U.K. Still Favors Biological Weapons Verification

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The British government continues to favor creating an inspections mechanism for the Biological Weapons Convention, 4 1/2 years after the United States scuttled extended negotiations on creating such a system, a British official said this week (see GSN, Feb. 15).

The United Kingdom, however, does not plan to push for such a mechanism at the sixth Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in Geneva late this year, recognizing that “a number of countries are not prepared to proceed as rapidly as we would all wish on verification,” David Triesman, parliamentary undersecretary of state for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said Monday during a question and answer session at the House of Lords. 

Triesman said, however, that the United Kingdom would be ready in Geneva to discuss creating a scientific advisory panel and a Biological Weapons Convention secretariat, noting “considerable support” for such bodies. 

“These are interesting ideas, and we are very ready to discuss them, possibly as part of the follow-on work program,” he said. He added, “Our priority at the review conference will be to support proposals that are feasible and add value to the effective implementation of the convention.”

In a 2002 paper, British officials had proposed creating a scientific panel for assessing the implications of technological progress on treaty compliance. Nongovernmental experts have said a secretariat could organize treaty meetings, serve as a clearinghouse for treaty-related information, and maintain lists of experts for investigations of chemical or biological use as authorized by the U.N. secretary general.

Triesman’s comments were made in response to a series of questions from members of the House of Lords. The back and forth “is quite useful … for people in other countries to see that this is an important issue in the United Kingdom,” said Richard Guthrie, who heads the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Project. “If nothing is ever said, you could be quite right in interpreting that maybe nobody is interested.”

The last treaty review conference in 2001 collapsed amidst intractable U.S. opposition to creating a system to verify the treaty (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2001). U.S. officials have said the Bush administration believes such a mechanism could be used to compromise U.S. biodefense or commercial biotechnology research and would be ineffective at uncovering treaty violations. Nongovernmental experts have argued there are numerous indicators that could identify a covert biological weapons program, such as budget discrepancies and procurement of equipment differing from requirements for civilian production (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2004). Guthrie said some other countries in addition to the United States are “hesitant” about verification, but they “are happy to let the United States take the heat.”

A Bush administration official last month reiterated Washington’s opposition to verification, and criticized countries for even discussing the idea. 

“Times have changed, and therefore we must be prepared to part company with Cold War approaches to arms control,” said State Department International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau Senior Adviser Carolyn Leddy in a speech in Japan.

“It has been over four years since the Bush administration rejected the flawed draft BWC Protocol, yet many states parties to the BWC still call for a return to negotiations on a protocol or other form of a verification mechanism. … I will simply note that the energy used to mount such appeals and the mixed messages those send to countries who really want to dilute or undermine the convention only serve to distract us from confronting the challenges at hand with realistic solutions,” she said.

Leddy said that countries that signed the treaty should simply “act responsibly” and abide by its terms. She did not suggest an alternative approach for determining whether parties are in violation of the treaty.

“In case I was not clear at the outset, let me reiterate for you now that the Bush administration will not return to the protocol negotiations or negotiations on any verification mechanism whatsoever for the BWC,” she said.

As for the “number of other ideas that seem to be gaining steam,” she said, “In examining any of these proposals, the litmus test for the United States will be their relevance to the post-9/11 international security environment.”

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Full U.N. Security Council to Discuss Iran on Friday

The full U.N. Security Council is expected to convene a formal meeting Friday to discuss a draft text addressing Iran’s controversial nuclear activities, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, March 14).

Penned by France and the United Kingdom, the draft resolution calls on Iran to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency demands by suspending all uranium enrichment activities. The document also calls on agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to report to the council “in 14 days on Iranian compliance with requirements set out by the IAEA Board.”

The draft further urges Tehran to “ratify and implement in full” the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, AFP reported. Until recently, Iran has followed the protocol without ratifying the rules, which allow for more intrusive inspections of nuclear facilities.

The United States has backed the draft resolution, while fellow U.N. Security Council permanent members China and Russia have expressed concerns.

“We found a lot of difficulties” with the draft, said Chinese delegate Li Junhua. “We don’t think that setting an artificial deadline would help the diplomatic efforts because we want to maximize all the possible diplomatic efforts.”

Security Council nations are to gather informally tomorrow and then meet Friday in a formal session, AFP reported.

Peruvian envoy Oswaldo de Rivero said a decision on the statement would not come “before next week.”

Meanwhile, the five permanent veto-wielding members of the council are expected to convene a fifth informal session today, according to AFP.

“The objectives are the same but (the problem is) what is the best approach to achieve these objectives,” Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said regarding differences China and Russia have with the three Western powers.

“What we want is to leave room and sufficient time for all diplomatic efforts to play ... we shouldn’t close all the doors for diplomatic activities,” Wang said (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, March 14).

Greek Ambassador to the United Nations Adamantios Vassilakis said yesterday that the demands contained in the draft are similar to those adopted by the IAEA governing board earlier this month, Reuters reported.

“Most of the elements are from the text of the resolution adopted by the governing board, which we already voted for,” he said.

A Security Council statement requires approval from all 15 members, while a resolution could be passed with nine votes as long as there is no veto from any permanent member.

“Whether it is a statement or a resolution we haven’t decided,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 15).

The White House said yesterday that recent reports of deadlock at the council were “premature,” AFP reported.

“The discussions are ongoing,” said spokesman Scott McClellan. “We need to let those discussions continue.”

Asked whether a divided council would undermine U.S. efforts to punish Iran, McClellan said, “I think that’s premature to get into that kind of discussion” (Agence France-Presse II/ March 14).

A U.S. House of Representatives committee is considering legislation that would block U.S. economic aid to any country that assists Iran’s energy sector, the Associated Press reported today.

The House International Relations Committee was scheduled today to take up the Iran Freedom Support Act. The Bush administration has opposed the bill, and has successfully sought concessions during negotiations, according to AP.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chief sponsor of the bill, ruled out any further compromise.

State Department legislative affairs chief Jeffrey Bergner outlined the administration’s position in a letter, contending that the legislation would inhibit Washington’s ability “to build and maintain an international consensus to confront Iran’s violations collectively.”

It would “create tensions with countries whose help we need in dealing with Iran and shift the focus away from Iran’s actions and spotlight differences between us and our allies,” the letter says (George Gedda, Associated Press I/Houston Chronicle, March 15).

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that Tehran’s nuclear program is “irreversible,” AP reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers retreat over the nuclear issue ... as breaking the country’s independence which will impose huge costs on the Iranian nation,” Khamenei told Iranian diplomats.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also vowed to resist international pressure.

“They should know that through propaganda, political pressures and games they play nowadays ... (they) can’t prevent the Iranian nation from pursuing its path,” he said (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, March 14).

However, some Iranian officials have begun to question the confrontational tactics of Ahmadinejad and the clerics, the New York Times reported today.

“I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, ‘Good,’” said one senior Iranian official. “[But] for 27 years after the [Islamic] revolution, America wanted to get Iran to the Security Council and America failed. In less than six months, Ahmadinejad did that.”

One political scientist said Iran’s strategy has centered on winning Russia’s support by being hostile to the West.

“They thought, 99 percent, Russia would seize the opportunity and back the Iranian leaders,” the political scientist said.

Reformers have also begun to speak out, according to the Times.

“There is more criticism as it is becoming more clear that this policy is not working, especially by those who were in the previous negotiating team,” said Ahmad Zeidabady, a political analyst and journalist.

“There has been no sign that they will back down,” though, Zeidabady added.

“There are concerns to keep the situation calm,” he said. “We have received orders not even to have headlines saying the case has been sent to the Security Council. Although the situation is very critical, they want to pretend that everything is normal. They do not want to show the country is coming under pressure and lose their supporters” (Michael Slackman, New York Times, March 15).

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U.S. Wants Nuclear Sharing Agreement Obligations Met Before India Receives Russian Nuclear Fuel

The United States wants India to honor obligations of the planned nuclear technology sharing agreement before New Delhi receives nuclear fuel from Russia, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, March 14).

“It's OK to supply fuel to India but let's wait until India has taken the steps called for in the joint initiative to bring its program into conformity with [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] standards,” said a State Department official.

An Indian Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Russia had told the Nuclear Suppliers Group that it would supply fuel for India’s Tarapur reactor. 

“This supply of fuel will enable the plant to continue to operate in safety and provide much-needed electricity to the western power grid of the country,” said spokesman Navtej Sarna.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that the United States knows that India requires nuclear fuel but that agreement obligations needed first to be met.

“We recognize that they have need for fuel, and we think that deals to supply that fuel should move forward on the basis of the joint initiative, on the basis of steps that India will take but has not yet taken,” he said (Agence France-Presse/ChannelNewsAsia.com, March 14).

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U.K. Opens Debate on Replacing Trident

The United Kingdom has begun formal debate on replacing its aging Trident nuclear arsenal, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, March 13).

Michael Quinlan, a former defense official, told the House of Commons Defense Committee that London cannot afford to maintain a large arsenal.

“My own view is that there will be some cost that will be simply too much to pay for the insurance of staying in this business,” Quinlan said.

He said London should consider reducing its arsenal, but stopped short of advocating all-out disarmament.

“To leave the French as the only people with (a nuclear deterrent, out of Britain and France), I think, would twitch a lot of very fundamental historical nerves,” he said. “I am not arguing about the logic of it. I just think there will be that gut feeling that we can’t.”

Lee Willett of the Royal United Services Institute warned against giving up nuclear weapons.

“We do not know what the future will hold. While others have nuclear weapons, the only thing that will deter a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Rebecca Johnson, director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, disagreed.

“If you believe in [nuclear deterrence], then it gives you a bit of reassurance until it gets tested and it fails, at which point it is far too late to discover that it wasn’t actually helping you at all,” she said.

The United Kingdom deploys four Trident submarines that each carry 16 missiles with multiple warheads, AFP reported. A decision on replacing the Trident is expected by 2010 (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 14).

The British Defense Ministry has refused to appear before the parliamentary inquiry, the London Guardian reported today.

“Work is at a very early stage at official level, ministers are not engaged,” the ministry said (Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, March 15).

Meanwhile, the British Atomic Weapons Establishment has plans to hire an additional 1,000 scientists and engineers, raising concerns that preparations for a Trident replacement are already under way, the London Independent reported today.

The agency is also planning to build a laser for testing nuclear weapons without actual nuclear detonations, British lawmakers have learned from a Defense Ministry document.

Defense Secretary John Reid denied that London has finalized a decision on replacing the Trident.

The extra staff would replace retiring technicians, but the move would also boost the total work force, the document says.

“This additional investment at AWE is required to sustain the existing warhead stockpile in-service irrespective of decisions on any successor warhead,” it adds.

Some members of Parliament, however, believe Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government has already made a decision to modernize the arsenal.

“The government have a good idea where they are going,” Michael Hancock, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons defense committee. “Blair knows that, at the moment, he could not get this through his own party” (Colin Brown, The Independent, March 15).

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U.S. Performed Nuclear Weapon Stress Test

The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico last year conducted a stress test on a nuclear weapon, the Albuquerque Journal reported (see GSN, Jan. 27).

A B61 nuclear bomb was driven into the ground in what is described by the laboratory as “worst-case testing.”

Similar tests have been performed at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. The March 2005 test at Sandia was more precise, said Marcey Abate, manager of the laboratory’s Stockpile Evaluation Department.

She added that the test was part of Sandia’s mission to ensure that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is reliable and safe.

The test was done at the Aerial Cable Test Facility located in the Manzano Mountains. The facility tests containers used to ship nuclear material by dropping them from great heights, simulating a violent crash (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, March 14).

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U.S. Pushes for Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

The United States yesterday promoted its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan that seeks to expand nuclear energy while seeking to stop the spread of atomic weapons, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 9).

“We have the choice of a game of catch-up or to initiate a more secure approach to the world,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who was in Moscow for a Group of Eight energy meeting.

“We envision the GNEP as an international collaboration that seeks to increase the availability of clean emissions-free power for the world, reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and decrease the volume and radio toxicity of nuclear waste,” he added.

Bodman said talks on the program with China, France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom have been positive.

Russia has also called for an international consortium of nuclear centers to provide access to civilian nuclear technology while blocking nuclear proliferation, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, March 15).

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Death Sentence Upheld for Tokyo Subway Attacker

The Tokyo High Court today upheld the death sentence for a member of the cult that carried out the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 2).

Tomomitsu Niimi was accused of bringing the chemical agent to the subway in which 12 people were killed and thousands of others were injured, according to AP. He was also charged with aiding the Aum Shinrikyo’s first sarin attack in 1994 and was a conspirator in the murders of a lawyer and his family.

“I have to say these are extraordinarily heinous crimes,” said presiding judge Kunio Harada. “Even if the defendant believed those were acts based on his religious belief, that wouldn’t possibly excuse him from the death sentence.”

While he apologized, Niimi maintained that the murders were based on his religious beliefs, Jiji Press reported.

The judge questioned Niimi’s apology: “I don’t understand why you apologize while still justifying your actions with your confidence.”

“I wanted to ease, even a little bit, the feelings of the victims’ family members,” Niimi replied. “I didn’t just say that and I don’t expect the sentence to be reduced because of that.”

“I expect the death sentence to come,” he added. “I don’t intend to return to society.”

Thirteen Aum members are sentenced to be hanged, but no executions have yet been carried out and only one defendant has used up his appeals, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/TodayOnline.com, March 15).

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VX Waste Spills at Newport Chemical Depot

Approximately 300 gallons of wastewater produced during the destruction of VX nerve agent spilled yesterday at the U.S. Army’s Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reported (see GSN, Feb. 28).

This was the fourth spill since neutralization began in May 2005, according to the Star. No one was injured in the incident.

Depot spokeswoman Terry Arthur said there was no live agent in the wastewater. The leak took place around 2:30 p.m. and was contained in a VX storage area where two employees in protective suits were working.

“The good news is, no one was injured, there was no danger to workers or the public, and the response was very quick,” Arthur said.

Arthur said work at the facility will stop until personnel clean the waste and determine the cause of the spill.

The depot has stored roughly 250,000 gallons of VX since production of the nerve agent stopped in 1969. The disposal facility to date has eliminated 33,766 gallons.

There were spills in June, July and October, with the largest of 500 gallons occurring on Oct. 28. That leak was blamed on faulty gaskets, according to the Star.

Work was also stopped after the June and July spills after workers realized the waste produce was more flammable that originally anticipated. 

Work at the facility is expected to be finished by November of next year, the Star reported (Tammy Webber, Indianapolis Star, March 15).

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Missile Defense Agency Seeks Intercept Success

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency hopes to demonstrate this year that its flagship long-range antiballistic missile system could bring down incoming ICBMs, senior officials said at a hearing last week (see GSN, Feb. 3).

Critics continue to question whether the system that costs $2.7 billion annually could actually work against a real threat, and whether three planned flight tests of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system this year — billed as the most realistic to date — would resemble the sorts of challenges the system could face against a real adversary.

Congress required that operationally realistic testing take place last year, but it was delayed after tests in which the interceptor failed to leave its silo in December 2004 and February 2005.

At a hearing Thursday before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, senior Defense Department officials were asked repeatedly whether truly realistic flight testing would be conducted this year.

Pentagon Operational Test and Evaluation Director David Duma answered in the affirmative.

“Flight-testing to date has not yet reduced the risk to the point where [Missile Defense Agency head Lt. Gen. Henry] Obering is ready to execute an operationally realistic flight test,” he said, but added, “Under the restructured program, MDA plans three operationally realistic flight tests later this year.”

Obering said the tests would include more deployed hardware than previously used, and military personnel at the controls of the system, making them “very operationally realistic.”

Independent experts contacted by Global Security Newswire praised the agency’s move toward more realistic testing, but said the level of realism would still fall short of modeling key challenges the United States might face during an ICBM attack.

“They’re clearly starting to remove some artificiality of the tests, but that’s not the same thing as saying the tests are operationally realistic,” said Union of Concerned Scientists missile defense analyst David Wright.

A key question, he said, is whether the interceptor’s kill vehicle could be successful against countermeasures that prevent it from identifying the target. “A country that could build a long-range missile could add [countermeasures] to its missile,” Wright said.

Obering said the ground-based system has already been successfully tested against countermeasures. The fundamental question the agency seeks to answer with the tests is whether a newly configured interceptor can hit an identified target, the officials suggested. Before the failed launches a year ago, earlier test intercept attempts used different kill vehicles and rocket boosters than those planned for this year.

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s top testing official for much of the 1990s, said the agency might need to do 20 to 30 additional developmental interceptor flight tests before it would be ready for operationally realistic testing.

“Tests such as a successful nighttime test, a successful test with a tumbling RV [re-entry vehicle], tests with decoys and countermeasures, and tests with more than one target and more than one interceptor are planned but still haven’t been executed successfully,” he said.

Flight tests are planned for early summer, late summer or early fall, and late in the year. In each case, the target would fly out of Kodiak, Alaska, pass the Beale Air Force Base early warning radar in California, and face an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. 

An intercept will not be the primary objective of the spring test, though it will be attempted, an anonymous defense official briefing reporters said in February. The test’s objective was described by the agency as “data collection.”

Congressional and nongovernmental observers have questioned whether the developmental system has sufficiently proven its potential effectiveness to warrant the Bush administration’s ongoing program of deploying system elements, including interceptor missiles in Alaska, California and potentially Europe.

“Even though I support missile defense, I do not think we should give it a blank check or allow it to avoid a thorough testing process,” said Representative Silvestre Reyes (Texas), ranking Democrat on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

The Pentagon officials said greater realism was being added to the testing than in previous exercises.

“This year’s [updated testing plan] incorporates greater operational realism in the areas of increased war fighter involvement in flight tests; more end-to-end system testing; use of operationally representative missiles; employment of operational tactics, techniques, and procedures; and inclusion of more complex countermeasures,” Duma said.

The planned tests, Obering said, “will include realistic targets, operational sensors, operational crews, and operational interceptors from operational silos.”

“We believe that that begins to fit the bill of the closest that we can come to an end-to-end test, other than trying to take a missile off the coast of North Korea and launch it back this way, which is very improbable and not practical,” he said.

Obering noted the tests would use an upgraded early warning radar deployed in California to help produce firing solutions for the system. Recent testing, he and Duma said, has given increased confidence that the radar’s data could help guide ground-launched interceptors to their targets.

Analysts have said the system’s most powerful radar, a giant Sea-Based X-band radar, could provide the most precise information for directing the interceptors. However, it is unclear whether the X-band will be ready in time to contribute to the attempted intercepts this year. Obering said the radar has arrived in Hawaii and is expected this year to “be placed on station in Alaska where it will complete its integration and checkout.”

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner by e-mail said the X-band would contribute “when it is available for use, which may be the second test or we may wait for the third based upon its ‘shakedown’ after reaching its mooring site at Adak, Alaska, still to be determined.”

The defense official briefing in February had said the X-band would participate but not help target the interceptors this year. The Cobra Dane radar at Eareckson Air Station in Alaska, which will be out of testing range, also will not contribute. Lehner said it is uncertain whether sea-based Aegis radar data would be used.

It is not clear what if anything will assume the roles of sensors absent from the tests. 

In some earlier testing, data from transponders on test targets was used to simulate data that radars might have provided for aiming and launching the interceptors toward the expected interception point, according to MDA spokesman Lehner. 

“Data was made to look like data the command and control system would have received from a radar if we had one in the middle of the test range, which, of course, we didn’t have,” he said.

“The data was used in the same way it would have been used if we had a radar, namely to create the weapon task plan to aim the booster rocket to the proper point in space, and then the kill vehicle is released,” he said. 

For the first test this year, Lehner wrote, the target will fly past the Beale radar and the interceptor will rely on the radar’s data to identify and track the target and direct the interceptor.

For all the tests, he added, “No simulated data is planned” for determining when and where to fire the interceptors “at this time.”

Wright and colleagues have said the presence of transponders or beacons providing precise target tracking data appeared to be an important factor in the successes of earlier tests. “What we found is that the simulated radar data that we gained seemed to be much better than what you’d be getting from an actual radar. The beacon … told you where the warhead was within the target cluster,” he said. 

Former Missile Defense Agency chief Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish disputed that claim during a November 2001 briefing. The transponder-aided “weapons task plan that’s issued would be equivalent, in my view, to an X-band radar,” he said.

Wright noted that a flight test in October 2002, the last time a transponder was used to help direct an interceptor, also was the last time the system successfully intercepted a target. “It’s not as though they can say we’ve done a lot of testing without the beacon.” So far the entire system has successfully intercepted its target five times in 10 tries.

A test in December 2002 failed apparently not for lack of such data, but rather when the kill vehicle failed to separate from the interceptor, according to the agency. The two subsequent intercept tests failed to launch the interceptors, the agency has said.

More crucial for conducting operationally realistic testing than using real systems and real data, however, is to test the interceptor against a target concealed by countermeasures or decoys, Wright said.

“There are two halves to a successful intercept. One is to be able to identify a target that you want to shoot at [despite countermeasures], and the other is to shoot at it and hit it [known as hit-to-kill]. They’re working on that second piece. They’re saying if we can identify a target can we shoot at it. … It’s hard technically, but I would say it’s not the hardest” challenge,” he said.

Obering before the committee suggested that countermeasures were not part of the test plan this year. Asked when they would be used, he said, “If we’re successful in that test series — actually, I have already given the direction to look at how we can add countermeasures to part of that test regime.”

Obering said the agency successfully tested prototype interceptors against countermeasures from 1999 to 2002. “There were countermeasures involved in those intercept tests.”

Wright and colleagues have argued that decoys used in prior tests were readily distinguishable from the targets, and that transponders also may have provided artificially precise knowledge of the target’s location.

“The countermeasures that we’ve seen in the past and looked at have not been credible countermeasures. They were objects that had very different signatures from the warhead. They were easily distinguishable by measurements that they knew the kill vehicle could do,” Wright said.

Asked by Reyes whether future countermeasures would reflect what North Korea or Iran might launch, Obering said, “I don’t know of anybody that can say with any certainty what kind of countermeasures those countries are capable of. However, based on the physics, based on what you would try to conjecture in terms of vulnerabilities, those are the kinds of things that we would use as part of our test program.”

Duma at the hearing said the remaining “fundamental” uncertainty about the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is whether the operationally configured interceptor, never before flown against a target, would be able to strike a missile.

“The fundamental technical unknown at this point is to demonstrate the intercept capability on the ground-based interceptor. We have modeled that.  We have done a tremendous amount of work down in Huntsville, and actually across the nation, linking models and simulations together for integrated ground tests,” he said.

“While we’ve demonstrated technology for hit to kill, we haven’t done it on the operational booster and operational kill vehicle,” he said.

From “this test that’s unfolding this year, we will get a better understanding of just exactly the effectiveness of the [kill vehicle] in an endgame, and the interceptor,” Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, Space Command director, told the subcommittee.

The defense officials said successful tests this year could change the way the military operates the system.

Duma suggested that successful flight-testing could build confidence in the system’s capability against a real threat.

“War fighters must have confidence the system will defend on demand,” he said.

Dodgen said successful tests could enable the military to reduce the number of interceptors it plans to fire at any particular ICBM. The number is not publicly known.

The testing “will allow us to optimize the use of our inventory and maybe change our techniques and procedures to get the most out of the missiles we have,” he said.

About a dozen interceptors are currently emplaced and a total of 22 are expected to be deployed by the end of 2007, Obering said.

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Critics Fault U.S. Plan to Test Weapons in Space

The U.S. Defense Department’s budget proposal for fiscal 2007 includes money for the Missile Defense Agency to test space-based weapons, the Boston Globe reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 28).

Specialists believe the classified portion of the proposed $439 billion budget is likely to include other space-related programs, according to the Globe.

Placing weapons in space “will lead countries to pursue countermeasures,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “Before we cross that threshold, the United States should explore with other countries some guidelines or limits on what is deployed in space.”

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Rick Lehner said Washington has no plans to base weapons in space and that only $570 million out of $48 billion planned for missile defense over the next five years would fund space-related activities.

“We just want to do some experiments” on weapons in space, he said.

However, defense analysts at the Henry L. Stimson Center and the Center for Defense Information said several of those programs would create weapons in space before completion of public debate. One “particularly troublesome” experiment uses a micro-satellite as a target for missiles, making it “a de-facto antisatellite test,” the analysts said in a report.

A Missile Defense Agency spokesman said that test is intended only to study the missile during flight, the Globe reported (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, March 14).

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