Disarmament Diplomacy

News Review

Pentagon Wavers Over Missile Defence Testing Request

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 13, Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the panel, announced that the Defense Department's proposed Fiscal Year 2004 budget, submitted on February 3 (see last issue), included a request for Congress to waive operational testing requirements in connection with the development of ballistic missile defence systems. Traditionally, such requirements automatically apply to all new major weapons systems. They exist, as Levin noted, "to prevent the production and fielding of a weapons system that doesn't work right."

As regularly reported in this journal, the Pentagon's missile defence testing programme has long been controversial, criticised both for periodic and often well-publicised test failures, and for a widely-perceived lack of rigour and realism in test - particularly missile-intercept - scenarios. The issue has recently taken on a new urgency with the administration's fast-track plan - announced by President Bush on December 17, 2002 - to deploy an 'initial set' of missile defence 'capabilities' in 2004-2005. These 'first wave' capabilities are set to include up to 20 ground-based missile interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska (16) and Vandenburg Air Force base in California (4). (See last issue for a full summary.)

On February 24, Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation from 1994-2001, told Los Angeles Times of his dismay at the request to waive testing requirements: "This is about obeying the law. Without these tests, we may never know whether this system works or not, and if they [the tests] are done after this system is deployed we won't know [if it works] until we've spent $70 billion on a ground-based missile defence system."

On February 19, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed similar fears in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "I believe that any deployed missile defence system must meet the same requirements and standards that we set for all other fully operational weapons systems. Indeed, given the potential cost of a failure of missile defence, I believe that, if anything, it should be required to meet more stringent test standards than normally required."

Rumsfeld's fullest public defence of the waiver request came at the February 14 Armed Services Committee hearing. Fielding questions from Levin, Rumsfeld countered: "I happen to think that thinking we cannot [afford to] deploy something...until you have everything perfect, every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed...[is] probably not a good idea. In the case of missile defence, I think we need to get something out there, in the ground, at sea, and in a way that we can test it, we can look at it, we can develop it, we can evolve it, and...learn from the experimentation as we go along."

In an extraordinary session of the Armed Services Committee on March 18, Pentagon officials agreed to drop its request for a waiver. In his prepared statement, Edward 'Pete' Aldridge, Undersecretary of State of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, told the Committee that the language in the budget referring to the testing programme had been misinterpreted: "It was not our intent to waive operational testing". Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, Director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), suggested that the Department's goal had been to ensure that missile defence funding could be used for all relevant portions of the 2004-2005 deployment programme, including but not limited to testing. "It was," Kadish explained, "a funding issue, not an operational issue."

Insisting that, as he read the budget, the effect of the language would be to "exempt that system" from testing, Senator Levin then requested the officials to reword the disputed passage to make clear that no such exemption was being sought. The officials agreed.

The hearing produced further controversy when Undersecretary Aldridge predicted that the missile interceptors scheduled to be deployed at Fort Greely in 2004-2005 would be "90 percent" effective in shooting down any incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from North Korea. Senator Levin immediately replied that he considered the projection "exaggerated", adding: "You better go back and check the classified numbers. I think you'll want to correct the record after you read the classified numbers." Democrat Evan Bayh then asked Aldridge if, faced "with the possibility of the North Koreans hitting Los Angeles or San Francisco with a nuclear warhead," he would be prepared to advise the President "that we would have a 90 percent chance of taking that [missile] down?" Aldridge replied simply: "Yes, sir." The estimate was emphatically dismissed by Philip Coyle. Quoted in the New York Times on March 19, Coyle referred to the artificiality of the testing programme thus far, involving technology designed to guide the interceptor missile to the incoming warhead: "North Korea wouldn't send a missile with a beacon on it..." However, appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on March 20, Aldridge repeated: "Based upon my judgment, I would say, given the fact that we could launch one, or two, or three missiles against that target, the effectiveness would be in the 90 percent range. I will continue to stand by that. I have seen the test results. If you look at some of the movies General Kadish has shown of the intercepts, you would have a very high confidence that the hit-to-kill technology works."

The March 18 Senate hearing was also attended by Thomas Christie, Mr. Coyle's successor as the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. On February 21, Christie published his 2002 annual report on technical progress in the development of the US missile defence effort. Prospects for the initial 2004-2005 ground-based midcourse missile defence (GMD) deployments loomed large in his study. According to Christie, the "GMD test program in FY 02 has suffered from the lack of production-representative test articles and test infrastructure limitations. ... As the [2004-2005] test bed matures and capabilities are demonstrated, an inherent defensive capability will develop. However, it will be very difficult to estimate operational availability or performance in real engagement conditions. This is a test bed, first and foremost." The report identifies four major concerns with regard to the current GMD testing programme: 1) "lack of a deployable boost vehicle"; 2) "lack of a realistically placed midcourse sensor"; 3) "all the flight tests have similar flyout and engagement parameters...[which] continues to force an unrealistic engagement at relatively low altitudes and with both the target and interceptor velocities directed downward"; 4) "given the uncertainty of the threat, it is unclear that the target signatures will be consistent with the threat when fielded". Christie concluded with a frank note of caution: "I recognize and agree, in principle, with the desire to field new capabilities as soon as possible, but that desire should be tempered with the responsibility to ensure that the weapons will not put Americans at risk."

Reports: DoD proposes waiving test requirement for ballistic missile defense deployment, Aerospace Daily, February 14; Report casts doubt on missile defense, Space News, February 21; Missile defense waiver sought, Los Angeles Times, February 24; Pentagon report - Bush missile defense of questionable utility, Council for a Livable World Press Release, February 25; Pentagon seeking to deploy missiles before full testing, New York Times, February 27; Pentagon drops missile defense waiver request, Space News, March 18; US claims 90% hit rate in missile plan, Los Angeles Times, March 19; Planned US missile defenses may not be ready by 2004, officials say, Global Security Newswire, March 20; US official elaborates on assessment of 2004 missile defenses, Global Security Newswire, March 21.

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