U.S. Plans:  Conservatives Applaud Bush Deployment Decision

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A member of the U.S. House of Representatives and other U.S. missile defense experts yesterday praised President George W. Bush’s confidential directive last December to order an initial deployment of land- and sea-based national missile defense systems by October 2004 (see GSN, May 21).

“Its true value lies in the fact that it represents a formal order to deploy a global missile defense system capable of protecting the U.S. homeland as well as U.S. forces and U.S. allies,” Representative John Hostettler (R-Ind.) said.

“It’s an order to deploy missile defenses by a date certain, something no U.S. president has ever done.  With this, the president signaled to the world that America will no longer face the threat of being held hostage to coercive diplomacy,” he said.

George C. Marshall Institute Executive Director Jeff Kueter said the directive to deploy is “major step forward for missile defense” because it increases the prospects of political survival and funding of the controversial program.

“It codifies and illustrates possibly the most important feature that any science and technology program needs to be successful … stability of commitment and stability of resources,” he said.

He said it provides “a major contribution to the level of innovation and the quality of that innovation because you can credibly undertake long-term programs, high-risk activities and know that if you fail you won’t be chopped off at the knees.”

Hostettler and Kueter spoke at an event organized by the Heritage Foundation to discuss the importance of the directive, known as National Security Presidential Directive 23.

Technology Said Ready

The policy to “deploy” was first officially announced by the White House in May, provoking criticism the administration had obscured a significant aspect of the order — that it intended a “deployment” rather than a “fielding” of test infrastructure — in order to gain congressional authorization (see GSN, June 23).

Critics also have charged the order to “deploy” is politically motivated, questioning the existence of any potential threat justifying deployment of an incompletely developed system and noting that the deployment deadline is less than two months before the 2004 presidential election.

“Fielding such an unproven system may pick up political points with some people, but it won’t contribute to the defense or security of our country,” said Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in a statement last month.

The Pentagon’s top testing official has told Congress that major elements of the systems will not be sufficiently developed to be operationally effective at the scheduled deployment time (see GSN, March 19), and Missile Defense Agency officials have suggested deploying the system may actually slow research and development activities (see GSN, April 18).

The experts yesterday, though, said the system had proven itself ready for an initial deployment.

“For the record, GMD [Ground-based Missile Defense program] had four of the last five tests result in successful intercepts, with an overall record of five out of eight successful intercepts,” said Hostettler, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2001).

“With all of this success at the R&D level, what’s left to do?” he asked.

“The answer of course is to begin deployment.  President Bush did just that on Dec. 16, 2002, when he issued National Security Presidential Directive 23,” he said.

Kueter said the system could be made to work, even though systems remain under development, by enlisting existing equipment that is more developed, such as sensor and tracking systems from the sea-based Aegis and the ground-based Theater High Altitude Area Defense missile interceptor programs.

Deployment and Testing

Bush’s order, experts say, will create an unusual situation where systems purchased by a research and development agency will be deployed in the field while also being subject to further testing.

Kueter said deploying the system could help Missile Defense Agency accelerate development and testing.

“By deploying early and building out test beds, it allows you ramp up your development activities by allowing for more complicated and sophisticated tests,” he said.

Missile defense officials, though, have cited the deployment decision, which involves placing 20 missile interceptors in Alaska and California by October 2006, as a reason for the Pentagon’s decisions in the past year to cancel nine intercept tests.

The Missile Defense Agency’s No. 2 official this week said the agency has been working hard on developing ways to both operate and test the system at the same time.

“Putting the ballistic missile defense system on alert has implications of how do you keep it on alert and test it at the same time,” said Army Maj. Gen. Peter Franklin, deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency.

“There are ways you can put  … capability in there, things you can do that will allow us to go forward in some ways and maybe not go forward in others.  Those are part of our intensive, very intensive discussions with STRATCOM [U.S. Strategic Command] on exactly what is needed,” he said.

“It’s very complicated when you’re looking at testing one part of the system and you’re executing another part of the system,” he said.

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Israel:  U.S. Senate Subcommittee Approves Funds for Continuing Arrow Production

Approved by its Appropriations Committee yesterday, the U.S. Senate version of the fiscal 2004 defense appropriation bill contains more than $150 million in funding for the joint U.S.-Israeli Arrow missile interceptor program, the Jerusalem Post reported today (see GSN, June 2).

The Bush administration had originally requested $66 million for the program, while Israel had asked for an extra $110 million, according to the Post.  The bill includes $156 million for the Arrow program, a $90 million increase over the White House request.  The additional funding is set to go toward coproduction of the interceptor with the U.S. defense contractor Boeing, the Post reported (see GSN, Feb. 12).

In addition, the Senate version of the bill includes $20 million for the U.S.-Israeli jointly developed Tactical High Energy Laser, according to the Post.  The laser is designed to destroy short-range artillery rockets (Janine Zacharia, Jerusalem Post, July 10).

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U.S. Plans:  Defense Department Will Produce Report on Failed Test

The U.S. Defense Department will produce a report “very, very shortly” on a failed June 18 test of a missile defense system, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, June 19).

The USS Lake Erie, using the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, fired a Standard Missile 3 during a test in the Pacific.  The missile, however, failed to intercept its target, Aerospace Daily reported.

The missile successfully tracked the target but failed to hit it, according to Maj. Gen. Peter Franklin, the deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency.  Franklin said yesterday that the missile successfully located the target and tracked it for six seconds before “losing control.”

“It did lose control and we lost the intercept,” he said, adding that the tracking portion of the test was a success.  “The system was able to track across the radar base, which was an important part of the test,” he said (Nick Jonson, Aerospace Daily, July 9).

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Taiwan:  Taipei Developing Missile Defense System

Taiwan is increasing the pace of its missile defense program in response to new cruise missiles that China plans to deploy in 2005, the South China Morning Post reported today (see GSN, May 9).

The missile defense system is reportedly a combination of antiaircraft artillery, aircraft and sea-based defenses, according to officials in Taipei.

Taiwan is also developing cruise missiles to launch against China, the newspaper reported.

“The government-funded Chinese Institute of Science and Technology has succeeded in developing a prototype which is capable of making land strikes,” according to a Taiwanese military source (Joe Tang, South China Morning Post, July 8).

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