Senator Reed Introduces Missile Defense Amendment

Mr. REED. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, there is a very simple, but important, premise underlying this amendment. I believe Congress should know the capabilities of any missile defense system that is deployed, and that these capabilities should be subject to rigorous testing. I understand this information may very well be classified, and we would receive it on a classified basis, but it is essential for us, as we make decisions about a huge program, not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of consequences to our security, that we know how capable this program is.

My amendment would request and require the Department of Defense develop measurable performance criteria for missile defense systems and an operational test plan for those systems, and an estimate of when operational testing would be done to verify the performance criteria are met. The performance criteria would include the characteristics of the threat missiles that each missile defense system is being designed to counter.

The amendment would require the Secretary of Defense to submit the performance criteria and operational test plan to the Congress each year.

The amendment would also require the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation to provide an annual assessment of the progress being made to verify, through operational testing, whether the systems are meeting their established performance criteria.

Both the performance criteria and test plans could be revised as necessary by the Department of Defense, but I do believe we need to have an idea at least of the capabilities of these systems and also, again, these capabilities must be established by operational testing.

The Patriot PAC-3 system, the only currently deployed ballistic missile defense system, conducted operational testing to prove it met established performance criteria prior to being deployed. This is the right way to develop a missile defense system; indeed, all defense programs. This amendment would model other missile defense programs on the very successful PAC-3 program in terms of performance criteria, operational testing, and then deployment.

There are a number of important things this amendment will not do. This amendment does not reduce funding for any missile defense system.

It would not prevent the administration from fielding missile defense by 2004, although, hopefully, we will have an idea of exactly what they field in 2004, and, frankly, I do not think this Congress has such an idea at this moment.

It would not dictate what performance any missile defense system should have, nor does it establish any dates for when certain performance must be attained.

It would, however, enable Congress to understand what missile defense capabilities are being bought for the $9.1 billion provided in the defense bill for missile defense. I think that is a threshold issue our constituents expect us to know. If we are investing $9.1 billion, we have to know, and the American people should feel confident we know, what are we buying, how much will it protect us against what type of threat.

I believe also it would improve the chances of developing effective missile defenses by establishing clear standards of performance.

Currently, none of the missile defense programs under development, under the Missile Defense Agency, have established performance criteria, meaning essentially there are no standards for when a system reaches any particular milestone or has completed its development. These standards did exist under the Clinton administration but were removed by the current administration.

The administration claims it cannot develop performance criteria for missile defense because the systems are too complex and difficult, and no one can predict how they will perform.

However, despite this seeming quandary about not knowing what will happen, the administration plans to field both ground- and sea-based missile defenses in 2004 and possibly an airborne missile defense by 2005. Frankly, a system that is ready to be fielded is presumably far enough along to be able to tell its performance, or one can only assume a system is being fielded without any knowledge of how it actually will work. That to me would not be a very prudent or a very wise deployment.

Other defense programs are also complex and difficult, yet they have measurable performance criteria against which they are tested. The F/A-22 aircraft program is a very complex and difficult system, as is the V-22 Osprey program. Yet both of these programs have well-established performance criteria.

In fact, all major military programs, except missile defense, have performance criteria or requirements which were approved relatively early in a system's development and revised as necessary as the program matures. I do not think it is incompatible to have a flexible system that can be adapted, yet still have performance criteria, but it seems in our discussion of missile defense these two notions are completely separated: Flexibility, innovation, seizing technological breakthroughs, and simple performance criteria. They should be part and parcel of any program we undertake.

For example, all unmanned aerial vehicle programs, such as the Predator, have requirements stating how long they need to stay aloft, how high they should fly, and how well their sensors can see. Yet this has not interfered with their innovation, their development, and their deployment.

The administration has claimed because it has adopted the new spiral development, capabilities-based acquisition approach, that establishing actual performance criteria and operational test plans is not appropriate because we just do not know for sure what missile defense capabilities will ultimately emerge. But there are a number of other spiral development programs in the Department of Defense, and all of them, except missile defense, have performance criteria and operational test plans.

For example, the Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which saw service in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a spiral development program. Yet it has well-established performance requirements and a documented operational test plan.

There is absolutely no reason that missile defense should not have the same sort of yardsticks for measuring progress.

Ballistic missile programs used to have performance criteria, such as how many incoming missiles they should be able to engage, and how much area a system should defend. This enabled Congress to understand the characteristics of missile defense programs that were being funded and why they were necessary. Such criteria have been removed, and Congress does not know, for example, how many incoming missiles each missile defense system is being designed to defend against or how much area the system is being designed to defend.

Without such information, Congress is essentially writing an $8 billion to $9 billion blank check each year to the administration for missile defense.

Over the previous 2 years, Congress has tried and tried again to get the administration to provide the most basic information on its missile defense programs. Time and again, the administration has refused to provide it.

In fiscal year 2002, Congress directed the Department of Defense to provide its most basic cost, schedule and performance goals for missile defense.

We also asked the General Accounting Office to assess the progress being made towards achieving these goals.

As late as the end of fiscal year 2002, when the first GAO assessment was due, the Department had still not established a single meaningful goal for its missile defense programs. GAO was forced to write to Congress saying that it could not complete its assess because there were no goals to measure missile defense programs.

Lately, in response to continued Congressional pressure, the administration has begun to establish a few very broad, very near-term goals. But even these goals are misleading.

Secretary Aldridge, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought the administration's 2004 missile defense would have a 90 percent chance of hitting an incoming warhead from North Korea.

Whether this is a firmly established goal or simply the individual opinion of a very sophisticated observer but nevertheless an individual opinion, it is hard to tell. Indeed, one can raise many questions about whether this 90-percent figure as a goal is being achieved and can be achieved by 2004. Secretary Rumsfeld has said in public that the 2004 system is rudimentary. Does that mean a 90-percent goal will be achieved or does it mean something less?

Indeed, if we look at the system closely, there are many issues that emerge which would suggest that this is such a situation in which there are no goals. For example, the booster for the system that is designed to be deployed in 2004 has yet to be flown in an actual intercept. So there is the question of making it work with the actual kill vehicle in an operationally feasible mode. That is a pretty significant issue when it comes to whether this system will have a certain degree of reliability.

The radar for the system was never designed for missile defense and can never be actually tested in an actual intercept attempt. The Pentagon's chief tester has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the 2004 missile defense, in his words, has not yet demonstrated operational capability. Yet it seems clear that, regardless, there is an intention to field this system in 2004.

All of these issues raise real questions as to the capability of this system. If we accept, in fact, that it might be 90 percent, is it 90 percent of hitting a missile with defense decoys or 90 percent of hitting a missile without a decoy? These are important points that I think can be answered and should be answered by the Department of Defense as we go forward to invest something on the order of $9 billion a year in missile defense.

The administration also claims that the missile defense system it plans to field in 2004 will protect all 50 States, but if we look at the details such a defense is only possible if we have Navy ships constantly patrolling the waters of North Korea using their radars to pick up any ICBM launches headed towards Hawaii.

Initially, in the Clinton proposal there was a plan to build a very large radar designed particularly for ballistic missile defense that was intended to and had established criteria that would include protecting and covering all 50 States.

This new approach may in fact be effective, but, once again, we are not sure—the Congress is not officially on record in either an unclassified or a classified sense—of what is the standard. Is it all 50 States? Is it 50 States assuming that the Navy will have ships constantly patrolling the waters off North Korea? Indeed, it is not quite sure whether those ships can constantly be patrolling the waters off of North Korea given the numerous missions in the war on terror, given the numerous military operations. That, too, has to be looked at and examined based upon some clear criteria.

Another point is that the radar on these ships is being adapted, but it was not originally designed to identify and track ICBM-type targets. There is a question of whether the radar would be accurate enough to perform this mission.

If the Navy ships are not there, if the radar truly does not work as they hope it works or it is not modified quickly enough, there is a real question about the coverage of the system.

All of these points are being made to say in order to assess what we are buying, it helps to have these performance goals, to have them clearly delineated, to have the assumption laid out, and to have all of this operationally tested, so when we deploy a system we can say with great confidence to the American people that it will provide this level of protection. I do not think we can say that at this point.

This amendment in no way inhibits the administration from fielding a system, any type of system, in 2004, but what it will give us is an opportunity to measure that system. How effective is that system? What threats will this system engage? That type of knowledge is very important for us as we make our decisions. It is also incumbent upon the administration to provide such knowledge. Again, I emphasize it can be done either on a classified or unclassified basis because I understand there is a utility sometimes to have a system which our adversaries might assume is 100-percent effective. But at least the Congress must know this information.

The other fact of this lack of clarity and goals is it inhibits operational testing. Administrative witnesses have testified as to the need for operational testing. We have passed laws establishing operational testing. This is the traditional routine way in which we verify whether a system works and also, as we improve the system, how effective the modifications and improvements are.

Every major defense program I can think of, except missile defense, has established plans for operational testing. Without these criteria for performance and operational testing, I do not know if we can, in fact, create and deploy a system of which we can be confident.

As we reestablish these performance criteria for missile defense programs and require a plan for operational testing, Congress will regain an important tool to understand how well our missile defense program is succeeding, how our money is being spent—not our money, frankly, but the American people's money. Without such criteria and operational testing, none of that clarity will be available to us.

I think something else will be very important. It will require the Department of Defense to face squarely these tough issues: What type of threats can we defeat? How wide is the coverage of our system? What additional resources must we bring to bear to make it effective? Is this investment cost effective and cost efficient in terms of protecting the American people?

Right now all of that is very amorphous, very nebulous because there is no standard to measure it, even a general standard, these general goals I talked about. I hope this amendment could be accepted because it builds on provisions in the law that were adopted by the committee.

I commend Senator Allen for his efforts to include more cost data, more lifetime cycles of the cost, what it will cost to field this system. This is an attempt to build on that foundation. I hope my colleagues will see it as such, agree to this amendment, and provide the kind of goals, operational testing and clarity that are needed so we can assure the American public that when we deploy a missile defense system, it will live up at least to the standards that are disclosed to the U.S. Congress.

I yield the floor.