Bush Team Unveils Missile Defense Plans; Democrats Upset

Throughout July, the Bush administration sketched out details of its proposed $8.3 billion ballistic missile defense testing program. But getting its plans fully funded will require winning over Senate Democrats who have severely criticized the program, in large part because the Bush administration contends its testing will come into conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty within months.

At the first in a series of July congressional hearings, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), testified July 12 that the administration would conduct a robust research and development program with the goal of fielding a layered defense—possibly consisting of ground-, sea-, air-, and space-based systems—enabling multiple intercept attempts after a hostile ballistic missile launch. BMDO oversees U.S. missile defense programs.

Although the two officials claimed that no decision has been made on procuring any specific systems and that no deployment dates have been set, BMDO prepared briefing slides calling for three “emergency capabilities” by about 2005. These “contingency” capabilities will be ground-based missile interceptors, sea-based interceptors, and an airborne laser (ABL). Only the ground-based system is expected to be capable of countering long-range ballistic missiles by 2006.

The primary “emergency capability” is the deployment of up to five ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska. A private Alaska company started preparatory work, such as clearing trees and digging water wells, at the site on August 28. The Pentagon plans to start construction in April and finish the work as early as 2004.

Kadish told senators on July 17 that he “wouldn’t expect the changes to be difficult” to convert Fort Greely from a testing to an operational site. Wolfowitz testified that such a decision would depend upon how testing proceeds and the status of the threat, though he underscored that the administration wants to have the option to use the facility for emergency deployment.

While describing Fort Greely as a test site, Wolfowitz acknowledged in a July 19 House Armed Services Committee hearing that no test missile interceptors could be launched out of Fort Greely until some safety concerns are resolved. For instance, burned-out boosters from the missile interceptors could potentially fall on populated areas.

Wolfowitz admitted that starting construction at Fort Greely could be viewed as a treaty violation. At the July 12 hearing, he said that a central issue for U.S. plans is whether development of a test site “becomes illegal if you harbor the intention or the plan or the possibility of turning [it] into an operational capability.” He concluded, “It’s going to take a great deal of legal argument to decide what the answer is to that.”

The 1972 ABM Treaty prohibits the United States and Russia from building nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles but permits each country to build test ranges and to possess a single operational missile site for a regional defense. Washington selected North Dakota as the location for its permitted site under the treaty.

The Sea- and Air-Based Options

BMDO also plans to press ahead with testing ship-based missile interceptors. It aims to flight-test an interceptor designed to counter short- and medium-range ballistic missiles this fall and wants to hold five more of these tests during the next fiscal year. The goal is to have a potential contingency capability in 2004, but Kadish said July 13 that he would not expect to have a ship-based capability against long-range missiles before the end of the decade.

Similarly, ABL is currently designed to counter short- and medium-range missiles, but Kadish noted in his July 12 prepared statement that BMDO is “taking deliberate steps to prepare ABL for a strategic defense role as well.” The Pentagon intends to conduct the first ABL flight test within the coming fiscal year, and it will try to shoot down a target the year after. Although BMDO plans call for an emergency capability in 2004, BMDO does not expect an actual initial capability until 2008.

The Pentagon’s ABM Treaty Compliance Review Group reported a preliminary finding July 30 that proposed testing plans could violate the treaty. The Pentagon refused to supply specifics, saying only that a potential violation would not take place before the end of September. Earlier in the month, the administration claimed that its plans could conflict with the accord in “months, not years.”

Though the ABM Treaty proscribes the development, testing, and deployment of air-, sea-, space-, and mobile land-based systems and components for defenses against strategic ballistic missiles, the current sea- and air-based programs are legal under the treaty. BMDO would violate the accord once it begins to upgrade the systems to counter strategic missiles or once it starts testing the systems against long-range targets.

At a July 17 hearing, Wolfowitz offered three possibilities for future violations: the start of construction at Fort Greely, the use of a ship-based radar to track a long-range target, and the use of ABM and non-ABM radars together during a short-range intercept test.

U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have repeatedly insisted that the United States will not violate the ABM Treaty, indicating that they expect to reach an agreement with Russia quickly to permit strategic missile defenses or that the United States will soon withdraw from the treaty. If neither has occurred by the time a potential treaty-violating test takes place, Wolfowitz said the test would be postponed or would be modified so that it would comply with the treaty.

A Fight for Funding?

At the July 17 hearing, Wolfowitz said a successful July 14 intercept test (Missile Defense Interceptor Hits Target, But Not All Perfect in Test) showed “the potential for success,” but warned, “let us not fail because we did not adequately fund the necessary testing.”

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) lamented at a July 19 hearing the “unfortunate absence of specific details” in the Pentagon’s proposed missile defense funding request. The Pentagon has asked for blocks of funds for essentially six broad categories, such as boost-phase defenses, permitting Kadish to spend the money within each category as he sees fit. The proposal would increase the missile defense budget by 57 percent.

Like Levin, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, declared at a July 24 hearing, “Frankly, I marvel at the audacity of a request for $8 billion to conduct unspecified research and development on programs which may or may not violate the [ABM] Treaty.”

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), who said Democrats could support the deployment of limited missile defenses “under the right circumstances,” argued against the administration’s budget increase in an August 9 speech, claiming that missile defense is the “most expensive possible response to the least likely threat we face.” He said the increase in missile defense spending “would cannibalize the personnel and force structure that deal with the threats we are far more likely to face.”

Other Democrats in both houses of Congress expressed similar concerns during the July hearings. Arguing July 12 that other threats are “more imminent” than long-range missiles, Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) recommended, “Congress ought to use the power of the purse in rejecting this increase.”

Cleland sits on Levin’s Armed Services Committee, which will be responsible for the first Senate markup—expected to be completed in early September—of the Pentagon’s budget request. The House Armed Services Committee finished its markup August 1, recommending a minimal cut of $135 million in the Pentagon’s requested missile defense budget.