SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
Page 1 TOP OF DOC
65–547
2000
[H.A.S.C. No. 106–55]
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE: REVIEWING ITS TECHNICAL STATUS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
HEARING HELD
JUNE 22, 2000
Page 2 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
STEVEN KUYKENDALL, California
DONALD SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio
HERBERT H. BATEMAN, Virginia
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
HOWARD ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
BOB RILEY, Alabama
OWEN PICKETT, Virginia
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
Page 3 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
TOM ALLEN, Maine
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
Stephen Ansley, Professional Staff Member
Brian Green, Professional Staff Member
Robert Lautrup, Professional Staff Member
Jean Reed, Professional Staff Member
J.J. Gertler, Professional Staff Member
Erica Striebel, Staff Assistant
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2000
HEARING:
Thursday, June 22, 2000, National Missile Defense: Reviewing Its Technical Status
Page 4 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
APPENDIX:
Thursday, June 22, 2000
THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2000
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE: REVIEWING ITS TECHNICAL STATUS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Pickett, Hon. Owen, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Military Research and Development Subcommittee
Weldon, Hon. Curt, a Representative from Pennsylvania, Chairman, Military Research and Development Subcommittee
WITNESSES
Kadish, Lt. Gen. Ronald T., U.S. Air Force, Director, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements submitted for the Record can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Page 5 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Kadish, Lt. Gen. Ronald T.
Pickett, Hon. Owen
Weldon, Hon. Curt
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[There were no Documents submitted for the Record.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers submitted are pending.]
Mr. Weldon
(iii)
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE: REVIEWING ITS TECHNICAL STATUS
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Military Research and Development Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, June 22, 2000.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:25 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Curt Weldon (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Page 6 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
OPENING STATEMENT HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. WELDON. The Subcommittee will come to order.
This morning the Military Research and Development Subcommittee meets in open session to receive testimony on our National Missile Defense program. I want to welcome our distinguished colleague and ranking member, my good friend Owen Pickett, and also welcome today's witness, Lt. General Ron Kadish, U.S. Air Force, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. General Kadish, thank you for joining us today.
Before I get into the content of today's hearing, I do want to emphasize that there is much happening in the country and the world regarding missile defense and National Missile Defense. In fact, we have group of European parliamentarians in town today that I will be addressing tomorrow, giving them an overview of our movement toward defending our people.
And we have met, I have met personally and many of us have met over the past six weeks with over 100 parliamentarians from the Russian Duma, the European Parliament, chairman of the French Defense Committee, and numerous other officials, sensitizing them about our concerns and where we are going. In fact, it was last weekend that Secretary Cohen invited me to accompany him in meetings with the Russian Defense Ministry on National Missile Defense, which I did, and part of my questions today when we have the question session will refer to dialogue we had with the Russian leadership on missile defense.
Page 7 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Recently, long-time ideological opponents of missile defense have attacked the ground-based NMD system we are now planning to deploy by claiming it will be hopelessly ineffective. These critics, and they are few, maintain that simple and inexpensive countermeasures will easily confuse or overwhelm the system.
These criticisms are often difficult if not impossible to address in public because of the very sensitive nature of these technologies and capabilities involved in defeating these countermeasures. If Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) reveals these capabilities, it may compromise them and allow rogue nations to develop the means to make their countermeasures more effective. Yet if BMDO can't address these issues to Members of Congress, the critics get a free ride and support for the program may erode.
In the six years I have chaired this Subcommittee, I have met with everyone on both sides of the missile defense issue, including those who most recently have gone public with their criticism. And what offended me most personally was, they could have come to me for legitimate discussion, with Members present in a classified setting, of their allegations. Instead, they chose or he chose to go to one news outlet and share selective information, including classified data that he knew could not be appropriately responded to in the public. To me, that is outrageous and shows the shallowness of the opposition to where we are today on missile defense.
As a result of these critics, however, and wanting Members to have full and open discussion and understanding of missile defense, I asked General Kadish, with my good friend Owen Pickett, to provide the Committee and other Members a classified briefing on how the National Missile Defense (NMD) program is addressing countermeasures that rogue nations may be able to deploy. General Kadish came over yesterday and gave us a two-hour detailed classified description of a range of technologies, techniques and phenomenologies that I believe provided a high degree of confidence in our ability to defeat the expected threat, both in the near term and in the future.
Page 8 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I also went one step further. I personally invited those Members of Congress, our colleagues who publicly criticized the missile defense program based on information provided in media stories, even though they are not members of this Committee, to come and receive the same classified briefing. Two of them did. The others chose not to avail themselves of that opportunity. And we are all busy, I understand that, but the opportunity was given.
The purpose of the hearing today is to receive an update from BMDO on the status of the NMD program, and to explore in open session, to the extent that we can, some of the same issues we heard about in the classified briefing yesterday. I know this puts you, General Kadish, in somewhat of an awkward and delicate position, so I want to thank you for taking on this difficult task.
I don't want to steal any of your thunder, General, but I do want to take a few moments to provide a little more background for the members of the Subcommittee. The United States has had more than four decades of experience, both trying to develop and trying to understand how to defeat countermeasures. Our military concluded long ago that effective ballistic missile countermeasures are costly and technically very challenging.
In fact, NMD critics may be half right; some countermeasures may be cheap and easy, but that does not mean they will be effective. Anyone who claims they will be, does so on the basis of incomplete information or a misunderstanding of the NMD program. In essence, cheaper and easier means easier to defeat.
I would note that, although you wouldn't guess this from the press coverage, the review panel headed by retired General Larry Welch also concluded that the NMD program was on track and that technologies are available to defeat the countermeasures threat that the intelligence community, not BMDO but the intelligence community, says we can expect to face around the middle of the decade.
Page 9 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Could rogue nations get better at countermeasures over time? Probably, but those countermeasures will be more expensive and technically more difficult. We know that. And the NMD program is designed for evolutionary improvement to address new threats as they arise.
Before I yield to my good friend Mr. Pickett, I want to take a moment to address the harshest of the criticisms coming from NMD opponents. Here is a quote from a well-known critic, talking about the people who run the NMD program and are developing NMD technologies, and I quote:
''This is fraud on such a scale, it's shocking. Imagine these people wrapping themselves in the flag and saying they're defending the country when they're lying to the country.''
This appeared in the Boston Globe on June 14th. I have to say that I find this statement offensive in the extreme. I know General Kadish well. I know many of the people who work in BMDO well. While some may disagree with their technical judgments, their honesty and integrity are unquestionable.
And I believe that anyone who can make the statement I just quoted is either badly deluded or has taken leave of his senses. And I am totally offended by personal attacks on a man who has had such a distinguished career in leading this organization, who, I might add, in all the members that we deal with on this Committee, I don't know of anyone who has ever remotely challenged the integrity of General Kadish. And for someone to allude to that for the benefit of a media story, for his own self-promotion, to me is despicable, as un-American as you can get. And so I am here to say that I am offended by that.
Page 10 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Again, this Subcommittee takes a back seat to no one in challenging the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. For those of you who have sat through our hearings over the past six years, you know what I am talking about. There have been times when we have directly challenged BMDO. There have been times when we have introduced legislation and amendments to punish the contractors, as we did with Lockheed Martin when the Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) program was going off on the wrong track, to penalize them financially.
And we have taken those aggressive steps because, above all, we are going to protect the taxpayers' interest. And for anyone to come and say in the media that somehow this is a fraud on the American people is an outrageous, despicable lie. It is unfortunate in America that that is the level that someone would resort to, when we are moving forward with a solid program to move forward in protecting the American people.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weldon can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. WELDON. With that, let me recognize my good friend and colleague from Virginia, Owen Pickett, for any remarks he might want to make.
STATEMENT OF HON. OWEN PICKETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Page 11 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General Kadish, let me start by saying that you are among friends. This Subcommittee has consistently and strongly supported the defenses that America needs to counter all threats to our territory. But friends keep an eye on each other to make sure things are going well, and you have been quick to tell us of your successes, and we are also interested in your challenges.
Critics of National Missile Defense have made public challenges to the technical merits of the system that has been designed. It is the policy of the United States to deploy a National Missile Defense when it is technologically possible to do so. They obviously wish to challenge that technological possibility.
Their criticism put you in a tough spot, General, since the best rebuttals to their claims involve, as you know, classified data. The critics are like the cat that taunts the dog from the other side of the fence. We know that you can't cross that line into classified information in public, so you are limited in how you can respond and the extent to which you can respond to some of the accusations that have appeared in the press.
General, I know that the issue of what to spend on missile defense is a hard question for many of our members. It is made tougher by the evident warming of the relationship between the two Koreas. But today we are not here to debate policy, but to examine the technological possibility of a missile defense for our Nation. Will it work, can only be answered in the context of a prototype system. But can it work, that's the question at hand. If it's a physical impossibility, we ought to stop. If it is technologically possible, yet unrealized, we should focus on the hurdles ahead.
Page 12 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In testing, you have demonstrated many parts of the system that has been proposed, but many remain to be tested in an integrated fashion, such as the proposed booster and battle management system against multiple threats in succession. You and the people you represent have done a lot of work, really a remarkable amount with such an ambitious goal and such a limited time schedule.
I hope that today's hearing will show us that that work has justified this Committee's and this Congress's confidence in them and in you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pickett can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Pickett.
General Kadish, the floor is all yours. Your statement will be entered into the record without objection, and you have the ability to take such time as you may want.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. RONALD T. KADISH, U.S. AIR FORCE, DIRECTOR, BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION
General KADISH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I especially thank you for inviting me here to testify today on the National Missile Defense program. I would like to use my time this afternoon to explain the progress we are making. As you know, we are preparing within the Department of Defense to undertake what we call a Deployment Readiness Review or DRR this summer in order to assess the technological readiness and the cost of the National Missile Defense system.
Page 13 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And as you know, the President will take the Secretary of Defense's assessment into account when he subsequently considers whether or not to proceed with the NMD program. The President, in making this decision, will consider four criteria: the threat, the status of the technology, the affordability of the technology, and the overall national security environment, including arms control.
To support the technological assessment at this DRR, we have scheduled our fifth integrated flight test (IFT) on the 7th of July. There are many decision points ahead of us, and we have a flight testing program that extends over the next five years, the results of which will be used to inform decision makers and to validate and improve elements of our system.
There has been extensive program progress in the last year, to include a successful intercept, demonstrating an integration of many system elements, and extensive simulation and ground testing. To be sure, there is a lot of hard work ahead of us. But as we approach this evaluation this summer, I am convinced that we are on a path to prove the technological feasibility of deploying this country's first ever National Missile Defense system.
The goal of the NMD program is modest in scope, but technically extremely challenging. It is to develop and, when directed, field a limited, land-based National Missile Defense system to counter an emerging threat to the United States. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) testified before Congress earlier this year, and I would quote, ''Over the next 15 years, our cities will face ballistic missile threats from a variety of actors.'' And he specifically pointed to North Korea's ability to test its Taepo Dong II missile this year, a missile that may be capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the United States.
Page 14 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
To meet this threat, an Initial Operational Capability, consisting of 20 interceptors, can be available by fiscal year 2005. In light of the fact that some States could acquire a capability to launch more missiles in the next decade, our acquisition strategy supports growing that initial system to what we call an expanded C–1 architecture, consisting of 100 interceptors. The full 100 interceptors can be deployed by fiscal year 2007.
As I have testified before, the National Missile Defense program continues to be high risk. The schedule is compressed, and a significant setback in any one element can delay the entire program. The unconventional acquisition approach we have adopted in order to meet the emerging threat, requires developing and testing many of the elements concurrently. Maintaining schedule and meeting our commitment to deploy an Initial Operational Capability by 2005, requires aggressive management and constant attention. There is a long road ahead to maintain the balance of cost, and schedule and performance in this system.
This summer's technological assessment is only the first of several decision points in this multi-year system development and deployment process. Each subsequent decision will take into account the progress of the program at the time and will determine whether to give authority to proceed on key activities. Our most immediate challenge is the prospect of completing an X-Band radar on Shemya Island, at the end of the Aleutians in Alaska, by 2005.
Due to the often extreme weather conditions in the Aleutians and the short construction season that results, this is the long-lead item for the overall system. But in fiscal 2001, we would conduct a Defense Acquisition Board to review and assess the status of the program. Based on program performance at that time, we would seek approval for purchasing of long-lead items for early warning radars and for the beginning of the installation of the X-Band ground-based system and start the multi-year process of integrating our Battle Management/Command, Control and Communications systems. Authorization of interceptor missile production is not scheduled until 2003.
Page 15 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
This Committee is well aware of the challenges we face in the development of our ballistic missile systems to counter the growing threat. There are two central technological problems confronting this type of a system—a system that engages warheads in their longest phases of flight, something that we call the mid-course phase of the trajectory. The first problem we face is the discrimination problem or: can we find the warhead? The second is the so-called ''hit a bullet with a bullet'' problem or: once we find the warhead, can we hit it? Historically, both of these problems have been very difficult to solve, especially against a massive raid involving hundreds of warheads and countermeasures that include decoys, radar chaff and debris.
Until recently, many observers believed the chief technical barrier to our National Missile Defense program was hit-to-kill or colliding with the target vehicle, and it was not technologically feasible, that we could not hit a bullet with a bullet. Yet, the intercept tests executing in our National Missile Defense and Theater Missile Defense programs since March of 1999, have demonstrated repeatedly that hit-to-kill can be done.
Today, the primary concerns surrounding the capability of the planned NMD system have a new focus. Some now maintain that the system cannot accurately discriminate; that is, pick out the warhead from among many countermeasures. In fact, they claim that the problem is so hard that it is impossible to overcome, and therefore the National Missile Defense system should not be built. I disagree. To be sure, this is challenge is a difficult one, and we can't ignore it, and we are not ignoring it.
In order to understand the discrimination challenge before us, I believe we have to look at three aspects of the National Missile Defense program: First, the countermeasures the National Missile Defense program is expected to face; second, the tools that the system will use to enhance its ability to discriminate the warhead in a target cluster; and, third, our testing objectives and approach.
Page 16 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Let me take the rest of my time this afternoon to address these issues. As I indicated earlier in my previous testimony, the operational requirements of the NMD system are limited. If we proceed with deployment, we would initially build a system designed to protect all 50 States against a few long-range missiles with simple countermeasures. So it is very important to understand what the threat will be in 2005 to 2007 time frame, and this will mean considering both the source of the missile threat and the number and sophistication of missiles and warheads we anticipate the States of concern will have.
While many types of countermeasures can be postulated based purely on scientific principles, we are initially concerned with countermeasures that, based on intelligence estimates, a State of concern could make effective as it struggles to make its basic system work.
The primary States of concern are North Korea, Iran and Iraq. As a result, the expanded C–1 NMD system, as we call it, is not designed to face more than a few tens of warheads or sophisticated countermeasures that these States are unlikely to use. I believe the expanded C–1 system will be very effective at defeating the most likely threats from these States. The planned system involving 100 operational interceptors by 2007 is not designed to counter much larger and more capable forces of long-range missiles. The system we are designing for the 2005–2007 time frame could not defend against a massive attack involving hundreds of warheads, nor is it intended to defeat a more sophisticated set of countermeasures.
We fully expect that the threat of missile attack from States that threaten international peace and security will evolve over time, and accordingly, we have a follow-on NMD program to meet a larger, more sophisticated threat. As with the initial system, follow-on deployment could not harm the Russian deterrent. As the system progresses and we approach 2010, we believe we will be able to develop future capabilities that will handle more sophisticated countermeasures we expect to face from States of concern.
Page 17 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
There are practical limits to engineering a countermeasure capability, just as there are practical limits to the defensive technology. We will not be perfect against every conceivable countermeasure, but neither will our adversaries be perfect against our capabilities. Our sensor capabilities will improve over time.
The second aspect of the system important to understand is that there are several tools available to us to address this discrimination challenge. The planned system of system uses more than the kill vehicle to weed out the countermeasures and select the right object for destruction. In addition to the infrared and optical sensors on the kill vehicle, we use the early-warning radars and the X-Band radar to decrease the volume of space needed to be searched by our kill vehicle. The X-Band radar also assists us in the discrimination of the target complex.
There are many other discrimination technologies and techniques that I cannot and will not talk about in this public forum. But the plain fact is that effective countermeasures would have to defeat more than one aspect of our discrimination capability. With regard to countermeasures, there is a lot of redundancy and synergy built into the system, so that very often the performance we get is greater than the sum total of the parts.
Those who say that it is technologically impossible for the NMD system to do an adequate discrimination job do so on the basis of very limited knowledge and without the benefit of testing results that we have generated to date and will generate in the years ahead.
In the future, we will add even more tools to the discrimination tool box, to include the infrared sensors on Space Based Infrared System-Low (SBIRS-Low) satellites, which will be used to help track the warhead. As our computer power grows and the discrimination sensors improve and multiply, it will get harder and harder to defeat our maturing NMD system.
Page 18 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The third aspect of the NMD system that must be understood is that we need to have confidence in our discrimination capability, which we get through our testing program. In general terms, the approach we have chosen is to test individual system components one-by-one, and then gradually link them for a partially-integrated and then later a fully-integrated testing. The results from each test are fed into subsequent tests so that incremental improvements may be made to the elements and system.
We are just now entering the integrated testing phase. The tests we plan will become progressively more stressful, and the increasing complexity of our tests will involve, among other things, greater discrimination challenges, longer ranges, higher closing speeds and day and nighttime shots. The way our current testing program is planned, we do a series of tests that become increasingly operationally realistic by 2004.
The technologies in the NMD system, having been developed and engineered over several decades, are not revolutionary. We are not awaiting some technological breakthrough at this point. The technologies are there because of the significant investments that we have made in years past. So what we really have before us is an engineering and integration challenge. The test program we have devised is designed to demonstrate not only the effectiveness of many of our more advanced discrimination technologies, but also the integration of the numerous system elements. This is a stiff challenge, but in my professional judgment not an insurmountable one.
Now, I wanted to describe our flight test program. But before I do, I want to highlight one very important point. We do not just rely on test data from intercept flight tests. There has been significant ground testing, as well as flight testing, against the radars for many years. And we use the data from these tests to validate the results we derive from our extensive modeling and simulation exercises.
Page 19 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So while our integrated flight tests are very important, and while we all await with great anticipation for the outcome of our next flight test, they are not the only basis for developing a recommendation about the technical feasibility of the system. Our track record is good, and our entire testing program has given us a lot of good and very valuable data upon which to base our decisions.
There has been a great deal of public focus in the press about this flight testing program, including allegations by some that we are making the tests easy. This is simply not the case. Our flight tests are tough and unprecedented, with clear testing objectives, protocols and specific sequences. We established early on and are adhering to a test strategy designed to address specific objectives with increasing complexity.
The flight test plan has always incorporated three major phases. The first phase, two initial flights were designed to identify the different capabilities of our kill vehicle sensors. In the second phase, the objectives of the flights were to look at the aim-point selection and address the critical hit-to-kill phenomena. And in the third, we will execute intercept tests against an increasingly complex set of targets.
The first major phase in our program involved two seeker characterization flight tests on our interceptor kill vehicle, which we executed in order to test on equal terms two competing suites of sensors; one built by Boeing, which flew the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) during Integrated Flight Test 1, and the other built by Raytheon, which flew a kill vehicle in Integrated Flight Test 2. The testing objectives for these first two flight tests were very different and much simpler from the testing objectives of the integrated flight test that followed because they tested only how well the two competing sensor suites could see the dummy warhead and countermeasures. Hit-to-kill was not attempted in these first two tests.
Page 20 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In effect, this first phase we threw a giant eye chart up there in space before each of the kill vehicles in order to evaluate their vision. We wanted to test more than just whether they could see that big E on that chart, so we included more objects within the field of view, so that we could determine how refined the vision of each kill vehicle was. These vision tests also were unassisted. We made no effort to use ground-based radars to assist these sensor suites. The EKVs were on their own, and the NMD team evaluated the performance on the basis of their ability to collect target data to validate our discrimination capability.
The target clusters released in space for the first two flight tests contained reentry vehicle, nine decoys and a target deployment mechanism. This significant countermeasure package contained more objects than the countermeasure packages we employed during our next two flight tests because we wanted to see how well the kill vehicles would discriminate within the target complex and identify the warhead.
We gathered an immense amount of data that increased our confidence in our ability to meet the discrimination challenge. IFT–1 and 2 demonstrated a robustness in discrimination capability that went beyond the baseline threat for purposes of designing the expanded C–1 system.
The second major phase of our flight testing program is designed to test more than the kill vehicle's vision. This phase began with IFT–3, a partially integrated intercept test, where we successfully demonstrated our ability to do on-board discrimination and target selection, as well as accomplish the key hit-to-kill task. We dramatically reduced the number of objects in the target complex because our testing objective changed from one of simply seeing and discriminating among the objects to seeing the objects, discriminating among them, evaluating them and selecting the warhead instead of the decoy or rocket stage, and colliding into the warhead's ''sweet spot.'' The challenge here, as you can see, is much, much greater.
Page 21 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
These early intercept missions are intended primarily to prove and, if necessary, refine the hit-to-kill technologies. Even here, of course, the discrimination technologies must work well if we are to be able to test our ability to collide with the target. But we did not set out in these early tests with the goal of stressing the sensor suites to their maximum by releasing multiple objects before them. This will come later. These smaller target sets are not only consistent with our early flight test objectives, they also are representative of some of the threats emerging missile States can pose to us.
So far, we have had two intercept flight tests to support our decision process. The October 2, 1999, test demonstrated the ability of the kill vehicle to locate; that is, discriminate the warhead from simple countermeasures we employed and the target booster's final stage—and engage and destroy a reentry vehicle above the atmosphere. IFT–3 demonstrated we could overcome the technical complexity of colliding directly with a missile warhead traveling in space at a closing velocity of more than 15,000 miles an hour. Because of this test, we now know our intercept technology works, a fact that has helped to build our confidence that it is possible to maintain our aggressive schedule.
In that regard, I would like to emphasize that we did not hit the target in IFT–3 by accident. Although there were anomalies in that test, as there are in any tests, the discrimination capability of the kill vehicle performed essentially as intended. The decoy was the brightest object in the field of view when the seeker opened its eyes, but the kill vehicle rejected the decoy as the improbable target, resumed its search and identified the right target before diverting towards it and slamming into it.
Page 22 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Integrated Flight Test 4, which occurred in January of this year was partially successful. Although we did not hit the warhead, we did test and demonstrate the integrated functionality of major system elements. The operation and performance of ground sensors, the operation and functionality of the Battle Management/Command, and Control and Communications and the kill vehicle's performance up to the last seconds of flight. We also used a simple target complex during this flight test which, but for the EKV anomaly, showed every sign of being fully successful. This test was important because it demonstrated that the X-Band radar and the upgraded early-warning radars we would deploy as a part of this system could make their expected contribution to solving the countermeasures problem.
Next month, IFT–5 will be another full system test of the prototype system, using all of the elements representing the future operational system. The discrimination challenge will involve the dummy warhead, a decoy and a discarded rocket stage. A new in-flight communications capability providing real-time data to the kill vehicle will also be tested. At least 16 more intercept tests are planned by 2005, with intercept tests scheduled to take place prior to any commitment to purchase interceptors in 2003.
Subsequent flight tests will become progressively more difficult. Retired Air Force General Larry Welch supported this event-driven approach. It is worth noting that there was one piece of advice offered to us by General Welch, which we did not follow. This independent panel recommended, in the interest of keeping tests simple, that we conduct these early intercept tests without countermeasures in order to test more thoroughly the hit-to-kill technique. We thought it was important to add a little more complexity into the Integrated Flight Tests 3, 4 and 5. We believe this testing strategy, thus far, has paid off in better data for us.
Page 23 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The National Missile Defense Joint Program Office is following a rigorous systems engineering approach and executing a multi-year testing program for developing the country's first operational ballistic missile defense system. Given the complexity of the NMD system and the fact that we are just now in the early stages of development, it would be irresponsible, both from a programmatic and a financial standpoint, to rush into a testing program that has sought to prove the system's effectiveness against all stressful targets at the same time. A test failure under these conditions would make it very difficult to identify the points of weaknesses, and I would be less certain that I could get results useful for subsequent tests. One of our testing goals is to learn about and refine different parts of the system as we are developing it.
Our test evaluators cannot learn by overloading the system components and testing them too early under highly adversarial conditions. We cannot learn if we cannot isolate results. We cannot acquire the data we need, in other words, unless we use a more scientific, incremental approach.
The NMD program is unique for the amount of attention and intense scrutiny it receives daily. Hundreds of dedicated program and data analysts in Government, both in the Congress and in the Executive Branch, and industry, to include the manufacturers of the system's elements, the lead system integrators and its entire subcontractor team, and independent review panels, most notably a panel headed by General Larry Welch, routinely and aggressively analyze and catalogue our testing results and investigate the validity, utility and authenticity of the data generated by every test executed by the NMD Joint Program Office.
Simply put, Mr. Chairman, this program has been turned inside out and placed under a microscope. A problem for one is a problem for all. There are many parties who have a lot invested in the development of an effective NMD system and who will flag any problems in the program or inaccuracies in reporting.
Page 24 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We will continue to test our NMD system based upon disciplined, proven and scientific methods learned over more than 4 decades of missile development, deployment and operations. While we strive for success on every test, we do not expect we will always achieve it. Very often problems occur and elements of our test fail. Yet we learn a lot from our testing, both successes and failures.
We must ensure that the NMD system will work with a very high level of confidence against the threats we believe will exist. The testing program is designed to do just that over the course of the next five years.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of General Kadish can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much, General, for that statement. And let me just add for the record that there are those who have claimed that somehow there is a denial of an ability to understand the direction the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is taking in NMD. Every member of this institution has the same right to access to classified data. We have never denied, in fact, we have encouraged members to get all of the information they desire about the flight test program, questions of countermeasures. In fact, yesterday I would say probably one full hour of your presentation was devoted to an in-depth discussion of countermeasures: the types of countermeasures, the difficulty of countermeasures and the steps you are taking. That is available to every member of Congress. And I want to thank those members that showed up. We had probably 30 members, many from this Committee, some from other Committees who came, to learn the real facts in a setting where they could ask you any question that they have on their mind relative to our program.
Page 25 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Now, unfortunately, I have to start out, General, by disagreeing with you. But it is not really you I am disagreeing with, it is the guy at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, because you are repeating what he is saying; that he will make a decision this year on deployment. We have already made that decision. When the President signed my bill into law, he verified as the law of the land that it is our policy to deploy a National Missile Defense system. He cannot interpret my law. If he wants to run for Congress, he can join his wife and run for the House or the Senate, but he cannot interpret my bill.
My bill, when it came up on the floor of the House, was clear. I said to my colleagues, if you support the President, who by the way on the day the bill came up, opposed the bill with a letter to every member, then vote with the President and oppose the bill. But if you support our decision, vote for the bill and decide that it is our policy to deploy a system. And we overwhelmingly won that vote, 317 members. In fact, more Democrats and Republicans in both parties voted for it than against it. And when the President signed it, he basically concurred with that and made it the law of the land.
Now, there are decisions to be made, and I understand that, and you have to make a decision this year. But that is not the President's decision. The decisions now, after we have made our decision as a country, are based on technology, they're based on dollars and challenges, and I am willing to let you make those decisions for us. If you tell us we have to slip the system because of a problem, I am willing to listen to that and respond. But there is no, in my opinion, political decision to be made this year. We made it. And when the President signed the bill into law, he joined us. So he can't have it both ways. But I say that, and I know you are repeating what you have to repeat, but as you know, I disagree with you.
Page 26 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The second point: I want to question you briefly about Russia. As I briefed you in my office, our trip to Russia and our discussions with the Ministry of Defense were very revealing. I think we are a lot closer to working with the Russians than many would say, and I don't think it is going to create the kind of hostile disagreements with Russia, certainly not as much as the Kosovo crisis, and the debacle of our policy on that or the way we handled North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have created with the Russians. In fact, there are many who are working with us on a proactive, positive approach.
In a meeting with Deputy Ministry Mikhailov attended by a series of Russian generals, we talked about the work the Russians are doing on missile defense. I queried them about the S–300 and the S–400, and the mobile variant of that, the ENT–2500, which I think you will agree if it can do what it says it can do in their marketing brochures that they have put out at the Abu Dhabi Air Show, it is as good as anything we are developing in terms of Patriot programs, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC–3).
But then I found out something unique: the Russians are working on a new missile defense system—the S–500, which I wasn't aware of. And so I queried them on the S–500, and Deputy Minister Mikhailov and the Russian generals told me they have done all of the mathematical calculations and have done all of the preparations for building a brand-new missile defense system, the S–500. Now, you know the capabilities of the S–400. It is a fantastically capable system. In fact, my assessment is, and I want to ask you for your own opinion, and you might not be able to give it to me, but if the S–500 is better than the S–400, it means it must also violate the very protocols that the Administration and Russia agreed to on theater missile defense systems. But that is a separate issue.
Page 27 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
But the point is, when they said they couldn't afford to build the system, I challenged them to let us help them with that system, to work together, to do a joint program, as I have supported with the RAMOS program, and which you have responded to dramatically, in spite of the administration canceling the funding, before you came into office, for that program.
So I would ask you today, are you having the Department look at ways that we can cooperate with the Russians beyond the Russian/American Observational Satellites (RAMOS) program? I did discuss with Secretary Cohen the S–500 and our joint working on that program. Do you think that is something that we should at least consider?
General KADISH. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, we are putting together an effort to understand the proposals that the Russians are offering and to look at very seriously what we could do in a cooperative way, at least from a BMDO perspective, if allowed to do so by the Administration and the Congress. So it is a very serious effort, with a lot of potential should it work out.
Mr. WELDON. And, General, along that same line, as you know, before you came in to chair BMDO, there was a decision made above the head of BMDO's level to cancel the RAMOS program, which sent shockwaves through Russia. What is your feeling about the RAMOS program? And I know this answer, but I want you to state on the record how is the RAMOS program going?
General KADISH. Right now, the RAMOS program, we have restructured it somewhat to make it more useful to us, as well as to take advantage of what the Russians can bring, from a technical perspective, and I believe it is on track to accomplish its basic technical goals, as well as a major effort of technological cooperations with the Russians, which will be a first for BMDO.
Page 28 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. And we appreciate your leadership in that effort.
General, there have been other alternatives thrown out there in the NMD area. Some are advocating a sea-based approach that they claim could be deployed much earlier than 2005. There has been a recent update on a plan that I have been interested in for years of a space-based approach, using low-orbit satellites that could be positioned at a certain parallel over rogue states. I think both of them offer some potential down the road.
Is it part of your ongoing planning effort that we would not just be limited to, but would also look at other technologies and perhaps sea-based and/or space-based options? Down the road there would have to obviously be major policy decisions, but is BMDO, in fact, looking at those as alternatives or as supplemental activities?
General KADISH. Yes. That is part of our charter, and we have had, and continue to have, an ongoing look at all of the ability to defend the country against ballistic missile defenses, either at the theater level or at the national level. And I might point out, if I might take a minute, to explain the difference between boost-phase type of systems and what we are building today.
If you look at the trajectory of a ballistic missile threat, it takes about 30 minutes or so, on average, to reach targets in the United States from other places in the world, potentially shorter. So these time lines are very, very short, in terms of our ability to respond and destroy any incoming missiles. Now, what people referred to as the boost phase in this area, if I might break this up a little bit, is a time of about 250 seconds, if you will, where the booster is actually the warhead into a trajectory into outer space. The system is very vulnerable then. It is over usually the territory it has been launched and could be intercepted with the right technologies.
Page 29 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In the boost-phase area, because the time lines are so short, a matter of seconds, you almost need the speed of light or a very energetic interceptor posted very close to the threatening country, in order to intercept it in the boost phase. The physics of it is very difficult, and there are a whole host of technological problems associated with it. So sea-based systems that can get close to and are mobile to the threat offer a pretty good advantage, if we can make them work. None of those systems today are at the maturity level that we are building in the National Missile Defense that is land-based.
The other way to do it is through space, using lasers, or kinetic kill interceptors from space or airborne. Those programs are also more far-term. The space-based laser experiment that we are planning today, we will do our first experimentation in 2013 time frame on orbit. So these are not in the time frame that we are talking about.
Now, if you go to the other end of the extreme, the terminal phase, it lasts about 30 seconds. That is when the warhead is reentering the atmosphere and approaching its target. Our theater systems tend to be working in that area. But if you are going to cover an entire 50 States, the major disadvantage of a terminal phase is that you have to have a lot of systems to cover our cities and our States, and that is extremely expensive, extremely expensive to proliferate those systems.
So what we selected was the set of technologies that were in prototype phases that address what we consider the best architectural option, what we call the mid-course. That lasts about 1,200 seconds, and it is the time of flight where the Rear-entry Vehicles (RVs) and the warheads are in space. One of the down sides to the mid-course is the countermeasure problem because the adversary could put more RV-like or warhead-like objects out, and we would have to sort out those activities. The good news is we have the time to do it, and I will explain that, I am sure, during the rest of the questions.
Page 30 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So the boost phase, very short, challenging time lines have a series of challenges in and of itself; the terminal, very expensive if we use terminal systems. We believe we have chosen the right kind of architecture, and it appears that we are on the road to making it work technologically. But we are considering all of those options continuously under the BMDO architecture studies, so we could advise our leadership and you what our options are, not only now, but in the future.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, General.
I am one who is convinced that down the road laser technology is going to be critically important, and I know you are doing a lot of work. In fact, we transferred the oversight of the airborne laser program to BMDO this year in our bill just because of the importance that we felt this program ought to have.
General, would you also state for the record that it is not the intent of our missile defense program to be able to defend against an all-out attack from Russia.
General KADISH. Correct.
Mr. WELDON. That, in fact, the Russians could probably fairly easily overcome what limited missile defense we are talking about because we are only designing it for a very small number of incoming missiles; is that correct?
General KADISH. That is correct.
Page 31 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. So there is no reason to think that somehow we are destabilizing our relationship with Russia because this does not take away from the deterrent effect.
General KADISH. That is our position.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you. General, I want to get to some specific questions before I yield to my friend and colleague. And these are in regard to a former TRW employee who has made some allegations. Let us put the facts on the table and let you respond.
A former TRW employee has brought legal action charging that data from early tests of the kill vehicle were manipulated and falsely interpreted. When were these charges first surfaced?
General KADISH. I believe it was in 1996.
Mr. WELDON. How thoroughly have these charges been investigated?
General KADISH. We take all of these charges very seriously, and they have been investigated for years, on our part, with all of the experts that we deem are necessary.
Mr. WELDON. How relevant are these charges to the current system?
Page 32 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. They are not relevant because they concern a kill vehicle we did not select. It is not even in our program today.
Mr. WELDON. So these charges, which were largely the basis of newspaper articles, were based on a kill vehicle that you are not using in this program; is that correct?
General KADISH. Correct.
Mr. WELDON. Yet the charges were still made in the media.
Your organization and the NMD contractor community has been accused quite vocally of lying and fraud on a massive scale. Has anyone, the Welch panel, any of the other outside reviewers, the Defense Investigative Service, the Justice Department, anyone found any credible evidence of lying or fraudulent activity related to the development or test activity of the NMD program?
General KADISH. No.
Mr. WELDON. None. None. Is that correct, none?
General KADISH. To the best of my knowledge, none.
Mr. WELDON. Have NMD tests ever been altered in order to rig or fix the results of the test?
Page 33 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. No. We have test artificialities that are pointed out to us every day because of the intercontinental range of our tests, and I can go into that in some detail. But we have safety restrictions, we have other types of restrictions that we have to operate under, not the least of which is policy of debris in space and things of that nature. We operate under those constrictions, but we—
Mr. WELDON. And are the determinant factors that you follow to test the system your criteria or those given to you by the intelligence community, a separate agency?
General KADISH. As far as the threats go?
Mr. WELDON. Right.
General KADISH. The intelligence agencies give us the likelihood of the threats, and we test against them.
Mr. WELDON. And you test against those threats. And, again, I would repeat any member of Congress can get any of this data in a classified format in their office any time. Yesterday, almost 30 members of Congress, or thereabout, came for 2 hours and had the ability to ask you any and all of these questions, as well as all of the issues involving countermeasures that were raised in one or two media articles, and we thank you for being there.
Mr. Pickett.
Page 34 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Kadish, some of the comments that are made about the National Missile Defense system are made by people that have a limited knowledge. They may know something about one little piece of it or maybe several pieces, but nowhere near the entire system. Can you tell us a little bit about the redundancy that you are building into this system, both with respect to the capabilities of the kill vehicle and the discrimination capabilities of that kill vehicle, as far as being able to identify and destroy a target?
General KADISH. Yes, I can, Mr. Pickett. It is important to understand that we have many elements of this system that feed the end game. And let me kind of start the answer to that question by describing what the elements are and how they are used to help us with the discrimination and the actual accomplishment of the intercept.
It starts out with our satellites in orbit that detect launches that could tell us where it is coming from and what types of missiles might be in that particular launch sequence. That information is fed to our Battle Management System that has a complex set of algorithms that put this information together and help us decide what to do about it.
That information then directs our early-warning radars, that are very powerful, to look at the particular threat launches, to help us classify what is in this particular target launch; whether they are boosters, reentry vehicles and other large objects. And that helps us refine what it is we are going to do about the threatening objects.
Page 35 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And then the Battle Management puts the X-Band radar into play. And this X-Band radar is very, very accurate and could measure minute changes in the physical phenomenon at very, very long ranges. If the radar was here in Washington, we could see a golf ball high over Seattle. And we can interpret that through very powerful computing capability as to what that object is doing and add an element of discrimination capability into our system. So we start gathering a host of information in this Battle Management System that we have. And it evaluates what needs to be done, and we launch interceptors. We launch more than one interceptor at every credible object that is discriminated by our radars and our infrared sensors on orbit.
As the interceptor approaches its particular target that is designated by the Battle Management System, it gets frequent updates from the radars that are continuing to look, during this long mid-course period, at the particular threatening objects and understands what are threatening and what are decoys based on the electromagnetic spectrum that the X-Band radars and the UHF radars present.
And then when the kill vehicle is launched, it opens its eyes in an area that the radars tell it to look, and it then can see the threatening objects in its field of view. And then on-board that kill vehicle is a very powerful set of sensors, two infrared sensors and a visible sensor, with a very powerful computer that integrates all of the information that comes from those sensors. And then it autonomously, by itself, can discriminate the remaining objects and guide itself in to destroying the reentry vehicle target through the sheer force of its collision at 15,000 miles an hour or greater.
So it is a system of systems capability that we have. And our critics tend to focus on a very important element, this infrared sensor capability on our kill vehicle because after all, it finally decides what to hit. But we have many more things, and sensors, and computing power, and knowledge in our system and the kill vehicle that makes it work.
Page 36 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So, if I had to simplify it even more, I would say the ground-based radars and the computer systems that hook them together with the communication links tell the interceptor at what point in space it ought to go to intercept all of the credible objects that it detects as threatening. And then the kill vehicle, from that point on, goes in autonomously to kill every credible object. So we shoot at every credible object. And should we have a problem, either the missile fails for some reason or if we have a countermeasure that is particularly troublesome for us, we will shot at that countermeasure as well. And so we not only use the inherent discrimination capability of our ground-based and space-based sensors, as well as our kill vehicle, we use the amount of interceptors we have to help us with the high probability of killing that RV.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you very much.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Pickett.
Mr. Allen.
Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, General, for being here today. As I understand your testimony, the next test will involve a single decoy. You will have a warhead in one decoy and you said a discarded rocket, may be around there somewhere. It is fair to say, I take it, that that is primarily a test of the hit-to-kill technology and not of the discrimination technology?
General KADISH. Well, when you say, primarily, you have to decide what are those three objects you are going to hit? So, there is discrimination in there, but our main focus in this flight test has two aspects. One is to make sure that all our systems elements that I just described, the radars, the battle management, and those types of things can get the kill vehicle in a position to do hit-to-kill. And then our secondary objectives are to discriminate and to actually hit-to-kill.
Page 37 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
But our primary focus now is to hook all the elements together to include a new element with the communications systems that we use with this kill vehicle.
Mr. ALLEN. Now, in your testimony you said that the object is to basically protect against a few long range missiles with simple countermeasures that you anticipate the States of concern will have. The 1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) indicated that countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, can get countermeasure technology and are likely to deploy it on their missiles.
And, so, it comes down, does it not, to a question of how simple or complex the countermeasure technology is as opposed to our sensor technology and our ability to discriminate among decoys or other countermeasures. Is that a fair statement?
General KADISH. That is fair. We use the best intelligence we have got and the system is inherently more capable than the intelligence estimates, as I point out.
And, as you know, for many thousands of years the offense and defense have been playing this game and it is no different in this system in terms of the countermeasure issue.
When we build tanks there are anti-tank weapons. When we build airplanes there are anti-aircraft missiles and artillery. So, this is a game we understand well and we are prepared to respond.
Page 38 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. ALLEN. And I think it is also fair to say that in this case the Devil is in the details and the details are often classified. But you can imagine a couple of scenarios. You can imagine that our sensor capability is adequate to deal with the countermeasures that are out there and you can also imagine a situation where the countermeasure technology of a State of concern is at a particular moment in time beyond our capability to deal with and that seems to me to be the dilemma.
I really wanted to ask you, there are real changes in the international arena recently involving North Korea and the leaders of the two Koreas had a historic summit last week. We negotiated a suspension of the North Korea missile program. Moderates in Iran won elections and are looking for Western ties.
Star Wars, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), was originally devised in 1983, but eight years later its reason for being, the Soviet Union, was gone. I am not suggesting the potential threat has changed, I am not suggesting we should make any national security decisions based on what happened in the last couple of weeks, but I do note there are other ways to decrease the foreign missile threat.
If this limited defense, as you said, is designed to counter the North Korean, the Iraqi and the Iranian missile threats, if the Koreas unify and the threat disappears, in the next three, four, five years, how effective will be the planned radar site on Shemya, Alaska, be in tracking ballistic missiles from Iran or Iraq?
General KADISH. The placement of our particular radars were done for our best assessment of threats. And it would be out of place for those types of threats. We had counted on initially based on our—again, the threat assessment—that the early warning radars that we have in the system would be adequate for our protection against the early Middle East threats.
Page 39 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Eventually we have contemplated and planned to put X-band radars to counter that threat as well but not in the initial stages.
Mr. ALLEN. So, the Shemya facility is really a facility that is designed to protect against the North Korean threat?
General KADISH. Well, there are basically two reasons why we use an X-band at that point in time. We did not have early warning coverage adequate enough for the Korean threat in that area of the world. So, we took advantage of the fact that we could put an X-band radar with its much more refined capability for discrimination purposes and fill the early warning gap. So, we got kind of dual capability out of that radar which we thought was very valuable.
Mr. ALLEN. If I can make one final comment. There are proponents of this system, there are opponents. I classify myself as, I guess, a skeptic. And the reason for that is I am very concerned in the independent review, the Larry Welch Report, there is a lot of conversation about the risk of the current schedule. You have admitted this is a high-risk schedule. A lot of people have admitted that.
And I am very much afraid that we are trying to make decisions about deployment at an improper stage in the research and development process. And therefore, and what I am afraid of beyond, among other things, is that we have not had time to evaluate the state of the countermeasure technology in these other States of concerns and to be confident that our system is going to be able to handle whatever the current development is.
Page 40 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
There has been a lot of conversation in this Committee and in this country about the proliferation of missile technology and how easy it is for a State of concern to acquire, not to develop on its own, but to acquire missile technology. The same is true of countermeasure technology. And I don think any of us want a system that in the end is not going to work against the specific threat that is there at the time it is deployed. And we do not want to build a system if the threat, itself, vanishes because of diplomatic or other initiatives over the next few years.
I thank you very much for your time and your excellent presentation both today and yesterday during the classified briefing.
General KADISH. I think it is very important that all of us be skeptical in this business and from a technological standpoint we are going to press it very hard to make sure we can do what we say we are going to do.
Mr. WELDON. I thank my colleague and just two quick comments I would make, General.
First of all, I agree with the gentleman about the fact that we could have been further along and it was because this administration did not request the funding for NMD. And, in fact, this Committee consistently plussed up NMD funding against the Administration's request for three consecutive years until in 1997, 1998, the administration reversed itself and then came in with a request for funding. It was this Committee that kept the funding stream in place and if the administration would have supported us early on we would have been far farther along than we are.
Page 41 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Second, you cannot have it both ways if you are going to criticize missile defense and you are going to use the Welch Commission Report. Many of the opponents of missile defense cite the second Welch Committee Report when it is cited a rush to—was it rush to failure?
General KADISH. Rush to failure.
Mr. WELDON. But didn't you just say earlier that the Welch Committee second report suggested not using decoys? Didn't you just suggest that?
General KADISH. They gave us a lot of recommendations both formally and informally and that was—again, if you are looking at this from a program management, the art of program management, what we want to do is prove it stepwise, starting out with the simple, going to the complex. But we threw in a little bit more complexity and we can argue about that in the history books but that is what we did.
Mr. WELDON. But it was you who threw in the decoys.
General KADISH. That is right.
Mr. WELDON. Not the second Welch Committee report that is frequently cited by the opponents of missile defense. It was you who threw in the tougher challenge of dealing with decoys.
Page 42 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. That is our charge is to do what we think is right in development of the system.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
My first question has to do with a generic problem produced by a shrinking industrial base that I want to address relative to a single system. In the NMD program we anticipate the radars for defending Continental United States (CONUS) will operate for 30 to 40 years or longer. We also understand that the Navy is looking at a scalable version of the NMD, ground based radars (GRB) radars, and important component of Navy theater wide. Furthermore, the Army THAAD system is based on the same radar technology.
It would seem to us that there is a dangerous tendency in this period of industrial consolidations the United States could become dependent for missile defense on a single radar supplier. Considering the enormous importance of keeping abreast of ever-changing threats and exploiting new technologies in missile detection and tracking, the United States would be best served, we feel, by competition among several radar suppliers to develop these missile defense radars.
I would appreciate your comments on this situation and how you intend to maintain viable competition?
Page 43 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. That is a very good question, sir, because we have—as I said in the art of program management, we have to balance costs and schedule and performance of these systems. And what we worry about an awful lot is that that gets out of balance in the sense that we only have certain areas to go for critical components and then costs increase and schedules have problems.
So, as a part of our normal charge we are always looking for ways of maintaining the best way of handling innovation in this country and that is the competitive process. But in defense procurement that is not a trivial issue in making sure that it happens.
So, as we go through all our missile defense programs from theater into national, I can assure you that we are going to be looking at new and better ways, using the competitive process, if at all possible, to make sure that we get the best value for our dollars and that we meet our performance objectives.
How we do that is an ongoing discussion that is a function of time. And we are doing a lot of studies in the radar area in conjunction with our friends in the United States Navy to make sure that we have a coherent process. We are still not finished with that difficult study process and we would be happy to share it with you whenever you would like.
Mr. BARTLETT. I appreciate that. And we are pleased that you are aware of the desirability of maintaining competition because it not only brings price down but it brings quality up.
Page 44 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I want to now address a potential vulnerability that may, in fact, be an asset. In 1962, a high altitude nuclear burst over Johnston Island. Surprisingly shut down street lights in Hawaii, 800 miles away. When we finally had a chance to look at what happened why we found that we had observed a relatively new to us phenomenon and that was something called electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The Soviets, at about the same time, discovered the effect of electromagnetic pulse. What it does is to produce the equivalent of static electricity everywhere, all at once, in a large weapon detonated over the center of our country about 300 miles high would at the margins of our country produce ten to 20 kilovolts, that is thousand volts per minute, which arguably is enough energy to disrupt or perhaps destroy all micro-electronic equipment. That means anything that has a computer in it, a chip in it, all micro-electronics.
The Russians, Soviets at about this same time discovered this phenomenon and they have developed EMP-enhanced weapons. Now, it is my understanding that EMP is an unavoidable concomitant of any nuclear explosion. That you can enhance it by designing a weapon appropriately so that you can get a larger EMP burst, and I see that you are nodding your head in assent to that.
My question is, since radars are designed to detect tiny, tiny signals like the ones that would be bounced off of a golf ball from Washington, D.C., to Northwest Washington State, is there not an inherent vulnerability of radars for this type of an assault?
General KADISH. There is an inherent vulnerability. But we understand it and we can work around it in the process should that countermeasure be used. And we believe that we have that taken care of in our system, and I would be happy to go into a classified environment to explain that in more detail for you.
Page 45 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. BARTLETT. This has to be explained in a classified environment, you are telling us. Well, if we are and I suspect that at the end of the day that it is going to be very difficult to design radar because of what they are designed to do, it is going to be very difficult to avoid EMP vulnerability.
Now, I think that that is perhaps an asset to this program because the biggest deterrent to developing this program is not the technical hurdles that I think you are going to handle very well but the biggest deterrent to developing this program is an international diplomatic deterrent and that is convincing the Russians that this will not threaten them. They somehow think that we are more capable than you think and I think we are going to be and they think that our development of these system that you envision is going to be a threat to them which would destabilize the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) philosophy, the mutually assured destruction, that has worked now for a number of years.
No rogue nation will have the capability of doing any EMP lay downs, which would—they could not do that and launch a weapon at the same time, I do not think. So, what this would mean is that the Russians could now easily disable our system which should give them some element of confidence that the development of this system would not be a threat to them. Would you not think that that was true?
General KADISH. In general, I don't think this system is a threat to the Russian deterrent capability.
Mr. BARTLETT. Well, I don't either. But they do. But with the knowledge that they might very well be able to disable the system by use of an EMP laydown, would that not give them some assurance that they do not now have that this system would not be a threat to them. They need that assurance, sir, because I have met personally and talked with the Russians and they do not believe that the development of this system would not be a threat to them. They perceive it as a threat to them. The fact that it might very well be vulnerable to an EMP laydown which, by the way, could disable all of our power system, our power grid and our communications in this country, would not the knowledge that they might very well disable our system with an EMP laydown give them some confidence that it would not be a threat to them and therefore this deterrent to its development could be removed?
Page 46 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. Well, I guess the way I would respond is there are a lot of reasons they should not worry about the deterrence capability of their strategic systems with this particular system.
Mr. BARTLETT. And this is just one of those?
General KADISH. Just one
Mr. BARTLETT. I thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you.
The gentleman from Arkansas.
Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, I noticed in your biography that you spent some time at the Little Rock Air Force Base flying C–130s.
General KADISH. I sure did.
Mr. SNYDER. Which, as every C–130 pilot knows, can be shot down with a small caliber rifle and somehow now you are dealing with things that fly 15,000 miles per hour. You have had a full career.
Page 47 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. SNYDER. Yes, sir.
Mr. WELDON. If they could be shot down with a small caliber rifle, then we shouldn't be flying C–130s, because they are vulnerable. They are not perfect; is that not correct?
Mr. SNYDER. That is why we have people like the General to fly them.
General KADISH. I don't intend to fly a strategic missile, however.
Mr. SNYDER. Just two or three questions. First of all, when you do the test that we all focused on this a big test coming up and we have focused on the other test before, will we ever get to the point in these tests, General, where like as when, I am sure you have been involved in other war games, red team versus blue team, but when you do those previous war games the red team doesn't come to you and say, okay, at 0300 we will begin. We will have, you know, two divisions come in here, we will have 15 planes come in here, we will use—our decoys will look like this. I mean will we ever have a time when you are going to test this by saying to your inceptor crews, sometime in the next 30 days coming from some area, you will have something that you better shoot out of the sky?
Page 48 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I mean are we not teaching you to test here a little bit?
General KADISH. Well, you are reaching—
Mr. SNYDER. Or is there any reason—correct me where I am wrong?
General KADISH. Well, we call—it is a complex answer. So, let me take it one piece at a time. What you are suggesting in your question, which is an excellent one, is that we need to make sure that what we call the corner cases, when you take all the cases, all the things that can happen to you in the interaction of offense and defense, you want to take our most stressing cases against the technology that this system has and you want to make sure that in those stressing cases, at the edges of what we call the performance envelope, are tested adequately to the maximum extent possible.
For instance, in an Air Force airplane development program or for that matter a commercial airliner development program in airplanes the airplane flies slow and low, it flies high and fast, and it defines an operational envelope and the way we go about designing these systems and testing those aircraft systems is to test those edges where the aircraft would not particularly work beyond that point. And that defines the operational envelope.
In the particular case of national missile defense and systems like it, they are intercontinental and cover all 50 States, we will never in my view be able to test all the things we would like to test because of the physical constraints that we have in the world of testing.
Page 49 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
—the intercontinental range is going into the South Pacific, how the geometries are done. I don't think we can afford to fire 20 missiles all at the same time and see what happens in the engagement from a test point of view. But what we can do, and what we have done in many other areas, but not necessarily to the extent we have here in this program, is used digital simulation, used computers.
And what we do here is to test specific points in the envelope, flight test and ground test, using hooked hardware together on the ground to simulate these various types of scenarios that you suggest and then digitally simulate and play war games against them and see that the system results are what we expect, and that over time, 30 years potentially, we will eventually get to some of the more esoteric points in that constellation.
So from a systems' perspective, given the immensity of the time and space continuum we have to deal with here, we are relying heavily on digital simulation, using very powerful computers and our knowledge of the system to give us confidence it will work as expected. But these flight tests then become anchoring mechanisms that could give us confidence in our digital simulations, that it is telling us the right thing.
Mr. SNYDER. I was reading in the paper the other day about the fairly old fellow now that hit 496 free throws out of 500 and missed four. And it seems like with your test coming up, if you miss, you don't know whether that's the way 496 would have performed or whether it was one of the four. And it seems like in a system where these are one-shot things, these are not reusables, that when you deploy 100, they will have never been fired before, they will shoot one time; that if for some reason your test doesn't work, for some reason unrelated to the really newer technology, but some just low-tech problem, that it may reflect an ongoing systemwide problem that you really won't know for sure unless you have tested 100 or so. And I am not making that as a statement, just if you would comment on that.
Page 50 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. Well, one of the things in the test program, I don't care whether you're talking about this National Missile Defense program or a cruise missile program, all of these types of things that don't return, generally, after their mission, we worry about the wire that was not hooked up or the contamination of a particular line because the process wasn't mature enough to make sure that that was caught. Everything else could work perfectly and have that kind of problem. And it happened to us in our last testing, essentially, where we got moisture in one of our cooling lines and were unable to cool down correctly.
Our testing program is designed to weed out those type of flaws and to make our manufacturing processes compatible with producing stuff that will work when we ask it to work. Built into our calculations and our design is what we call an inherent reliability of each one of these components. So we recognize that not all of them will work perfectly, okay, 100 percent of the time.
Mr. SNYDER. Right.
General KADISH. Nothing does to that level. So we take allowances for things that break and not only in our design, but in the way we use our weapons, no matter how few or how many there are. So that the firing doctrine and the reliability of each one of these weapons systems is taken into account. And then our objective is to measure that reliability over time by testing components and continuing self-testing to make sure it matches. So we have an allowance for that, and we believe we understand how to do that very well.
Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one additional question?
Page 51 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In your written statement, which you said to us orally a while ago, you stated, talking about the test, October 2nd, 1999, this has helped to build our confidence ''that it is possible to maintain our aggressive schedule.'' And I think this flows somewhat from what you just talked about. I mean, there is a lot of dynamics to this issue, as you know—political, I mean, all kinds of things that you have dealt with since you have been working on this. Mr. Allen referred to somewhat the changing strategic situation internationally. And this relates to this question about the one test and the potential low-tech mistakes.
If we looked around or if the President looked around, this President or the next President, looked around and said, ''Maybe we do have more time than we thought. Maybe we don't need to have such an aggressive schedule,'' would that improve the reliability, the potential reliability, of the system that was deployed?
You are working against what you refer to as an aggressive schedule.
General KADISH. Right.
Mr. SNYDER. That schedule is based on an international situation that may have changed since that schedule was outlined. Would the ultimate reliability of the system be better off if the aggressiveness of the schedule were perhaps toned down somewhat?
General KADISH. Inherent in the assumption in the question is that we are skipping steps in order to make the schedule, and we are not doing that. We may skip schedule because we are not making the steps we want, and we have to continually manage that. But it is not of a high payoff, from a development standpoint, to skip steps. When we do that—and we have a lot of examples in missile defense development where we have tried to do that—we have failed to meet the schedule more often with our technology.
Page 52 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So the test program we have laid out, as well as the different, the millions of things we have to do to get to the test point in the development of the system, we have—I have confidence we have a rigor in that that will get us the proper product at the time we are being asked to do it.
Now, from a development point of view as a program manager, I will take every minute you will give me to do this. It makes my life easier. It makes the people who work on this program 16/18 hours a day, 7 days a week, lives easier. However, you should have confidence, we may make a mistake from time-to-time, but it is not our intention to skip steps in this process to make schedule.
Mr. SNYDER. General, thank you. If you ever decide you need to slow down, come and fly C–130s with us in Little Rock again.
Thank you.
Mr. WELDON. I thank the gentleman for his questions. And he raises a good point, General, about the test coming up there. And I would, at some point in time before you leave today, I would like you to comment on what your objectives are and that, in fact, we have a flight test program, and that from time-to-time you have failures. That is why you have a flight test program, and that just because you don't have the final result you want does not necessarily mean the entire test was a failure. Unfortunately, some, in fact, characterize that.
But at some point in time, maybe after my colleagues have asked all of their questions, you might want to respond to that on the record.
Page 53 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I would now turn to my colleague from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, I took some notes, and correct me if I am wrong, but one of the things that you told us was that mid-course phase of a typical rocket approaching the United States would be 1,200 seconds or 20 minutes.
General KADISH. On average, yes.
Mr. TAYLOR. How much of that 20 minutes does your system need or do you plan on your system needing to identify and start tracking a target?
General KADISH. It depends on the geometry. I gave you a very generic type of time of flying.
Mr. TAYLOR. I will settle for a very generic answer.
General KADISH. Okay. We need, I guess, it depends on how much time we want to give the commanders to actually release the weapons. If a shot comes in from North Korea into Shemya Island, I don't remember exactly the time horizon, but it is a lot less than 30 minutes, we would have to engage almost immediately in the mid-course phase to start the process, where we would have probably on the order of 10 minutes or so in flight in order to be able to intercept that missile. So that is what we call a corner case, where those time lines get very short. But our system is designed to handle that.
Page 54 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In terms of boost of the interceptor and the kill vehicle release, we basically only need about 60 to 100 seconds of the kill vehicle flight to do what we need to do in that regime of flight.
Mr. TAYLOR. But you need ten minutes of flight to identify it, make your decisions, yes/no, we launch, no.
General KADISH. In one scenario, yes. It depends on where it is coming from. These time lines can get fairly short.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, have you seen the demographics that project that within the next 25 years or so that 80 percent of all Americans are going to live within 100 miles of a coast?
General KADISH. I haven't paid too much attention to that.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, the Navy guys are saying it. [Laughter.]
I know of no reason for them to lie to us.
General KADISH. You mean worldwide?
Mr. TAYLOR. But also including our country.
Page 55 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I understand looking at the present and saying, ''Okay, a missile coming from North Korea,'' but with the Soviets selling submarines to the Chinese, isn't it also possible that they could turn around and sell a submarine to the Koreans? And if that is the case, what would be the next step, what happens if the Koreans, instead of launching it from the motherland, choose to park that submarine off the coast of the Eastern United States? Again, 80 percent of the population of the United States is going to live within 100 miles of shore.
The long and short of it is what if you are deprived of that 20 minutes of mid-flight, what happens then?
General KADISH. If there are other delivery mechanisms, a submarine launch type as you refer to, this system has very limited capability because the mid-course becomes very short. And then you are into the boost phase or the terminal phase that I described.
Mr. TAYLOR. But for your system.
General KADISH. For the mid-course system—
Mr. TAYLOR. And correct me if I am wrong, but I gather that your system is the closest to implementation.
General KADISH. Correct.
Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. So for your system, what if you are deprived of a long mid-course, what happens?
Page 56 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. We become ineffective, eventually, against those types of missiles. It is the same problem with cruise-missile issues. If the threat, and the intelligence community and the country decide that this a threat that we want to defend against, then we can offer systems across a broad range that would solve this problem that would adjunct these types of land-based systems that we are producing today that handle a mid-course and the expected threat.
So the first issue that we would have to address is, if we evaluate the National Missile Defense system as being ineffective against a particular threat that is emerging or important enough from a national scale to do something about, we would probably have to enter a new phase of adjunct systems, whether they are Naval, space-based or others, to solve that problem.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, can I throw a couple of ''for instances'' at you? I am of the opinion that the Mexican Government doesn't have much control over their countryside. If people are landing 727 loads of cocaine, leisurely unload them and send the trucks up to the United States, they must not—so if they don't have much control over their countryside, would it not be possible for someone to have launched this rocket not from the motherland of North Korea, but from the countryside out in Mexico or the great wilds of Canada or smuggle it into the United States?
I see, with great interest, where you were the program director for the F–15's and the F–16's when they were brought online in the 1990s, so you probably, more than any other American, are aware that they need replacing with the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and with the F–22 Raptor.
Page 57 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Realizing that there is only so much money, and that is why we are $5.7 trillion in debt, because Congress would never admit that there is only so much money, and you can only do so many things, in your opinion, with all of the other needs, and we will just talk about Air Force needs, is the $53 billion that we have spent so far, and the billions that we are projected to spend, should we continue to make that a priority or should we go after some other conventional problems and other conventional threats?
Because, in effect, you told me you have a system that will stop a few rockets fired from very far away. I have just outlined quickly five or six scenarios of rockets launched close by or smuggled into the country or, by your own admission, if a whole bunch are coming at once. So, basically, we have a system that goes after one threat and only one threat. And if you do any of these other things, we have thrown our money away.
Now that I have said that, do you think this is a worthwhile expenditure of the taxpayers' money?
General KADISH. I do. And there is always an intricate decision process of what the country's priorities ought to be. And you all know that as well as anybody, in terms of the Congressional-Executive Branch interface. But in the specific question that you asked, I would offer two comments as to why I believe that.
When you look at the military problems that we face, we always have more problems than we have dollars to solve them with. So it is a matter of risk. And from an Air Force perspective, I remember the days where we wanted 95 or 100 fighter-aircraft-equivalent wings in order to defeat the Soviet threat. We never even got close to that. But we knew with certainty that if we had that kind of force structure, we could defeat and make it an unfair fight, if you will, across a broad front.
Page 58 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So this idea that we ought to close every door and window in the house at the same time is something that we are not experienced with. We close them one at a time, and this is one of those windows or doors that we ought to close.
The second point I would make is that the threat that we are facing with missile proliferation, as you point out, can come from anywhere, and that states that we are seeing with weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capability to make missiles on their own territory to threaten the United States, is unprecedented in many ways, and that it is not the Cold War scenario that we are facing today, we are facing a new set of actors that we don't have an awful lot of experience with, and we ought to be concerned about that.
So this system type, even though it is very expensive, may be affordable in the overall context of our defense posture, and that is a decision that the country has to make. From a development point of view, I can tell you when and how much we think it is going to cost and the difficulties. Those points I offered are only my personal opinion.
Mr. TAYLOR. And I am asking you for your personal opinion. So you are telling me you think that the $1.7 billion, I believe that is the number, is better spent on this than on F–22s, than on Joint Strike Fighters (JSF)?
General KADISH. Given that we have—
Mr. TAYLOR. Given we only have $1, and you can only spend it in one way, sir. We are not going to play that game any more.
Page 59 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General KADISH. Given that we have a congressional and a national mandate to deploy the system as soon as technically feasible, we are doing what we are being asked to do.
Mr. TAYLOR. I asked your opinion, sir. I am not asking for a mandate.
General KADISH. Well, that is what I believe is—
Mr. TAYLOR. Now, I am letting you off the hook. I want your opinion. I know the law of the land.
General KADISH. It is always a struggle, and where you sit is where you stand, to some degree, but my personal opinion, after looking at this problem, I would prefer to have a defense against something that we have no defense against today.
There is no way to defend this country against ballistic missile threats, and that is not the case in our other military systems. If we should not invest in the F–22, which I hope we do, we still have F–15s and F–16s. If we don't invest in a tank, the M–1 tank, we still have tanks. In this particular case, if we don't invest in National Missile Defense, a program to do that of some sort, we don't have anything else. We have no missile defense of this country today.
So the character of this is different. And as I have looked at this, especially over the past year, it makes an awful lot of sense to me to close a door that we don't particularly lock today. Whereas, in other systems, we have backups, we have alternatives, we have ways of protecting this country that may not be what we want, but what we can afford. And this particular case of National Missile Defense, we have no defense. So our option is, if we don't invest in this system, we have no defense and no backup. And that is what I have been using to make sure my time is well spent.
Page 60 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. TAYLOR. And you would say that to your fellow generals?
General KADISH. Yes, sir. I would say it to my children, too.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, General, and thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Meehan.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Kadish, it is good to see you again, and rest assured that you are still missed at the Electronic Systems Command at Hanscomb Air Force Base in Massachusetts. General Kennedy is doing a fine job picking up right where you left off.
I had an opportunity last week to stop by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT's) Center for International Studies and talk to Dr. Postal, and George Lewis and some of the other members of the staff to discuss some of their concerns with NMD. I want to compliment Chairman Weldon for scheduling today's hearing to allow BMDO to respond to some of the concerns that Dr. Postal and others have raised in recent weeks. And whether you agree with some of those critics or not, I would say that a call for a Committee of distinguished and independent scientists to review BMDO's data regarding discrimination and test results would certainly go a long way to putting an end to any controversy. But in any event, I look forward to working with the chairman and the Committee for any role that this Committee might play.
Page 61 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General Kadish, BMDO's press release from two days ago states that the July 7th test will be the first full system test of the prototype NMD system. How would you characterize the success or failure of this critical test and could you provide the Committee with the critical criteria that will be used for such a determination?
General KADISH. Success in testing is a relative term. Certainly, our desire is to actually destroy the target that we put up there. Our main objective in this test is to make sure that the radars, and the Battle Management system, our satellite detectors, as well as the kill vehicle, work as an integrated whole. And that is what we mean by a full system test.
One of the things I would point out, however, there is one element that is still missing in this test, and that is the booster we intend to use; the actual missile that will boost the kill vehicle. That is a later development. But we believe, even though we are having schedule problems with that right now, that we know how to do that and that risk would be assumed.
So we are testing our satellite detection, our early-warning radars, our X-Band radar prototype and our Battle Management system, to hook it all together, along with the kill vehicle, to make sure that we can get the test, the kill vehicle in a position to intercept and kill the warhead that we are going after.
So that is our objective. Primary is integration, and secondary are a lot of other things that we want to accomplish, including an intercept. But given that we know we can do hit-to-kill from our first flight test—the very first time we tried, and that was the only objective, we actually intercepted the warhead and destroyed it—given that we know that now, it is important that we get all of the other aspects of the program to work as an integrated whole, and that is our objective.
Page 62 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Now, when you say what does success mean in these types of tests, it is a relative term. The complexity of our tests are such that—let me kind of give you an example. If, for instance, the target is out of position and doesn't go where we thought it would go, it would probably be destroyed for range safety reasons, and the test would be a failure. But the target is not what we are testing. The target is there to allow us to accomplish our objectives in other areas. So the test would be unsuccessful because we didn't accomplish what we set out to do. But even under those circumstances, we would go back and evaluate our radar performance up until the time the test went haywire, and judge whether or not those elements were working and get something out of the test, hopefully. So that is one category of failure.
Another category of failure that might happen is the booster—gosh, I hate to even talk about this stuff because it makes me nervous about the test that is coming up—but the booster might have a problem that we are using for the interceptor. As I told you before, the booster is not what we are going to use. It happens to be a convenient way of getting the kill vehicle up there in the test range, but we assume we can do that with our new booster, and we will test that later on.
If that has a problem and is unsuccessful, we will still get data out of the tests from the other elements, but we will not have been successful. But that would not be fatal to our overall program objectives in the sense that it is not a critical element of the test.
However, if, for some reason which we do not expect, the kill vehicle goes off into another part of space because its engine malfunctioned and it represented a fundamental design flaw in the way that prototype was put together, now that would be a problem. And we would have to go back and say, ''We didn't intercept. This is a fundamental issue with our hardware and our architecture. We need to figure out what went wrong.'' And if we couldn't figure out what went wrong, we would have to stop the program and do what normally do under those circumstances and readjust.
Page 63 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So there is a range of things that could happen into this flight test, some of which have a lot to do with the program objectives and other things that do not. And we are just going to have to see what happens.
Mr. MEEHAN. General, if I could continue. The press release also states that the target missile for the July 7th test will carry a single warhead and a single decoy. At the same time, the release states, that the upcoming test will be the third and the increasingly challenging realistic test of the NMD hit-to-kill technology.
In your professional opinion, how many decoys, at a minimum, do you reckon even the least-sophisticated enemy would deploy? And how many decoys were deployed in the earlier intercept tests?
General KADISH. You said ''opinion,'' so that gives me a little bit more latitude.
Mr. MEEHAN. Yes.
General KADISH. In the initial configuration, there may not be any decoys. And I want to make sure that in the initial configuration we can accomplish the basic job, and that is to get the warhead. So it is likely, in my opinion, that we would see no decoys. And there is some good analysis that that could be the case.
And the problem for emerging states, in terms of their design challenges that are somewhat extolled as being 10-feet tall by some of our critics, is that they are struggling today to make their missiles intercontinental range. And when you look at the capability to put a certain amount of weight on a target, that is a very difficult job for them to do, even in the first substantiation of that, and that any weight margin that they have that would be used for countermeasures has to be husbanded very carefully. And in my view, given what I know today, that is a very difficult challenge for them to meet. And I am not saying it can't be done, but I am saying it is a lot tougher than most people would realize.
Page 64 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And so from a personal opinion standpoint, I think the likelihood is that we ought to go make sure that we can do the basic job first, and that is to kill the warhead. And then as countermeasures are added, we will be increasingly capable to handle that, initially, certainly, but certainly later on in the evolution of the system.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, General.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Meehan.
It was interesting, General, that the critics of missile defense initially used to say hit-to-kill would never work, and now they are saying, ''Well, countermeasures really are the problem.''
As you develop each of these solutions and put them into place, I wonder what the next one is going to be. My concern is what you alluded to, and that is that we have some fundamental problem, like we had with the THAAD program, that is unrelated to hit-to-kill, but is more of a fundamental problem of getting the missile off the ground. But the critics use that, for those who don't follow these programs, to say, ''This system will never work,'' when, in fact, it is not a system problem, per se, with the technology, but rather a more fundamental problem. And that is the concern I always have, and I know you do as well.
Let me ask you some other questions, and people have talked about, well, the North Korean threat may be changing. One meeting of the leader of North Korea with the leader of South Korea does not reassure me, and that is what we have had so far—one meeting.
Page 65 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Let me ask you this question: That is not the only threat. In my trips to Russia, what I hear all of the time is instability in the Russian military. Now, General, are you aware of the incident that occurred in January of 1995, when the Russians misread a Norwegian rocket launch and put their full Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) response on alert? Are you aware of that?
General KADISH. Yes, I am.
Mr. WELDON. What would happen if the Russians accidentally launched one missile at us? Would it matter that it is not coming from North Korea? Could we defend against it?
General KADISH. We have a capability for that level of accidental launch, yes.
Mr. WELDON. We do. What would that be? Is that classified?
General KADISH. I would rather not get into that. But an accidental launch of a few warheads, we do have a capability with this architecture.
Mr. WELDON. With this architecture.
General KADISH. It depends on where it comes from.
Page 66 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. But without this architecture, if there were a Russian accidental launch, say, a disgruntled SS–25, which is a mobile system battery, breaks away and decides they have got the coding capability to launch one SS–25 which can hit the U.S., someplace in Siberia or some outer post, and it is classified, but they have over 400 of these mobile launchers, what would be our capability of responding if we don't proceed with this?
General KADISH. We have no missile defense today.
Mr. WELDON. So if the Russians accidentally launched something, not deliberately, because they are not going to do that, but if they accidentally launched a missile, even if North Korea is okay, we have no capability; is that what you are saying?
General KADISH. That is correct.
Mr. WELDON. So this is not then just a capability of defending against the North Korean threat, as some would perceive it to be, but it is also the case of an accidental launch occurring. And believe me, I am firmly convinced Russia will not deliberately attack America. And if they do an all-out attack, we couldn't do anything about it anyway. But I am worried about what happened in January of 1995, which Yeltsin, himself, acknowledged publicly occurred and was one of the only times Russia's ICBM force went on a full alert status.
Mr. TAYLOR. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. WELDON. I would be happy to yield.
Page 67 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. TAYLOR. In ballpark numbers, by 1995, the day of that event, what had this Nation spent on National Missile Defense? Is it safe to say it was already over $40 billion?
General KADISH. I am not sure I can answer that question without looking at the numbers.
Mr. TAYLOR. I would bet you a lunch it is over $40 billion. So I would just ask Mr. Weldon to put that in perspective—$40 billion of the American taxpayers' dollars had been spent. And when that event took place, we had nothing to defend ourselves, and it was spent for that purpose.
Mr. WELDON. And I would, reclaiming my time, say to the gentleman what is the price of Montgomery, Alabama? Is it worth $40 million or $40 billion? Is it worth $40 billion? Where do we draw the line? Is Philadelphia worth $1 billion and New York $10 billion or are the people of New York worth $30 billion? Do we put 500 fighter planes in the air, but not be able to defend against one missile hitting New York killing 2 million people?
What is the price of New York City worth? Is it 1 percent of our defense budget? The last time I checked, what we are planning on spending on missile defense is 1 percent of the entire defense budget, 1 percent.
Do you know that figure, General? Is that somewhere near correct?
General KADISH. It is about right.
Page 68 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. It is about right—1 percent to protect one of our cities that today is totally vulnerable.
So I ask my colleague what is the price of New York City? What is the price of Montgomery, Alabama? What is the price of Austin, Texas? What is the price of Los Angeles? When we have nothing to defend them.
Let me ask you this question, General—
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WELDON. Let me finish.
Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.
Mr. WELDON. Some would say that this is not the weapon of choice, missiles are not the—that we have threats coming from other sources, which this Subcommittee has plussed-up significantly over the past six years, well over the President's request, in weapons of mass destruction and cyber terrorism.
In the last ten years, what was the largest loss of American military life in one incident? Does the general know?
General KADISH. It was the Dhahran SCUD attack on American barracks.
Page 69 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. So Saddam Hussein, when he had the chance to terrorize America and kill, what was it 21 of our young Americans?
General KADISH. I believe so.
Mr. WELDON. Chose to use a missile. When he chose to terrorize the Jewish people in Israel, he didn't choose a truck bomb, he chose the SCUD missile. And the problem is we still don't have a highly effective system against that.
Now we are spending significant amounts of money for both theater missile systems, working with the Israelis on Arrow and Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), working with the Europeans on the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program, working with the Army on THAAD, with the Navy on Navy areawide and Navy upper tier, but we still don't have a perfected system, although we are getting close.
Now someone said, ''Well, what have we gotten for all of this money?'' And I would maintain if we had an administration that used the bully pulpit, as John Kennedy did to challenge us on the space station, we would have had a system in place five years ago. But we have had an administration instead that has fought us every step of the way. They say we haven't done enough testing. We put money in for more testing, and then we get criticized for giving the Pentagon more money than what it needs, when what the Welch report said last time was you need more testing. Well, we tried to do that, and we consistently got criticized for putting more money into the BMDO budget for exactly that purpose, to do more testing.
Page 70 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
My point is we have made a fundamental decision, we are moving forward. And unless and until we find that there is credible evidence that the technology will not work, I think we are on the right track. And I think largely, General, because of your leadership, the last several years have been—the last year especially—has been a very positive time period for our progress. And we haven't solved all of the problems, and we have to continue monitor and go after the contractor base, as you are doing, and we have to continue to be honest with the American people. As you have said, countermeasures are not going to be easy to deal with.
But to characterize all of this in some less-than-accurate, media-grandstanding way, I think is a gross disservice to the American people.
I now yield to my colleague.
Mr. TAYLOR. I thank the chairman. I would just remind the chairman that, again, I think it is a bit much to blame it on the administration. We had 8 years of the Reagan administration, followed by 4 years of the Bush administration. At the end of those 12 years, sir, we had no National Missile Defense. The attack that you mentioned occurred during the Bush administration.
Mr. WELDON. And the problem was—
Mr. TAYLOR. I understand it is very close to your heart because it is very close to your district—
Mr. WELDON. It has nothing to do with my district. I don't have any contractors in my district, nothing.
Page 71 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, no, I am talking about the death of the Guards.
Mr. WELDON. Oh, that is right.
Mr. TAYLOR. And it should be close to your heart. But the bottom line is we deal in reality for that same $53 billion, that is 10 aircraft carriers or 60 destroyers or no telling how many F–15's or F–16's or F–18 E and Fs. All I would ask the members of this Committee to consider is, at the end of the day, have we gotten our monies' worth? I am not convinced, to date, that we have.
Mr. WELDON. I understand the gentleman's point, and I would just say that we want to get our monies' worth, but all of the aircraft carriers in the world are not going to stop a missile from hitting New York City nor Philadelphia. And you can buy 25 aircraft carriers. And I would say, in all due fairness to the Reagan and Bush administration, it was a Democrat Congress who consistently fought against any missile defense deployment.
For my first 8 years in this body, I sat on this Subcommittee. Pat Schroeder was the chair. I could count the number of hearings on missile defense on one hand, on one hand. There was no concerted effort by the Congress to support missile defense. If anything, the leadership of this Committee was to deter and deny the administration from moving forward, consistently. One hearing in 8 years—two hearings maybe. We have had 150 hearings, and briefings and classified sessions. So there was no support in the Congress of any substance to follow through with the request by the Reagan and Bush administration to deploy anything. And we have changed that. And as far as I am concerned, as long as I am here, we are going to continue that policy.
Page 72 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
General, I want to thank you for your hearing. You were outstanding. Thank you for your testimony. We look forward to working with you.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:23 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
June 22, 2000
[The Appendix is pending.]