U.S. Plans:  Legislators Debate Missile Defense Oversight

U.S. representatives and senators are debating how much the Pentagon should tell Congress about performance and estimated costs for U.S. missile defense programs, Congressional Quarterly Weekly reported last week (see GSN, June 26).

A House-Senate conference committee is considering fiscal 2003 defense authorization legislation, for which the White House has requested $7.8 billion in missile defense spending.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted that defense officials report fewer details to Congress even as long-range goals and schedules for missile defense programs become more abstract, according to Congressional Quarterly.  If Congress agrees to Rumsfeld’s request, Pentagon officials could shift funding among programs and make other changes without congressional oversight, Congressional Quarterly reported.

Some opponents, however, cite the traditional congressional oversight role.

“What they call ‘flexibility’ means far less congressional oversight than is typical for weapons systems,” said Representative Tom Allen (D-Maine).

House and Senate versions of the defense authorization bill contain different oversight requirements, with the Senate version being the stronger of the two, according to Congressional Quarterly.  White House officials have threatened to veto the bill, however, if it requires overly burdensome missile defense reports, Congressional Quarterly reported.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, has told members of Congress that the agency will provide the information it has available.  Such an approach has satisfied some Republican lawmakers, including Senator John Warner (R-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We can always have hearings; we can always get witnesses,” Warner said.  “But the cost to the taxpayer of this continually accruing requirement for reports is just incredible.”

Senator John Spratt (D-S.C.) said that it might be a bad idea to give Rumsfeld the reduced oversight he seeks.  Spratt said he was disappointed with a lack of information in a recent Pentagon report on the missile defense program’s goals.

Some members of Congress have said that Rumsfeld’s request for less oversight of the missile defense programs is part of a broader preference to keep Congress less informed, according to Congressional Quarterly.

“We’ve noticed in the last several months an increasing reluctance to volunteer information, and even to provide responsive information to inquiries,” said Senate Armed Services Strategic Subcommittee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.).  “It does seem to be an operating style that says, ‘They don’t need to know a lot.’”

The White House has repeatedly said it is important to conduct an all-out effort to develop a U.S. missile defense system because of the threat posed by rogue states and terrorist groups seeking to obtain advanced ballistic missiles.  Missile defense critics, however, have said the threat is not as high as the Bush administration claims and does not justify getting rid of congressional oversight.

“The administration has overstated the threat from the beginning,” Allen said.  “Al-Qaeda isn’t firing missiles at us, Iraq doesn’t have the capability (and) North Korea has suspended its missile program voluntarily.”

“We can take the time to do this right, with proper congressional oversight,” he said (Pat Towell, Congressional Quarterly Weekly, July 27).

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