Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, then-head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), said last June, "In calendar year 2004, there will be a system in place that will defend the United States. We will have the capability in September." Was that true? No. Not all the pieces will be in place in 2004, nor are they in place now, and even if they were, the system being deployed has no demonstrated capability against a real attack and is missing most of its major elements.
Here I'm referring to:
- The X-Band radar, which is missing,
- The satellite constellations SBIRS-High and SBIRS-Low, the latter now called STSS, all of which are missing, and
- Adequate discrimination capability by its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle interceptor, the EKV, which is also missing.
The President [stated], "I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system really don't understand the threats of the 21st Century," [but] missile defense doesn't work against car bombs, improvised explosive devices, assault weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades, the tragically real threats in the hands of urban terrorists and "tyrants" in many countries today.
What's surprising about the President's statements now is that three years ago, when asked in a NATO press conference if he would deploy a missile defense system that that didn't work and that had not been adequately tested, President Bush replied, "And those who suggest my administration will deploy a system that doesn't work are dead-wrong. Of course, we're not going to deploy a system that doesn't work. What good will that do? We'll only deploy a system that does work in order to keep the peace."1
Unfortunately, three years later, that's exactly what President Bush is doing: he is deploying a system that doesn't work and hasn't been adequately tested. This is like deploying a new military jet fighter with no wings, no tail and no landing gear. And without testing it to see if it could work with no wings, tail or landing gear.
The President has been ill-informed by his advisors, but the President's remarks are the least of the problem. The problem has been that the Missile Defense Agency, and other missile defense proponents, keep making -- and repeating -- statements which are not true. Here is just one example.
1. In their press release on GMD deployment, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency hailed this as "the end of an era where we have not been able to defend our country against long-range ballistic missile attacks."
[This is] not true. If North Korea began assembling an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would necessitate moving huge rockets around fixed launch facilities and would be highly visible to U.S. spy satellites, our military would blow it up on the ground. Our military would never wait to see if it could intercept the missile when it was flying thousands of miles per hour in space. We would blow up the whole ICBM launch facility with the same weapons that we have seen work so effectively in Iraq and Afghanistan, satellite and laser-guided bombs and missiles. With those weapons, we already have a missile defense. But suppose the launch surprised us? Would our missile defenses protect us then? No, because our missile defenses depend on our seeing the enemy missile first with satellites, too.
[Phil Coyle includes 9 more fallacies of the missile defense system. To see his complete speech, click here.]
To summarize, the GMD system, what used to be called National Missile Defense, is taking billions of dollars from other defense and homeland security priorities (e.g., the war in Iraq), doesn't work, and could be dangerous. If China believes this system actually works, it will likely do just what Russia did during the Cold War and build up arsenals of hundreds of ICBMs so they can overwhelm our defenses, just as Russia still can do today.
So, with its missile defense story, the MDA is misleading members of Congress, reporters, and just about everybody else. First, it is hoping American voters will believe that Bush has actually fulfilled his campaign promise to build an effective missile defense system that works. But Bush hasn't been able to deliver a system that works because the MDA hasn't been able to deliver a system that works.
Second, the MDA is hoping our allies, countries like Canada, Australia and Japan, believe the system works so that they too will spend billions of dollars on our missile defense hardware.
Third, the MDA is hoping North Korea will believe our missile defense works and thus be deterred from pursuing long-range missiles that might reach the United States. But, contrarily, the MDA is hoping China will know that our missile defenses don't work, that our missile defenses are a sham, so that China won't build up its nuclear arsenals in response. Today China only has about 20 ICBMs that can reach the United States.
Just a year ago I wrote an article for Arms Control Today entitled, "Is Missile Defense on Target?" If I were to write that article again today, I would have to say that the GMD system has fallen even farther behind schedule than it was then, while at the same time the rhetoric and claims being made for the system by its proponents have become more certain and astonishingly misleading. A year ago, we didn't see Bush or Rumsfeld making claims that had already been overtaken by events.
It's time for some straight talk about missile defense, including the scientific and technical challenges which it faces and which, if not solved, will prevent the system from being effective, no matter how much money is spent on heavy construction, re-bar and concrete.
Excerpted from the remarks of Phil Coyle of the Center for Defense Information at Carnegie on "The Problems and Prospects of the New Alaska Missile Interceptor Site," September 20, 2004. Phil Coyle is the Former Director of Operational Test and Evaluation in the Department of Defense.
1 Press availability with President Bush and NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 13, 2001.