http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/060603I.shtml
GAO Cites Risks in Missile Defense
By Bradley Graham
The Washington Post
Thursday 05 June 2003
A congressional report warned yesterday that President Bush's drive to
erect a nationwide antimissile system next year is hampered by immature
technology and limited testing, raising the risk of failure.
The report, by the General Accounting Office, also criticized the
administration for refraining from making long-term cost estimates for many
elements of the planned system, clouding decisions about what technologies to
pursue.
The report echoed concerns that missile defense opponents in Congress
and elsewhere have raised about the Bush plan. As the president has pressed
toward his goal of putting missile interceptors in Alaska and California by
September 2004, the political debate over missile defense has shifted from
ideological arguments about arms control to practical considerations about
performance and cost.
Critics accuse Bush of shortcutting normal Pentagon testing and
budgeting procedures to have an antimissile weapon in place before the next
presidential election. Administration officials contend that U.S.
vulnerability to a ballistic missile attack warrants quick fielding of a
less-than-perfect defense. They also say that tests so far have confirmed
the viability of the basic concept behind the system: namely, launching
missile interceptors into space to collide with enemy warheads.
But the GAO report said Bush's directive to build the system by 2004
has placed the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency "in danger of getting
off track early and introducing more risk into the missile defense effort over
the long term."
Because of time pressures, the report said, the planned system contains
components "that have not been demonstrated as mature and ready" for
incorporation with other elements. One example cited was the three-stage
booster rocket intended to lift the "kill vehicle" interceptor into
space.
Development problems have prompted the Pentagon to change prime contractors
and order two booster designs, neither of which has been fully flight-tested
yet.
In fact, the report noted, flight-testing of the whole system has
remained
crimped. Although interceptors have scored hits in five out of eight
attempts since 1999, the tests have relied heavily on surrogate or prototype
components and have been run under "non-stressing conditions" far
different from those likely to be encountered in a missile attack, the report
said.
"As a result, testing to date has provided only limited data for
determining whether the system will work as intended in 2004," the report
said.
The Missile Defense Agency issued a statement expressing confidence
that the planned system would provide "an effective, reliable
defense" of all 50 states. "This confidence comes from the
outstanding technical success we have achieved in our development and test
program," the statement said.
But two Democratic senators who have led congressional opposition to
the administration's plan and who requested the GAO report -- Carl M. Levin of
Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island -- seized on the findings. "The
GAO report provides a troubling picture of a system without direction,"
Reed said. "The president's decision to deploy an untested national
missile defense system still seems to be motivated more by politics than
effective military strategy."
Recognizing they do not have the votes in Congress to block Bush's
initiative, Levin, Reed and other critics have concentrated instead on
writing language into defense authorization measures that would force the
administration to spell out performance criteria and operational test plans
for the proposed system, and provide periodic assessments. The
administration has so far resisted getting too specific about system
requirements. While acknowledging that the system as initially deployed will
be far from perfect, Pentagon officials say plans call for it to be improved
over time in "blocks" as the technology matures and the threat
evolves.
The GAO report said such flexible, phased development makes sense for a
new, complex weapons system such as missile defense. But it faulted the
Missile Defense Agency for not estimating the total "life cycle"
cost of
elements or budgeting for them. Agency officials agreed with this criticism
and plan to start drawing up long-term cost estimates, the report said.
