It is always a pleasure for me to come back to the Hill, and a special pleasure to be here only a week or so before `Defend America Week' in the House and Senate. The Administration is delighted that both Houses are going to take time out of their busy schedules to focus on the state of our Nation's defenses. But I want to make it clear that for the Administration, defending America is not something we concentrate on one week out of the year. Defending America is what we're about day in and day out.
This morning I would like to address one important aspect of our strategy for defending America, and that is defense against the growing danger of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On April 25th the Secretary of Defense addressed this topic in a comprehensive fashion in a speech at George Washington University, and I recommend that speech to you. As he noted, the Administration has erected three lines of defense against weapons of mass destruction. I agree with the point Senator Cochran makes in his Post op-ed today that there should not be an `either/or' choice between these three lines of defense: we need all three.
The first line of defense is prevention--or what Secretary Perry has called `defense by other means.' This line of defense includes ratifying and entering into force START I and START II, which together will remove from active inventories two-thirds of the strategic nuclear weapons that threatened us at the height of the Cold War.
It includes ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, which we look forward to seeing on the Senate floor in the near future now that it has been overwhelmingly approved by the Foreign Relations Committee.
It includes achieving the indefinite and unconditional extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, strengthening the IAEA and MTCR, negotiating the nuclear framework accord with North Korea, and signing two nuclear-free zone treaties which, together with the Antarctica and South American agreements, now mean that over half the land area of the earth is denuclearized.
These agreements, in tandem with the `true-zero' Comprehensive Test Ban treaty we intend to have ready for signature by September, establish strict restrictions on the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.
It includes the US/Russian detargeting agreement the President reached with President Yeltsin, which ensures that if--God forbid--a nuclear missile should ever be launched accidentally, it would cause no harm. And it includes the invaluable Nunn-Lugar program for directly removing nuclear capabilities.
As Michael Krepon has underscored in testimony and in his published writings, it is unfortunate that while Congress is increasing budget accounts for missile defense by hundreds of millions, many on the Hill have restricted or even cut funding for these preventive programs, and some have staunchly opposed the arms control treaties I mentioned.
The second line of defense against weapons of mass destruction is deterrence, both at the conventional and nuclear level. Any rogue nation foolish enough to contemplate using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against the United States, its Armed Forces or our allies must not be confused about how we would respond. As Secretary Perry stated, it would be `devastating' and `absolutely overwhelming.'
The President has made clear in three successive annual National Security Strategy Reports the plain fact that this Administration believes, fundamentally, in maintaining a robust and credible nuclear deterrent. Not because we believe Russia is going to attack us today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. But because we face an uncertain future and an uncertain world, and keeping our nuclear forces strong is a prudent hedge. That is why we decided to maintain the triad. That is why we decided to backfit the D-5 SLBM into our Trident submarines. And that is why the President recently decided that we are not going to go below START I levels until Russia ratifies the START II treaty.
The third line of defense is compromised by our theater and national missile defense programs, on which the Defense Department is spending $3 billion a year. As Secretary Perry
stated, our ballistic missile defense program starts with a sober and clear-eyed look at the missile threat. What is that threat?
First, there is the short-range missile threat, which is here and now. That threat includes SCUDs and other missiles with ranges below 1000 kilometers. To defend against such attacks we have deployed upgraded Patriots in various theaters around the world and are poised to deploy in the next few years more advanced PAC-3 and Navy Lower Tier TMDs.
Second is the emerging threat of more advanced, longer-range theater ballistic missiles. To counter these expected threats we are developing the Army THAAD and the Navy Upper Tier TMDs, with deployment planned after the end of the decade and, in the case of THAAD, a contingency deployment of 40 prototype interceptors available as soon as two years from now.
As this audience well knows, Congress and the Administration have disagreed over the pace of these two programs and our approach to the arms control dimension of both systems. Congress wants to go faster; we say we have the time to get it right. We say we should not build so much concurrency into the programs that we increase technical risk inordinately. On the arms control front, we are trying, in a cooperative fashion with Russia, to make clear that the ABM Treaty does not restrict TMD systems that have a hypothetical capability under certain scenarios to intercept certain strategic ballistic missiles. In this regard, we were encouraged by the understandings on ABM /TMD demarcation reached at last month's summit in Moscow. But as Secretary Perry emphasized, `our bottom line is that we will not give up the right to defend our troops from attack by theater ballistic missiles.'
The third threat is the prospect that a rogue state will obtain a strategic ballistic missile that could threaten our homeland. When do we expect that could occur? This brings us to the recent National Intelligence Estimate--the now-famous NIE. That NIE says, as has been stated in open testimony, that the intelligence community does not believe it is likely that we will face an ICBM or SLBM threat from a rogue nation to the continental United States (CONUS) within the next 15 years. In the special case of Alaska and Hawaii--which we obviously recognize as full partners in this union of fifty states--the CIA has said, in a public letter to Senators Levin and Bumpers, that the intelligence community does not think that the North Korean Taepo Dong II, which might have the range to reach western Hawaii or parts of Alaska, will be operational within the next 5 years. Let me take each of those cases in turn.
First, why `15 years' in terms of a threat to CONUS? It is important to understand that this was not a case of building the threat from the bottom up, of starting now and going out in time year by year to see how far you could go before everyone agreed a threat was likely to emerge. Rather, the analysts decided that the 15 year mark was the most relevant point in time in terms of being useful to the policy and acquisition communities. They could have picked the 10 year mark, but since weapons systems have a 12-15 year acquisition period, that would have been too soon. And they could have picked 20 or 25 years, but that would have been too speculative. So they decided to ask themselves what they thought the situation would look like in 15 years.
Did the NIE ignore possible short-cuts that a country might pursue as an alternative to an indigenous, bottom-up ICBM or SLBM development, test and acquisition process? No. It looked at such alternatives as a rogue state buying, stealing or otherwise getting possession of a complete missile. They did not say it could not happen; that it was impossible. But they did judge that possibility to be remote or very low.
Did the Administration take comfort from the 15 year estimate and conclude we did not need to do anything before then? No. We are developing an NMD deployment option that could be fielded by 2003, eight years--I repeat, eight years, in advance of the estimate. I will have more to say about our program in a minute.
Did the NIE ignore the Alaska/Hawaii threats? No. That analysis is in there. In this case, the picture is less clear. But both the Air Force and the Army have on their own initiative put together quick response, treaty-complaint, relatively low cost deployment options that could defend Alaska and Hawaii against an attack involving just a few warheads. These options would be uniquely effective, and I would say exclusively effective, against just this kind of scenario: a North Korea that acquires a handful of missiles sooner than expected.
Finally, was the NIE `politicized', as has been charged? I will tell you categorically that the answer to that is `no.' I say that for two reasons. First, the first I knew that there was an NIE coming out on this issue was when I came to work one morning and found it in my in-box. Anyone who thinks that someone at the White House could call up the CIA and order them to produce a `helpful' NIE without the NSC knowing about it knows nothing about how the Executive Branch works. The second reason is that the 15 year estimate was a unanimous judgment among the various elements of the intelligence community. This was not a case of a `footnoted' estimate, where some organizations said one
thing and others said another and the Administration decided to pick the most favorable view. Rather, all organizations that participated in the NIE were in agreement, and it was not a close call.
So, that it is our plan and our program. But our critics are supporting another approach, embodied now in the bill introduced by the Majority Leader and the Speaker, and we are about to engage in a great debate on this issue.
I want to be clear about the critical differences between the Dole-Gingrich bill and the substitute that Mr. Spratt offered that lost narrowly in committee and will be voted on again on the floor, and the substitute bill that I understand Senator Nunn is preparing for introduction in the Senate.
The first critical difference, as Secretary Perry emphasized in his speech at GW, is a question of timing. The Dole-Gingrich bill says choose the NMD architecture now and deploy it independent of what happens with the threat. Our plan is to develop a deployment option, assess the threat in three years, and examine the deployment requirement on a year-by-year basis starting in 2000. Either approach would allow a system to be fielded by 2003. But ours offers the prospect, if the threat does not materialize sooner than we expect, of saving the large sums now and across the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) that would be required to build and deploy a national missile defense.
How much would we save? Frankly, it is hard to say. Senator Dole said he did not know how much his plan would cost. That is because the Dole-Gingrich bill embraces such a wide range of possible architectures that it is impossible to estimate what the bill would cost. But if you take the most conservative option--that is, a two-site land-based ABM defense--that would cost on the order of $20 billion in acquisition and operating and support costs. That is $20 billion that is not in the FYDP or the Military Services' outyear budgets. That is $20 billion that would compete with Service procurement requirements that we and the Chiefs agree have a higher priority. That is why the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Chiefs oppose any significant increase in spending on ballistic missile defenses and have recommended that current levels be maintained.
I think it is interesting that some Members have held up copies of leaked memos from General Shali and read from those portions in which he and the Chiefs made recommendations with regard to procurement levels, but then have not gone on to read those portions in which the Chairman and the Chiefs recommend against spending more on missile defenses.
The second critical difference, quite frankly, is that, at least for some of its backers the Dole-Gingrich bill is a stalking horse for a return to a Reagan-era SDI, and our program is not. Let me illustrate that with five points.
Point One: The bill specifically embraces much of the Reagan-era `Star Wars' scheme.
The bill would direct the Secretary of Defense to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) by 2003 that includes one or more of four ABM interceptor options, three of which involve putting ABM weapons or sensors in space in violation of the ABM Treaty:
The bill recommends that the Secretary consider an NMD based on space-based laser (SBLs). To `defend America' with SBLs would require, at a minimum, a constellation of 17 orbiting weapons platforms, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars that is not in the FYDP. In addition, there is at present no launcher in the U.S. inventory capable of placing a platform of this size and weight in orbit, thus billions more would be required to develop and produce such rockets. Although the SASC plussed up the SBL line in its version of the FY 1997 defense authorization act by $101 million, BMDO believes that even if money were unlimited, the SBL technology is currently so immature that we could not expect to be ready to carry out the first test of a full-scale prototype for a decade. Yet the Dole-Gingrich bill suggests we would conduct a first `integrated systems test' of the entire system in two years and complete the deployment of the whole constellation in seven.
A second option the bill recommends to the Secretary is space-based kinetic-kill interceptors. To `defend America' with such orbiting rocket launchers would require resurrection of the SDI-era `Brilliant Pebbles' program, which was terminated several years ago.
As with SBLs, an NMD that provided nationwide coverage from Hawaii to Maine would require deployment of a large constellation of orbiting weapons platforms that would cost tens of billions of dollars. If the `Brilliant Pebbles' program was reactivated today, BMDO believes the first interceptors would not be tested for three years and deployment would take much longer, yet the bill suggests there is a viable option to have a complete space-based kinetic kill NMD defense in place by 2003.
Sea-based ABMs : This third option would also violate the ABM Treaty. The bill recommends the Secretary deploy such a defense by 2003, yet we do not even have such an NMD program in R&D. Navy Upper Tier is a TMD, and upgrading it is an ABM would require development and deployment of space-based ABM
battle management satellites that could replace the radars on the Aegis-clear ships. Such ABM `components'--which were a central element of Reagan-era SDI architectures--would violate the ABM Treaty.
Point Two: Ignoring the space-based options in the bill requires a willing suspension of disbelief.
The only one of the four options recommended to the Secretary for deployment by 2003 that is allowed under the ABM Treaty and coincides with current DoD NMD development programs is ground-based interceptors. Deployment of 100 such interceptors at a single site is permitted. But if a ground-based ABM is what the sponsors of the bill want the Secretary to develop, why doesn't the bill just say so? Why does it also endorse the other three options? The answer is that there are influential defense experts backing this bill who fervently believe that land-based ABMs would be a mistake and that putting weapons in space is the only way to go. For these experts, the original Reagan plan was right, and everything that has happened since, including President Bush's downgrading of SDI to a limited-defense oriented `GPALS' has been a mistake.
Point Three: The bill requires that the initial NMD deployment `will be augmented over time to provide a layered defense against larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile threats'.
The reference to a `layered' defense against `larger' threats is code for a return to the original Reagan-era `astrodome' SDI concept for stopping even an all-out Russian nuclear strike.
Point Four: The bill would state that `it is the policy of the United States to seek a cooperative transition to a regime that does not feature an offense-only form of deterrence as the basis for strategic stability.'
This text restates vintage Reagan-era SDI ideology: the idea, often articulated by the former President, that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is `immoral' and that we should replace it with an impenetrable missile shield that would allow us to dramatically reduce strategic offensive arms. In its most extreme form, we would `give' SDI to the Russians so we could both erect such shields in space and eliminate all our nuclear weapons.
Point Five: The bill concedes that the NMD that it requires be deployed by 2003 requires amendment of the ABM Treaty, but it mandates that if Russia does not agree to such amendments `within one year' we consider withdrawing from the Treaty:
The bill requires a `highly effective' defense that `optimizes' protection of CONUS, Alaska and Hawaii against limited missile attacks, including accidental or unauthorized launches. Acknowledging that these criteria cannot be satisfied within the Treaty as now constituted, the bill directs the President to obtain amendments that would allow an NMD of this level of effectiveness to be deployed.
The one-year deadline in the bill to achieve these amendments is not arbitrary, since, as noted, the bill requires a full-up systems integration test in two years of the NMD system that is to be deployed by 2003, and such tests could only take place after we had entered the development phase of the acquisition process. Any development or test of a space-based laser, space-based kinetic kill interceptor, sea-based ABM or multiple-site ground-based ABM system would violate the Treaty. Thus the time-lines established in the bill could, in the case of at least three of the NMD options it recommends the Secretary consider, only be met if the U.S. obtained the necessary treaty relief within a year.
In light of clear Russia opposition to any such amendments, the bill would be seen by Russia as tantamount to an `anticipatory breach' of the Treaty, thereby putting at immediate risk Russia reductions of strategic offensive arms under START I and START II. By holding a gun to the Russians' heads and demanding amendments within a year, the bill reflects an antipathy to the ABM Treaty reminiscent of Reagan-era `Star Wars' thinking. But in so doing, we stand to forfeit what otherwise would be a two-thirds reduction in Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal.
In conclusion, let me say that I spent eighteen years on the Hill: six at CRS working for both parties, four on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee working for a Republican majority, and eight on the Senate Armed Services Committee working first for a Democratic minority and then a Democratic majority. And the hallmark of those years was a spirit of bipartisanship and compromise when it came to important issues affecting our national security. I know that that spirit was still alive on the Hill as recently as last August, when Senator Nunn and Senator Warner, joined by Senator Levin and Senator Cohen, worked out a bipartisan compromise on missile defense policy that was supported by the Administration. That compromise passed the Senate with 86 Senator voting `aye.'
As we begin Defend America week, I hope we will not be debating a bumper sticker slogan. Rather I hope we will have an honest and objective debate on missile defense policy and that a spirit of bipartisanship and compromise will again be evident.
Thank you.