THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF AMERICAN BASES

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41901-2003May26?language=printer
New Breed of Missile Silos Put in Alaska
$500 Million Construction Project Readies First Installation for Ballistic
Interceptors

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 27, 2003; Page A03

FORT GREELY, Alaska -- On a barren Alaskan field shorn of the spruces and poplars that once crowded it, construction crews now churn up tons of dirt, carving 80-foot-deep holes for missile silos and erecting about a dozen state-of-the-art military command and support facilities.

It is here that the Bush administration plans to install a vanguard force of
rocket-propelled interceptors for defending the United States against
ballistic missile attack. Racing against a deadline 16 months away, the $500 million construction effort has many moving parts that must mesh tightly for the schedule to hold.

During a recent site visit, giant cranes could be seen starting to lower
long steel cylinders into silo holes to contain the missile interceptors
that are still in development. Workers climbed in and out of deep trenches
that cut across the missile field, laying three miles of concrete tunnels to
insulate water pipes against the cold.

Other crews poured concrete panels for encasing buildings. The buildings are further lined with plates of steel -- all part of a reinforced architecture
intended to protect against enemy attack, earthquakes and electromagnetic waves from high-altitude nuclear blasts.

All in all, construction site managers have identified about 13,000
activities that need to be completed for the antimissile system to be up and
running by Sept. 30, 2004, the date set by President Bush. In the nearby
town of Delta Junction, population 840, residents regard the construction
project with a mixture of awe and trepidation. The missile field itself is
shielded from public view, located well off the two-lane road that runs to
town about five miles away. But with several hundred construction workers camped in the area and trucks rambling past the farms, ranches and forests of the Alaskan interior, the project is difficult to ignore.

Property values around Delta Junction have soared, and the Pentagon has
invested $18 million in several town projects, including a new landfill,
school, recreation center and library addition. Local authorities expect
more federal money in the coming year.

The economic boost has raised hopes in an area whose fortunes have long been tied to the U.S. military. The missile complex is rising on the grounds of an old military base, established during World War II as part of the Alaska Highway project. Fort Greely eventually became a cold-weather test site for the Army, but in 1995 it was deemed dispensable and ordered shut as part of a series of Pentagon base closings.

The decision triggered an economic slump in Delta Junction and set off a
bitter town debate over whether to turn the base into a prison. Now, that's history.

"Many people have rallied behind the idea of missile defense," said Pete
Hallgren, a former state Republican Party chairman who moved here from Sitka in southern Alaska several years ago anticipating the arrival of missile defense and became the town's administrator. "This community grew up around the military, so the people are used to it."

Not everyone is enamored of the antimissile project, though. Some worry that the recent surge of construction will lead to another boom-bust cycle. Also unnerving for some is the idea of having powerful rockets stationed so close.

"It was different having the old base here than having an antimissile site,"
said Wanda Stewart, owner of Granite View sports and gifts shop. "The old base didn't kill."

The only open opposition has come in the form of a couple of small
demonstrations organized by an antinuclear group called No Nukes North, headquartered in Fairbanks about 90 miles to the north.

For Bush, who has made development of missile defenses a top priority,
establishment of a working antimissile system here would mark a major
milestone. Only once before has the United States built such a defense. But that system, set up in North Dakota in 1975, lasted only several months before Congress terminated it amid concerns about cost and effectiveness.

In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan rekindled the argument about constructing a national antimissile system. The idea has received added impetus under Bush as a necessary weapon for thwarting terrorist groups and such nations as North Korea and Iran, both of which have been trying to develop long-range missiles.

Longtime critics of national missile defense see politics as the driving
force behind Bush's determination to make Fort Greely operational several weeks before the next presidential election. But administration officials insist the motivation is military, not political. They point to intelligence reports predicting that within the next few years, North Korea could have a missile able to reach the western United States.

Alaska's northern location has made it the Pentagon's first choice for a
missile defense site. But when ground was broken here in June 2002, the idea was simply to build a test bed with several missile silos for gauging how interceptors and associated communications and command networks could withstand the Alaskan cold.

In an emergency, officials said at the time, the site could be made
operational. But only a few flight tests had been run on the proposed
system -- and those involved some significant artificial elements -- so a
presidential decision to actually deploy it seemed some time away.

But the thinking changed over the summer and fall as proponents of missile defense within the administration, conservative think tanks and the defense industry pressed the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency to begin defining a specific system and get something built.

"Questions came from a number of directions about what we could do with the test bed," said a senior defense official involved in the process. "We looked at what it would take to convert the site into an operational base and concluded it was doable."

In December, Bush announced the deployment plan.

"Before, we had planned to build a test bed with an inherent operational
capability," said Tom Devanney, deputy director of the program. "Now, we're building an operational site that can be used for testing."

The timetable calls for putting six interceptors at Fort Greely and four at
California's Vandenberg Air Force Base by next year. Ten more are due at Fort Greely in 2005.

To help track enemy missiles, the Pentagon also is upgrading a radar station on the remote Aleutian island of Shemya and constructing a high-resolution X-band radar that will float at sea on a giant platform. Additionally, U.S. officials have requested use of early warning radars in Britain and Greenland for targeting any missiles that might be launched from the Middle East.

As much as Bush is gambling that Fort Greely will be ready on time, it is
not his biggest schedule risk. That lies with the interceptors -- or, more
specifically, the booster rockets that are supposed to lift "kill vehicles"
into space, releasing them to home in on enemy warheads.

The boosters are months behind schedule. An initial effort, overseen by the Boeing Co., to design a single type of booster gave way last year to plans for two separate models, one now being managed by Lockheed Martin Corp., the other by Orbital Sciences Corp.

Both models may ultimately be used. But the delay has prompted the Pentagon to cancel three planned intercept attempts this year rather than run the tests with surrogate boosters.

By autumn, defense officials hope to have at least one of the two new
boosters ready. Even so, that will leave time for only two or three
intercept tests before Bush's deployment date. A failure of any of those
tests, or further booster delays, could bust the deadline.

In interviews, several senior program officials acknowledged the hurried
nature of the project. But they expressed confidence that the deadline will
be met. They also noted that one of the purposes of building the interceptor field is to provide for more realistic testing and future improvements in the system.

The construction project -- a joint effort involving Boeing and Bechtel
Group Inc., which are responsible for the silos, and Fluor Corp. and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which have charge of everything else -- has managed to stay on schedule. One big advantage was a relatively mild winter that dropped less snow here than in Washington.

The site has even received an early test of its ability to withstand the
seismic tremors that frequent the region. An earthquake registering 7.9 on
the Richter scale struck in November. Although the epicenter was only about 30 miles from here, it caused little damage to facilities under construction or to the trenches, which were filled with workers at the time.

"People refer to that as our first developmental test," said Army Col. Kevin Norgaard, director of the Site Activation Command.