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U.S. Plans: Kadish Unsure When Systems Will Beat Countermeasures By David Ruppe “We certainly have not answered the question [of] how effective is this midcourse system … against the variety of decoys that it might go up against,” Missile Defense Agency Director Ronald Kadish said at a hearing of a House Government Reform subcommittee. “That, however, doesn’t mean that the system is ineffective,” he added. Critics led by physicist Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have argued that pursuing the estimated $60 billion Ground-based, Midcourse Defense program is a waste of money (see GSN, May 17). They assert that an enemy using technologically simple decoys or other countermeasures could easily defeat the system, which is being developed to destroy enemy warheads in space using ground-launched “kill vehicles.” “Only time will tell in our tests just how effective we will be against countermeasures,” Kadish said (see GSN, July 3). Asked when the program might have a system that is able to identify a decoy from a warhead well enough to warrant moving into production, he said, “If I had to guess, it would be somewhere in the 2004 to 2008 timeframe.” Solution: Many Backups Kadish said the agency intends to apply various “techniques” to help make the ground-based midcourse and other missile defense systems more resistant to countermeasures. He suggested, however, that the military’s main answer to the challenge would be to develop many layers of defense to catch an enemy warhead in the event that a single layer fails. “Our basic approach to countermeasures is the layered defense system that we’re trying to build,” he said. “Now certainly, within each of those phases, we want to get as good as we can. And there are techniques that we will use to make each one of those phases more countermeasure resistant, but the idea that we put forth to handle this problem is that we want a layered defense system that takes multiple shots at our adversary in each of the phases that the missile has to pass through.” “That sounds like a very, very expensive system,” said Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), one of several subcommittee members to question whether the agency has been making the tests too easy to provide examples of success while simultaneously reducing congressional oversight (see GSN, June 26). Republican members said aggressive, expensive pursuit of various missile defense programs is necessary given the likelihood of a threat from countries such as North Korea. “Defending against ballistic missiles will never be easy nor inexpensive, but such difficulties and expense should not be any excuse for inaction,” said Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.). Successes Cited, Questioned As in previous testimony, Kadish cited several recent flight tests of various missile defense systems where targets were destroyed as evidence that the program is making progress (see GSN, March 18). The ground-based midcourse system has intercepted its target in each of three attempts over the past year, and in four out of six attempts overall. The tests have demonstrated the system’s ability to destroy a dummy warhead in space, 240 kilometers in altitude, with a closing speed of 15,000 miles per hour. Several subcommittee members, however, questioned the realism of those tests. Under questioning from Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Kadish acknowledged that during midcourse system testing, the warhead interceptor had prior data concerning the speed, trajectory, target launch time and location of the target and information on the decoy used. The target also contained a transponder for pinpointing its location in flight, but that information was not fed to the interceptor in at least one situation, he said. “These are early developmental tests, Congressman. We have a very stylized approach. They are very complex,” Kadish said. Kucinich said the tests were misleading about the level of success in the program so far, but Kadish said tests were intended to test hit-to-kill technology and not techniques for defeating countermeasures. After 2004 Also at the hearing, Kadish said that officials plan to use the missile defense site at Ft. Greely, Alaska for testing missile defense capabilities. “The way that we look at it is that the primary focus of the test bed is to do testing,” he said. Following the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty last month, the Missile Defense Agency broke ground for constructing test missile silos at Ft. Greely, Alaska, which Pentagon officials have said could be used in an emergency by 2004, achieving the administration’s goal of deploying an initial missile defense capability by then (see GSN, June 17). Critics have suggested the missiles are not for testing, but rather an initial deployment of the system. Philip Coyle, the former Pentagon director of operational tests and evaluation under the Clinton administration, has said the Pentagon does not plan to test-launch those missiles, and Kadish himself said in March that testing cannot take place because the Pentagon lacks paperwork required by environmental regulations (see GSN, June 11). Representative John Tierney (D-Mass.) charged yesterday that the agency is rushing to field an unproven system. “That’s why the administration pulled out of the ABM Treaty prematurely, and that’s why the administration is lurching headlong towards building missile interceptor silos in Alaska that have not been proven, cannot be fired in tests and will provide absolutely no protection by 2004, notwithstanding the administration’s numerous promises.” Representative Janice Shakowsky (D-Ill.) called the overall missile defense effort a “fantasy-based device.” Kadish said two more phases of testing would follow the current phase, though a decision to move to them is still pending. Officials would show that the hit-to-kill system could perform reliably and could defeat countermeasures, he said. Testing will probably involve unannounced target speed, launch time and countermeasure deployments “subsequent to 2004,” Kadish said. Officials might run tests by 2004 involving a radar jammer, a decoy mimicking a warhead or a tumbling reentry vehicle, he said, without specifying which. Kadish speculated that testing would approximate a realistic threat in less than five years. “We will, at some point in this process, make a determination that we should go to more operationally realistic testing,” he said. “I suggest that that will probably, for the ground-based system, be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2004, ’05, ’06 time frame.”
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