SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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23–358
2006
[H.A.S.C. No. 109–24]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
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ON
BUDGET REQUEST FOR MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRAMS
HEARING HELD
MARCH 15, 2005
STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama, Chairman
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
JOE SCHWARZ, Michigan
CATHY McMORRIS, Washington
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
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ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Josh Hartman, Professional Staff Member
Bill Ostendorff, Professional Staff Member
Hugh Brady, Professional Staff Member
Katherine Croft, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2005
HEARING:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005, Fiscal Year 2006 National Defense Authorization Act—Budget Request for Missile Defense Programs
APPENDIX:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2005
FISCAL YEAR 2006 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST FOR MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRAMS
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STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Everett, Hon. Terry, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee
Reyes, Hon. Silvestre, a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Strategic Forces Subcommittee
WITNESSES
Dodgen, Lt. Gen. Larry J., Commander, United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command
Duma. Hon. David W., Acting Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, Defense Department
Obering, Lt. Gen. Henry A., III (Trey), Director, Missile Defense Agency
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The prepared statements can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Dodgen, Lt. Gen. Larry J.
Duma. Hon. David W.
Everett, Hon. Terry
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Obering, Lt. Gen. Henry A., III (Trey)
Reyes, Hon. Silvestre
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. Everett
Mr. Cooper
Ms. Sanchez
FISCAL YEAR 2006 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST FOR MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRAMS
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Strategic Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 15, 2005.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Terry Everett (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TERRY EVERETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
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Mr. EVERETT. The hearing will come to order.
The subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on the Department of Defense's (DOD) fiscal year 2006 budget request for missile defense programs. Thank all of you for coming.
I welcome Lieutenant General Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA); Lieutenant General Dodgen, Commanding General, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command; and Mr. Duma, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) with the Department of Defense.
We have a lot of ground to cover today so I would ask our witnesses to please be brief with their prepared remarks. The entirety of your written testimony will be entered into the record.
General Obering, I would like to highlight a few specific areas that I am interested in hearing about today.
Proposed budget cuts: I know that you had to make some difficult decisions in the fiscal year 2006 budget in order to take $1 billion in cuts based on decisions made last year. I am interested in the rationale behind the changes to specific programs based on the funding reduction.
Flat test problems: We are all concerned about the recent Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) test problems. I look forward to hearing your vision for the way forward from MDA's test problems.
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Airborne Laser (ABL) versus Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI): As you know, our subcommittee has spent a lot of time looking at blue space defense, especially Airborne Laser programs. I am interested in hearing your views of the marriage of ABL versus KEI, including cost and capability comparisons.
General Dodgen, I am specifically interested in hearing about the following: your new role as Missile Defense Joint Functional Component Commander for U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), including progress in developing contingency operations for GMD, how we are going to emerge the Patriot and the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program.
Mr. Duma, I know that your organization has been working very closely with MDA for developing criteria for operational realistic testing. I look forward to hearing more about your assessment of MDA's test program.
Now I would like to recognize my good friend, Mr. Reyes, the ranking member of the subcommittee, for any comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Everett can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. SILVESTRE REYES, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also want to thank General Obering, General Dodgen and Mr. Duma for joining us here this morning.
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And I want to apologize, but I have to, after my opening statement, go to the Library of Congress and do an opening statement there for a border conference that I host every year. So I will be, I hope, gone very briefly.
Mr. Chairman, although we have several contentious issues in our subcommittee's jurisdiction, our members, following your example, are able to have differences of opinion without letting the debate turn ugly. I applaud you for that leadership. And we may need to exercise it here again today.
This morning, we will discuss a contentious issue: whether or not the proposed ground-based midcourse defense—or GMD—system is ready to be declared operationally deployable. Is GMD ready without advance notice to intercept nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) heading into any one of our 50 states?
Before we get into that discussion, I want to explain how I personally frame this issue. This context is not for the sake of members of this subcommittee. Even when we may disagree about a defense issue, we do not question each other's commitment to defending our nation.
Rather, I do this for the sake of the general public because too often Democrats are painted as reflexively and unalterably opposed to missile defense. I am a strong supporter of missile defense, including GMD, already being deployed in Alaska and California. I think we will eventually prove that this system will be an effective insurance policy against limited ICBM threat.
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Moreover, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems that protect—or will protect—our troops on the front lines, such as Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC–3), Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Aegis BMD enjoy broad and strong bipartisan support in this Congress. In 1999, H.R. 4, a bill coauthored by two of our colleagues, Curt Weldon and John Spratt, sitting here to my left, came to the House floor for a vote.
HR–4, simply stated, ''It is the policy of the United States to deploy a national defense system.'' Period, end of story, no caveats.
I want to remind everybody that a majority of House Democrats—and I want to repeat that again, a majority of House Democrats—all voted for H.R. 4. On my side of the aisle, we do not have as much consensus on a national missile defense system as does your side, Mr. Chairman, which is fair enough.
But somehow, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, there is widespread perception that all Democrats oppose missile defense, especially a national missile defense system such as the one we will be discussing here today. And that is flat-out wrong.
I provide this context because today many members will ask tough questions on GMD. And even though I strongly support GMD and even though I believe it is important for our nation to have a national missile defense system in place, I too will want to ask some tough questions because even though I support GMD, I do not think we should give it a blank check or allow it to avoid thorough testing.
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On the contrary, the very fact that GMD will be the last line of defense to protect our citizens against nuclear-tipped ICBMs, that is exactly why it should undergo strenuous testing. On August 18, 2004, our commander-in-chief said the following, ''We say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world, 'You fire, we are going to shoot it down.' ''
Since that statement, the GMD interceptor has unfortunately failed twice, once in December and again this past February. It was unable to even leave the launchpad. If we go back further to December 2002 and just look at intercept flight tests, the system is now 0 for 3. In baseball, when you are 0 for 3, you are sent back to the dugout.
I agree 100 percent with the President's goal of an effective defense against limited ICBM threat from a nation such as North Korea. But while GMD holds promise, it remains unproven to this date.
I do not see this as an issue to argue for the system or not. The question before us is: do we let successful flight tests indicate and dictate when we declare the system to be operationally ready? Or do we let our desire for a defense, no matter how sincere and well intentioned, take precedence over cold, hard facts?
I am not discouraged by the last three test failures. I want to repeat that. I am not discouraged by the last three test failures.
I say, regroup in the dugout, go get another turn at the batter's box. But on the other hand, we should not pretend that GMD is an all-star system when it is still in the developmental stages. You can ruin a ballplayer by rushing him into the big leagues. And you can ruin this system by making it run before it has proven that it can walk.
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Mr. Chairman, as always, I believe it is important to clarify what exactly the issue is before us here. And I know that, again, this is a contentious issue and there will be passionate debate about it this morning as well.
But I always want to thank you for the opportunity to set these issues in context and most of all for calling this important hearing. I look forward to the testimony of our distinguished guests and appreciate the opportunity to hear their testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reyes can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. EVERETT. I thank you. And I would like to say that I believe those remarks were very thoughtful. And in no way would this member ever equate the discussion that we ought to have about missile defense and the failures and the hopes for the future with anybody's position on whether or not we ought to have a missile defense system. I think most of us agree we should have one.
Mr. REYES. And I certainly want everyone to know how much I appreciate your leadership, your commitment to hearing both sides of every issue and the fact that you support debate on issues. In the final analysis, we may disagree, but we will move forward because we are all interested in making sure that our nation is as safe as we can make it.
Mr. EVERETT. And I thank you.
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General Obering, General Dodgen, the floor is yours.
We will start with General Obering.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. HENRY A. OBERING III, (TREY) DIRECTOR, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
General OBERING. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Reyes and distinguished members of the committee. It is an honor to be here this morning.
I would ask that my prepared statement be entered into the record.
Mr. EVERETT. Without objection.
General OBERING. We have had many accomplishments and a few disappointments since my predecessor last addressed this committee, but overall we do remain on track to execute our mission. Threats from weapons of mass destruction and proliferating ballistic missile systems continue to present grave security concerns. In fact, there were nearly 100 foreign ballistic missile launches around the world in 2004.
We must also bear in mind that we have been surprised in this area several times in the past. To deal with these threats, we are developing and incrementally fielding a joint, integrated and layered ballistic missile system to defend the United States, our deployed forces, our allies and friends against all ranges of ballistic missiles.
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We have the foundation of that system in place today. Now our program, which is reflected in the fiscal year 2006 budget submission, is structured to balance the fielding of elements of this system with its continued steady improvement through an evolutionary development and test approach.
The budget also balances our capabilities across the threat spectrum that include rogue nations with increasing ballistic missile expertise. We are requesting $7.8 billion to support our program of work in fiscal year 2006, which is approximately $1 billion less, as you said, than the fiscal year 2005 request.
About $1.4 billion covers the continued fielding and sustainment of our block increments of the long-range, ground-based midcourse defense components. Our short-and immediate-range defense involving the Aegis ships with their interceptors and the supporting radars, command, control, battle management and communications capabilities. About $6.4 billion will be invested in the development foundation for continued testing and evolution of the system.
To provide the context for our budget submission, I would like to tell you our accomplishments over the past year, explain the rationale behind our testing and fielding activities and address the next steps in our evolutionary ballistic missile defense program.
In 2001 and 2002, we successfully conducted four out of five intercept tests using operational prototypes against long-range ballistic missile targets. These tests gave us the confidence that we needed to proceed with the initial fielding of a system that relies primarily on hit-to-kill technologies. While our testing since 2003 has provided us with a wealth of critical data, our long-range interceptors aborts in recent tests have been disappointing.
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These aborts were due to a minor software glitch in the first test and a ground support arm that failed to retract in the last. Now I have chartered an independent team to review all of our test processes, our procedures and our management.
In addition, I have named the current Aegis ballistic missile defense director, Rear Admiral Kate Paige, as the agency's director of mission readiness with full authority to implement the corrections needed to ensure our return to a successful flight test program.
Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that while these test aborts were major disappointments, they were not major setbacks. We maintain our confidence in the system's basic design, its hit-to-kill effectiveness, and its inherent operational capability. We will be always testing and improving this system, using a spiral testing approach that cycles results into our development activities.
This approach, which fields tests assets in operational configuration, dramatically reduces time from development to operations. To lay out our future test program, the director of operational test and evaluation and I have jointly approved an integrated master test plan, effective through 2007.
The plan includes tests that combine developmental and operational testing to reduce costs and increase test efficiency. Within our range safety constraints, we are committed to increasing the operational aspects of our testing.
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We plan to conduct three more long-range interceptor tests this calendar year, including an end-to-end test using operational assets. In 2006, we plan to execute four flight tests using a variety of flight conditions.
Following last month's standard missile–3 intercept, we will conduct two more tests this year using the Aegis as the primary engagement platform. We will use upgraded software and an advanced standard missile–3 interceptor to engage a variety of targets, including those with separating warheads.
In completing our initial fielding of Block 2004 components, we are also on track. We have successfully built out the initial ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) capability, including the in placement of 8 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, which we will increase to 18 by the end of this year.
Currently, six Aegis ships providing long-range surveillance and tracking data are ready for station; ten should be available by the end of the year as well.
In addition, we completed the outfitting of one Aegis cruiser with standard missile–3 interceptors to provide an emergency engagement capability against short-to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. And we should have another cruiser complete by the end of the year.
In our sensor program, the Cobra Dane Radar in the Aleutians is ready for missile defense use today. And we are integrating upgraded early-warning radars in California and the United Kingdom and our most powerful sensor, the sea-based X-Band Radar, later this year.
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In addition, we are now testing a transportable X-Band Radar which can be forward deployed this year as well. Since October of 2004, we have been in a shakedown or checkout period, similar to that used by U.S. Navy ships before entering the fleet. Working closely with U.S. Strategic Command and the combatant commanders, we have certified missile defense crews and put in place the necessary logistic support infrastructure.
We have successfully exercised the command, fire control, battle management and communications capabilities critical to the operation of the system. Now since we cannot be certain which specific ballistic missile threats we will face in the future, our long-term strategy is to strengthen and maximize our flexibility.
As we proceed with this program into the next decade, we will move toward a missile defense that features greater sensor and interceptor mobility while adding a boost phase defense. To meet the long-range threat, the ground-based midcourse defense element budget request is about $2.3 billion for fiscal year 2006. This covers continued development, ground and flight testing, fielding and support for up to 10 additional ground-based interceptors, their silos, the associated support equipment and facilities. In addition, it funds long lead items for the next increment.
To address the short-to intermediate-range threat, we are requesting approximately $1.9 billion to continue development and testing of our sea-based midcourse Aegis missile defense capability and our land-based terminal high-altitude area defense, or THAAD, element.
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By the end of 2007, we should have up to 28 interceptors on three Aegis cruisers and eight Aegis destroyers. Six additional destroyers, for a total of 17 Aegis ships, will be capable of performing the surveillance and track mission.
The THAAD flight testing resumes this year with control flight tests and will continue into fiscal year 2006, when we will conduct the first high end atmospheric intercept test. We plan to field a first THAAD unit with its 24 missiles in the 2008–2009 time frame, with a second unit available in 2011.
We will continue to roll out our sensors that we net together using a strong command, control, battle management and communications foundation. In 2007, we plan to deploy another forward-based X-Band Radar and launch two space tracking and surveillance systems test-bed satellites, which will demonstrate our ability to close the fire control loop worldwide. We are requesting $521 million in fiscal year 2006 to accomplish this work.
In executing our program, we are following a strategy to retain alternative development paths until capability is proven, what we call a ''knowledge-based funding approach.'' We are preserving decision flexibility with respect to our boost phase programs until we understand what engagement capabilities they can offer. We have requested approximately $680 million for these activities in 2006.
In our primary boost phase weapon program, the Airborne Laser (ABL), we have enjoyed recent success, achieving first laser light and the first flight milestones. The next major steps are to complete the current lasing test, finish our low-power flight test program and then integrate the laser onto the testbed aircraft.
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I am very pleased with where we are today, but we have many technical challenges ahead. And it is too early to rely solely on this capability for a boost phase defense.
We undertook the Kinetic Energy Interceptor or KEI boost phase program in response to a 2002 Defense Science Board recommendation to develop a parallel path for boost phase defense. We will not know for two or three years, however, whether either of these programs will be viable.
But in order to meet our top-line budget reductions, I decided to accept more risk in this area and restructure the Kinetic Energy Interceptor effort to focus on demonstrating a high acceleration booster flight in 2008. If this is successful, it not only provides risk reduction for the Airborne Laser program, it also provides us with an alternative mobile approach for the next generation of booster for our midcourse and terminal programs as well.
Finally, we have been working closely with a number of allies to make missile defense a key element of our security relationships. And we have signed a number of framework agreements to that end.
The government of Japan is proceeding with the acquisition of a multilayered ballistic missile defense system and is expanding their cooperation with us to develop a more capable Aegis standard missile–3 interceptor. We have also signed agreements with the United Kingdom and Australia and have received approval from Denmark and the Greenland Home Rule Government to upgrade the radar at Thule.
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Our work with Israel to implement the aerial system improvement program is on track. And we are intent on continuing U.S. and Russian collaboration. Presently, we are developing software that will be used to support the ongoing U.S.-Russian missile defense exercise program. And a new proposal for target missiles and radar cooperation is being discussed within the U.S.-Russian Federation Missile Defense Working Group.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank this committee for its tremendous continued support. Thanks also to the thousands of dedicated and talented Americans working on the missile defense program, I believe that we are on the right track to deliver unprecedented capabilities that we need to close off a major avenue of vulnerability for our country.
Thank you. And I look forward to your questions, sir.
[The prepared statement of General Obering can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, General Obering.
General Dodgen, the floor is now yours.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. LARRY DODGEN, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES ARMY SPACE AND MISSILE DEFENSE COMMAND
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General DODGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Reyes and distinguished members of the committee. It is my distinct honor to appear before you today to discuss our progress in fielding missile defense systems for our nation.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank each of you for your ongoing support to our Army. Also, let me publicly state that the Army considers it a privilege to be counted in the ranks of Mr. Duma and Lieutenant General Obering as advocates for a strong global missile defense capability.
Today, I appear before this committee in two roles. The first role is as the Army representative for missile defense and proponent for the ground-based midcourse defense—GMD—system. In my second role, I am the Joint Functional Component Commander for Integrated Missile Defense—JFCC IMD—in support of the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). In both roles, I work closely with the Missile Defense Agency, other services and combatant commanders to ensure that our national goals of developing, testing and deploying an integrated missile defense system are met.
Mr. Chairman, as we speak, Army soldiers are trained and ready to operate the GMD system and are deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska and the Joint National Integration Center at Shriever Air Force Base in Colorado. These soldiers, as part of the joint team, are our nation's first line of defense against any launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile toward our shores. I am proud to represent them along with the other members of the joint and Army's air and missile defense community.
Before addressing the fiscal year 2006 President's budget submission of the Army's missile defense systems, I would like to take the opportunity to outline the recently created Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense. In January 2005, Commander USSTRATCOM established JFCC for integrated missile defense and appointed me as commander.
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The mission of the JFCC is to globally integrate and synchronize missile defense systems and operations to provide an optimized layered defense against missiles of all ranges and in all phases of flight. The JFCC IMD does not execute missile defense operations; that is a geographic combatant commander function.
The JFCC is presently developing a flexible concept of operations—or CONOPS—based on the New Strategic Triad and in concert with the geographical combatant commanders. One of the critical responsibilities of the JFCC outlined in the CONOPS is to examine the theater plans and recommend allocation of missile defense assets, as well as means to address shortfalls in active defense assets through offensive and defensive integration across multiple theaters.
Advocacy to the warfighter is as important to the JFCC role as operations. One of my primary functions is to determine what the warfighter needs in the field and carry those requirements and characteristics back to the development community. To achieve this, we are in the process of operationalizing the Warfighter Involvement Process and the development and execution of wargames and experiments to validate our operational concepts and future capability needs.
We will not be concerned with just intercepting missiles. In partnerships with the other STRATCOM JFCCs—Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Space and Global Strike, and Network Warfare—we will develop the capability to reduce our vulnerability with both kinetic and non-kinetic means; in other words, finding and attacking the archer will be integrated with destroying arrows.
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In summary, the JFCC's mission as part of STRATCOM will be to provide an optimized, integrated missile defense system to the geographical combatant commanders. We will attain full JFCC operational capability by September of this year.
Now turning to the fiscal year 2006 programmatics of the Army's missile defense submission. Both GMD and theater air and missile defense systems are vital for the protection of our homeland, deployed forces, friends and allies. Air and missile defense is a key component in support of the Army's core competency, providing relevant and ready land power to combatant commanders.
The President's budget, presented to the Congress on February 7th, includes approximately $1.2 billion with which the Army proposes to perform current Army air and missile defense responsibilities and focus on future development and enhancement of both terminal phase and short-range Air & Missile Defense (AMD) systems. In short, the Army, as part of the joint team, is continuing major efforts to improve the ability to acquire, track, intercept and destroy theater air and missile threats.
Major effort continues in the recently combined Patriot/MEADS program, now referred to as the combined aggregate program or CAP. The objective of CAP is to achieve the MEADS capabilities, such as 360-degree sensor coverage and an integrated fire control into Patriot. CAP is an important capability that will operate within MDA's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). It is, in fact, the number one Army priority system for defense against short-and medium-range tactical ballistic missiles and air breathing threats, such as cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
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The Patriot and PAC–3/MEADS CAP research, development and acquisition budget request for fiscal year 2006 is approximately $887 million. This request procures 108 PAC–3 missiles, purchases spares for the system and reflects the necessary Patriot development to keep the system viable as we pursue acceleration of PAC–3/MEADS CAP capabilities.
Let me briefly also highlight some systems under development to counter emerging cruise missile threat. As you are aware, there exists a real and growing threat from land-attack cruise missiles in the world today. Critical Army components such as the joint cruise missile defense architecture are provided by the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor or JLENS, the Surface Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile or SLAMRAAM and an integrated fire control battle management capability.
JLENS brings a critically needed capability to address the growing cruise missile threat. To support an elevated sensor, the JLENS program is developing unique lightweight fire control and surveillance radars to detect, track and identify cruise missiles. The fiscal year 2006 funding request of $106.4 million supports development of full JLENS capability, with first unit equip occurring by fiscal year 2010.
SLAMRAAM will provide a cruise missile defense system to maneuver forces with an extended battlespace and a beyond line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight engagement capability. The fiscal year 2006 funding request of $55 million supports the scheduled initial operational capability target of 2008.
The Sentinel radar is also an advanced, three dimensional, phased array air defense radar and a critical component in the Army's ability to conduct air surveillance of the maneuver force. The fiscal year 2006 funding request of $13.4 million continues the development and integration of improvements to support joint interoperability.
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Mr. Chairman, the Army is an integral part of the joint team to develop and field the ballistic missile defense system. We are also proud of our continued advances in theater and air and missile defense capabilities.
With that said, let me state that we are very mindful that without the work and great assistance from Congress, advances in these national and regional missile defense systems would not be possible.
Again, thank you for the continued support. I look forward to addressing any questions you and other members of the committee may have.
[The prepared statement of General Dodgen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, General Dodgen.
And, Mr. Duma, the floor is now yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID DUMA, ACTING DIRECTOR, OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Mr. DUMA. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you about the ballistic missile defense system test program. As you requested, I will talk about the status of the major test activities and our relationship with the Missile Defense Agency.
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Given the emphasis placed on fielding a limited defensive capability, my remarks will focus primarily on two ballistic missile defense system elements that are the principal contributors to this early capability: the ground-based midcourse defense system and the Aegis ballistic missile defense system.
My full statement addresses my observations about testing on the other ballistic missile defense system elements. I request my full statement be included for the record.
Mr. Chairman, I am encouraged by several developments over the last year. The Missile Defense Agency has constructed a testbed infrastructure and populated it with prototype missiles: six in Fort Greely, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The testbed is a major accomplishment and addresses much of the prior criticism from my office regarding the lack of operational realism for testing the ground-based midcourse system.
The testbed supports integration testing. It supports ground testing. And it supports flight testing in more operationally stressing test geometries and permits military operators to control the system.
Early in development, capability demonstrations and flight testing focused on the feasibility of hit-to-kill technology. The ballistic missile defense system testbed significantly improves the test infrastructure by providing operational assets to participate in more operationally realistic, end-to-end ground tests and flight test scenarios.
Integrated ground testing is extremely important because it evaluates system interoperability and provides the best opportunity for assessing operator training and performance. To define the testbed operational capabilities, the Missile Defense Agency established engagement sequence groups that describe defensive capabilities in terms of available sensors, command and control networks and interceptors.
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The first increment of this capability, called limited defensive capability, is defined by four engagement sequence groups that evaluate defense of all 50 states against a limited attack from North Korea. This has been a useful way to coordinate system development, testing and operational exercises and the development of tactics and procedures.
Integrated ground test results to date indicate the testbed has the potential to defend against a limited attack under certain conditions. However, difficulties in the flight test program have delayed the confirmation of intercept capability using the testbed.
Recent flight test failures in Integrated Flight Tests 13C and 14 indicate the need to continue development and maturing the ballistic missile defense system hardware and software. In Integrated Flight Test 13C, the system aborted the launch of a missile when its internal checks were not satisfied. However, the system performed well from target launch until the system aborted the interceptor launch.
The operational testing community identified 18 operational objectives that addressed operational realism in Integrated Flight Test 13C. Ten of these objectives were partially or completely met; five objectives were not met due to interceptor abort and high seas off Alaska prevented Aegis at-sea participation in the test. This resulted in the deferral of three test objectives to later test events.
In Integrated Flight Test–14, the system performed as expected until it detected a problem in the launch sequence and again aborted the launching of the interceptor. One of the last steps in the launch sequence is to open the silo doors and retract the silo horizontal stabilizers. In this instance, sensors indicated that one of the three stabilizers had not retracted, causing the missile to abort launch.
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Again, of the 18 test objectives addressing operational realism in Integrated Flight Test–14, 10 objectives were completely or partially satisfied, three objectives were deferred due to lack of Aegis at-sea participation and five objectives were not met due to the aborted interceptor launch.
In both Integrated Flight Tests–13C and–14, the target launched properly and presented a good target scene to the ballistic missile defense system. However, from an operational mission perspective, the aborted launches are mission failures. In an operational mission using the full-up testbed, it is possible that other missiles would have been available for the user to select and launch against the target. During integrated ground testing, The Missile Defense Agency simulated the capability of the system to fail-over to another missile.
After both Integrated Flight Tests–13C and–14, General Obering acted quickly to complete a root cause analysis and incorporate fixes. He did not move forward with planning Integrated Flight Test–14 until they identified the root cause of the Integrated Flight Test–13C failure and verified the corrective action by both analyses and ground testing.
General Obering is taking a prudent approach. I applaud his commitment to a ''test-fix-test'' philosophy that results in an event driven test program.
It should be noted that Patriot PAC–3 and the Aegis missile defense systems have been in development since the early 1990's and now are showing a maturity from a comprehensive test-fix-test program. Conversely, the ground-based missile defense system has only been in development about 7 years. These types of setbacks are not atypical for a program in development and they contribute to maturing the system.
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The Missile Defense Agency has made progress in documenting their test planning activities. In November, my office approved the Missile Defense Agency's integrated master test plan. We are working with the Missile Defense Agency, the other Operational Test Agency members of the team to increase operational realism through the test planning process, consistent with the maturity of the ballistic missile defense system testbed.
The integrated master test plan provides a framework for identifying and integrating test requirements from the ballistic missile defense system elements, the Missile Defense Agency, the Operational Test Agencies and my office. As a top-level planning document, it identifies criteria for operationally realistic testing that applies to all system-level events. It also identifies a series of planned tests that should demonstrate the progress toward developing and maturing the ballistic missile defense system capability.
In a developmental program that is employing a test-fix-test philosophy, test plans are necessarily fluid. My office and the Operational Test Agency team are working with the Missile Defense Agency to identify the impact of schedule changes on achieving the test objectives in the integrated master test plan.
The maturity of the testbed will not yet support traditional, end-to-end operational testing. For example, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar, which is not available until the end of this year, is essential to provide midcourse discrimination and track updates. In addition, the current testbed configuration is limited to one-on-one intercepts against target missiles and the crew is limited on the amount of control they have over the system.
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The Missile Defense Agency is reviewing the live fire lethality testing programs for each element in order to coordinate efforts and provide a consistent approach to assessing system lethality. This will ensure that data from earlier tests and analyses are used to the maximum advantage and that future efforts focus on the most critical data needs.
In September 2004, the Missile Defense Agency began a shakedown period, where they systematically activated and tested the integrated system to identify interoperability and performance problems. These exercises provided valuable insights and helped develop procedures for transitioning the system to alert.
In order to support potential activation of the limited defensive capability, the Missile Defense Agency, the Operational Test Agency team, the Strategic Command and DOT&E prepared independent assessments of ballistic missile defense system capability. While these assessments varied widely, the process of developing and coordinating these analyses provided an excellent opportunity to exchange information and perspectives.
The Aegis ballistic missile defense system is an important element of the testbed and contributes to the limited defensive capability. The first flight test in which ground-based interceptors will engage a target using Aegis track data is planned later this year.
The Aegis ballistic missile defense element is making progress in demonstrating end-to-end capability to defeat short-range ballistic missiles. The Aegis ballistic missile defense system has demonstrated that it can intercept a unitary, short-range target in the ascent and the descent midcourse phases of flight.
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The operational realism of the Aegis test program has been steadily increasing. The Navy Operational Test Force has provided observations on operational issues during early developmental tests and introduced more operational realism into recent tests. As an example, the Navy did not provide Aegis operators information about the launch time or the target direction.
The performance of the Operational Test Agency team is nothing less than outstanding. Their continuous involvement and characterization of the ballistic missile defense system provides important insight into its operational capability.
The entire operational test and evaluation community has access to all test planning and execution meetings, test data and data analyses. General Obering and I meet routinely, and my staff coordinates daily with the Missile Defense Agency staff and the element offices.
In summary, General Obering is executing an event driven, test-fix-test program. The operational testing community is working with the Missile Defense Agency to incorporate operational objectives and realism into each test to the degree possible.
We are planning tests that address the requirement in the fiscal year 2005 National Defense Authorization Act for an operationally realistic test in 2005.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks and I welcome your questions.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Duma can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Duma.
Let me tell the members of the panel that I normally try to stick to a 5 minute questioning period, but because of the complexity of the issue and the feelings concerning it, I am going to give each member 10 minutes to ask their questions. But it will be strictly 10 minutes. If you have a multi-faceted question that cannot be answered in those 10 minutes, then you will need to stick around to rephrase that question in the next round so that the witnesses can answer it.
At this time, we will take my 10 minutes.
General Obering, last summer I had the opportunity to travel out to Edwards Air Force Base to take a look at the ABL. And I will tell you, I am most impressed with the complexity and futuristic abilities of that aircraft.
As you know, we have had some problems with ABL. Since my visit, we have reached two important milestones.
What I would like to get from you is the fact that we have not scheduled a lethal demonstration until 2008. How will the committee in the next three budget years, what milestones should we be looking for to make sure that we are appropriating the right amount of money and that ABL is indeed on schedule to have that lethal demonstration in 2008?
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General OBERING. Yes, sir. If I could recap very briefly? The milestones that you are referring to that we achieved this year, which are extremely important, in November we achieved first light on the lasers. And that involved firing all six modules simultaneously in order to achieve the power levels that we need from this megawatt-class laser. Many of our critics said that that could never be done. And of course, that was accomplished.
We have been flying the aircraft and we have been continuing those lasing tests since that time frame, learning more and more about the system. The flight tests that we have been doing since December have given us increased confidence in our ability to aim the laser as well with the beam control/fire control. And it looks like our concerns with jitter are well within—what we are experiencing is well within what we have predicted. And so we believe that that is confidence-gaining.
Now for the very near term, what we are going to do is we are going to complete the lasing tests. That means we will be lasing for longer durations and we will be increasing the power levels as well in those periods.
We will go through and complete our passive beam control/fire control tests onboard the aircraft and then go into an active lasing session where we start basically shooting a laser off the aircraft, the testbed aircraft, that would give us some idea of the accuracy of the optical system and the optical training as well.
And then we begin to integrate the laser from the fuselage, the 747 fuselage testbed that it is sitting in at Edwards that you saw, onto the testbed aircraft over the next one and a half years. So those are the main activities: to complete the lasing program that we have in place; to complete the low-power and the active low-power flight test program; and then the integration of the laser onto the testbed aircraft.
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And one other thing I would like to point out if I may, it is a real demonstration of our strategy, our approach, our philosophy, which is why we want to base our decisions on results. So what we try to do is with these very complex technical challenges, we like to bite them off a step at a time. And that is what we are doing.
We actually measure that program not just in milestones, but on a weekly basis, we do it on inchstones, we call them. And we track those very carefully because that lets us know whether we are actually achieving what we want to achieve or not.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you very much. You and I have had a discussion about that. And I believe that the first things first, as I like to refer to it, way of operating is certainly the way we need to go if we are going to continue the funding level that we have on ABL.
General Dodgen, the current Missile Defense Agency program briefs indicate that the first THAAD fire unit should be fielded in fiscal year 2009. How does the Army view the future year transition for the THAAD program from the Missile Defense Agency to the Army? Assuming the MDA's current THAAD testing program is successful, when would you envision the Army funding the procurement of THAAD?
General DODGEN. Thank you for the question, Congressman. First of all, THAAD is a very important system to the future capabilities of missile defense, particularly for regional capabilities and also has the potential to maybe expand into greater range missiles.
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The Army has not formally finalized the actual transition of the particular program. But we have put teams together now and we are discussing with them exactly how that transition will occur.
Part of the things that I would say in this is that we want to man the system and put the system into effect as soon as we possibly can. But at the same time, we do not want to divorce ourselves from the developmental capabilities that MDA brings to integration and enhanced capabilities as we do a global BMDS system.
So we have put together our integrated product team to look at these things and decide exactly how the system will be transitioned, review the testing. And that team is at work right now, so it is a little premature for me to give you an answer of exactly when that will be done. As soon as that team's work, I will come to you and tell you exactly how the Army views the transition.
Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Duma, what testing challenges for the ground-based interceptor actually worry you the most?
Mr. DUMA. I am sorry, could you say that again, sir?
Mr. EVERETT. What testing challenges for the ground-based interceptors worry you the most?
Mr. DUMA. I think the quality associated with the system development is on my front page right now. And that is based upon the recent flight tests for the ground-based midcourse defense system. We have seen successful flight tests previously. And now we have had a series of three where we could not get the interceptor to leave the tube.
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The most recent two were different causes: one was an internal test check resulted in actually a minor design change to widen the tolerances for the transfer of data; the other one was a failure of the stabilizing arm, as I mentioned in my opening statement. While they do not seem to be related, they are something that we have to have a high confidence in that these types of things are going to work.
When we demonstrate something and you get a single success, that in essence proves the technical feasibility of accomplishing that. Testing is the regimen by which you gain confidence that that is repeatable. And right now, that confidence is lacking for a number of reasons. But I would think quality and the maturity of the system at this point.
Mr. EVERETT. Let's explore that. Let's get the rubber a little closer to the road. When you say, ''quality,'' what is the root of the quality concerns that you have? Where does it lie?
Mr. DUMA. I am not sure I have a good answer for that question.
Mr. EVERETT. But isn't this something we very much need to know?
Mr. DUMA. We do need to get to the root cause. We have found, as I said, the causes for these individual faults that have occurred. I cannot tell you that that is indicative of a pattern.
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They do not seem to be related. One was clearly a software problem; one was clearly a hardware problem.
Mr. EVERETT. I understand the software problem and the fact that that has been cleared up. And I understand the number of launches that we actually went through simulated where this software problem worked. But I have a real problem with the fact that a latch did not drop away, and that seems so elementary. That seems something that you just do in a normal way of housecleaning. So that concerns me, that these last tests that we attempted, that a latch did not fall away.
Mr. DUMA. We know, Congressman, that the arm did not retract. Now General Obering has established an independent review team to determine the cause of that. I am not aware that we have found why the arm did not retract. And I would defer to him the knowledge of the independent review team on that.
Mr. EVERETT. General Obering, I have 50 seconds left, so if you can do it in 50 seconds.
Mr. DUMA. Sir, what I would like to say is this: I also am very concerned about the quality issue. That is the reason—one of the reasons I instituted a major overhaul in our mission assurance approaches in our programs.
I am also very upset and disappointed about the last test. As you mentioned, the one in December was fairly understandable. We had flown with that booster three times in that condition. That was actually a design margin issue that we were able to solve very easily.
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The one in February with the failure to retract the arm, we are still investigating that and trying to understand. It may end up being a part of the test configuration; we are not sure.
But at any rate, as you said, that is basic blocking and tackling. We have to be able to do that to get our star quarterback on the field because we do believe he will perform very well when we do that.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to defer to Mr. Spratt to let him get a feel for the hearing.
Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Spratt, you are recognized, sir.
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you all for your testimony. We very much appreciate you coming and presenting the situation to us.
Let me go first to the most recent test and ask you, General Obering, if the Orbital Sciences booster is several times more powerful in thrust and achieves a greater velocity than the provisional booster that was taken off the Minuteman for the early test. As a consequence, it generates a lot of shake, rattle and roll, a lot of physical stress on the payload, the Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) itself.
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Have we actually tested an EKV such as those deployed at Greely and Vandenberg atop the orbital booster? And if so, have we resolved or satisfied ourselves that we yet know enough about the physical stresses that will be imparted to the payload due to the fact that we are using a much more powerful booster than the early provisional booster?
General OBERING. Yes, sir. In fact, we have flown—first of all, to answer your question, we have flown the booster that is the operational configuration of the booster that is sitting in the silos today in California and in Alaska. We have flown that successfully three times.
On the latter two of those flights, when we had an instrumented kill vehicle onboard the booster in which it was able to detect the launch environment that you talked about, to make sure that we were within the design tolerances and the margins that we expected. And in fact, we were.
So we gained a lot of confidence from that testing.
Mr. SPRATT. We have flown the EKV on top of the Orbital booster?
General OBERING. No, sir. We have flown the booster—your question was about the environments that the EKV sees in flight?
We have flown that booster in flight three times and we have instrumented the kill vehicle that we had on that booster during those flights so that we would understand what that launch environment was. And it was within the design margins that we have for the kill vehicle.
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We have flown the operational prototype of the kill vehicle, as you say, on the payload launch vehicle before, the ones we used in the previous testing. And the payload or the kill vehicle that we have currently in the silos is about 67 percent the same hardware and about 62 percent the same software.
Mr. SPRATT. Won't we have to put the actual EKV that is deployed on top of the actual booster that we intend to use before we can make conclusive statements about the integration of the two systems?
General OBERING. Yes, sir. And that is what the purpose of the last two flight tests was to be, was to get, on 13-C and 14, was to get that operational configuration kill vehicle, the data, as part of that flight.
Mr. SPRATT. If the North Koreans were to fire a Taepo Dong–2 or an ICBM at us today, what would be the primary fire control system that we would rely upon to activate our interceptors at Greely and Vandenberg?
General OBERING. Well, sir, we have what we call an engagement sequence that would be activated that begins with overhead satellites that provide us early warning indications. And then the ground-based midcourse fire control system, working with sensors that we have, either Cobra Dane Radar in the Aleutian Chain.
Depending on the launch and the attack, Aegis ships would come into play that we may have stationed forward. And that provides tracking information into the fire control system and then we transmit that to the interceptor. We built what we call a weapons task plan that is accepted by the interceptor and then the interceptor is launched.
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Mr. SPRATT. We do not have Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) High yet. We depend upon the Defense Satellite Program (DSP).
General OBERING. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPRATT. We do not have the midcourse or trackers, the Space, Surveillance, & Tracking System (SSTS), the old SBIRS Low yet in place. You are moving along with development of it and most of it is classified, as I understand it.
General OBERING. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPRATT. And we do not have the X-Band Radar yet, though it is on track to be delivered. So today, if something were to happen—God forbid—we would rely upon the Cobra Dane Radar at Alaska?
General OBERING. Yes, sir, the Cobra Dane and the Aegis ships that we would have available.
Mr. SPRATT. Have we ever conducted a flight test where the Cobra Dane served as a primary fire control system?
General OBERING. Sir, what we have done because the geography does not allow us to do that readily in the test bed, what we have had to do is emulate that track into the fire control system. And we have done that.
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And in fact, some of the success story that came out of the two aborted flight tests recently was that we were able to take that information, feed that into the fire control system; it did generate a weapons task plan. It was accepted by the interceptor's flight computer.
And that was the operational software that we have loaded in the field today. So that was a good ring out. It was a good check of that.
Mr. SPRATT. One statement you made or someone made about the X-Band Radar was you could put it on the Chesapeake and pick up something in San Francisco. But the problem is, it is not a volume search radar and therefore, something would have to direct it at that particular object so it could use its pencil-thin beam to acquire it, would it not?
General OBERING. It has the capability to do both missions, but it is primarily designed to do the tracking in discrimination missions. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Duma, you say on February 7th, on page 17 of your report to Congress, most of which is classified, but in an unclassified paragraph, you outline nine different concerns you have in assessing the capability of the limited defense operation today. One of them is, ''scripted developmental test flights, precisely characterized target complexes and other test realism issues remain.''
And you also say, ''Long Duration Orbiter (LDO) hardware and software configurations have not yet been flight tested.'' And in your testimony today, you say, ''Integrated ground test results to date indicate the testbed has the potential to defend against a limited threat under certain conditions.'' Three qualifiers; pretty tentative about the system at this point in time.
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I take it—I infer from all of this—that you think a lot needs to be done to make these tests much more realistic? And until it is done, you cannot make a final, unconditional assessment of the system's capability.
Mr. DUMA. In the report I delivered in February, there is a lack of hard test data from which to draw certain conclusions. That is clear in that report.
The conditions that I described in terms of the ground test capability leading to a potential, the ground exercises that have been done, the involvement of the military operators, is probably the strongest element in my mind of the ballistic missile defense system. They have control over that. They have done exercises. The operators have been involved. So the basic command and control, battle management capability, I think, is fairly mature for being able to deliver that limited capability. I feel fairly good about that.
Mr. SPRATT. You note several systems and how long it has taken to bring them to maturity. You did not mention the Patriot, but the Patriot was begun in 1967 as an air defense system. It was not really brought to full operational maturity until the Persian Gulf War in 1990—23 years—just to indicate how long it takes to perfect a system like this, particularly when you are not testing it a great deal.
The longstanding concern of mine has been, you describe the philosophy today as a test-fix-test philosophy. We have deployed systems. What if we find out that there are significant hardware flaws or significant software flaws, that there are major retrofits that need to be made that we discover in testing? What do we do with these systems that are deployed in silos at Fort Greely now? Anyone on the panel?
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General OBERING. I will answer that one, if you do not mind. That is exactly the equation that we have gone through in our heads in terms of what we are doing. That is exactly it.
And it is a risk-benefit equation. We do not have a defense against this threat.
And so therefore, the risk becomes: are we going to discover something in our testing in the next year or two that is going to force us into major redesign of the interceptor, a major redesign of the booster, a major redesign of the fire control system, a major redesign of the sensors? Or have we tested enough that we can begin fielding and then continue to improve it?
We believe that we have shown the basic functionality of the hit-to-kill, the sensor onboard the kill vehicle, the same. As I said, 67 percent of the hardware is the same. The software is primarily the same.
We do some robustness so that we do not have to rely on any type of apriority information or hard intelligence because those are difficult to come by.
Mr. SPRATT. One of the problems apparently was the failure of the horizontal stabilizer to retract on the last launch or the one before it. If that required a physical fix in the field, would you go out in the field, pull the missile up and actually fix the stabilizer?
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General OBERING. If we had to do that, yes, sir. But all indications are, to this point, is we may not have to do that. I have to wait until we get the results from that back.
Mr. SPRATT. Isn't one of the questions still to be resolved how well all of this mechanical equipment and electronic equipment operates in the austere, frigid environment at Fort Greely?
General OBERING. Actually, sir, in many respects, it is a more benign environment there than we have in the South Pacific. And there are some test configuration issues that we have.
For example, the silo that we fire it out of, it is not exactly the same configuration. It was designed for a BV booster. So we had to make some adaptations to get the same equipment that we have in Alaska and California there. And we are looking at that potential contribution at this point.
And in fact, even on our intercept flights, in our testing, we have to add about 30 percent additional equipment based on the test constraints.
Mr. SPRATT. For a full system——
Mr. EVERETT. The gentleman's time has expired.
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Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. I will yield to Mr. Spratt a couple of minutes and then I will have some questions.
Mr. EVERETT. Absolutely.
Mr. SPRATT. For a full system, ground-based intercept system, we have always included at the beginning SBIRS High, and then a handoff from SBIRS High to SSTS or SBIRS Low and then the X-Band Radar comes in place. Those three components have yet to be brought online. The X-Band Radar appears to be within sight, sea-based apparently. But SSTS is still not there. And SBIRS High is still not there. When can we expect these other components to be operational and in place?
General OBERING. Sir, first of all, SBIRS High is not critical to the operation of the system. We can actually very well use the system with the DSP satellites that we have today.
SBIRS High improves that, but we can use the DSP. We will have the X-Band Radar, the sea-based X-Band, in place by the end of this year. And so it will be ported in Adak, Alaska and it will be in a position to be integrated into the system.
And the STSS, as I mentioned in my opening statement, we are going to launch two satellites in 2007 that begin the testbed for that, again based our knowledge-based approach where we want to make our decisions based on results. And we will build out that constellation.
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But that is going to allow us tremendous flexibility from a global perspective to close that fire control loop. Again, in protecting the United States and our homeland from a more near-term threat, we do not necessarily need the STSS system to do that.
Mr. SPRATT. Let me ask you a final question and that is bringing all of these systems to maturity. And the question is: given the fact that we have a tight defense budget: the Army's future combat system needs to be funded; the Navy is not getting funding adequate for a 300-ship Navy today; for the old legacy systems that are still part of our requirements; the Air Force has cut back the F–22; F–35s could be cut back.
We have a lot of stuff on our plate here that has yet to be brought to maturity. And the question I am putting to you is: how do we afford a ground-based interceptor, a boost phase interceptor, a kinetic interceptor, space-based, the Airborne Laser system, plus the tactical systems—the PAC–3, the THAAD, the MEADS and the Navy's lower tier? All of these things, can we bring them to maturity within the budget that we have?
General OBERING. Sir, I believe that we can bring those systems into maturity. We are going to make some decisions in the 2008 time frame based on the results. And there may be some down-selects with a few of those. But for the most part, we can bring those programs through.
Mr. SPRATT. Budgetarily, though, what are we talking about if we bring all of these systems online in roughly the same time period? Is there enough of a wedge in the defense budget to fund the procurement and the ultimate acquisition of these multiple systems?
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General OBERING. Yes, sir. Within the top-line guidance that I have been given, we can make those decisions and make that fit. If I could put in perspective one thing in terms of budgetary? If you go back and look at every penny that has been invested in missile defense since we started this effort back in 1983, it adds up to about $92 billion—$92 billion.
Mr. SPRATT. We go back to 1970 and add Safeguard/Sentinel.
General OBERING. Yes, sir, which were defunct.
Mr. SPRATT. Over $100 billion easily.
General OBERING. The single attack of 9/11, based on the GAO, just from damage costs alone, was $83 billion. That was just damage cost alone. And that was not even a weapon of mass destruction.
And so I think that, in the aggregate, in the perspective, what we are doing is very important. And I think it is probably worth doing.
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, sir.
Mr. REYES. Thank you.
First of all, I have a couple of questions. And first let me say that I for one am glad that you three gentlemen are in the positions that you are in because there is a lot at stake for our country, given the threats that we have seen worldwide.
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And as a member that has visited North Korea twice, that has to be our number one threat, so this is vitally important stuff, but very expensive. And you can see the concern that a lot of us have about fielding a system that has not been fully tested as we would any other weapon in our inventory.
So given that, let me ask you, General Obering, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in an unclassified assessment of the threat, have stated their belief that North Korea is capable of using rudimentary countermeasures in an ICBM attack against the United States. So my first question is: how important is the sea-based X-Band Radar to overcoming such countermeasures?
General OBERING. Sir, the sea-based X-Band is very important. It does bring yet another step up, so to speak, in our capability to be able to address that. And also the ability to address countermeasures is why we are also trying to develop the layers in our defenses, so that we do not have a vulnerability in just one particular phase.
Mr. REYES. And as you stated to my colleague, that is going to come online at the end of this year?
General OBERING. Yes, sir.
Mr. REYES. Is there any reason why it would not come online? Is there any possibility that it will not come online, given the threat that we are facing from North Korea?
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General OBERING. No, sir. Programmatically, the program has done very well. We had a short setback with respect to some hydraulic line contamination that we worked through and got back on track with respect to the schedule. But in fact, it is meeting its milestones.
Mr. REYES. So if we were handicapping it at the track, it would be what kind of odds? 90 percent that it will be in place? 95? 98?
General OBERING. Sir, I am not a betting man. [Laughter.]
Mr. REYES. Neither am I, but I am trying to get a sense, and I will tell you why, because the chairman and I have often discussed the trials and tribulations that we went through with THAAD and the irritating quality control issues. And I am just trying to figure out how many of these things we have, both in terms of the missile capability and the coordination that is involved in that, as well as things like the X-Band Radar.
General OBERING. Yes, sir. I understand. One of the good indications that we have and again, the quality seems to playing as primarily an interceptor arena. And I have taken steps to address that.
But we have a THAAD radar that is in testing right now at White Sands. We have a forward-based X-Band Radar that is in testing at Vandenberg Air Force Base, same manufacturer for those modules. And those are performing extremely well.
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And so that gives us the additional confidence that this radar is going to be in place. In addition, we do have plans to deploy that forward-based X-Band Radar. And that would also help us with respect to the discrimination or the tracking issue that you mentioned earlier.
Mr. REYES. So I am going to assume that once it comes online, it will be used as part of the testing process.
General OBERING. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Mr. REYES. And let me ask you a question. If it is being used for testing, can it simultaneously be available to defend against a North Korean launch against the United States and still participate in the testing process?
General OBERING. Yes, sir. There are general test areas that it can operate in that will support our testbed. And it can also support an operational capability in those locations, in addition to its homeport off the coast of Adak.
Mr. REYES. Let me switch gears here a little bit. You were quoted as saying that you may terminate the BV-Plus booster. Does this booster have specific mission requirements that it is better able to meet than the Orbital booster? And if so, how do you plan to meet these mission requirements?
General OBERING. Sir, the reason that we had a dual-booster strategy was because we were having trouble early on, before my time, on getting into a performing booster configuration. And so it was very prudent. In fact, General Kadish made that decision, my predecessor. And it proved to be valuable, having that two-booster strategy when we had the accidents at the Pratt & Whitney plant in California and set us back. The situation we find ourselves today in is, however, we have actually flown this orbital booster now three times successfully. And by the way, it flew exactly as predicted by our models and our simulations. We have enough confidence in this configuration that we believe it can do the mission.
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It turns out that after the accidents in California, we had to revert to now we have a situation where we have one supplier for the boosters' motors. So this dual-booster strategy, the benefits we are no longer able to achieve from that.
In terms of mission performance, there are some differences between that. It is not as fast a booster as the orbital booster. And therefore, it does not have as great a reach, so to speak, as the orbital booster. But we do not believe that that is a major factor with respect to how we would approach going through a single booster configuration.
Mr. REYES. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank my ranking member.
Mr. Franks.
Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, General Obering, and your team here. We are very grateful to you for coming to be with us today. It occurs to me that if you and your team ever are called upon to react to some type of attack on this country or if your systems ever prevent some type of nuclear warhead from landing in America, that your lives and your efforts will be profoundly affirmed.
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And with that in mind, it seems likely that your strategy here has been to maintain the best initial defense capability that you can, while trying to develop a more comprehensive and advanced system. And that seems to rely greatly upon ground-based interceptors, at least for the moment.
Do you feel like you have the appropriate inventory or at least the scheduled procurement of ground-based interceptors that will allow you to continue to maintain the protective element and still give you the ability to have a robust testing program?
General OBERING. Thank you, Congressman.
I think we need the missiles that are in the President's budget. And I say that because of the wargames that we have done. We have always been put on the dilemma of managing our inventory with the inventory that we have played.
You want to be in a situation where your firing doctrine, the number of missiles you shoot at each incoming missile, is determined by the efficiency you want against that particular intercept and not by your inventory. And I do not think we will be comfortable that we will be there until the missiles that are in the budgets are fielded and actually put into place and available for operational use.
Mr. FRANKS. And you feel like that the budget that you are looking at, at the moment, is sufficient to do that?
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General OBERING. Yes, I think it is, Congressman.
Mr. FRANKS. Let me then speak to you about the boost phase defense systems—Airborne Laser and the Kinetic Energy Interceptors. In considering at least the delay in some of the funding or some of the program advances in the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, does that reflect a decision on your part or a conclusion on your part that the Airborne Laser has a greater overall capability or promise?
And do you think that you will continue to develop both of these systems in tandem until you ascertain which one has greater promise? Or do they both have an irreplaceable position in the ultimate development of boost phase?
General OBERING. Sir, I will take that. The Kinetic Energy Interceptor program, as I mentioned earlier, was started as a parallel path for Airborne Laser because it was a very high risk, but very high payoff program, is the way I describe Airborne Laser.
And so we have restructured that program to focus on its key capability. And that is what we have tried to do across the board, is demonstrate what your key capability is and then we can look at what kind of program and what kind of funding support we will get from that.
It turns out, for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, if you are able to achieve a very high acceleration booster to get into that boost phase area, then that actually has application across the other phases as well. And so if you think of a football field, the ground-based midcourse interceptor would cover the entire field, let's say, all the way from goal to goal.
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But it is a fixed site defense. If we have a Kinetic Energy Interceptor operating at a midcourse, it covers all the way down to the 10-yard line. So it covers almost the majority of the field about 90 percent. But it is mobile. It can be moved from country to country. And it is very flexible as we meet uncertain futures.
And so that is one reason why it is very attractive to continue to pursue that program if, in fact, it proves that it can do what it says it can do with respect to the high acceleration booster. The Airborne Laser, on the other hand is very risky, but extremely high payoff. It is a speed of light weapon. You cannot run away from it.
It is effective against all ranges of missiles, not just the short range, but the intermediate range and the longer range as well. So it covers a broader spectrum with respect to its capabilities.
General DODGEN. Congressman, if I could, I might just, as a warfighter, add under that that I certainly consulted in partnership with MDA when those decisions were made, and the Airborne Laser does have carryover into the data fight, significantly reducing our inventory needs once it is fielded. And so it is a very capable system that will cross many paths, and that is what makes it very attractive if it is technologically sound.
Mr. FRANKS. Well, I know that there have been some emphases on some of the failures of recent days. And I just hope that, you know, we can keep in mind as a nation and certainly in the projects you are doing that most of the greatest successes in technological history were built on failures. That is just part of the process. And I hope that you continue with your very, very important work.
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Mr. Duma, I might ask you, related to the strengths and weaknesses of modeling and simulation, I am assuming that you did some modeling and simulation prior to the actual field tests. And I am just wondering, how good are we getting at modeling and simulation? Is it starting to truly reflect in a reliable manner the actual field tests that we are doing?
Mr. DUMA. To answer that question, I have to take it in two phases. Models initially are developed with the design specifications, what the system is supposed to do. As you generate test data, you can then go back and modify those models with what you know to be real performance data.
There are a number of models, in fact the Missile Defense Agency has a rather extensive modeling and simulation program to support their development efforts. Some of those models have been validated and accredited for use through test data. And we use those. And we believe the results of those models.
Other models have not yet been validated or accredited with test data. So they are still, in my mind, predictive in nature. I would not equate that to test data.
That is assuming that the system will work as it is designed and that the design is the correct design. I told you earlier that one of the failures in 13-C actually required a minor design change in the tolerance for the data transfer.
Models are not built to identify failure mechanisms. So that is the real benefit of the test program. As I said earlier, the testing regimen gives you confidence that things are repeatable. And you learn things that are not in the models.
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Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Duma.
I will ask one last question to General Obering. You must go to bed every night thinking, you know, how can I best defend this country and make sure that we are prepared for any eventuality? If you had to tell this committee any one priority need that you have for either the immediate defense capability or to develop the comprehensive one that we all hope for in the future, what would that be? Are we letting you down in any way? Is there any area that you would emphasize in terms of need as a priority?
General OBERING. Sir, it may surprise you, but I think that in a word, it may be patience, tactical patience. We have had tremendous support from this committee. We have had tremendous programmatic support and budgetary support. We may stub our toe here or there, but for the most part, the program is on track. And so a little tactical patience may be in order.
Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you for your good work.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman
Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Schwarz?
Dr. SCHWARZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Obering and General Dodgen, I am still in the ''gee whiz'' phase of my indoctrination into this committee. But I do have a couple of questions, some rather elementary, others perhaps not and, perhaps in some cases, more political than technical.
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Since we are making a major investment in a ballistic missile defense system, what nations that are potential bad guys have deployable ballistic missile capabilities that we need to be concerned about? I mean, North Korea and China come to mind. And I hate, at this juncture, to classify China as a potential bad guy, but there they are out there with a great deal of technical potential. But who are the countries? What are the countries that have potential deployable ballistic missiles?
General DODGEN. Well, certainly you mentioned North Korea.
Dr. SCHWARZ. And if we are crossing over the line into something that is classified. Just assume it is theoretical.
General DODGEN. That is exactly what was going through my mind in my answer. And I would say our focus today obviously is on North Korea and building a capability. And then you can say where there might be some other emerging capability that might concern us.
I will tell you we watch it every day. Every day, we watch what potentially is a launch from somewhere in the world. And at some point, you might say to yourself that you might be concerned about countries with more robust capability. And certainly we watch them. But our primary focus right now, I would say, is on North Korea.
General OBERING. Sir, if I could add to that? When we signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972 with the Soviet Union at that time, there were approximately eight countries around the world that had ballistic missile technology. Today, there are upwards of 20.
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Dr. SCHWARZ. Twenty?
General OBERING. Twenty, yes, sir. And not all of those nations have shown to be very friendly to the United States. And so it is hard to predict. We do know that there is sharing that is going on of technology.
But if we got any deeper into that, we would invite you for a closed hearing or a closed session where we could talk about it.
Dr. SCHWARZ. So theoretically, it could be some of the bad guys are sharing some information? There is a possibility that that is happening, which would beg my next question: who are the good guys that have this sort of technology and are sharing with ourselves? Japan is mentioned. I see Germany and Italy are mentioned as well. But with whom are we working to develop a cooperative anti-ballistic missile technology?
General OBERING. Sir, we actually have signed agreements right now with Japan, as I mentioned, with the United Kingdom, with Australia. We have several other countries that are interested in that framework agreement. We have longstanding programs with the United Kingdom and Japan. We are going to start some again, like I said, with those countries.
To give you an idea though, we co-host a conference every year, an international ballistic missile defense conference. Last year, we had 20 countries, as well, attend that conference. And these were friendly to the United States. And we had over 850 delegates. So there is a lot of interest and a lot of cooperation that is occurring behind the scenes.
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General DODGEN. If I might add, Congressman, from an Army's perspective, we have several European and Middle East partners that have bought into the Patriot system and our fielded capabilities. And our partners for the advanced system, the MEADS, are Italy and Germany as we move forward.
Dr. SCHWARZ. I would yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen.
Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think it was Mr. Duma, in your testimony, and Mr. Spratt may have touched on this. I am trying to get the perspective on timelines. You said that, perhaps it was for PAC–3, started in the early 1990's and now in 2004 it has matured. What timeline and what date in the early 1990's were you looking at when you were looking at development today to consider its maturity?
Mr. DUMA. Well, I was not looking at a specific date, just to let you know that that program had been around for over 15 years in development to get to where it is today with a certain reliability, that we expect a certain amount of performance out of the Patriot PAC–3 program. The only reason I used that as a benchmark is to compare it to where we are in the development stage for the ground-based midcourse defense system, which has been in development only seven years.
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And I think it is important to understand that it is still in development. If you look at what our role is in this, it is to provide advice to the Missile Defense Agency to get operational realism into the developmental test program. This is different than our traditional role of oversight for operational test and evaluation of other major defense acquisition programs. In those programs, they have gone through a development process and the expectations are there. The repeatability is there for an operational test.
We are talking simply here about operational realism in developmental testing.
Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Reyes used an analogy—a baseball analogy and perhaps an appropriate one, being springtime and so on—about when you go 0 for 3, then basically you work on your hitting and come back and you hit some more. And at some point though, I mean, at some point, if you go 0 for 28 or at some point, there is a level where you trade that baseball player away for something that works.
So I am just wondering, this kind of spiral development, at what point in spiral development do you get to a point where you say, ''You know, it is time to trade this player for something that works?'' It just seems like spiral development does not allow for that at all.
Mr. DUMA. Spiral development I designed so that what you learn in one spiral, you can translate into the next and subsequent spiral, so that the things that go well you bank on those; the things that do not go well, you can defer that capability into a subsequent spiral. That is the theory behind spiral development.
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It is all still development. And I think that is an important distinction to remember here because in our performance expectations, even mature systems like the PAC–3, you never expect 100 percent success.
We have launched 800 or so Tomahawk missiles in a recent conflict. Not all of them have those nice little pictures where the missiles are flying through a particular window or doorway. And yet, we would say that the Tomahawk missile is a very successful missile.
So when you are in a development phase, you have to expect some failures. In fact, failures are what allow you to learn and make the improvements.
Mr. LARSEN. I am aware of the principle, Mr. Duma.
On page 19 of our February report, you characterized the ground-based defense, command and control, battle management capability as rudimentary. Can you explain to us what rudimentary means in terms of the confidence level we in Congress can have that the system will successfully intercept an ICBM that was fired today?
Mr. DUMA. As I said earlier, I think that is one of the strongest areas for the missile defense program in terms of the exercises that they have done. They have controlled those and expanded their capabilities as it has matured.
So I think the ability to control the data, the battle management aspects of that, is ahead of the other elements.
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Mr. LARSEN. Even our knowledge of possible countermeasures, would you reach the same conclusion?
Mr. DUMA. With respect to the battle management? I am confused where you are going.
Mr. LARSEN. With your confidence level in the system to intercept an ICBM, given our knowledge of possible countermeasures used against the system.
Mr. DUMA. Right now, I am having confidence getting it out of the tube to get up there to even interact. The countermeasures issue, we will get into a classified discussion fairly quickly.
Mr. LARSEN. Okay.
In your personal opinion, has the system undergone to date the testing that is normally required to declare operational readiness? And if not, where are we to get there?
Mr. DUMA. I do not think that you can say the system is operationally ready today. We do not have a demonstrated capability from detection through negating the incoming threat. In our characterization of the performance, there are seven items that we look at: the ability to detect, classify, track, discriminate, engage, negate and also manage the data.
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We have test data on all of those elements to some degree. We do not have test data that would tell me that I can complete that chain with confidence and repeatably at this time.
General DODGEN. Congressman, could I address your question and get back to the Patriot analogy, if you do not mind?
Mr. LARSEN. Yeah.
General DODGEN. PAC–3 was deployed in Iraqi Freedom. And there had been a considerable amount of tests done before its deployment in Iraqi Freedom. But the system, the missile, had not been fully accepted by the Army at that time. Because the warfighter requested those missiles be deployed, the Army did a conditional acceptance or release of those missiles so that a selected number could be sent to the warfighter because we felt we had proved the military utility of doing that. And then they proved themselves to be very successful in the ballistic missile fight in Kuwait. Now we are still testing the PAC–3 missile.
Now if you draw the analogy to the Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) system, to tag on to what Mr. Duma said, the warfighter, speaking for the warfighter, the system has military utility and that, if faced with the threat, we will use that system. Certainly, the warfighter would like to see as much testing so that the capability is absolutely validated out.
And we applaud the testing plan that MDA has for the rest of this year. And I think that is a fair assessment of the analogy between the two.
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Mr. LARSEN. I think my questions are not so much focused on military utility. That may be a different debate. It could have all the military utility in the world, but it is not working.
We are still doing a lot of testing and we have to do a lot more testing before it can have the military utility that you say it has and that you can use.
General.
General OBERING. Sir, if I could?
Mr. LARSEN. Yeah.
General OBERING. I would like to clarify. The system, as I said before, we have demonstrated the basic functionality of the system.
Mr. LARSEN. Right.
General OBERING. And so to say that it does not work I think is a little bit too expansive. We have had a couple of things that we have to go address. But we have wrung the system out in flight testing in the past, the basic functionality.
We have also, in ground testing, in the past 2 years, going through our operational configurations. We have done an awful lot of testing; in fact, I think on the order of 60-something independent tests or different tests.
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So we have that confidence. And in fact, to also get to your other question, in spiral development, we do terminate programs. We do terminate efforts if we have to. And we have done that in the past in the Missile Defense Agency and will do so in the future if it so warrants.
Mr. LARSEN. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you. I am going to reserve my time.
Mr. Reyes, you are recognized.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just maybe a couple more questions.
General Obering, on page 10 of your written testimony, you state that the last two aborted GMD launches were disappointments, but they were not, by any measure, as you characterized in your comments, ''serious setbacks.'' My question is, if they were not serious, why did you appoint Admiral Paige to charter an independent team to review test processes, procedures and management? And do you routinely charter independent teams to look at issues that are not serious?
General OBERING. Sir, I think the exact words I used were ''serious setback.'' And what I was trying to convey there is the fact that it is not, in my opinion, a major issue with respect to the overall functionality of the system. We do not have a broken kill vehicle, for example, that cannot do the interception. We do not have a concern that we have a major redesign or a major problem with the basic functioning of the system. That is what I was referring to.
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And in setting up the independent review team, in chartering that and also assigning Rear Admiral Kate Paige in that position, I am trying to actually overkill this. I am trying to make sure that we do drive out every bit of the concern that you expressed earlier over quality and that we have experienced in aspects of our program.
The interesting thing about quality fixes is oftentimes they are easier to address than the basic functioning design fixes that you have to go back and do. But I want to make sure that there is attention to detail. We paid a lot of attention to detail in the interceptor, in the kill vehicle chain, in the past couple of years. We need to make sure we have extended that to the ground support equipment and that type of thing.
Mr. REYES. And what is the time frame? Are you going to get a report?
General OBERING. Oh, yes, sir.
Mr. REYES. Will we see the report?
General OBERING. I will get a report the end of this month from the independent review team, the end of March, on what their findings and recommendations are. And then we will proceed in implementing those and go from there.
Mr. REYES. Will we get to see a copy of that report?
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General OBERING. Yes, sir.
Mr. REYES. We would appreciate that.
There was quite a bit of commentary and disappointment expressed when Canada did not partner up with us on missile defense. There have been a number of articles written speculating as to why that was.
Cost was certainly one of the issues that has been speculated about. Also, there are a number of them, but the other perhaps most relevant is the high degree of technology that goes into this system and the many different intricate things that have to work perfectly in order to have a system that is effective and able to do the intercept.
Do you care to comment on any of that in terms of particularly Canada? Because I know that we had always assumed that they would be a partner, when Mr. Schwarz asked the question about who are our partners.
General OBERING. Sir, I honestly cannot comment on the motivations behind the Canadians, what they have done. But I will tell you this, the intercepts that we have achieved and accomplished and the environments that they were conducted in, within the range safety constraints, were such that you do not have random successes.
And so we do know that we have the basic functionality of the components that we need in response to the technical challenges. It is very difficult. It is still a very complex task and it is a very complex technical challenge that we have. But we in this country have done complex technical challenges and we think we can do this one.
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Mr. REYES. Are we moving forward? Do we continue to work with our Canadian allies to perhaps provide information, education? Because personally, speaking for myself only, I think they would have to be an important part of our effort to defend North America and maybe the Americas in general. So is there an ongoing outreach program going onto the Canadians?
General OBERING. Sir, we have ongoing outreaches with several different countries. But probably that question would be better off answered by the policy folks.
Mr. REYES. Fair enough.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Spratt?
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Obering, let me go back to the ABL and ask: what do we give up? What do we use by downsizing from 14 modules to 6 modules as a result of the weight problem and other problems with the module? In capacity and capability, what do we forego in order to downsize this system?
General OBERING. Sir, I cannot give you a specific answer because of the nature of what that would reveal about the system itself in terms of the power of the laser. But I will tell you that with the six modules and with what we have seen in the lasing test to date, it does achieve the functionality that we need to achieve with respect to its lethality.
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Mr. SPRATT. Theoretically, it does. Have you actually proven that in demonstrations?
General OBERING. Yes, sir. We have generated photons. We have emitted a light. We have measured the power output of that. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPRATT. So the questions now are: can you stabilize it? Can you direct the beam, control the beam, compensate the beam and things like that?
General OBERING. Yes, sir. The technical challenges associated with the generation of the beam, the lasing, we are fairly far down that path now with respect to the tests that we have done this year and just recently.
And as you said, now we have to make sure that we have beam control/ fire control part of that down.
Mr. SPRATT. I have a little chart here that I think we xeroxed from one of your charts which shows the threat in different ranges. And it says, ''Short range missiles, ballistic missiles, thousands built, widely available.''
Then it shows medium-range ballistic missiles, ''Many exist in Third World; more on the way.'' We have talked mainly today about ICBM interceptors. But the threat, the here and now threat, the clear and present danger, is really in tactical and theater systems that are, as your agency said, widely available and extensively deployed.
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Let's go down the list of things that we have talked about. The ground-based interceptor and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor are really designed to shoot down ICBMs.
The ABL has gone from 14 modules to six, so it is going to have less energy. Cannot talk about it in classified terms, but it will be less energy to power beam through the atmosphere than we originally estimated, which has to have some impact on its ability to engage short-range ballistic missiles.
The Aegis BMD is exo-atmospheric so the shorter-range missiles can underfly it potentially. A few years ago, the Navy cancelled the lower tier of the Navy area missile system, which were designed to deal with short-range ballistic missiles.
We have moved PAC–3 and MEADS to the Army. And the Army has future combat systems to fund.
A good example of what funding there is available, THAAD, to the best of my knowledge, has no funding, General Dodgen, in the Army's procurement budget and no funding in the Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP) for acquisition.
General DODGEN. Well, it has a very small amount for support costs for the first bit of force structure. But the transition issues have not been addressed yet.
Mr. SPRATT. But if we are really going to field it and deploy it and use it, we will need lots more money than is in the FYDP at the present time.
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General DODGEN. I think that will be determined by the method in which it is transitioned. And any system that is transitioned to the field always maintained its connectivity to the developmental community.
And how that gets worked out will determine where the money needs to be, to tell you the truth, Congressman.
Mr. SPRATT. MEADS is basically a paper program. But the Initial Operating Compability (IOC) for it, the notional IOC, is something like 2015 right now.
The question is: are we ignoring the more immediate, more likely, more pervasive threat in pursuit of the ICBM threat, which obviously is of great concern to us because of its danger to us? But are we underfunding tactical and theater systems in order to adequately fund ICBM intercept systems?
General DODGEN. Congressman, I would say no. I think the combination of the Army funding, the improvement of the Patriot system, the inventory that is available; 43 of the 50 Patriot batteries were deployed in Iraqi Freedom in many different countries. And I think that is the cornerstone of our capability right now in the shorter-range missiles. I think we need those other systems to come forward. I think we need THAAD and we need sea-based SM–3 to be in greater numbers eventually to handle the inventory.
Mr. SPRATT. When will the Army determine the future course of the THAAD, the funding for realistic and full-up acquisition?
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General DODGEN. I think we will determine that over the course of the next year.
Mr. SPRATT. But it is not in this year's budget, the 2006 budget?
General DODGEN. It is not. It will probably be addressed in next year's Program Objective Memo (POM).
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much.
Mr. EVERETT. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen.
Mr. EVERETT. First of all, I have just a couple of closing remarks. I appreciate the witnesses' response to the questions. We are going to have a vote in about, according to the buzz I just got, about 11.
And I also appreciate the in-depth questioning from the members. I think you can see this is a very important topic to the members. It involves the national security of this country, as well as an awful lot of money. I think our budget is in the neighborhood of $60 billion.
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Mr. Spratt is right. This stuff costs an awful lot of money. And we have to have results.
I am pleased to see the ABL has had some results. I am looking forward to future results. And the committee will, year by year, have to take a very close look at that.
In addition to testing, it should be pointed out that we continue to test the Patriot missile. When Israel deployed their Arrow missile, it was about the same testing that we are currently at. So I understand the testing principle. I think seven years is a short period of time. I also understand the fact that these are very important programs that we are involved in, that we may have in the neighborhood of $100 million—$100 billion—in missile defense, but one strike against this country costs us about $83 billion, not counting the human suffering and the loss and other losses involved with it.
And as far as our friends north of here, it is disappointing to me personally that they have decided not to participate in this. It is puzzling also to me because of the fact that their citizens are also at risk. And it is quite disturbing to me that they would leave to the American taxpayer the ability to protect their own citizens, which in essence, it appears to me that they have done.
Again, I thank the panel for your questions. We will have some questions for the record that we would appreciate if you would get back to us within 30 days. I know most people say 60, but we have a tendency for 60 days to turn into 90, so we are going to say 30 and expect it in 45.
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How about that? [Laughter.]
I also thank the panel. We have people very knowledgeable on the panel. Our members follow these issues carefully. They are controversial. But I thank all members for the fact that they are willing to ask these questions in the spirit.
And I would also point out that I agree with my ranking member. There are not many of us up here who do not believe in the missile defense system.
Having said that, I would again thank everybody.
And this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:46 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]