Senator Carl Levin's Opening Statements on Missile Defense
March 11, 2004
Opening Statement of Senator Carl Levin at the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Missile Defense
I thank Chairman Warner for holding this important hearing, and I join him in welcoming our witnesses this morning.
This hearing is important for a number of reasons. First, the magnitude of the administration’s fiscal year 2005 budget request for missile defense is truly staggering. The total request is more than $10 billion – for just one fiscal year. Of that amount, more than $9 billion is for what the Pentagon calls the “Ballistic Missile Defense System.” As far as I know, that is the largest single year funding request for any weapon system in history.
The majority of this funding is in pursuit of a rudimentary and uncertain defense against an unlikely long-range missile attack.
To put the missile defense budget request in perspective, this request is close to twice the entire FY 2005 budget request for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security, a program dedicated to keep would-be terrorists out of our country. The missile defense request is more than double the next largest annual request for a weapon system, the F-22 fighter jet, and is more than the entire annual research and development budget of the United States Army.
One reason this hearing is important is to try to understand the justification for this record-breaking budget request for missile defense. How will this missile defense funding help keep this country safe from the terrorist threats we know exist right now? If we spend this money, will we actually get an effective defense for this country – or will we get instead a system that was rushed to the field prematurely, that will have to be fixed, and fixed again at enormous additional cost as operational tests reveal significant problems?
This brings us to the second reason this hearing is important. The administration plans to deploy a National Missile Defense system in September – which is just six short months away. This is despite the fact that the last major test of the system was more than one year ago, and was a failure.
Then, inexplicably, seven of the eight intercept tests of the system that had been scheduled for 2003 and 2004 have either been cancelled or have been delayed until next year.
The plan to deploy in September remains, despite the fact that only one of the intercept tests which were to occur before deployment is still planned. Even that test will be a well-scripted event in which the system’s radar will not be functioning. Instead, the target itself will broadcast its position to the missile defense system.
A real enemy missile heading towards the United States will not be broadcasting its position to us.
The administration plans to deploy in September despite known problems with the interceptor, problems that could affect the interceptor’s ability to track the target and hit it. This is according to the most recent report of the Pentagon’s chief tester, Mr. Tom Christie, who is with us today.
Gen. Kadish has said that he plans to fix the interceptor problems and increase the realism of National Missile Defense testing in future years, after we buy a large number of missiles and deploy them. History shows how essential realistic tests are. And the system the administration plans to deploy in September will have completed no realistic tests. Zero.
The administration’s missile defense plans are at odds with long-standing acquisition laws. These common sense laws require major weapons systems to be independently tested, under combat-like conditions, prior to going into mass production and being deployed to our troops. Collectively known as “fly-before-you-buy,” the laws reflect fundamental principles of good government, and are intended to protect the safety of our military personnel and our nation, as well as the taxpayer’s money.
The heart of these laws is the requirement to do operational testing prior to full-rate production and deployment of a weapons system. By law, operational tests must be conducted under “realistic combat conditions,” by “typical military users.” This is to ensure the system actually works when needed, rather than simply in an artificial test environment.
The missile defense tests to date have all been developmental tests, which need not be conducted under realistic combat conditions and in fact have not been. According to Mr. Christie’s latest report to Congress, testing of the National Missile Defense system is still needed under more combat-like conditions, using the full system rather than just individual parts of it. Testing is also needed against targets which look more like actual threat missiles, and aren’t already pre-programmed into the missile defense system’s computer.
Unlike the developmental tests conducted to-date, the law requires that operational tests must be approved and overseen by Mr. Christie – the Pentagon’s independent test authority.
Why is it important that the Pentagon’s independent test authority oversee and approve the operational tests that must be successfully completed prior to giving the go-ahead to full-rate production of a weapon system? Because this is the only way a military program can be judged by an expert who is independent of the program, and who therefore is at liberty to tell the unvarnished truth about the program’s successes or failings.
Developmental testing, by contrast, is conducted by the program’s contractors and managers, who clearly have a considerable financial and other stake in the future of the program. Their careers may depend on the program’s success.
Many Pentagon programs have sailed through developmental tests with glowing results reported by the contractor, but when the time comes for operational testing, serious problems are suddenly revealed by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. The whole point of operational testing is to fix those problems prior to buying and deploying the system. Operational testing is one of the major reasons the U.S. military is second-to-none.
But last year, the administration requested billions of dollars to begin to field a largely untested missile defense in September consisting of 20 interceptor missiles as a “rudimentary” defense capability. The administration acknowledged that this initial capability would not be robust, but said that the 20 interceptors were part of a missile defense “test bed.”
At a missile defense hearing one year ago, administration witnesses, including Gen. Kadish, Mr. Christie, and Secretary Aldridge, who held Secretary Wynne’s position at the time, all said that one of the reasons for deploying these 20 interceptors starting this September was to conduct more realistic tests of the system. Secretary Aldridge assured us at the hearing that “the reason we have the test bed and we are developing the test bed is to enable operational testing.”
One year later, operational tests still have not been performed on the system, and apparently none are planned soon. Yet the administration has requested more than a half a billion dollars in 2005 to begin buying 20 additional interceptor missiles, over and above the 20 they plan to deploy in September. Some of these additional 20 interceptors are to be deployed at a new, unspecified missile defense site. And all of this with no near-term plans for realistic operational testing of the first 20 interceptors.
It is dubious enough to buy and field 20 largely untested interceptors as part of a test bed and claim that something is better than nothing, as the administration did last year. It is plain wrong and in violation of our procurement laws to continue to buy another 20 of these missiles as fast as possible – in what is clearly a full-production mode.
It is not clear to me how racing to build and deploy 40 missile defense interceptors at multiple deployment sites without successfully completing operational tests of the system is consistent with the provisions of the “fly-before-you-buy” procurement laws.
If we approve another 20 missiles this year without demanding operational tests in accordance with common sense, and with the law, what would prevent the administration from asking for another 20 next year, and another 20 the year after that?
If we don’t demand realistic operational tests of this system now, when will we? How many more billions of dollars should we spend on this system prior to knowing whether it will really work against a real threat?
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to briefly review the track record of the only missile defense system ever to see an actual battle, the Patriot system. I think this track record shows clearly why the common sense notions of the “fly-before-you-buy” laws are so important.
Patriot was rushed to the front lines of the 1991 Gulf War amid much fanfare, but with virtually no testing against ballistic missiles. Pentagon claims of extraordinary high success rates against Iraqi Scud missiles proved hollow when it became clear that most of the supposed “intercepts” were actually Patriot missiles blowing themselves up in futility, as the Scud missile warhead continued to the ground, only to explode there as designed. One of the Scuds missed by the Patriot system destroyed a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 Americans.
Following the Gulf War, the Pentagon labored for years on an improved version of the Patriot, the “PAC-3,” which was specifically designed for Scuds. Between 1997 and 2001 a string of 10 developmental tests were conducted, run by the contractor and overseen by the Patriot program manager. These tests were almost all completely “successful” because they were so easy and unrealistic. But then it was time for operational testing – combat-realistic testing approved and overseen by the Pentagon’s independent test authority, with actual Army soldiers, not contractors, at the Patriot controls.
Operational tests ran from February to May of 2002, and in every single operational test a major Patriot failure occurred. Of the seven targets launched, only 3 were hit. One Patriot missile missed a cruise missile target, one missed a ballistic missile target, and two Patriots failed to launch altogether. The problems discovered in operational tests were severe, and would have seriously degraded the performance of Patriot in an actual battle. Because of rigorous testing, major problems were fixed – just in time for the new Patriots to see action in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Even with rigorous operational testing, there were still failures with the Patriot, which was involved in three friendly fire incidents which killed three coalition airmen, but the Patriot performance would have been calamitous without the operational tests.
The story of the Patriot shows that if we want an effective weapon system, be it missile defense or any other system, rigorous, independent operational testing is absolutely essential. Our laws require it. Common sense demands it. Our commitment to our military personnel and the taxpayer call for it. To not do so will surely waste money, and if the system is ever called to battle, could result in a far greater tragedy than just the loss of resources and funds.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.