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U.S. Plans I: Former Official Raises Test Concerns; Congress Compromises By David Ruppe Meanwhile, Congress appears ready to approve the initial deployment, as House Democrats have negotiated an agreement with Republican colleagues to require full testing after the initial deployment and before any subsequent deployments. Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense and director of operational test and evaluation from October 1994 to January 2001, said failed, repeated and cancelled tests have set back development of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, the most advanced U.S. system designed to shoot down long-range enemy missiles. While the system has undergone 10 integrated flight tests (IFTs) so far, “We’re still really back at about IFT-6” in terms of goals achieved, said Coyle, who now serves as a senior adviser for the Center for Defense Information. Eight of those tests were intercept tests, and five successfully destroyed mock enemy warheads in space. The most recent test in December failed, however, and the Pentagon has since disclosed canceling four tests that were planned to take place before the interceptors are scheduled to be fielded in Alaska and California (see GSN, April 18). Specific Concerns Coyle voiced concern that the GMD system has not accomplished a successful test at night. The first attempt to do so was the unsuccessful intercept test last December, and he said it is not clear that there will be another nighttime test before the system is deployed. “I would think at least you would want to know the system would work at night,” he said, explaining that a darkened target is more difficult to identify by the infrared sensor on the interceptor. Coyle also said he is worried that the system will not have attempted the more difficult challenge of intercepting a warhead in a geographic location farther from the interceptor launch site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. Integrated Flight Test-16, which was scheduled to occur weeks before the scheduled deployment but has been cancelled, would have been the first such test. Coyle also expressed concern that the interceptor might not be tested against a target that is tumbling or one that does not contain a locator beacon. In addition, he said the interceptor should be tested without receiving certain prior information about the mock warhead target. “So far, all of the flight intercept tests have been conducted in such a way that the interceptor gets information on the target before it is even launched,” he said. Fly Before You Buy, After You Buy The White House announced in December that President George W. Bush had ordered the military to deploy an initial missile defense capability by September 2004 (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2002). The Pentagon has indicated that Bush’s request will involve operating six missiles at Ft. Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Ten more will be based at Ft. Greely in fiscal 2005. Congress is in the process of authorizing funding for the deployment, which would be unusual because major weapons systems traditionally have not been deployed until they have been proven operationally effective through testing. Two senior Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee — which on Wednesday approved funding for the deployment as part of $9.1 billion in missile defense funding in the 2004 defense authorization bill — offered an explanation for the approval. In a statement, Representatives John Spratt (D-S.C.) and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said that, through a compromise with Republicans, the defense bill would require the Pentagon to conduct full operational testing of the GMD system after its initial deployment and before any further deployment. The House bill, they said, makes clear “that after the initial deployment of 20 ground-based interceptors and up to 20 sea-based interceptors, the Pentagon will rigorously test BMD [ballistic missile defense] systems and comply with initial test and operational evaluation requirements prior to further BMD deployments.” It “re-establishes a bipartisan consensus on ‘fly before you buy.’ If we are going to spend $9.1 billion per year on BMD, the American people deserve to know whether the systems being deployed will work or not,” they wrote.
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