Global Security Newswire: By National Journal

    Issue for Friday, June 3, 2005

    Week in Review

    Search and View Past Issues

  terrorism  
Sept. 11 Commission to Evaluate Action on Report Full Story
U.S. Highlights X-Ray Scanner at Baltimore Port Full Story
Recent Stories

  wmd  
More WMD Equipment Missing From Iraq, Report Says Full Story
Japan to Advocate Tighter Export Control Laws on Dual-Use Items Throughout Asia Region Full Story
Recent Stories

  nuclear  
Nunn-Lugar Funds Perpetuate Proliferation Concerns, Says Norwegian Foundation Full Story
North Korea Praises Bush’s Tone Full Story
Moscow Unwilling to Cut Tactical Nuclear Weapons Until U.S. Commits to European Withdrawal Full Story
Recent Stories

  biological  
Researchers Suggest Risk-Based Decision Making Model to Combat Biological Attacks Full Story
Recent Stories

  chemical  
Deseret CW Depot Could House Oil Refinery Full Story
Recent Stories

  missile1  
Syria Tests Three Scud Missiles over Turkey Full Story
Recent Stories

  missile2  
Report Questions Missile Defense Underpinnings Full Story
Recent Stories

 

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Congress isn’t taking the steps needed to protect us from what Osama bin Laden promised — a “Hiroshima-type event” on U.S. soil.
—Former U.S. Representative and 9/11 Commission member Timothy Roemer (D-Ind.), days before the commission reconvenes to review government action on recommendations the panel made last summer.


A Russian plutonium-producing reactor at Seversk.  A Norwegian environmental group has urged the United States and other nations to press harder for Russia to close facilities of proliferation concern (DTRA photo).
A Russian plutonium-producing reactor at Seversk. A Norwegian environmental group has urged the United States and other nations to press harder for Russia to close facilities of proliferation concern (DTRA photo).
Nunn-Lugar Funds Perpetuate Proliferation Concerns, Says Norwegian Foundation

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. funding to reduce the Russian nuclear threat indirectly supports ongoing activities of proliferation concern by propping up an unaccountable Soviet-era nuclear industry, representatives of a Norwegian environmental group said here today...Full Story

Report Questions Missile Defense Underpinnings

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A recently released analysis by Congress’s research organization has questioned two key tenets underpinning the Bush administration’s plans to develop and deploy a multibillion dollar-a-year national missile defense system (see GSN, May 3)...Full Story

Researchers Suggest Risk-Based Decision Making Model to Combat Biological Attacks

By David Francis
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Using the 2001 anthrax attacks as a case study, a group of U.S. researchers have developed a risk-based decision-making system which they believe will allow governments to make better judgments following a biological attack (see GSN, June 2). ..Full Story

Current Issue Friday, June 3, 2005
terrorism

Sept. 11 Commission to Evaluate Action on Report


Members of the presidential commission examining intelligence failures leading to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are scheduled Monday to begin a series of eight forums evaluating government action on the 41 recommendations they made in a report last summer, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today (see GSN, April 27).

“There is an awful lot of unfinished business, and we’re afraid some complacency has set in,” said former Representative Timothy Roemer (D-Ind.), a member of the panel.

The panel’s first hearing is expected to focus on the intelligence community, the Inquirer reported.

According to several commission members, one priority should be additional funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, aimed at securing nuclear material around the world.

“Congress isn’t taking the steps needed to protect us from what Osama bin Laden promised — a ‘Hiroshima-type event’ on U.S. soil,” said Roemer.

However, commission Chairman Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, former Democrat congressman from Indiana, have praised the House of Representatives for passing a first responders bill that distributes resources to states based on calculated risks and vulnerabilities.

The Senate, on the other hand, has pursued a formula guaranteeing funds to every state, without regard to relative risk.

“Look at the record. Terrorists have targeted New York over and over again, not Wyoming,” said Roemer.

The panel plans to issue a performance report on the various agencies and Congress by the end of July, according to the Inquirer (Frank Davies, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 3).


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U.S. Highlights X-Ray Scanner at Baltimore Port


U.S. Customs officials are touting an X-ray machine installed at the port of Baltimore, Md., as a tool for keeping dangerous weapons out of the country, the Baltimore Sun reported today (see GSN, May 25).

The $6 million machine, installed at the port in January, is capable of seeing through a foot of steel and can scan 140 cargo containers per day.

“Close to 140,000 cargo containers arrive here at the port each year,” Customs chief Robert Bonner told workers at the port. “I look forward to working with all of you here to ensure that the port of Baltimore has the manpower and technology it needs to protect this port.”

Jim Engleman, a Customs officials stationed in Baltimore, said the X-ray machine vastly improves security at the port.

“There’s no silver bullet,” said Engleman. “This is pretty good.  We can use it all day X-raying containers as they come off the ships and park it over to the side at night.”

Maryland is one of only three states that have the machine, but Customs officials are working to install powerful X-ray devices at ports around the country. 

No weapons have been found in Baltimore since the machine began scanning cargo earlier this year.

F. Brooks Royster III, the port’s executive director, said a new fence, surveillance equipment and patrol boat will be purchased soon to further enhance security.

“Security at ports has become the No. 1 priority,” said Royster (Meredith Cohn, Baltimore Sun, June 3).


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wmd

More WMD Equipment Missing From Iraq, Report Says


Material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained by the Associated Press yesterday (see GSN, April 18).

No conclusions have been reached about who removed the items or where they were taken, according to the report.

Analysts have identified 109 looted sites, up from 90 reported in March (see GSN, March 26).

Analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission have concluded that biological sites were less damaged than chemical and missile sites, said acting chief U.N. weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos.

Analysts found that 53 of 98 vessels that could be used for chemical reactions are missing, according to the report.

“Due to its characteristics, this equipment can be used for the production of both commercial chemicals and chemical warfare agents,” said Perricos.

However, no more than 10 percent of biological equipment had been removed, according to the report.

For example, 37 of 405 fermenters were missing, the report says.

The largest percentage — about 85 percent — of missing items were at the 58 Iraqi missile facilities, the report says (Associated Press/New York Times, June 3).


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Japan to Advocate Tighter Export Control Laws on Dual-Use Items Throughout Asia Region


Japan yesterday revealed a list of proposed measures to strengthen export controls throughout the region on materials and technology that could be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported (see GSN, May 10).

Tokyo proposed establishing an export control regime among Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states and to assist companies in the region with their export controls.

Customs officials and other experts would compile a list of regulated items, according to the plan.

In addition, Japanese experts would conduct seminars in neighboring countries, Yomiuri reported.

Tokyo also pledged to conduct on-site inspections of Japanese companies to verify adherence to export control laws (Yomiuri Shimbun, June 3).


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nuclear

Nunn-Lugar Funds Perpetuate Proliferation Concerns, Says Norwegian Foundation

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. funding to reduce the Russian nuclear threat indirectly supports ongoing activities of proliferation concern by propping up an unaccountable Soviet-era nuclear industry, representatives of a Norwegian environmental group said here today.

“Programs geared toward securing Russia’s nuclear industry are well-intentioned and have made great progress,” the Bellona Foundation said at the U.S. release of its latest report, but “many unfortunately and unwittingly contribute to the perpetuation of Russia’s nuclear industry and nuclear fuel cycle in its current form.”

Foundation experts first released the report in Europe last November and presented their conclusions this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Money sent to Russia by the United States for the purposes of improving nuclear and nonproliferation safety would be more effective if that funding supported a fundamental reform of the Russian nuclear industry,” Bellona researchers said in a position paper prepared ahead of the U.S. release. They said the industry uses the funds to build reactors abroad and to maintain a dangerously outmoded infrastructure that ultimately produces additional proliferation-sensitive material.

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior staff member Mark Helmke — a top aide to committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was one founder of the Nunn-Lugar U.S. nonproliferation programs in Russia — accepted the criticisms but sought to place them in a wider context. He said nuclear weapons have been eliminated in several ex-Soviet countries and that much progress has been made in securing nuclear materials in Russia (see GSN, May 5).

“All too often,” Helmke said, “the opponents of nonproliferation … use these criticisms against us. … We have to keep our eye on the big issue out there, and that is that we need to do more” to reduce the Russian nuclear threat.

Helmke also criticized European political leaders for taking a tougher line with Russia on the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas emissions than on nuclear concerns.

“What is the more immediate threat that we face? Is it from climate change, or is it from a terrorist getting his hands on and exploding a nuclear bomb?” he asked.

The U.S. State, Defense and Energy departments provide more than $1 billion each year for nuclear security and threat reduction programs in Russia. The Norwegian watchdog said programs such as the “megatons to megawatts” program to convert highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium, which is being carried out under a 1993 U.S.-Russian agreement, provide “unstructured” funding to Russia’s nuclear industry that “allows Russia to maintain the Soviet-era status quo of its nuclear industry and offer no impetus for Moscow to reassess the current structure of its nuclear industry” (see GSN, Oct. 6, 2004).

“The question is: How does Russia spend the estimated $500 million annual financial windfall it yearly receives from the HEU-LEU program?” the foundation said. “In 2004, only 16 percent of the received funding is spent on increasing safety at nuclear installations. The bulk of this HEU-LEU funding is spent on construction of new nuclear sites outside of Russia (41 percent).”

“This funding channel not only helps Russia to build nuclear power plants and other nuclear sites in such countries as Iran, India and China but also supports the Cold War-era nuclear infrastructure that has remained basically unchanged since Soviet times and could barely survive without this funding feeding tube,” according to the position paper.

The experts acknowledged that figures on the Russian nuclear industry’s finances, particularly where government support is concerned, could only be approximated using open sources.

The experts said Russia is “in the throes of a serious pile-up of” spent nuclear fuel and criticized lagging progress in U.S.-supported efforts to open a fissile-material storage site in Mayak, Russia, and to shut down Russia’s three remaining plutonium-producing reactors (see GSN, Feb. 25). “The reactors are meanwhile pumping out a combined 1,200-1,500 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year they remain operational,” they said.

The foundation said that donors should use their leverage to get Russia to confront the problem quickly and that Russia should “perform a true evaluation of its past strategies and policies … inherited from Soviet times.”

The report concludes with an “action plan” calling for assessments of the risks posed by various Russian nuclear activities, the establishment of a “truly independent” nuclear regulatory body in Russia, better oversight of internationally supported nuclear remediation programs in the country, regular audits of donor-supported programs, the “restructuring” of Russia’s own nuclear remediation programs and a Russian government “master plan for nuclear remediation.”

Bellona Russian Studies head Nils Bohmer stressed that the foundation’s intent is not primarily to criticize but to improve the effectiveness of programs in Russia.

“We are stating the facts and trying to not blame anyone,” Bohmer said.


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North Korea Praises Bush’s Tone


North Korea today praised U.S. President George W. Bush for referring to its leader as “Mr. Kim Jong Il,” adding that Bush’s respectful tone improved the possibility for a return to six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 2).

Bush calling Kim “mister” was a way “of politely addressing our headquarters of revolution,” the official KCNA news agency reported.

“If Bush’s remarks put an end to the scramble between the hawkish group and the moderate group in the U.S., which has thrown the Korean policy into a state of confusion, it would help create an atmosphere of the six-party talks,” the KCNA spokesman said (Reuters, June 3).

Pyongyang’s praise of Bush comes just a day after it referred to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney as a “bloodthirsty beast” in retaliation for his criticism of Kim as an “irresponsible” leader. The White House yesterday defended Cheney’s comments, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We are going to call it the way it is,” said spokesman Scott McClellan.

Meanwhile, one analyst said Cheney’s harsh rhetoric was “deliberate.”

“It certainly had an effect that many in the Bush administration would like to see and that is the cooling of the possibility of the North Koreans returning to the six party talks,” said Charles Pritchard, special envoy for talks with North Korea during the Clinton administration.

“The chances of the North Koreans coming back to the talks anytime soon are now less likely,” Pritchard said, noting that Cheney’s remarks came two weeks after a rare meeting with North Korean officials in New York requesting a return to dialogue.

“The stated policy of the Bush administration is to bring North Korea back to talks and precisely while the North Koreans were considering this, given the message by ambassador Joseph DeTrani on May 13, the vice president has essentially trumped that message and it has caused the North Koreans predictably to react the way that they have,” Pritchard said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, June 3).

The United States has not received a response to the meeting from North Korea, AP reported.

“We have not heard anything back through the New York channel since the May 13 meeting,” said State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, June 2).

North Korea said today it doubted six-party talks would lead to a solution, given the lack of progress at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, where Washington did not reaffirm promises to dismantle its nuclear weapons, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 31).

“It has thus reduced the treaty to a dead document and pushed it to the verge of collapse,” said the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper (Reuters, June 3).

North Korea also said yesterday it would end a 10-year-old program of allowing the United States to search for the remains of U.S. soldiers still missing from the Korean War, USA Today reported.

The United States suspended the effort last week, citing logistical concerns as well as Pyongyang’s failure to resume disarmament talks.

The move sends mixed signals to North Korea, according to Kenneth Quinones, a former State Department expert on North Korea in the Clinton administration.

Ending the program eliminated what North Korea regarded as “one of the most reliable indications that the United States is not going to attack North Korea,” said Quinones.

The Defense Department is prepared to resume the program “once North Korea creates an appropriate environment,” said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Hicks (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, June 2).

A nuclear test by North Korea would pressure Japan and South Korea to consider building nuclear weapons, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said today.

“If you had a nuclear North Korea, it just introduces a whole different dynamic,” Schieffer said. “It seems to me that that increases the pressure on both South Korea and Japan to consider going nuclear themselves.”

Schieffer added that resuming six-party talks would be only the beginning of long diplomatic process to resolve the standoff.

“We have to be very careful that getting North Korea back to the table does not become an end in itself,” he said. “The six-party talks were meant to resolve a thorny issue — they weren’t meant to be just an opportunity to talk about it endlessly and achieve nothing” (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 3).

Asia-Pacific defense ministers gathering in Singapore for the fourth in a series of “Shangri-La” dialogues are expected to tell U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Washington must do more to address the nuclear standoff with North Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

“The problem with the North Korea issue is that the U.S. hyped it up as such a major security threat — which it is — without a clear plan to do anything about it,” said a senior Southeast Asian official.

Having identified Pyongyang as part of an “axis of evil,” Washington is neglecting the problem while its attention is focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, said Amitv Acharya, deputy director of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Rodolfo Severino, a former secretary-general of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, criticized the Bush administration for not conducting bilateral discussions with Pyongyang.

“If you know the problem, you address the problem,” said Severino.

The United States needs to reevaluate its strategy on North Korea entirely, said one Southeast Asia official.

The trouble with the current U.S. approach is that it remains unclear whether Washington’s priority is preventing nuclear proliferation or ending the Kim regime, the official said (Barry Wain, Wall Street Journal, June 3).


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Moscow Unwilling to Cut Tactical Nuclear Weapons Until U.S. Commits to European Withdrawal


Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov yesterday said Russia would not negotiate agreements on reducing tactical nuclear weapons with countries that deploy them abroad — a comment aimed at Washington, given U.S. deployment of such arms in Europe, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 31).

“We are prepared to start talks about tactical nuclear weapons only when all countries possessing them keep these weapons on their own territory,” Ivanov said. “Russia stores its tactical nuclear weapons on its own territory, which cannot be said about other countries” (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 3).


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biological

Researchers Suggest Risk-Based Decision Making Model to Combat Biological Attacks

By David Francis
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Using the 2001 anthrax attacks as a case study, a group of U.S. researchers have developed a risk-based decision-making system which they believe will allow governments to make better judgments following a biological attack (see GSN, June 2). 

In “Bayes, Bugs and Bioterrorists: Lesson Learned from the Anthrax Attacks,” Kimberly Thompson, Robert Armstrong and Donald Thompson argue that governments must develop “decision trees,” or methods for evaluating several courses of action, following a biological attack. They said this would improve the evaluation of costs, risks and benefits and would create more effective policy development.

“Using this type of approach, the government can better characterize the costs, risks and benefits of different policy options and ensure the integration of policy development,” the report states. “Additionally, confirmed use and refinement of decision trees during exercises will provide analysis of the long-term consequences of decisions made during an event and give policymakers insights to improve initial decisions.”

The study, dated April 2005 and published by the National Defense University’s Center for Technology and National Security Policy, says poor planning prior to the fall 2001 biological attacks in which anthrax was sent to U.S. Senate office buildings through the mail led to improper allocation of resources after the attack. The report estimates the direct costs to the Postal Service could exceed $3 billion, with additional expenditures of over $1 billion for unnecessary countermeasures.

Despite the attack, coordination between U.S. agencies has made development of a comprehensive response plan difficult. To remedy the problem, the report urges establishing a decision tree so that multiple paths of action can be evaluated at once, making individual agency’s responsibility more clear.

“With this approach, analysts can quickly communicate with decision makers about the implications of combinations of options,” the report says. “We emphasize that this approach of focusing on decisions provides a means to cross interdisciplinary and other boundaries … and consequently it provides a useful organization and communication tool to promote effective management.”

The report says decisions should be separated into different categories, including who should be immunized, what response should be, how to allocate Strategic National Stockpile resources, how to contain biological agents and how much information should be made public. The Health and Human Services Department should head the effort to form the decision tree, drawing on the expertise of other agencies when necessary.

The 2001 anthrax attacks clearly demonstrated the need for a better decision making process, the report says. Lack of investment in the public health infrastructure, a poor understanding of the disease caused by anthrax, inadequate training of first responders and poor communication are just a few of the problems that plagued the response to the attack.

The report argues that a decision tree would have vastly improved response, allowing for a better understanding of who should be vaccinated, how relevant agencies should have responded, a better plan for containment and improved information management. 

The report is careful to say that it is not critical of the 2001 response. However, researchers believe a decision tree would have prevented panic and yielded a more appropriate response. Researchers hope decision trees can guide policy discussions as a comprehensive response plan is formulated.

“Given our recent experience with anthrax, the specific decision trees for anthrax are offered, as an analytical tool to aid future policy decisions,” the report says. “Indeed, the lessons learned from the 2001 attack should facilitate the use of these trees.”


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chemical

Deseret CW Depot Could House Oil Refinery


The Deseret Chemical Weapons Depot in Utah, slated to be closed by the U.S. Defense Department, could be replaced with an oil refinery, the Deseret Morning News reported today (see GSN, May 16).

“That, to me, would be an ideal situation,” Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said. “If you look at what the nation needs — refinery capacity, and we are out of capacity.”

President George W. Bush recently said he wants oil refineries to be built on military bases. The Deseret facility is expected to complete the destruction of chemical weapons now stored at the site in 2008.

A Utah environmental group is unhappy with the plan.

“We already got, what, four [refineries] in the state right along the Wasatch Front,” said Executive Director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah Jason Groenewold. “We’ve got plenty capacity in the state already.”

Former Utah congressman Jim Hansen, who sits on the base closing commission, said the facility should remain open and should used to destroy chemical weapon stocks from other U.S. storage sites.

“It seems like a waste of money to me,” to tear down the incinerator, Hansen said. “See, what a lot of folks don’t understand is we have a lot of mustard gas already. We just add to the amount, extend the life of the facility three and a half years.”

President George W. Bush, however, recently killed Pentagon efforts to consider accelerating chemical weapon destruction efforts by moving weapons from storage depots to existing destruction sites. Opponents have argued that transporting such weapons would be too dangerous (see GSN, May 13; Leigh Dethman, Deseret Morning News, June 3)


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missile1

Syria Tests Three Scud Missiles over Turkey


Three scud missiles capable of delivering chemical weapons and built using North Korean technology were tested by Syria last week, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, May 6).

Israeli military officials said one of the missiles broke apart mid-flight, scattering debris over Turkey, a NATO member.

“This is really putting your fingers in the eyes of the Americans, saying, ‘I’m not dancing to your flute,’” said a senior Israeli military official. “The tests are probably needed for the missile project, but this is [Syrian President Bashar al-Asad] taking a risk here and sending a message.”

Israeli officials did not report the missile test until this week because of confusion over why the United States has made no public comment on the incident.

Faruk Logoglu, Turkish ambassador to the United States, was told by the Syrian ambassador “that during a military exercise there was a technical mishap and that the Syrian government was very sorry about this.”

This is the first time Syria has tested a missile over another country, Israeli officials said, and note that the range of the missiles would have easily allowed for tests within Syrian borders (Steven Erlanger, New York Times, June 3).


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missile2

Report Questions Missile Defense Underpinnings

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A recently released analysis by Congress’s research organization has questioned two key tenets underpinning the Bush administration’s plans to develop and deploy a multibillion dollar-a-year national missile defense system (see GSN, May 3).

The Congressional Research Service report, “Missile Defense: The Current Debate,” is dated March 23, but was made public late last month by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. The nonpartisan service does not release its analyses directly to the public.

The study argues that two of the ballistic defense system’s primary conceptual approaches to defeating an ICBM threat to U.S. territory may never provide an effective system. They are: “hit-to-kill,” which involves striking an enemy warhead with an intercepting vehicle to destroy it with kinetic energy, and “layered defense,” which would integrate several different technological approaches for defeating a threat.

The Congressional Research Service has argued these points in earlier versions of the report produced and updated since 2002, the year the administration announced it would deploy some missile defense components beginning in 2004 and pursue a multilayered capability.

Hit-to-Kill

While use of hit-to-kill to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles has shown promise under test conditions, the approach remains uncertain against long-range missile threats, the report says.

“There is no unambiguous, empirical evidence to support the contention that kinetic kill for ICBM defense will work,” it says.

Senior U.S. defense officials in recent years have cited intercept tests of the developmental Ground-based Midcourse Defense system — five of 10 have been declared successful by the Missile Defense Agency — as evidence the concept is viable and worth the investment.

“The successful prototype interceptor tests that we conducted in 2001 and ‘02 gave us the confidence to proceed with the development and fielding of a system that relies primarily on the hit-to-kill technologies,” Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering told the Senate Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee last month.

Critics have charged that the tests have been heavily scripted, and do not indicate whether the system would work under realistic conditions. The CRS analysis says that of those intercept tests that were declared successful “in almost every case, post-test doubts have been raised.”

The military has been trying to develop hit-to-kill technologies for long-range interception for more than 20 years. Many hit-to-kill tests over the past two decades “were proven to have had their targets significantly enhanced to ensure likelihood of success,” the analysis says.

The three most recent tests of the system were not successful, two in the past year. Those two were not caused by the hit-to-kill challenge, though, but because of glitches that prevented the interceptor missile from leaving the silo, officials have said.

“We remain confident in the system’s basic design, its hit-to-kill effectiveness and its inherent operational capability” Obering told the committee. “Nevertheless, neither you, the American public nor our enemies will believe in our ground-based ICBM defense until we demonstrate its effectiveness successfully” with more flight tests, he said.

Multiple Layers

The report also questions the rationale behind the administration’s ambitious, early efforts to develop and deploy in future years additional technologies for defending against an ICBM attack, from sea, land, air and space.

Officials have argued such a “layered” defense would increase the probability of defeating an ICBM attack by allowing for multiple shots at an enemy warhead using different technological strategies. While any one approach may have its weaknesses, combining systems could drive the probability of success high, they have suggested.

For instance, in a publicly presented Missile Defense Agency computer simulation that models how a future multilayered system might operate, the combined effectiveness of the defenses is assumed to be 90 percent.

The report questions such assumptions, arguing the probability of any one system intercepting a target would not be particularly high and so when several of low-probability are combined, overall effectiveness is higher, but not stellar.

“There is no empirical evidence of [a single] air defense system with a probability of intercept much greater than about 30 percent,” it says. Were three layers of 30 percent probability factored together, it says, the system would optimistically provide just a 66 percent overall probability of success, with 34 percent of the enemy missiles or warheads surviving.

It argues further that a multilayered capability probably would not, as assumed in the above calculation, be the sum of its parts. The failure of an early attack on an enemy warhead could lead to “saturation of the next” if multiple ICBMs are launched, decreasing its probability of success and possibly leading to “the collapse of the missile defense system,” it says.

The command and control challenge of operating multiple layers simultaneously could also reduce the overall probability of interception, the report says.

U.S. officials, on the other hand, have said that deploying a multilayered defense would complicate an attacker’s job by adding potential vulnerabilities to the attack.

“We are confident that our approach to a layered defense provides the most effective means of ballistic missile defense, injecting a great deal of uncertainty for a potential attacker.  Our objective will continue to be providing a defense against ballistic missiles of all ranges, during any phase of their flight,” Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said yesterday.

Baker Spring, national security policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said just the presence of a multilayered defense could help to deter potential adversaries.

“The fact of the matter is that the exact [kill probabilities] are really not known to anybody,” he said, and suggested there is a “defensive deterrent equation that’s raised in the minds of would be missile attackers.”

 

 


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