
from ships off our coast. And even a single nuclear armed SCUD
that detonates a nuclear weapon high above the United States
killing no one directly could create an electromagnetic pulse
that could produce lasting economic havoc throughout the United
States. This is not a new threat, and it could circumvent the
major expenditures now being made to prevent the smuggling of
weapons of mass destruction into the United States, a subject,
I might add, that I spend most of my time today worrying about.
It can and I believe should be countered by outfitting the
Aegis ships that normally operate in our ports and along our
coasts so that they can shoot down these cruise and ballistic
missiles.
As one who lives along the East Coast, I strongly urge
Congress to fund additional missile defense capabilities on our
Aegis ships in the Atlantic. And I would note that by the end
of this year, 18 will be in the Pacific; only 2 in the
Atlantic. As an extension, I believe we should also have an
East Coast test range to dedicate to their testing and help
provide both a deterrent and a real defense against this
threat.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for permitting me to share my
views on these issues.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Cirincione, we would like to hear your testimony as
well, please.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH CIRINCIONE
Mr. Cirincione. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee,
thank you very much for bringing me back to talk about one of
my favorite subjects, the antiballistic missile program.
When I became a staff member of the House Armed Services
Committee in January 1985, my very first assignment was
oversight over the then Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization programs. Since that time, I've seen a formidable
line of directors and program managers testify before Congress
over--of those almost 25 years. They have constantly warned of
urgent and emerging threats and have consistently promised that
there was a technological solution to these threats that, with
just enough money and enough time and a few less restrictions,
they could deliver.
Over the 25 years, I've seen the threat diminish, actually
drastically, which is fortunate because the programs that they
promised have been chronically behind schedule, over budget and
under performing. We do not now have and are not likely to have
an effective defense against even a primitive intercontinental
ballistic missile launched at the United States using the kinds
of decoys and countermeasures that such a country would likely
have.
The claims that we have such a capability are simply false.
General Obering was a very competent representative of the
program before this committee, and I sympathize with the
difficulty that members have in trying to get him to elaborate
on some of the problems that the program might be having. In my
25 years, I have never seen a program manager come before
Congress and admit that they were having serious problems in
the program or that they could do the mission with less money.
If they did so, they would be fired, and another program
manager would be brought up here.
So you have of a dilemma. How do you, knowing what you
know, believing what you believe, forge a consensus in the
Congress and in the country over the path forward on ballistic
missile defenses? I believe that--and I have elaborated in my
testimony some methods that you should consider that have
worked in the past to forge such a consensus.
No. 1, I believe you should commission an independent
assessment of the antiballistic missile technologies. In 1987,
the study done by the American Physical Society forged such a
consensus about the near-term value of directed-energy weapons.
You may remember that to the Strategic Defense Initiative
program began not with ground-based systems, which were
explicitly rejected by proponents of ballistic missile defense,
in favor of directed-energy weapons. We spent billions of
dollars exploring the feasibility of these weapons. The deserts
of America are littered with the carcasses of failed directed-
energy weapons programs; none of these systems worked.
In 1987, the American Physical Society study said it would
be two decades before we would know the feasibility of these
systems. That helped redirect the program toward more promising
near-term solutions. I believe a similar study by the American
Physical Society, perhaps the National Academy of Sciences, the
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences could
provide--could be sort of a technological referee here that
could help give the Congress an objective assessment of what's
working and what's not.
I have several other suggestions in mind. But I believe
that in the long term--I'm sorry--in the near term, what the
Congress and the next administration should do is disband the
National Missile Defense Agency. Under various directors and
under various organizational structures, this has proved to be
a very ineffective development and procurement agency. I
believe the way to settle some of the differences that we heard
today in the first part of this hearing is to devolve these
antimissile programs back to the services from whence they
came. Let the Joint Chiefs and the commanders in the field
wrestle with the--make a first approximation of the resources
that should be allocated to antimissile defense versus the
other defense priorities. I believe if you do so, then Congress
will then get recommendations from the Defense Department, from
the administration, that present a more complete and a more
balanced representation than you will if you continue to have
an agency who exists only to promote antimissile programs, an
agency that now has a budget of some $10 billion a year. You've
created a very formidable advocate for these programs. If
you're going to try to get at the truth of what works and
what's necessary, I think you have to take that advocate apart
and bring--and allow the influence of the rest of the services
into these decisions.
As it is now, I think the Missile Defense Agency is a self-
perpetuating money machine. It exists to defend its budget, to
defend its program. You're never going to get a balanced
defense as long as this Missile Defense Agency exists the way
it does.
I'll conclude my opening remarks with that, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cirincione follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
I thank all three of you for so thoughtful remarks.
Dr. Cooper, let me start with you because I heard from the
other two gentlemen a little bit before.
Do you ascribe to the notion that a country like Iran, if
it had the capacity say 2015, 2020 to send one intercontinental
ballistic missile here, would do so without minding the fact
that they'd have retaliation against them?
Mr. Cooper. You're going to accuse me of skirting the
question, but----
Mr. Tierney. I could do that now or after you've done it.
Mr. Cooper. But I don't know how to predict such things,
sir. And I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that we would be
vulnerable to the likes of--I can't even say his name--
Ahmadinejad and his friends.
Mr. Tierney. Let me phrase it this way then, do any of
you--I know, again, I'm assuming the answers from some of the
gentlemen from previous testimony. It seems to me Mr.
Cirincione makes a reasonable argument when he says, look,
maybe you ought to take this and devolve it back to the
individual branches of the services here and let them deal with
their components on that; otherwise we might run the risk here
of just an endless bottomless pit of money. I mean, this
program is already the most expensive program that we have, and
I've not seen any indication that anybody's ever concerned
about measuring how much money we spend on it versus what are
the other threats and risks that we have, everything from
homeland security all the way to terror abroad or conventional
conflicts or whatever.
Would you object to that notion, Dr. Cooper, of putting it
back into the services so they could deal with the components
and measure it against what other challenges they think are out
there, where they want to spend their money?
Mr. Cooper. I think the combination of SDI, which was
mostly about research for the first 8 years or so and began to
get seriously engaged in the idea of actually building
something was a really good idea because, at the time, there
was no way within the Department to integrate things.
You know, when the first Gulf war came along and we saw the
PATRIOT activities, I was the one who argued that we should
fold in theater defenses into the Missile Defense Agency, then
called SDI. And fortunately, in my judgment, Secretary Cheney
went along with me. And that was to assure that our theater and
strategic defenses were integrated together because of this
vision of wanting a global defense.
This is a long way of saying, I think there's an important
function performed by centralizing the planning, the research
and development, even to the stage of developing prototypes
and, to some degree, the initial operating capabilities in the
field, in this integrated way, at which time I think it is an
appropriate thing to transition them back to the services. And
I believe that's the general intention of the department.
Mr. Tierney. Dr. Coyle, you've sat through, very patiently,
the entire first panel on that for some time. I'd like to just
know what your immediate observations are from that discussion.
Mr. Coyle. Well, General Obering is an experienced and
excellent witness, but I was surprised at how many statements,
including new statements, he made that were certainly
incomplete, misleading or even untrue. There were quite a few
of them. I don't know quite where to begin. Perhaps it would be
best if I provided that for the record. But I was----
Mr. Tierney. Well, we'd greatly appreciate that. But if
something comes to mind, that would be helpful as well.
Mr. Coyle. I was surprised that he made a couple of
statements that I think are, at best, misleading.
Part of the problem is, when we talk about tests, General
Obering, for example, said, we have flown countermeasures
against our sensors in tests. He made that point two or three
different times. But he's talking about sensor characterization
tests, flight characterization tests, tests that didn't
actually involve shooting down a target. So I don't deny that,
indeed, they've tried to gather data about how their sensors
would behave against these various countermeasures. But I think
it's a little misleading to imply that they've got the matter
in hand because of such tests when they don't actually involve
shooting down the target. That's just one example.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. We would appreciate a great deal--I
don't mean to be giving you homework or anything. But, on the
other hand, we do I guess. But if you have the time and the
patience to do that, I think we'd benefit from knowing your
analysis of what he said and what we ought to further inquire
so we could get to the bottom of some of these things.
Ms. McCollum, if you don't mind, I will ask Mr. Cirincione
the same question, and then we will come to you. I think I have
passed my 5 minutes.
Mr. Cirincione, please.
Mr. Cirincione. A lot of this boils down to what your
definition of test is. And the agency uses test when they refer
to computer simulations, flight tests where they're putting
objects up and observing them, or actual intercept tests. And
they merge them all together. So when you ask them, but you've
never done a test with a realistic countermeasure, he says,
yes, we have. And what he means is, they put some realistic
countermeasures up into space and they've imaged them to see
what they look like. But he doesn't mean--but you may have
drawn that conclusion, some might have, not you, Mr. Chairman--
that he meant that we'd actually done an intercept test, again
with a realistic countermeasure. We have not. We have not.
And I share Dr. Coyle's concern----
Mr. Tierney. Are you sure it hasn't been done and
classified on you?
Mr. Cirincione. We have never done a realistic test against
the kind of missile and the kinds of countermeasures we could
expect from even an Iran or North Korea. And the reason we
haven't done that is that, if we did, we would miss. It's not
that we don't have the ability to hit a bullet with a bullet.
We do. But we don't have the a ability to see that bullet when
there are dozens of other phony bullets around it. And that's
the problem. If you can't see it, you can't hit it.
Mr. Tierney. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Boy, I don't even know where to start. But let me thank you
for talking about tests because as a former teacher, I can
devise a test to measure what I want to measure. And so I think
when you talk about having successful tests, you need to know
what the standards were that you were trying to meet with that
test.
The computer modelling that people kept being referred to,
can you gentlemen tell me--I'm not a computer expert, so if I
say something, and I'm using the wrong terminology, correct me.
Do they have their own supercomputer? Do they use cluster
computers? Are they just using, you know, something kind of
souped up off the shelf? What are they using to do their
testing for their computer models? Anyone know?
Mr. Coyle. Ms. McCollum, they use a variety of different
kinds of approaches. Some of it's done on big computers. Some
of it, with the amazing capacity of laptops these days, it
could even be done on a laptop. Whether or not that simulates
what would happen in real battle is another matter. But they
use a variety of different kinds of computers. And with the
kind of resources they have, I don't think access to big
computers, supercomputers, is a problem for them. They also do
what are called hardware-in-the-loop simulations where they
take hardware in the laboratory and run it through small
laboratory scale tests, for example. So those are a couple of
ways that they do it.
Ms. McCollum. OK.
Mr. Cooper. May I add a point? The other point is that they
do physics based modelling, first principle physics-based
modelling. Just as the DOE laboratories are applying this
approach to at least claim that they can do nuclear weapons
design without testing. And so, for example, when General
Obering showed you the picture up here of what they anticipated
were they to hit the fuel tank on the satellite and then he
showed you the picture of the actual data, there was a fair
amount of detail in the two that compared--well, the modelling
they did was physics-based modelling. And there is a growing
confidence in our ability to do that. We fly airplanes today. I
don't know that we've ever gotten to the point where we have
actually put one in service without fully testing it. But once
upon a time, we did lots of testing. Today we don't do as much
testing because we believe these models.
Ms. McCollum. OK. My time's going to probably going to run
out. Have I got time? Go ahead.
Mr. Cirincione. Just two quick points. I was on staff in
the 1980's and 1990's when computer simulation started to
becoming an increasingly large part of Department of Defense
testing. And we tried to resist the effort to have computer
simulations included as operational testing data for the
obvious reason that, in a computer simulation, you can program
in assumptions that the customer might not be aware of. So we
were very concerned that computer simulations could be
manipulated to give data that might not actually be realistic,
and it would, as it got down the chain, it would be more and
more difficult to understand what you were actually simulating
and what the assumptions were. We lost that battle. So computer
simulations are now completely integrated into not just
developmental and research testing but operational testing. I
personally find that very disturbing.
Second, I don't even use the word ``test'' when I discuss
what's going on with the antiballistic missile programs. You
will notice in my testimony I don't use that word. I think
these are demonstrations, that these are highly scripted
demonstrations of a certain capability. Do they have value in
understanding how far you are toward achieving your goals? Yes.
Are they actual tests of our ability to intercept a target? No,
I don't think they are.
Ms. McCollum. If we're going to have another round, I'll
wait and do that. But it looks like Mr. Cooper had something he
wanted to add if you would be kind enough. Thank you.
Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. I just wanted to add a point of disagreement, I
suppose, with my friend Joe here. And that is, he is making a
universal statement, and that's not entirely an accurate thing
it seems to me. I believe the Navy programs have done quite
realistic operational testing in many of their experiments, if
you want to use that term, including firing cruise missiles and
ballistic missiles at the same time, and as General Obering
spoke of, a couple of ballistic missiles at the same time where
the crews of operational cruisers are actually the ones that
are conducting the tests. They don't know when the rocket is
going. They know they're going to be on a test range and
there's a time window in which it is. But they actually come as
close, I believe, as you can come to operational testing as a
part of a development activity. Now, to be sure, they're not
doing the midcourse countermeasures that you folk are
interested in either. But that's not part of their design at
this point.
Mr. Cirincione. Let me quickly agree. I was talking about
the midcourse intercept demonstrations. I agree that in the
theater defenses, there's been more realistic testing.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Shays, you're recognized.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Cirincione, my understanding is that you would end the
program, just shut it down. Is that correct?
Mr. Cirincione. Oh, no, sir.
Mr. Shays. OK. Then what should my understanding be?
Mr. Cirincione. I would end the agency. I think we need a
better, more efficient procurement and research vehicle than
we've had over the last 25 years.
Mr. Shays. So, is your view that the missile defense
program should continue, done differently, more slowly and so
on?
Mr. Cirincione. A refocused effort to concentrate on
getting near-term capabilities into the field for our troops
and allies faced with theater threats and do more focused
research on long-term defensive capabilities before moving to a
procurement and deployment program for those.
Mr. Shays. I'm happy to ask the question. Because, Mr.
Coyle, would yours be somewhat similar in position? Or how
would it differ?
Mr. Coyle. Mr. Shays, I support research and development on
missile defense. I think it is expensive, but I think it's
something that the United States can afford.
What I don't support is deploying systems that have no
demonstrated operational effectiveness.
Mr. Shays. OK. I hear you. I want you to react to this.
First off, I've always been--I had been very skeptical of the
missile defense program. And I voted to continue it. But I said
we shouldn't deploy until we have a system that works. But I
remember during the first--well, with getting Iraq out of
Kuwait and the SCUD missiles, there was some comfort that I had
that there was a PATRIOT missile that somehow could maybe
intercept a SCUD missile which was not all that accurate. But I
thought, you know, psychologically it was good. And at times,
it seemed to work. Do you think that a missile defense system
is more apt to work on short-range, medium-range, or long-
range? And I'll ask all three of you. Which is the easier, and
which is the more difficult? I'll start with you, Mr.----
Mr. Cirincione. I believe we can develop effective and
reliable defenses against short-range missiles, primarily
because you do not have the countermeasure problem. You are
intercepting these systems in the atmosphere where
countermeasures cannot operate. This is still a difficult task,
and historically we've had, again, exaggerations of our
capability. Mr. Shays, you remember the claims that we had
intercepted 41 out of 42 SCUDs. It was only after this
committee did an investigation that those claims were
considerably scaled down. The Government Accountability Office
estimated we hit 4 out of 44. Some independent experts don't
think we hit any. My personal estimate was two as a result of
our investigation.
Mr. Shays. But the point is, do you have a sense that----
Mr. Cirincione. You could do this. You could improve the
PATRIOT or improve the THAAD or develop a new system that would
have a better shot at intercepting SCUDs.
Mr. Shays. Would it get more difficult----
Mr. Cirincione. As the range of the missile increases, the
difficulty of intercepting it increases.
Mr. Shays. Is that because of the decoy measures?
Mr. Cirincione. It is because of the speed of the target
and because of the countermeasures.
Mr. Shays. Tell me how you would agree or disagree with
what I just heard, Mr. Coyle.
Mr. Coyle. Mr. Shays I was very interested in the question
you asked General Obering this morning about PATRIOT. He said
that--and I believe the context of your question was about PAC-
3 against SCUDs. PAC-3 is still untested in battle against
SCUDs because Iraq didn't fire any. And so I didn't understand
his answer. And I thought it was misleading because he said all
of the missiles that Iraq fired at us were destroyed or shot
down. And you can go through the news accounts of how many
missiles were fired by Iraq each day, of which kind, and by our
count, there's a couple hundred--excuse me, a couple dozen
missiles that Iraq fired, not SCUDs but shorter-range missiles
of other types, including cruise missiles that were not shot
down by PATRIOT or PAC-3.
Mr. Cooper. I think it's not quite as simple as it's been
stated here. Countermeasures apply, as I tried to make the
point in my testimony, in all of the phases of flight. The
difficulty that we had in shooting down the SCUDs in the first
Gulf war, for example, had to do with the fact that Saddam
Hussein took three SCUDs and he welded two together out of this
to get the extended range. When they went out of the Earth's
atmosphere and they were in space for some considerable amount
of time, they went like this and came down hind part first and
they broke up. And the warhead corkscrewed into the Earth's
atmosphere, pulling, I don't remember now, but multiple Gs, and
the PATRIOT couldn't keep up with it. So simply because it's a
short-range missile and it's going in the atmosphere, it
doesn't guarantee you that you can deal with this problem. That
was my point about, if you worked that problem, you make the
countermeasures a problem easier outside the Earth's
atmosphere.
And now PAC-3, I believe, is an exo-atmospheric
interceptor, is it not? It's hit the gill, I know, and it
should have worked against the SCUD if it had been launched,
but I don't know----
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you one last question, Dr. Cooper. Do
you agree that it is easier to deal with the short range versus
the intermediate or the long range?
Mr. Cooper. In principle, it is, yes. But I believe the
technology is there to deal with all three. The countermeasures
problem I believe is one you have to take into account. And I
think it should be taken into account as a part of the design.
To that degree, I'm inclined to side with Dr. Coyle. The
reality is that, when you ask what is going on in the program
today, you can't assume that you are starting with a clean
sheet of paper.
General Obering, you know, inherited a program that was in
a given direction.
Mr. Shays. I'll get you in the next--I mean, I'll pursue
this in the next round.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Dr. Cooper, how much would you advise Congress should spend
over the next 20 years in missile defense?
Mr. Cirincione. Sir, I haven't really considered that
problem. I don't consider the amount of money that's being
spent out of bounds. I might quibble with how it's being spent
but not the amount. It is not inconsistent with the amount of
money that we were spending on my watch when it was mostly--a
lot of it was R&D in any case. If you take into account
inflation, I think it was $4.5 billion is what I recall in
1991, 1992.
Mr. Tierney. Do you support the allocation of national
security resources, money primarily, according to sort of what
the threat likelihoods are? Do you think we ought to make an
assessment of what the likelihood of the threats are and then
decide how to spend our money on that?
Mr. Cooper. I do believe we should have threat-based design
and development.
Mr. Tierney. Would you agree that the bigger threat to the
United States at this point in time is actually some asymmetric
threat, some terrorist sending something over in a container or
on a ship or being offshore on a small boat and lobbying
something in from there?
Mr. Cooper. As I indicated in my testimony, I am very
worried about that. And that's how I spend most of my time
these days, is worrying about nuclear smuggling out of the
former Soviet Union.
That said, I think the other is a serious problem. And the
problem is, you can't turn a switch. I mean the complaint that
people have about the Missile Defense Agency in some sense and
the programs is how long this is taking and how much money it's
costing. And it's a difficult problem. And no one I think
disputes that fact. But I believe we need to be working on it.
Mr. Tierney. I guess that's part of it, but the larger part
of it is people are disputing the fact that we're buying before
we're testing. I haven't heard anybody really come out and say,
I don't want to spend the money on research and development.
Maybe it's out there. But I hear some concern. But I think Mr.
Coyle makes a point on that, that there's a lot of procurement
going on. Maybe you'd like to expand on that, Dr. Coyle.
Mr. Coyle. For all other U.S. military systems, we don't go
into so-called full-rate production or large quantities of
production until the system is shown to be operationally
effective. It's a good policy. It helps the Congress know when
it's time, when a system is ready. I think the same policy
ought to apply to missile defense procurements, but so far, it
hasn't.
Mr. Tierney. Under that policy with respect to the
intercontinental ballistic missile defense, the midcourse
defense, what procurement is going on now would not be being
made if we followed the policy?
Mr. Coyle. Well, we wouldn't be buying the hundreds of
interceptors that are proposed to be bought. In my testimony,
based on my research, I counted 635 new interceptors proposed
to be bought between now and 2013. General Obering said it's
going to be twice that, that the JROC has recommended something
like 1,200 new interceptors to be bought in that period. I
wouldn't go forward with that.
Mr. Tierney. Why not?
Mr. Coyle. Because those interceptors have yet to
demonstrate their capability to deal with realistic threats
under realistic operational conditions.
Mr. Tierney. And I think we talked about this a little bit
at the last hearing. But what we're talking about demonstrating
their capabilities. We're not talking about a one-off test
where they hit it. I mean, each thing that you are testing, you
probably need more than one successful test in order to get
some level of comfortability that you have some confidence in
the system. Is that correct?
Mr. Coyle. Yes. But I don't think it's affordable to do
what they would call statistically based testing where you do,
you know, hundreds. I don't think that's something that you
would want to spend money on. But you find out in realistic
operational tests very quickly whether or not you've got a
problem. If the first two or three that you do under these new
conditions don't work, you don't have to do hundreds of tests
to get statistical confidence about that. If the first two or
three don't work, you know you've got a problem.
Mr. Tierney. Did you hear anything in this morning's
testimony that would change your mind about the statement you
made in earlier testimony that it could take another 50 years
before the operational realistic testing of this program is
done?
Mr. Coyle. No, I didn't. And in fact, I read the responses
that the Missile Defense Agency wrote to my comment about that.
And they didn't refute it. They just talked about something
else.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Cirincione. Mr. Chair, could I just add something to
the test issue?
Mr. Tierney. Sure.
Mr. Cirincione. You have to remember that we're testing
these or demonstrating these very differently than we had any,
even antimissile systems of the past. The first time we
deployed an antiballistic missile defense system, the Sprint
Safeguard System in North Dakota, we had 111 tests of those
interceptors before we deployed them, and these were real
tests, shooting them. And we found some problems, and we
corrected them. And by the time we fielded that system, at
least they were technologically capable. We're not coming close
to that level of testing with this system. As I recommended
last time, I don't believe we should be deploying anything
until we have a realistic test to see if we can intercept a
missile that is deploying decoys that look the same as the
warhead. And if we can't do that, I just don't see the point of
deploying a system. You have my chart up there on the screen,
what I did after our last testimony was do year-by-year
calculations with my staff. And we found out that over the
last--well, I guess 15 years there, we've got a steady decline
in the number of long-range and intermediate-range and medium-
range ballistic missiles being deployed, but we're spending
three times the amount on antimissile programs than we were
during any period of the cold war. So, in other words, we used
to spend about $4 billion a year. Now we're up to somewhere
around $12 billion if everything's included. Even accounting
for inflation, it's still twice as much. It just doesn't make
sense.
Mr. Tierney. So we're spending more on that than we are on
the short range and medium range?
Mr. Cirincione. This is our total missile budget now. So
we're spending more now on antimissile defense than we were
during any year of the cold war, not just--you know by a double
or three times the amount during any period of the cold war,
even while the threat has drastically been reduced.
Mr. Tierney. Doctor, go ahead.
Mr. Cooper. I'm pleased to take credit for some of that
shrinkage. I spent 5 years in Geneva in talks in the Soviet
Union. And that's the reason you are seeing the decay in long-
range missiles. That doesn't give me a great deal of comfort if
I'm worried about North Korea and Iran. And let me say, I
haven't forgotten about Russia and China either.
Mr. Tierney. Except we're not targeting the MDA program
against them.
Mr. Cooper. Well, I understand that. But that doesn't give
me a lot of confidence.
Mr. Tierney. I understand that.
Mr. Cooper. I'm concerned still about the accidental and
unauthorized launch that I designed the system against 10 years
ago. So, and I was thinking about Russian and Chinese missiles
then. So I am for more effective capability than we're
designing today in part for that reason.
Mr. Tierney. OK. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum, do you have any other questions?
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Last week in the Senate Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee, General Obering said, ``quite frankly, I'd like
to see a missile race.''
Mr. Cooper. I'm sorry?
Ms. McCollum. General Obering in the Senate Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee last week, there was discussion
about a missile race between the United States and an adversary
such as North Korea or Iran. And he said, ``frankly, I'd like
to see such a missile race.'' I would like to know from you
gentlemen if you think that would be a good thing. And that's
kind of a--that's one question, but I do want to just go back
and talk about some of the other things he said today in his
testimony that I think goes with that.
He said, without a program such as the missile defense
program, the United States weakens its negotiation position in
diplomatic talks if we don't have a program going. But there's
a difference between a program and encouraging or being
supportive of a full-blown escalation. So I'd be interested in
hearing what you gentlemen would have to say about that. And he
also went on to say that if we stop funding our program, our
enemies will know our vulnerabilities, and they will attack us
using ICBMs. So I'd like to get your perspectives kind of on
some of the General's comments. And I think, you know, to take
his logic a step farther, and this is me taking it a step
farther, we're currently spending $100 billion each year, and
we don't have a functioning long-range system. And the General,
you know, said everything was on track on time, which I think
we can all agree, in my opinion, it's not. So if we can spend
$10 billion and maybe thwart our enemies, then what's to stop
us from just saying, OK, we'll spend $50 billion or we'll spend
$500 billion? That will even make us stronger against our
enemies. So I'd like your reaction on some of the things that
he said today, and if you're concerned about an escalation with
a missile race.
Mr. Cirincione. Let me start. I think General Obering's
statement was the equivalent of ``bring it on.'' You might
understand why someone would make a statement like that, ``I'd
like to see a missile race.'' But I can't believe that in
hindsight he doesn't regret those remarks. It's certainly not
in the U.S. national security interest to see a missile race
even between two countries, let alone the many countries that
might join such a race. Two, that having an antimissile
capability strengthens our negotiating leverage, that might be
true. I don't see any evidence that it has factored into North
Korean or Iranian thinking though. So I don't know how one
could prove that statement. The North Koreans have had two
failed tests of a medium- or intermediate-range missile, the
Taepodong series, and they have stimulated with those two tests
millions of dollars in U.S. expenditures. It might be that they
think that they have the advantage here, that they are
distracting us, but by their demonstration shots.
The missile facility itself, even if we did continue the
deployment of the Alaska system, this system is very, very
vulnerable to asymmetrical responses. It's highly unlikely that
a country like North Korea would simply shoot its missile off
and wait to see if the United States could intercept it. They
would do what any military force does in battle. You would
suppress the enemy's defenses before you launch your attack.
You would go out and knock out the eyes and ears of that
system. You might send frogmen to blow up the radar or sink the
floating radar. There are a half of dozen things one could
think of that North Korea would do that have nothing to do with
missiles or interceptors that might make this system completely
ineffective before they were actually to launch it.
No. 3 and finally, if the President is allowed to do what
he wants to do and negotiate a deal with North Korea, I think
we're going to see the North Korean missile threat disappear,
the same way Ambassador Cooper helped negotiate a reduction in
the Soviet missile and then Russian missile threat. I was just
at a briefing last night by Sig Hecker, the former Director of
Los Alamos, who came back from his fifth trip to North Korea,
fairly optimistic about our possibilities of containing and
eliminating both the nuclear program and the missile program.
If we were able to do that, and we will know in another year or
so, I don't see the point of what the Alaska deployment is. I
would think, at that point, the Congress would be faced with
the decision of whether they shut it down or not, and I would
recommend shutting it down.
Mr. Cooper. I'd like to, I think, speak for--or in support
of General Obering's comments about the importance of having a
serious missile defense program going and influencing the
behavior of maybe North Korea and Iran. If we have a serious
program that can frustrate or deal with what they're building,
I mean, it's correct to say that it's a big deal to build long-
range ballistic missiles. I mean, that's a point that no one is
going to dispute. On the other hand, it only took us 4\1/2\
years to do that the first time out you know 40 years ago. So
you don't have a lot of time if you wait until the threat
appears to build a defense. And that's no mean feat either.
Working hard on missile defenses, the SDI program I believe
is the reason for that reduction up there in the 1980's. I
don't think there's much doubt of that. I saw it firsthand
across the table from the Russians at the time. That's what got
their attention. That's what got them to the negotiations.
That's what kept them serious throughout. That's why Reagan
walking out of Reykjavik was a turning point. Akhromeyev, who
led the Soviet military, said as much to Vernon Walters at the
time. So the fact that the United States was serious in trying
to work this problem, very difficult problem that we all agree
was there, I think was instrumental in supporting our arms
control agenda and worth every penny of the SDI investment. And
I believe the same thing would be true today if it were
successful in supporting whatever it is you want to say,
negotiations with North Korea and Iran to hold things back, to
short-range missile, short and medium-range missiles. I don't
think you can imagine though that success. I think you have to
have a real program. I think it has to be directed toward real
capability. And it has to show progress. And I do agree that it
has to involve realistic testing to deter them in doing that.
But you don't get it on the cheap. I don't believe you get it
on the cheap.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shays, you're recognized.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I'd like all three of you to respond
to what Richard Garwin, a Democratic witness--excuse me--a
witness that was opposed to the program and spoke of his fear
of missiles launched from ships close to the shore. Is that a
fear? And is there an antidote to it?
Mr. Cooper. I'll start. Since I put that in my testimony,
I'll go first.
Mr. Shays. Since you what? I'm sorry.
Mr. Cooper. I put it in my testimony. I do believe that is
a serious problem. And it has been recognized to be a problem
for a long time. Don Rumsfeld and his commission in 1998
pointed it out. It's a little astounding to me that during his
full tour and watch nothing was done about it. I believe that--
well, General Obering pointed out that we've launched missiles
off of ships. Actually, we first did that in the 1960's as I
recall. And I believe that Paul Wolfowitz testified that the
Iranians had done that. So the idea that you can launch a
missile off of a vessel is not novel.
Mr. Shays. So, but it would strike me that--what I'm struck
by, the fact--if that's the case, it makes any missile defense
system seem to me even less beneficial because they pretty much
get within the range of avoiding a missile defense system. So
if you made that case, you are really saying--so there's two
ways now that I'm thinking you can get through the system. One
is with decoys, long range. And second, just bringing the ship
in. That's, you know, that's in coming underneath. How would
you respond to that?
Mr. Cooper. I believe there is a defense against the threat
of short-range missiles. In fact, it's the same defense that we
use, in fact, against SCUDs. And the sea-based, the Aegis, has
already demonstrated----
Mr. Shays. What we would have to do in that case is we'd
have to set up something off my property on Long Island Shore--
I mean, on Long Island, CT. I mean, that seems unrealistic. We
wouldn't know where to position those missiles.
Mr. Cooper. We have ships that are regularly, not on patrol
but they're stationed in ports along both of our coasts. We
have some 84 Aegis ships.
Mr. Shays. But we wouldn't have the time notice to----
Mr. Cooper. But they're there. My point to you is they're
down at Norfolk right now, and their ships are around if they
have the rounds onboard that can shoot down relatively short-
range missiles, and they can. They've demonstrated that. They
have a success record of whatever it is, 12 or 14----
Mr. Shays. I don't want to spend too much of my time on
this. But I think you would agree that, you know, if you know
that you have a threat and you preposition, but I can't imagine
us prepositioning all along the coast of the Atlantic, the
Caribbean, and the Pacific. I just can't, I can't envision----
Mr. Cooper. I've looked at the footprints of this problem,
and a couple of ships is what you need. And if they're moving
periodically, as they do--I'm not suggesting we establish
picket ships along the coastline. That would drive my Navy
friends crazy.
Mr. Shays. Let me hear from our other two witnesses.
Mr. Coyle. Mr. Shays, Iraq actually demonstrated the
capability that you're describing in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
the beginning part of Operation Iraqi Freedom when they fired
cruise missiles, low-flying cruise missiles that were developed
for flying across the ocean, but the desert is pretty flat. And
so they work just as well in the desert as they did in the
ocean. Did they fire them from ships? No. They fired them from
land, and our PATRIOT system did not intercept them. It's not
designed to intercept them and doesn't have that capability. So
Iraq demonstrated a good part of the threat that you are
describing there. The only thing they didn't demonstrate was
doing it from a boat. Now, hopefully, the Coast Guard would
intercept that boat or somebody else would intercept it. But I
think it's a genuine concern.
Mr. Cirincione. Just very quickly, this is a very real
problem. I think there's broad agreement on this. And it's not
just SCUDs fired from tankers. It's cruise missiles fired,
which would underfly most antimissile systems, even if one
could figure out an operational footprint.
We had a system called the Matador in the late-1950's early
1960's that fired from a submarine. It was a really cool cruise
missile. You can see it out at the Air and Space Museum out at
Dulles. So if we could do it then, it's certainly within the
range of many countries' capabilities now. I don't know how you
defend against something like that.
Mr. Cooper. One of the reasons I keep coming back to Aegis
is the point of Aegis ballistic missile defense is to modify an
air defense system that is deployed around the world. It can
defend against cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. That's
its forte.
Mr. Shays. Let me just say that I just remember when Iraq
went into Kuwait, some of the weapons systems we had, I was
reminded by someone in Congress who said the systems that
worked were developed 10 and 20 years ago. The systems you are
voting on now, Congressman--he was saying this to me as a new
Congressman--will have impact to some Congress 10 years and our
military and our country 10 or 20 years later.
So I do believe that we need to keep moving on this effort.
But I sure as heck want to make sure we don't deploy until we
know it works. And I am comforted to know that, on a short-
range basis, if we can anticipate an attack, it is an important
element. And I think all three of you agree that we could have
some success there.
Mr. Cirincione. I think we can. I think we must. And I
think that makes it all the more urgent that these short-term
systems get the focus of the funding and the testing.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I think those kind of questions,
Mr. Shays, do help us to at least focus on what we need to
focus and redirect the resources in some sense, which is, I
guess, the underlying focus of these hearings to a large extent
is that we don't have unlimited resources, and we do have some
measure of risks and threats are more prevalent than others.
And I'm not sure that we're doing a great job in the Department
of Defense so far in aligning the resources that we have with
the more prominent risks and accelerate them to the point that
we should.
I am just about done here. I don't know, Mr. Shays, if you
have any other questions. There are a million more questions we
could ask, and we could keep people here all day. I know Mr.
Coyle has homework that he has taken on voluntarily.
If either of you gentlemen wish to submit anything, we will
certainly be more than happy to receive it and read it. There
may be some that you want to respond to.
Dr. Cooper, before we leave, you have had less time in
front of us than the other two have. Is there anything else
that you would like to add or contribute?
Mr. Cooper. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And
I'm happy to be responsive in any way you wish as a follow on.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir, for that.
Mr. Coyle, anything you would like to add?
Mr. Coyle. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Cirincione.
Mr. Cirincione. It's a pleasure to be back in front of my
old committee. Godspeed.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you all very much.
Thank you, Mr. Shays.
[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]