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Threat Assessment I: Cruise Missiles Getting Attention, CIA Official Says By Greg Seigle While the relatively recent proliferation of cruise missiles and UAVs has been assessed in studies other than the regular, much-publicized NIE reports on ballistic missile proliferation, the intelligence community plans to connect all of the studies, said Robert Walpole, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs. “There are actually two estimates at play, and we are looking at a way to either merge them or link them better,” Walpole told the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services. “The national intelligence officer for conventional military issues, Gen. John Landry, does the cruise missile estimate, and he would look at that,” Walpole said. “I think next year’s ballistic-missile NIE will even have more of that in it.” The next NIE report might be as soon as this fall or early in 2003, Walpole told Global Security Newswire. The most recent NIE report released in January briefly mentions cruise missiles, calling them a “better alternative than ballistic missiles” if launched from forward areas (see GSN, Jan. 10). Between “one and two dozen” countries of concern “probably will” possess cruise missiles by 2015, according to the NIE. While cruise missiles developed by these countries are only expected to have a range of a few hundred kilometers, they could conceivably be launched at the United States from aircraft or ships, Walpole testified. The benefit of cruise missiles is that they could evade U.S. missile defenses, he added. When asked yesterday if the intelligence community has seen an increase in cruise missiles, Walpole responded, “It’s fair to say that we have.” Iraqi UAVs Under Scrutiny In addition to cruise missiles, the next NIE will probably also include estimates about UAVs, particularly those under development in Iraq, Walpole testified. According to testimony before the subcommittee earlier this month, Iraq is continuing to work on converting L-29 jet trainer aircraft to UAVs. Investigators suspect that old F-4 Phantoms are also undergoing such conversions, and analysts believe the refurbished aircraft are modified to spray chemical or biological weapons. While the “non-missile means of delivering weapons of mass destruction” cited by Walpole usually refers to terrorists who might smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States or elsewhere, it also includes UAVs, he said. “Non-missile delivery means are less costly, easier to acquire, more reliable and accurate. They can also be used without attribution,” Walpole testified, referring to the U.S. ability to detect where ballistic missiles are launched, while tracing the origin of UAVs and other delivery means is much more difficult. Ballistic missiles, he said, “provide a level of prestige, … diplomacy and deterrence that non-missile means do not. In short, the intelligence community must work both threats. We do not have the luxury of choosing to work one at the exclusion of the other. Neither is a no-likelihood situation.” Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) said he found recent UAV developments across the world “chilling” and a cause for closer examination. “I am concerned about the growing interest of rogue nations and terrorist groups in unmanned aerial vehicles,” Akaka said. “We all fear the spread of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction,” he added. “But our policy cannot be one of constructing moats against imagined threats. We must have a policy that counters real threats in an effective and cost-efficient manner.” Long-Range Cruise Missiles Unlikely While cruise missiles have relatively short ranges that make it difficult to direct them at the United States, enemies could fire them from ships or aircraft, Walpole testified. Cruise missiles could also be used against U.S. interests abroad, including military targets, analysts have said in recent months. The only time cruise missiles were used against a U.S. target, in the Persian Gulf at the height of the so-called ‘Tanker War’ in 1987, two French-made Exocet cruise missiles fired from Iraqi aircraft crippled the USS Stark, killing 37 sailors. Even though U.S. Navy ships have defenses against cruise missiles — ships that detect an incoming cruise missile are supposed to fire chaff, a cluster of metal pieces designed to draw a cruise missile away from a ship — the defenses were not released in time to spare the Stark. If a country or terrorist group wants to fire cruise missiles tipped with WMD warheads at the United States, it would need to get within a few hundred kilometers of the country, risking detection and retaliation, Walpole said. “In order to reach the United States [from their territories], Iran and Iraq would need 10,000-kilometer range — 9,000, 10,000 kilometers. That’s a pretty hefty cruise missile. And a ballistic missile is going to be easier for that,” he said. “No one’s really deployed a 10,000-kilometer-range cruise missile before. It’s doable. The United States could certainly create something like that if it wanted,” Walpole said. “That’s why you’re going to see continued interest in ballistic missiles. That said, cruise missiles, particularly giving yourself several-hundred-kilometer range, is an alternative that countries are looking at.”
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