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U.S. Plans: Deployment Will Lack Key, Proven Systems, Critics Say By David Ruppe The core of the plan calls for the Missile Defense Agency to deploy 20 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., by the end of 2005. “While we support continued research on these efforts, we believe that deployment is a premature and unwise move,” wrote former Senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, in a letter to Bush following the announcement. They noted a failed test of the core system, the ground-based, mid-course interceptor earlier this month (see GSN, Dec. 11), and said many essential components of planned U.S. missile defenses “will not even exist by 2004.” Two satellite systems and a critical radar, they wrote, will not be in place for many years and the choice of a booster rocket for the system has not yet been made (see GSN, Dec. 9). They added that further tests involving Aegis cruisers have only been successful 70 percent of the time (see GSN, Nov. 22), that those missiles have not yet been proven against real targets, and that a recent Pentagon study concluded they may not be fast enough to intercept long-range missiles (see GSN, Sept. 3). With those and other “technological hurdles, any deployment in 2004 will be little more than a political gesture,” they wrote. MDA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish told a congressional committee this year the agency would not be able to conduct operationally realistic flight tests of the midcourse defense system before 2004 (see GSN, July 19). Kadish also said two key components of the system would not be in place until after 2004 — an X-Band radar, which would be used for tracking enemy warheads, and space-based missile-detecting satellites designed to provide improved early warning of missile launches. Despite the need for more development, Kadish said yesterday the system was ready for deployment and he showed a video of successful intercepts, which he said demonstrated that the system was ready. “When you look across the board, we have made, I think, significant progress in our overall hit-to-kill technology. And that’s why we have gained the confidence that we could take this next, modest step,” said Kadish. David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists called the tests conducted in the last two years “highly scripted and artificial” showing “nothing about the ability of the system to work against a realistic attack.” “The key problem remains that of decoys and countermeasures — steps an attacker can and certainly will take to make identifying the warhead essentially impossible,” he said. At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the deployment would provide a very modest capability, and that further research and development would be needed. “It would be a very preliminary, modest capability, and you would be learning — it would be in a testing and learning mode,” he said. Deploying such preliminary systems, he said, would “provide you some limited capability to deal with a limited number of ballistic missiles.” Rumsfeld denied the charge the decision was politically motivated. “It is driven by acute rationality. There isn’t anything we’re doing in this department that it would be accurate to suggest is rooted in politics. That’s just false,” he said. “It will be an evolutionary program,” Rumsfeld said. “I like the feeling, the idea, of beginning and putting something in the ground or in the air or at sea, and getting comfortable with it, and using it and testing it, and learning from that,” he added. Congressional Reaction The announcement was praised in Congress by Republicans and criticized by Democrats. “I applaud the president for taking an evolutionary approach, starting with modest initial capabilities that can quickly enhance our ability to deter and defend against emerging near-term threats,” said Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in a statement. “This will allow us to gradually enhance these capabilities over time as new technologies are developed and we work toward our goal of protecting our territory and our cities,” he said. On the other hand, “President Bush’s announcement today that he plans to deploy missile defense systems starting in 2004 violates common sense by determining to deploy systems before they have been tested and shown to work,” departing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement. “Under the normal acquisition process for all weapons programs, we have insisted, until now, that systems be tested and demonstrated to be operationally effective before a deployment decision is made,” he said. Surpassing Earlier Plans Yesterday’s announcement goes well beyond previously announced plans for deploying five ground-based interceptors and a “Cobra Dane” radar installation in Alaska by the end of 2004. Those systems were to have been designated for testing but available in an emergency to defend U.S. territory from a limited, long-range ballistic missile attack across the Pacific. The new plan is intended to provide limited defense against ballistic missiles from Northeast Asia and the Middle East by the end of 2005. It calls for deploying 20 ground-based missiles for defending against long-range, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 20 sea-based missiles on three ships, for defending against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles. Supplementing those interceptors would be hundreds of additional Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) systems designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (see GSN, Dec. 4). According to the Pentagon, six ground-based interceptors would be deployed at Fort Greely and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2004. Those would be followed by 10 more interceptors at Fort Greely in 2005. To detect enemy missile launches and to guide U.S. interceptors, the plan would use land-, sea-, and space-based sensors, including “existing early warning satellites, an upgraded radar now located at Shemya[, Alaska,] a new sea-based X-band radar, and … radars and other sensors now on Aegis cruisers and destroyers,” according to Pentagon briefers. The plan, though, is subject to congressional funding. At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, senior officials said the deployment plan would cost approximately $1.5 billion in 2004 and 2005. That would be an increase of the $16 billion the missile agency plans to spend on research, testing and development during that time period. The agency also will seek an additional $386 million to pay the Navy for using the USS Lake Erie for sea-based research, according to the Pentagon. The plan depends also upon allied cooperation. The administration is requesting permission from the United Kingdom and Denmark to upgrade existing early warning radars in Britain and Greenland (see GSN, Dec. 17). Some initial reaction from some political figures in those countries has been critical. Next Steps Beyond 2005, the Missile Defense Agency may seek an unspecified number of additional ground- and sea- based interceptors, PAC-3s, and enhanced radars and other sensor capabilities, according to the Pentagon briefers. The Pentagon has been researching and developing other types of systems for knocking threatening warheads out of the sky. The announced plan also calls for deploying some of those after 2005, including the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense systems designed to intercept short- and medium-range missiles at high altitude, airborne lasers (see GSN, Dec. 10), and a new family of interceptors for use against enemy missiles soon after they are launched. The agency also seeks development and testing of “space-based defenses, specifically space-based kinetic energy (hit to kill) interceptors and advanced target tracking satellites,” a press release said. The deployment announcement gave no indication of how extensive U.S. missile defense deployments ultimately would be. “There is no final or fixed missile defense architecture. Rather, the composition of missile defenses, including the number, type, and location of systems deployed, will change over time to meet the changing threat and take advantage of technological developments,” Kadish said at the Pentagon briefing.
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