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U.S. Missile Defense System Could Work, Obering Says By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. defense official Friday said he was confident that the developmental U.S. long-range missile defense system would be able to intercept an enemy ICBM like the one North Korea reportedly is preparing to launch (see GSN, June 22). “Based on the testing that we have done to date, I am confident that we could hit a long-range missile that would be fired at the United States,” said Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, at an event hosted by the National Defense University Foundation. Asked how confident he was, Obering said, “In my mind it’s a much higher confidence than what has been described by our critics.” He conceded, though, that another senior Pentagon official does not appear to share his confidence. Operational Test and Evaluation Director David Duma, in a January 2006 report, downgraded his 2005 assessment of the system’s potential capability, writing it “may” rather than “should” have some defensive capability against a limited attack. Duma wrote in the report that “flight tests still lack operational realism,” citing the technological “immaturity” of some components of the system. He also cited failed and delayed flight tests and concluded that a lack of flight test data “limits confidence in assessments of defensive capabilities.” The Ground-based Midcourse Defense System so far is five-for-10 in flight-intercept test attempts using prototype interceptors, has not successfully hit a target since 2002, and has not done so using the interceptor types now deployed in silos. Asked about Duma’s assessment, Obering suggested they share a “difference of opinion.” “What I’m telling you is what I have seen from our testing for the last several years of what those capabilities are. … From what I have seen and what I know about the system, of those capabilities I’m very confident,” he said. Obering said the military would not say whether the system has been made operational in response to the suspected North Korean test plan, calling such information classified. He said that switching the system from a research and developmental test configuration to an operational state involves, among other things, substituting military personnel for contractors at the consoles of system equipment. Utility Assessment PendingObering said repeatedly at the event that he believed those elements of the system that have been deployed to date, including 11 interceptors based in Alaska and California, are “militarily useful.” He acknowledged though that U.S. military commanders have not yet produced a planned comprehensive determination on the utility and capability of the system for defending the United States against an ICBM attack, called a “military utility assessment.” “To my knowledge, there is one in the works,” he said. Such capability evaluations, drawing on data from testing, are intended to underpin decisions by the defense secretary on ordering fielded elements of the system into operation. They are also used to develop key protocols for using the system. “Imagine if we had a rifle and we weren’t sure how good it was. How would you train with it? How many shots should you fire? That’s the problem the U.S. military has with missile defense. They don’t know how to design rules of engagement. Should they fire one interceptor from Fort Greely [in Alaska] or all nine?” said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information who was the Pentagon’s top testing official during much of the 1990s. The U.S. Government Accountability Office in a May report said the U.S. Strategic Command produced an initial military utility assessment for the system last year. However, the report said the assessment was “limited” in scope “due to the system’s immaturity at that time.” Similarly, two U.S. Strategic Command officials last July, following the initial assessment, wrote in a PowerPoint slide presentation on conducting a military utility assessment that the system suffered “performance uncertainty.” They cited a “lack of end-to-end test data under operationally realistic conditions.” “That’s what we’ve been saying, that’s what [Duma] has been saying. That’s what the GAO has been saying. That’s what just about everybody has been saying. And it’s true,” Coyle said. “The scope of the assessment had to be limited by the fact that nobody knows what the system can do,” he said. Spokesman Richard Lehner said the agency could not comment on the contents of the April 2005 Military Utility Assessment as it “is classified since it gives specifics about both capabilities and utility.” Defense officials in congressional testimony in March said that more realistic flight testing is needed and planned before the military could assess the system’s capability with the current interceptor configuration, and better estimate how many interceptors to fire at a given threat. The “fundamental technical unknown at this point is to demonstrate the intercept capability on the ground-based interceptor,” Duma said then. Testing planned for 2006 “will allow us to optimize the use of our inventory and maybe change our techniques and procedures to get the most out of the missiles we have,” Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, director of the U.S. Army Missile and Space Command, told lawmakers in March (see GSN, March 15).
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