Copyright 2002 Federal News Service, Inc. Federal News Service
February 27, 2002, Wednesday
LENGTH: 19057 words
HEADLINE:JOINT HEARING OF THE MILITARY PROCUREMENT AND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
SUBCOMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE BUDGET FOR THE
MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
CHAIRED BY: REP. DUNCAN
HUNTER (R-CA)
LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE
OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES: LT.
GEN. RONALD KADISH, DIRECTOR, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
BODY: REP. HUNTER: Okay,
the hearing will come to order. And I've been informed that we're probably going
to have a vote very quickly, so we'll try to get our opening statements out of
the way, General Kadish, and we may break before you go on. But let's see what
we can do here.
This morning the Military R&D
Subcommittee and the Military Procurement Subcommittee meet in joint
session to receive testimony from Lieutenant General Kadish, director of our
Missile Defense Agency.
General Kadish will review for
us the status of our missile defense programs; discuss recent changes to his
organization, now a separate agency; explain his agency's incremental
development strategy, commonly referred to as spiral development; and present
the president's Fiscal Year 2003 budget request for the Missile Defense Agency.
The focus of our hearings last year was shortcomings
in our missile defense -- (audio break) -- successful in two intercepts since
last July. And just last month, our Aegis flight demonstration program achieved
a hit-to-kill intercept at our Pacific missile range facility in Hawaii, testing
a new propulsion technology along the way and striking an encouraging note for
our sea-based efforts.
Perhaps more importantly,
though, these programs appear to be gaining the momentum to attain and sustain a
test rate of three or more tests per year, a rather dramatic improvement over
past performance.
To be sure, there have been some
tests, such as the recent PAC-3 operational tests, that have met with less
success. But we have learned from them also. And we can expect future failures
if our testing is challenging, as it should be, bearing in mind that no single
test is indicative of the eventual outcome of a program.
As I know my colleagues are aware, there have been other changes as
well. In January, the secretary of Defense re-established the Ballistic Missile
Defense Organization as a missile defense agency, highlighting the priority
placed by the administration on missile defense.
The
secretary also directed the adoption of a department-wide incremental
development and acquisition process, spiral development, to field militarily
useful capabilities as they become available. And he's instructed General Kadish
to also utilize this developmental approach to speed up the fielding of
effective missile defense capabilities as soon as they are ready for
fielding.
Some of our members are more enthusiastic
than others about these recent organizational and policy developments. I believe
that all of us will be well-served by becoming better-informed on these and
other issues after today's hearing.
On the matter of
the budget, the president's request for missile defense of $7.8 billion is
essentially flat compared to the Fiscal Year 2002 appropriation. Of the total,
$6.7 billion falls within the agency's budget, with most of the remainder having
been transferred to Army R&D and procurement accounts.
We look forward to hearing what changes, if any, the
administration intends to make in its programmatic objectives and funding
priorities.
At this point, I want to turn to my good
friend and chairman of the Military Procurement Subcommittee, Mr. Weldon,
for any remarks he would like to make. Mr. Weldon.
REP.
CURT WELDON (R-PA): I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General Kadish, we're very
pleased to have you here today. And I'm pleased, as chairman of the
Procurement Subcommittee, to join with my friend for this joint
hearing.
We're continuing a process that we've had in
previous sessions where we have co-chaired hearings on issues that, in this
case, primarily come under the jurisdiction of the R&D Subcommittee but
which we, on the Procurement Committee, have also strong interest. In
fact, next week we'll be doing another joint hearing that I will chair with my
good friend sitting alongside me, with Secretary Aldridge and the service
acquisition executives.
And the goal here is to have
the R&D and Procurement Subcommittee come together to ask the
appropriate questions and to listen to you explain to us the activities that
you're undertaking.
I'm especially looking forward to
hearing your appraisal of the benefits of the flexibility that we gave to you by
our actions over the last series of defense bills. So you can tell us what
impact that's had on your ability to oversee this program.
I want to tell you that we're very pleased with your leadership. I'm
also pleased that, you know, a year ago at this point in time, we had a lot of
naysayers out there who were attempting to poke holes, making wild accusations.
There was one lawsuit filed and an attempt to go to the FBI because there was
supposedly lying and cheating. And actually members of Congress signed a letter
alleging that perhaps you had done things.
All of us
knew that was bunk. And while it didn't receive much press, as you know, the FBI
has totally ended that and said there was no basis whatsoever for any of the
allegations made. And there are others who claim to be the scientists who know
that perhaps the work we've been doing is not, in fact, valid.
I want to let you know that, working with you, we had a press
conference of six major scientists, independent, who have come out now with a
document, "Answering the Facts Behind Missile Defense," to refute some of those
that are being proposed by some other scientists who claim to be the experts on
why missile defense won't work and hasn't worked.
We
will continue to work with you. We understand the challenges are still great,
that they are engineering challenges as opposed to technology challenges. And we
want to pledge to you our full cooperation. It doesn't mean that we won't have
questions from time to time, and in some cases maybe serious concerns, as we've
raised in the past. But, by and large, I think you'll find this committee will
be supportive of your efforts.
And we're looking
forward to a thorough examination as to where we're going with missile defense,
and I'll be asking you specifically about cooperative programs with our allies
as well, in particular those through the MEADS program, our work with the
Israelis.
And I want to specifically talk to you in the
questioning period about a proposal I raised last year to look at the
possibility of a joint boost-phase intercept project with the Russians, the
Israelis and the Turks.
So with that in mind, I thank
you for being here and I thank my distinguished colleague for chairing this
subcommittee and look forward to your testimony.
REP.
HUNTER: I thank my colleague and thank him for all of his great contribution in
this important area. And now I'd like to turn to our ranking members, Mr. Meehan
for Research & Development and Mr. Taylor for Procurement, for any
remarks they'd like to make. Mr. Meehan.
REP. MARTIN
MEEHAN (D-MA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General Kadish, it's always great to
have you before the committee.
After September 11th,
the Congress, especially Democrats, decided to defer a number of contentious
debates for the good of national unity. Many of them related to missile defense,
and they include the size of the missile defense budget, which was raised last
year beyond any reasonable justification; a change in the organization that saw
the old BMDO raised to agency status; the unprecedented removal of missile
defense activities from the normal budgetary oversight and performance
standards; adoption of the old Soviet Union's "Buy first, think later"
acquisition policy that develops anything imaginable without regard for utility,
which is to say, no real acquisition policy at all; and this administration's
decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty.
It would be a
mistake to interpret the silence in the wake of September 11th as a sign of
approval by all in the Congress of these unprecedented actions. The
administration's proposals raise very serious questions in the minds of many
members on our side, and let me speak to two of them.
The first concerns the structure of the Missile Defense Agency in its
oversight. The new Missile Defense Agency, by my reading, will essentially
function as a new military service, but a military service with essentially no
oversight, no accountability, and a budget that's growing by leaps and
bounds.
Such an agreement has never existed in any
agency before, let alone a program that's a controversial program. I have real
concerns that the proposed Missile Defense Agency, in its revised operational
guidelines, provide fertile ground for malignant growth, potential waste and
abuse.
For example, the MDA is using requirements that
are not built on a threat. They're using the so-called capability-based
requirements. Now, it's my understanding that capability-based requirements were
used when we don't know what the threat is; for example, in a peacekeeping
mission or when we undertake a humanitarian relief operation.
I'm concerned that without a threat to work against and with no
accountability in place, that we're freeing the MDA to embark on a Rube
Goldberg, multimillion-dollar, gold-plated science fiction project, not to
mention that we've invested hundreds of millions of dollars into our
intelligence agencies to develop a missile threat assessment. It makes no sense
to throw that investment away in favor of an MDA-developed threat that we don't
know what it's going to be from month to month.
Moreover, the MDA, much like the Department of Defense, is espousing
this use that the chairman referred to of spiral acquisition in order to field a
limited capability earlier than would be the case under the traditional
acquisition process.
Now, it's my understanding that
spiral acquisition is a process that succeeds by fielding the first deployable
technology and then building on it. But as far as I know, the last significant
use of spiral acquisition was in the Soviet Union, and the result of that was
national bankruptcy and a field full of barely-functional weapons that posed
more of a threat to their users than they did the enemy. So I don't think it
makes any sense to use this model.
My second concern is
the significant resource commitment to national defense at the expense of other
pressing defense needs. We have what appears to be a very large increase in the
defense budget this year, but in reality it's rather small. As the secretary of
Defense and others have testified, the vast majority of the $48 billion increase
in the budget is essentially already spent.
We have a
real immediate need in the war against terrorism. We need to replenish our spent
stockpiles of smart munitions. The administration is proposing buying only five
ships when the immediate need is for eight ships. And we're purchasing far less
aircraft than our aging fleet demands.
So I'm concerned
that we are shortchanging the war on terrorism to pay for this golden tribute to
the national missile. NMD is a valid and worthwhile defensive measure upon which
this country needs to embark, and we have already placed billions and billions
of dollars into it.
But we're also engaged in a war
where the stakes are very high for our men and women in uniform and for the
citizens of the country, as September 11th, I think, so dramatically
demonstrated. And our success in that war is certain to make serious inroads
into quashing the threat that NMD seeks to address.
So
as the committee moves forward, I hope that we will make sure that our funding
priorities are properly aligned with the harsh realities that we're all living
with in a post-September 11th world.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. And for a
second strong endorsement of missile defense, Mr. Taylor. (Laughter.)
REP. GENE TAYLOR (D-MS): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do
appreciate you having this hearing today. I would hope that in the course of
this hearing that the real question that is answered is not whether or not
people are for or against coming up with a system to save American lives in the
event of a missile attack.
Everyone in America is for a
missile defense system. The real debate, though, has to be at what expense to
other programs, because missile defense doesn't come out of welfare. It doesn't
come out of foreign aid. It doesn't come out of highway funds. It doesn't come
at the expense of airports. It comes at the expense of other defense needs.
And I can assure you, in my conversations with folks in
Mr. Kadish's own service, the C-130 pilots, when I tell them
that $60 billion has come at the expense of other C-130s or aging 141s, or my
friends in the Army who are flying 30-year-old UH1s, or friends in the Special
Operations Forces, my friends in the Naval Construction Battalion -- that's the
real debate is could we have spent this $60 billion better on other programs?
Mr. Meehan correctly points out that the Navy right now is
the smallest it has been since 1933. This year's defense budget asks for five
ships. Typical life of a ship is 30 years. That means the legacy of this year's
defense request is a 150-ship Navy, while missile defense gets approximately $8
billion.
For the same $60 billion, the real debate that
the American people ought to be aware of -- for the same $60 billion, we could
have replaced every single aircraft carrier in the fleet. And those of you who
follow this issue know that at least two of our carriers are over 35 years old.
For the same $60 billion, we could have built 60 Aegis class destroyers. This
year's budget request is two. For the same $60 billion, we could have replaced
every one of the thousand UH-1 inventory -- Huey helicopters in the inventory.
Anyone who follows this knows that the newest of those were built in 1972.
I would hope one question that General Kadish would answer
today, in fairness to the American people who are footing this bill, is that
after $60 billion, if the North Koreans told us a week ahead of time that they
were going to fire one missile with no decoys, no chaff -- if they told us a
week ahead of time the city that they were going to launch the missile from and
gave us the exact time of day that they were going to launch this missile --
what are the chances that after $60 billion of American tax money being spend
that you could shoot it down. Because one of the things that this committee has
to do -- we're never going to tell you how to take a hill, we're never going to
tell the ship drivers how to drive their ships, we're not going to tell the guys
in special operating forces how to take a target -- but what we are responsible
for the taxpayers is to see that that money is well spent.
So, General Kadish, I would hope you would tell this committee and the
American public that after $60 billion, if the North Koreans told us exactly
where and exactly when they were going to fire one missile with no decoys, what
are the chances that you could shoot that one missile down today. That's the
real debate. It's not what the talk show host wants you to hear because they
want to break it down until you're either for missile defense or you're against
it. It doesn't come out of welfare. It doesn't come out of roads. It doesn't
come out of our salaries. It's coming at the expense of other defense needs. A
flat procurement budget, that even though the president's budget has
grown fairly significantly, our procurement budget has not grown by one
dime -- that's the real debate. And I hope it -- I hope the general can tell us
that somehow what we're doing is really worthwhile for the American taxpayer.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. I'd like to ask the
ranking member, Mr. Skelton, if he has any questions he'd like to ask, or any
statement he'd like to make. If not, we're going to break for ten minutes, and
when we get back, we're going to see a movie. So, we're going to show that movie
in exactly ten minutes. And I'd ask all the members of the subcommittees to come
on back. And General Kadish, you can be mulling over your opening statement in
light of our strong endorsements of your program.
(Recess.)
REP. HUNTER: The subcommittees will
resume. And General Kadish, thank you for being with us today. And let me just
say on a personal note that one of the great traditions in this country is
giving the ball to an outstanding player and letting them carry that ball and
hold them accountable for the results, and you have been a great ball carrier.
You've moved this program into a rigorous testing stage. That's very much
appreciated. And whether you like missile defense or don't like missile defense,
we should all agree that the key to finding the answers is rigorous testing, and
you've embarked on that. So, thank you for what you've done for our country and
for your personal service. And I understand now you've got a hit movie that you
want to play for us.
GEN. RONALD KADISH: Yes, Mr.
Chairman, and good morning. It's a pleasure to appear before the committee today
and talk about the fiscal '03 budget. And to allow more time, I have a longer
statement I'd appreciate if we'd put in the record. But --
REP. HUNTER: Without objection, we will put it in the record.
GEN. KADISH: We've made substantial progress in our
program since I last testified. And we spent the past year testing key
technologies and their integration and restructuring our program to better face
the challenges that we have in front of us.
I'd like to
show a video today because -- and I know that it's a little bit awkward in a
forum like this, but we have some significant testing results that I think that
are best portrayed to a video format report card. And then if I might take a few
minutes after the video to talk about the two challenges that were mentioned
today -- our technical challenges and our management challenges and what we're
doing about them.
The basic objective of missile
defense has not changed in many years. It's to develop a missile defense that's
effective to protect our country, our deployed forces, our friends and our
allies. And the budget we have submitted for fiscal year 2003 is substantial,
but it continues in the same range of last year to provide us the stability we
need in a development program, and in so doing it supports our program
priorities.
Now let me start the videotape. What I am
going to show you is the all different types of tests we've been doing -- from
ground-based testing, to non-intercept testing of different elements, and then
to the intercept tests themselves. And to a series of things -- we've almost
been doing a test a month since we last met in this forum, and we expect to
continue that in fiscal year '03 in a very aggressive way.
Now, in the opening section of this film and what you'll see is just a
reminder of what the missile trajectory is, and how we intend to intercept
during this trajectory through layered defenses.
Trying
to engage a missile, ballistic missile in its trajectory, early is always
better, but it's tough technologically to do. And this depicts the boost phase
here. And we improve our chances of kill and compound our adversary's
difficulties when we attack in each element, in the mid-course and in the
terminal phases. In addition, we have short, medium and long-range missile to
deal with.
I'd like to start out with a boost phase
activity, or a mid- course phase, with the Patriot-3 that was successful. Here's
a target launch. And this is theater-wide --
I think
that we actually might have the wrong film now.
REP.
HUNTER: That one missed. It went back down into the water, General.
GEN. KADISH: As a matter of fact, this one was supposed to
-- is the first Navy test that we had, that was a fly-by, and it actually
flew-by, so it was a success. The logistics here, we don't quite have right. But
we'll get this right here pretty soon.
All right. This
is the right film.
This is last year -- I apologize for
the misstep here. Layer defense. And you'll see this approached used during the
film itself. We've got boost intercept activities, mid-course intercepts, and
terminal intercepts. And it's, again, short, medium and long-range missiles. And
we're developing and testing in all these areas. All right.
The first one is the airborne laser. This is a ground test. And it's
something called First Light. It is not a spectacular video, but I will tell you
it was very successful on the ground, and it's the first step of making laser
light work. And this is just an indication of the types of things that we see
lasers. You're not going to see an intercept here because it's still on the
ground, but it's a significant step forward.
Patriot.
We had a test in March. This is in the terminal phase against short and
medium-range missiles. A very complex test. Two PAC-3s and one Pat-2 under
central control. You can see this as a hit-to-kill. Very close up. And again,
we're hitting very close on the missile body, in a spot about this big. So, we
had a number of missiles in flight during this time period. Patriots 2 and 3 as
well as two targets. Very successful.
However, in a
subsequent test, in June or July of this year, we missed the TVN (?), it was the
first time we missed in the process. So we have still a little bit more work to
do, but that was a complex test.
Now I'd like to talk
about Arrow, even though it's not a part of the U.S. total test activity. But we
had a test in August of this year. It was conducted off the coast of Israel and
the target was launched from an airplane. The Arrow is not hit-to-kill, but it's
a blast-frag but it is very accurate. And you will see here the tracking of the
Arrow interceptor and the target coming in from the right. And again, a very
accurate hit. We invested heavily in that program and it is progressing very
well.
And now I would like to talk about the boosters
that we intend to use to our ground-based program. The first booster test we did
in August of this year for our ground-based program was not an intercept. It was
just testing the basic booster that we have to develop, and it was designed for
pretty high performance. And it was successful. It was just a normal rocket
launch, as you see here.
The second one, however, that
we did in December of this year was a failure. And in the interest of full
disclosure of what we're doing in our test program, I'd like to show you
visually what a failure looks like in this area.
This
is, again, a booster test for our mid-course system. It was unsuccessful, to our
chagrin, but this is what it looked like. It was the same launch as I showed you
previously. After about 13 seconds, it destroyed itself -- somewhat
spectacularly. We've got some work to do here, but we have a method to hedge
this risk, and I believe we're on track to do that.
Now
I'd like to show you the two mid-course ground-based tests that we have done
this year, one in July and one in December, both of which were successful
intercept tests. And this makes our scorecard three out five attempts in this
particular, difficult regime. This is an interceptor taking off from Kwajalein
in July. A Minuteman-II target was launched 4,800 miles away, and the intercept
was achieved more than 140 miles up in space. And you can see this is what the
seeker saw in the last seconds, microseconds, prior to intercept. And this is an
external view of that intercept, and then a radar track of what that looked
like.
So, we are getting to the point where we're
proving more and more to ourselves that we have a reliable hit-to-kill approach
across a broad range. In December, we did it again, the same test. It, too, was
successful. And, it launched from Kwajalein. Here's the target from Vandenberg.
A very complex test in a lot of ways. And you can see the interceptor rising to
meet the threat.
Our next test of this system is due --
right now we're scheduling for the 15th of March, and I believe it will occur in
that time frame. You can see what the seeker saw, and then what our external
sensors saw of that intercept. Very encouraging to our approach here.
Now, the standard missile three. This is the first test we
did a year ago, where it was just a fly-by. And you'll see this rising, but
there was no intercept attempt. This gave us confidence to almost a year to the
day later do an actual intercept. This is off an Aegis cruiser. And it worked
pretty well and got pretty close to the target, but it wasn't intended to
intercept it.
Now, again, on the 25th of January this
year, we took the same approach, but we actually set it up so there was a
probability of intercept, but not an objective of the test, and we actually hit
it. Here's a target coming out of the island of Kauai, in the Hawaiian islands.
It's a medium-range target. The Aegis cruiser was about 500 kilometers down
range, launched the standard three missile, and it rose to meet the target in
outer space. And what you'll see is the seeker view and then the final
microseconds prior to intercept. That's how accurate we're getting.
Now, that's all the film I have to show you, but I thought
it was important not to assert that we're making progress, but to show you the
visual proof that we are making progress. That's not to say that we haven't had
our failures, and it's not to say that we don't have a long way to go. But we
have -- the pace and complexity of our testing is picking up in '03. We have 12
more flight tests scheduled for the remainder of this fiscal year, together with
14 ground tests and 13 system-wide tests. So, it's a very aggressive program
that has been enabled by the good graces of the Congress to approve our program
last year and the year prior to that.
Now let me talk
about the technical development challenge that faces us. That video demonstrates
our progress, especially in the hit-to-kill regime. And we have learned that our
technologies are sound. But we face major technical challenges ahead to make
sure that we have the right technologies and can engineer them into a single,
integrative system and evolve to stay ahead of the changing threat. As a result,
we have changed our approach to develop and are moving more to a
capabilities-based approach rather than a requirements-based approach for this
acquisition. Some have interpreted this as doing away with requirements or doing
away with discipline in general. That is not the case. We are not doing away
with requirement. We are, however, changing how we derive and define and deal
with it.
For the missile defense program, we no longer
start with the development process, with specific military requirements
generated by a user and formalized in the customary operational requirements
document or ORD. This traditional ORD approach has generally served us very
well, especially in procurement involving well-known technologies, proven
systems, sizable production runs, and established operational experience -- none
of which we have in missile defense today. The process has not worked as well,
however, for our efforts in missile defense, because many of our technologies
are cutting edge. Our elements have not yet been fully tested, despite what I
just showed you, nor can some ever be. However, the production of many elements
will be limited to only a few items, and our operational experience to date has
been quite limited in operating missile defenses. Our program, in short, has no
precedence.
For us, the strengths of the traditional
requirements generation process are also its weaknesses. It is rigorous, but
that very rigor translates to a lack of flexibility needed in what we face in
missile defense. The requirements defined in ORDs are typically set many years
before actual system development, and can often lead to less than optimum
capability against the threat that has gone beyond the specified requirement.
Furthermore, at this moment we don't yet know all the
technical approaches that will work best. Five years ago, we could not have
foreseen, let alone written, all the uses defining today's Internet. We always
face the risk of being surprised by changes in the threat, but a
capabilities-based approach allows us to adjust to those changes in a way the
traditional requirements-based approach does not.
We do
not want to alter our baseline every time we recognize a change in the threat.
But such changes could ripple through the program and likely incur significant
delay in costs if we do it the traditional way. So we are setting a wider range
of boundaries and defining our capabilities so as to cope with unforeseen
changes in the threat. The baseline is (filled?) with surprises.
While we are moving away from some of the rigidities of the past, we
are not abandoning rigor in development; I believe far from it. A
capabilities-based approach provides for significant discipline if done
correctly. It is just guided by different mileposts. Instead of the traditional
process where users define the requirement in great detail and then the
developers, in sequence, interpret the requirements and specifications, we
intend to do it at the same time.
Together, users and
developers, including war-fighters, services, the industry, our agency's lead --
under our agency's lead -- will have a more continuous and constructive role in
establishing the mission requirements for missile defenses than they did under
the old process. They won't "fire and forget," if you will. All are with us
throughout the development process.
And I believe this
focused, continuous interaction will allow us to reduce cycle time, reduce
schedule risks and reduce cost risks. And we can make the capability trades and
we can upgrade our capabilities to keep them current as a major goal of this
activity.
These developmental goals are periodically
reassessed until they are captured and fixed in the defining characteristics of
a two-year block deployment capability. And that is our plan, to be able to
deploy a solid capability, proven through rigorous testing in two-year blocks,
and to upgrade it incrementally and continuously as the need arises.
Our capabilities-based approach to acquisition provides
for continuous war-fighter involvement, disciplined development and early
capability. It stays relevant to the threat and remains technologically current
and can be enhanced over time. That's our vision and that's our intention with
capabilities-based approach.
I would also point out
that this is not new. Our nation has used it successfully in undertaking
previously unprecedented technological endeavors. Among other programs we use
this approach for is making trade-offs to develop a Polaris missile
submarine-launched ballistic missile and the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. And
we are certainly familiar with upgrading systems over time. The B-52s that flew
over Afghanistan this last fall were far different aircraft than first rolled
off the production line five decades before.
Now let me
talk about the program management challenge briefly. As we have changed our
approach to development, we found also we had to change our approach to
management. Our program is now entering a new phase, moving from technology
development to systems engineering. And what we face is a very significant
challenge of integrating many diverse elements.
This
management challenge is at least equal to our technical ones at this point in
time of the program, and in my view is no less urgent. The challenge is
unprecedented because we have thousands of individuals involved in hundreds of
efforts at dozens of locations, and we are dealing with cutting-edge
technologies at varying levels of maturity. We are involving all services and
their doctrines, and we are investigating four basing modes -- ground, sea, air
and space.
The management structure we have created has
several dimensions to deal with these issues, within our agency, with the
services and the rest of the department, and with industry. We have flattened
the agency structure to make it more responsive. And we have taken more
day-to-day control of program activities.
The
department's senior executive council conducts formal reviews of our programs at
least annually, more frequently and more comprehensive than the current
department practice. The council will make many recommendations to the secretary
on fielding elements of the system when they are ready. Its decisions and mine
are supported by a new missile defense support group, which reports to the
undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, who remains
my boss. And our relationship with industry has become more complex.
To help us in this regard, we looked at how other
unprecedented programs had been managed in their day, and these included such
diverse and pioneering efforts as the Manhattan Project, our Mercury, Apollo and
ICBM programs, and our experience in the space shuttle.
In each case, the government maintained total program responsibility.
But what became clear was that the government too often did not have a detailed
enough understanding of either what exactly to buy because of the unprecedented
nature of the technology or what industry could actually offer.
The solution lies in forging a much closer relationship between
government and industry, and this approach is what we are taking, to obtain the
best and brightest from the government, academia and industry to ensure that we
can, in a timely and effective way, develop and deploy missile defenses.
As we do this, our approach to managing resources is
clearly an important element of our approach to missile defense in general. This
committee's support for the president's Freedom to Manage initiative will reduce
statutory requirements that can restrict management flexibility, allowing us to
more efficiently and effectively execute the missile defense program with which
we have been entrusted.
Chairman Hunter, Chairman
Weldon, over the past year we have made significant progress and strides in our
development program as some of these major test events have shown. Yet we also
have some significant challenges ahead. With your continued support and that of
the American people, I believe we have every confidence that we can do it.
Thank you for listening at this point.
REP. HUNTER: Thank you very much, General. And again, thank you for
your service to our country. And I think it's clear to all of us that we live in
an age of missiles and that we also have an old adage in Washington DC that you
don't do anything until you can do everything, so you do nothing.
And recalling the deaths of the Americans on the
battlefield over 10 years ago now in the first Gulf War, I think, is a reminder
to all of us that doing nothing in terms of fielding systems -- that is, not
having effective systems in the field -- is a very dangerous thing. So I
personally applaud your decision to spiral develop. I think it's prudent. And it
looks to me like your schedules are prudent.
Let me ask
you a couple of questions. First, one in that area, the Israelis have had
remarkable success with Arrow. That's the thrust -- at least what I gather from
the thrust of your remarks. They are deploying very quickly, are they not?
GEN. KADISH: I believe they've already deployed, yes,
sir.
REP. HUNTER: So they started a theater missile
defense about the same time we did, and the Arrow missile is the centerpiece of
our co- development programs with Israel. And yet they've already -- they, being
practical, being a nation which is situated close to neighbors who have deployed
Soviet-made ballistic missiles, know that they have to have a defense and have
been under the threat, in fact, under the impact of ballistic missiles in the
past. So they've already deployed theater missiles.
So
it appears to me that they believe in the idea of spiral development; that is,
getting systems out there and then improving these systems. Is that, in fact,
the path that they've taken?
GEN. KADISH: I believe
they still have an ORD approach, but the intention is to improve, based on what
they have fielded today, a better Arrow missile through the (ASIF?) program;
that's correct.
REP. HUNTER: Give us just an idea --
give the subcommittees just kind of a general picture of what we can expect this
year in terms of testing. What have you got coming up?
GEN. KADISH: Well, as I said, on the 15th of March we're hoping, if
everything stays on track, to launch our next ground-based mid- course program
activity. This time we'll be taking a little bit more risk by adding some decoys
to the overall approach. And what that will represent is the last test was in, I
think, December, and now we're going to do in March another test, so we're
starting to get on three- or four-month centers, which is a great process
improvement
The rest of the activity -- let me just
summarize for you. In the remainder of '02, we have twelve elements fly tests,
fourteen element ground tests and thirteen system wide tests, and that means
we're going to have at least two ground based midcourse test program tests,
three sea- based tests and one hour on 3 PAC-3. So with the ground test and
system- wide test we got a pretty aggressive program (under way ?).
REP. HUNTER: That's a bigger array of tests then we have
ever experienced; is it not?
GEN. KADISH: To my
knowledge, yes, sir, and these are -- the PAC-3 is an operational test at this
point. So, it's very close to our procurement goals, and with the
ground-based system moving into the -- a more stable test environment, that's a
major accomplishment. And I was very pleased to add to our video tape this time
and testimony the first midcourse intercept of a Navy, Aegis-Leap interceptor,
and we have two more scheduled this year.
Now, some of
those tests, I believe, Mr. Chairman, are going to be adjusted based on whether
we succeed or fail. That's our program today, but as we look at the results and
decide what they mean, given the tests that we set out to accomplish, we may
either accelerate something or delay our activities to do more risk reductions.
So, I don't want to give you the impression that that in concrete, but that's
our plan.
REP. HUNTER: Well, in general, I'm glad it's
not in concrete, because I think one of the values of this functional based
budget that you've given us, where you have boost-phase, midcourse, and terminal
phase, gives the you the discretion to throw out the losers, and put more money
against the winners. And part of our -- I think -- part of our plan in terms of
having -- holding you accountable and giving you a lot of discretion, but going
forward with a vigorous program, is -- requires that. And so I think that this
idea of having a -- having a functional based approach is very very
important.
You're probably going to disappoint a few of
us when programs that we support, that we think that are good, don't pan out,
but you got to call them like you see them. And so, I think it's good that
you're able to move some resources around. Otherwise, you're going to have tests
that need to be done, awaiting funding, which as you know is -- moves on a
fairly slow schedule around here. So, I'm glad that you're going to have some
discretion. Do you think you have about the right amount of discretion? Or do
you want more?
GEN. KADISH: Mr. Chairman I always like
to have more, but we are doing very well under what we have today, and I want to
continue to improve on that.
REP. HUNTER: Thank you.
Mr. Meehan.
REP. MEEHAN: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
General, if our goal is to put available technology into the field as soon as
possible, and in a sense we are apparently no longer threat based, what area of
the globe or which end of the axis of evil do you envision defending against and
why?
GEN. KADISH: I wouldn't characterize this as not
being threat based in the way we're approaching this. When we talk about
capabilities based, Congressman Meehan, we pay a lot of attention to the threat,
and where we know the threat, we will make sure our systems are able to deal
with it through the traditional intelligence methods. Our problem is is that --
and think I the secretary of defense describes this very well -- is that with
the proliferation of ballistic missiles and potential weapons of mass
destruction, we could be surprised as to what the threat really is. So, this
idea of capabilities-based approach is to take into account where we might be
surprised.
So, this issue is not about the Russian and
Chinese traditional threat of the Cold War. This is about the threats that
emerge in the states that we are concerned about today from the Middle East to
North Korea.
REP. MEEHAN: Well, General, let me ask
you, do you anticipate when we would put -- when we put our initial weapons into
the field as part of spiral acquisition programs, do you anticipate that our
enemies will learn from those technologies and then try to develop
counter-measures to them? And if we're not threat-based, how do we take into
account those counter-measures? How would that work?
GEN. KADISH: Well, I -- as a part of my responsibility, I will do
everything we can to prevent them to find out what's in our system so that it
works as advertised. But the approach that we would like to take and that we are
embarked on very heavily right now in our development program, against
counter-measures in particular, is something that we're calling physics-based
approach to the counter- measure problem, and the missile defense hit-to-kill
problem in general. Whereas in the threat-based approach, you want to define an
exquisitely well-defined threat in technical terms -- how long it is, how wide
it is, what it looks like, the different sensors. And the only way you can be
sure that you've got that right is through rather rigorous analysis of the
threat you're going against and hope you get it right through intelligence
methods and other activities. I'd rather not go into that in any more detail
than what I just said.
In a capabilities-based approach
where we can rely on the basic physics of a particular counter-measure or set of
counter-measures, on how they behave in general, we can then set parameters for
our systems that, based on what the sensors see in the physical world, they can
interpret and decide, and discriminate the proper warhead to hit. And that's the
way we intend to deal with this uncertainty of the threat- based approach. But I
can assure you also that where we do have very reliable information on the
threat, that we will incorporate that into our system as well.
REP. MEEHAN: Well, General, let me ask you, since we're going to a
capability-based system, how much capability do you see at the top end down the
road? That is, how many missiles do you think that we'll be able to defend
against if launched at us from any of, you know, our enemies or the 'axis of
evil' countries? I mean, would it be 10, 20, 100? Do you see the budget of it
topping it out, or do you just envision this sort of continuous growth?
GEN. KADISH: I think that that's a decision yet to be
taken, Congressman. And the nature of the program that we've structured is that
we want to get to a point where we can, from and RDT&E perspective tell you
very specifically how effective a particular configuration of a missile defense
would do. And then it becomes a matter of force structure, of how many missiles
you want to defend against, and that's a separate debate that we need to have
based on affordability and the threat perception.
So,
if we decided as a country that we need to defend only against a few handfuls of
missiles, that's one force structure size, one quantity of bullets if you will.
If we decide as a country we want to go against a higher number of threats, that
will be very different and will have to be judged accordingly.
So, I can't answer that question today very specifically because we
have not reached that point. However, I will say that against long-range
missiles, our basic approach is to do a very limited defense and limited numbers
in the beginning of this capability-based approach, and subsequent decisions
will have to be taken on how many -- how much force structure we really want to
buy.
REP. MEEHAN: And finally, General, the chairman
had mentioned, you know, would you need -- would you want more discretion, and
you said, "Well, we have enough but we could always use more." You're an
acquisition expert, and I have worked with you in the past and have enormous
respect for your. But if you were sitting in our seats, as members of the Armed
Services Committee, what information would you want to have, from our
perspective, to make sure that the NMD acquisition in the NDA (?) is an
effective steward of the limited defense dollars that we have. You know, it's
our responsibility to ensure that money that's poured into the specific defense
programs are being spent wisely. I mean, if you were in our -- it's one thing
for you to say that in your position, that obviously is you'd want as wide
discretion as you could -- you could get, but what if you were -- what would you
want specifically if you were in our position?
GEN.
KADISH: I believe very strongly that whatever we do, whether it's missile
defense or any other major program, that oversight is absolutely essential in
the human nature of doing programs. So, the information required would be the
things we give you in our budget documentations, the visits that you and your
staff provide on a regular basis, and the other normal processes that both the
Congress and the department use for oversight.
What I
talk about in terms of discretion is one of the chief problems that we face
every day is that to our -- to the best of our ability, we try to plan and see
ahead a year to 18 months, or even three to five years, and lay out a budget
plan to execute something that we think is going to happen. And the frustration
we have, however, is that given the unprecedented nature of this type of
technology is our plans don't turn out right, exactly the way we planned them,
to a large degree, and therefore decision cycle times that help us adjust
properly are important to us.
So that's the kind of
flexibility that I'm talking about in terms of getting where oversight plays a
very proper role, even in that process, and making sure that we are doing the
best that we can do and under the plans that we have stated for it. Where we get
into a problem is when oversight becomes a replacement for the management and
the decisions internal to the program. And that's -- that's what we're trying to
avoid.
So, I guess the answer to your question is that
we have been providing, and will provide, the insight into our budget process as
we put out our documents for the R-2s and different documentations to the
committee and to the Congress. We have -- I think we're over 20 hours now of
staffer briefings across the Congress, in great detail. We will certainly
entertain more of those. And we will be responsive to the -- to the questions
and the interests that come up because we don't have all the knowledge we need
sometimes to do this. So, the oversight plays an important part of the process,
and I believe we're giving the information required for that.
REP. MEEHAN: Thank you, General. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Taylor.
REP. TAYLOR: General, in my opening statement, I reiterated the
conversations that I've had with a number of pilots of the old C-130s, old
C-141s, who fly old Hueys, guys who serve in other branches of the service and
who realize, unlike most Americans, that the real cost of the missile defense
system doesn't come out of welfare, doesn't come out of Congressional salaries,
doesn't come out of highways -- it has come at the expense of procurement
of other conventional weapons. That is a fact. The fleet this year, the
president's budget request is for five ships. That leads to a 150-ship navy --
not a 600-ship navy that President Reagan talked about. The fleet is as small as
it's been since 1933.
As I also pointed out, we don't
tell you how to drop bombs. We don't tell you how to steer ships. That's your
job. But we are the citizens' representatives who are responsible to see to it
that the money you get is well spent. That's what we do.
With that in mind, I would like to know that after $60 billion, if the
North Koreans were to launch one missile, after giving you a week's notice of
where they were going to launch that one missile from, and telling you the exact
time of day that they were going to launch it, and also informing you that there
would be no decoys, no chaff, just one missile, and they told you where they
were going to target it -- fill in the blank of the name of the American city --
after $60 million (sic), what is the probability that you could shoot that one
-- I'm sorry, $60 billion, okay, it's a thousand million for folks who have a
little trouble keeping track -- after $60 billion, what's the probability that
you could shoot that one missile down?
GEN. KADISH:
Zero, as of today. However, if I might expand on that --
REP. TAYLOR: Sure, because that's why you're here, sir.
GEN. KADISH: If -- if it -- if we go according to our current plan, by
the year 2004, it would be -- it would be very much higher than zero to do it,
because that's when we'll have the capability in our test bed, if we so desire
to use it.
But let me talk about the $60 billion
investment. I've looked at this for many years now. What I see in the investment
this country has made, certainly since 1984, I guess, in missile defense, it has
gotten us to the point we are today, and in the films that I just showed you --
is that we now have real live confidence that the mechanisms that we are using
to do missile defense, or will use to do missile defense, we can have confidence
in. Now, that's expensive to prove, but it's a technology that we -- that is
unprecedented. So, it has gotten us to the point where we are today.
And, I guess what I would say, if I can count right, there
are at least five -- four presidents and congresses since 1991 that have been
asking us to move aggressively in this way. And so I think we have spent the
resources as best we can to get us to the point we are today. And I believe
missile defense is at a crossroads from a technological point of view, and that
crossroads will get us into a very effective system or we won't deploy it.
REP. TAYLOR: General, if I may, I say these things not to
give you a hard time, and I want you to know that, but after 12 years on this
committee, there are times when I feel like some of our defense contractors feel
like it is more profitable for them to develop weapons than actually manufacture
them. There's not much money in making something. They get a lot of money to do
research. We are accountable to the American citizens to deliver a product that
will defend them. And I for one am asking you to stay after them to actually
deliver a product as opposed to just having a jobs program for scientists.
That's my request to you, General --
GEN. KADISH: I
couldn't agree with you more, Congressman Taylor. The issue here is I am -- I
would be very uncomfortable over the next five years if we continue to spend at
the levels that we are and are not able to make the transition to effective
field the defenses.
REP. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you, General.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the
gentleman. Mr. Weldon, my co-chairman.
REP. WELDON:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it's a pleasure to have you here, General Kadish,
and I appreciate your leadership and your testimony.
First of all, I have to disagree with one of my colleagues who said
that our efforts are not threat-based. I would encourage all of my colleagues to
get a copy -- and I'm sure, General, that you've looked at this document, which
is the updated NIE relative to foreign missile developments, which is December
of 2001. Are you familiar with this, General?
GEN.
KADISH: I am very familiar.
REP. WELDON: I would ask my
colleagues to get the classified -- but this the unclassified version. I might
read the first paragraph for those who say that we're not basing this on threat.
This is from all of our intelligence community in this country. "Most
intelligence community agencies project that before 2015, the United States most
likely will face ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran, and possibly from
Iraq."
General, now the North Koreans, we're being
told, are stopping their flight testing of the Taepo Dong, but isn't it true
they're still testing the engines for Taepo Dong II and still proceeding with
the plans to have that rocket capable of being launched?
GEN. KADISH: I believe so, Congressman.
REP.
WELDON: And General, isn't it true that Iran is still working on the Shahab-4,
and -5 and eventually the Shahab-6? And isn't it their goal to develop a
long-range missile as soon as possible?
GEN. KADISH: I
couldn't speak for their goal, but they're heading in that direction, yes
sir.
REP. WELDON: And isn't it true the Iraqis are also
in a robust program to upgrade the SCUD, as they have done several times?
GEN. KADISH: I believe so.
REP.
WELDON: So, the key question is, and it was just asked is, what if a North
Korean missile were launched today -- isn't it also true that, General, under a
treaty that finally this president announced we would no longer limit ourselves
by, it would have been illegal for an American president to attempt to shoot
down a North Korean missile because the ABM Treaty says we can't have missile
defense? Hasn't that been our basic overriding philosophy for the past 25
years?
GEN. KADISH: Yes, Congressman, that would have
been a major barrier to deploying the type of system for North Korea.
REP. WELDON: So, for the past 10 years, as we've
aggressively pursued missile defense, it's been with the realization that you've
been limited because the treaty that oversees our relations with, in this case
the former Soviet Union, basically says we can't deploy a national missile
defense system because of the limitations in that treaty?
GEN. KADISH: There would have been very -- as we went through the
debates on the previous national missile defense program, those issues were very
clear and it was a problem.
REP. WELDON: Sir, I want
you to -- to respond to a response that I got from a Russian friend when I was
over there just recently. And I asked him, I said, "You know, when the ABM
Treaty was negotiated in 1972, the Soviet Union was a communist-dominated
society, where the leadership of that country could do whatever it wanted, so it
was easy for the leadership of the Soviet Union to select one city to protect,
which happened, by the way, to contain 75 percent of the population of the
then-Soviet Union." The difficulty President Bush had with that treaty is in a
democracy you can't pick one city.
And so my friend in
Russian, when I asked him, I said, "What would happen today if President Putin
had to abide by the ABM Treaty as the leader of a democratic nation? Do you
think it would be easy for him to again pick just Moscow, or would the people in
Vladivostok, or in Nizhnij Novgorod, or St. Petersburg, or Rostov-on-Don, say
"Wait a minute, why aren't you protecting our city?"
In
your personal opinion, don't you think that Putin would perhaps have difficulty
as the leader of a free democratic nation in just protecting one city with a
missile defense system?"
GEN. KADISH: I'm not an expert
in Russian affairs, but the nature of defenses are to protect as many people as
possible, so I think it would be a major debate, if at all an issue.
REP. WELDON: General, there are others who raise the issue
of counter-measures, and I find that a little disingenuous, because the same
people that maintain that we're not prepared to deal with counter-measures are
the same people who say North Korea and Iran and Iraq are not a threat because
they can't build missiles. Well, if they can't build missiles, wouldn't that
come before they actually developed the technology to build counter-measures? I
mean, if they don't have the technology to build legitimate missile systems,
which some of the opponents of missile defense allege, then don't you agree they
probably couldn't build counter-measures either at this point in time?
GEN. KADISH: I think that logic holds a lot of merit, but
the fact of the matter is that we see them building the missiles at this point.
And as -- we could always have a debate about how many counter-measures, or how
mature these things could be, but I think that in the initial stages of any
threat from the rogue nation, if you will, we can take some risks on
counter-measures that we couldn't maybe three or four or five years beyond our
first iteration.
REP. WELDON: Now, General, I want to
discuss the issue of cost, because it's a major issue. And I share the concern
of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we need to increase -- and I
will be coming out with a recommendation shortly -- to increase our shipbuilding
account funds for this year. I'll be coming out with recommendations to deal
with the shortfalls in readiness, base maintenance accounts, any other
shortfalls that we know are there.
But I cannot for the
life of me understand how we can 28 families -- in this case half of them from
my state, and say that their loved ones weren't -- weren't worth us putting the
money into defending them against a missile attack. Now, isn't it true, General,
that that $60 billion that we spent over the last several years that's been
cited, has actually allowed us to develop the capability to defend those
families of those 28 -- and future families, like we lost in that 1991 attack
with that SCUD missile in Saudi Arabia -- isn't that what that $60 billion has
accomplished for us?
GEN. KADISH: I believe we're on
the verge of making that investment pay off. Yes sir.
REP. WELDON: And I believe that those families and those young people
who paid the ultimate price are worth us defending. And so that $60 billion
wasn't thrown down a rathole. In fact, I would ask my Israeli friends, and I
would -- and Mr. Hunter has already asked this -- the Israelis are already
deploying the Arrow system to protect those families in Israel. Wasn't that
funded with part of that $60 billion, General?
GEN.
KADISH: Yes sir. I don't have the exact number, but it's somewhere between $800
million and a billion dollars that we've invested in that.
REP. WELDON: And hasn't it also been the case that our -- that part of
that money went for the MEADS program with Italy and with Germany that we're now
cooperating with Europe on?
GEN. KADISH: That's
correct.
REP. WELDON: So, to say that that $60 billion
was just thrown down a rathole, I think is in fact not correct, and I think it's
disingenuous.
My final point, General, is last year in
the defense bill, because I want to build a cooperative relationship with Russia
on these issues, I proposed that with the Israelis we go beyond the Arrow
program, because it's now been successfully developed and deployed, into a boost
phase initiative, with Israel and the U.S. in the lead, and as a follow-on,
perhaps include Turkey and possibly Russia. What's your position, and what's the
status of looking at that kind of a possibility?
GEN.
KADISH: I believe there's been some discussions at higher levels in the DOD over
the boost-phase cooperation activity. At this point I don't have a position on
it because we in the MDA are focused primarily on the after-launch to
terminal-impact part of this. But I think that those discussions are ongoing,
and I'm sure there will be answers that will come out of that shortly.
However, we do have a proposal in the '03 budget to
continue the Arrow upgrade program, and we're going to pursue that
aggressively.
REP. WELDON: Are you also involved in the
discussions ongoing with the Russians about joint cooperation?
GEN. KADISH: Yes, I am. And I can't tell you at this point in time
where they're going, but they are ongoing. And how they're going to end up is a
matter to be determined. But we still have the Ramos (sp) program in our budget.
We have not gotten from the Russian government a clear statement of whether or
not they're going to continue to be cooperative in that particular program. And
any of the other activities that we're discussing, we don't have a clear
statement either.
So I'm actually kind of disappointed
that we're not moving as quickly as we can on Ramos (sp) with the Russians. And
I'm hoping that, sooner or later, we get a yes or a no that is clear and we can
proceed from there. But we are heavily engaged and predisposed for
cooperation.
REP. WELDON: Thank you, General.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. And the distinguished
ranking member from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.
REP. IKE
SKELTON (D-MO): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I'd like to, General, follow
up on the hypothetical question Mr. Taylor put to you, if I understand it
correctly. Today we would not -- we, as America, would not be able to shoot down
an incoming missile, as described by Mr. Taylor. Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH: That's correct, as I --
REP. SKELTON: And then you said in the year 2004 you would have a
higher degree of confidence. Would you be able to say in 2004 that you'll be
able to shoot it down 10 percent of the time?
GEN.
KADISH: I don't know.
REP. SKELTON: Twenty percent of
the time?
GEN. KADISH: I don't -- my --
REP. SKELTON: Well, give me the degree of confidence that you would
have in the year 2004 --
GEN. KADISH: If we --
REP. SKELTON: -- in your professional opinion, please.
GEN. KADISH: Very high confidence.
REP. SKELTON: Well, would that be 70 percent of the time?
GEN. KADISH: I wouldn't want to put a number on it,
Congressman, at this point, because I'm not sure that --
REP. SKELTON: It's not quite fair to us to not give us some sense of
what we would be able to do in the year 2004.
GEN.
KADISH: I think that -- I have given you that statement with high confidence for
very, very limited scenarios you described.
REP.
SKELTON: As Mr. Taylor described.
GEN. KADISH: That's
correct. But I also point out that if we knew what time, what date and where the
target was, I wouldn't even use missile defenses against that issue. My
recommendation would be --
REP. SKELTON: You would
probably use a B-2 from Whiteman Air Force Base to bomb it before it shot.
(Laughter.)
GEN. KADISH: It'd be, at that point, a lot
more effective.
REP. SKELTON: Now, let me compliment
you, General, on your career. You've done enormously effective work on the F-15,
the F-16, the C-17 and the B-1B. Am I correct?
GEN.
KADISH: I've certainly worked on those programs, sir.
REP. SKELTON: And I compliment you and thank you for your efforts.
GEN. KADISH: I appreciate that.
REP. SKELTON: In each of those programs, however, there were certain
requirements as set forth by acquisition law. Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH: The acquisition system, yes, sir.
REP. SKELTON: And each of those requirements had to be approved by the
J-ROC. Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH: Let's be precise
about this. The operational requirements documents are not a matter of law, as I
understand. They are requirements that are given to us by the services.
REP. SKELTON: Fine.
GEN. KADISH:
And we certainly -- we did try to meet those requirements; that's correct.
REP. SKELTON: And they also had to meet certain specific
performance standards. Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH:
That's correct.
REP. SKELTON: In the missile defense
agency, as I understand it, contrary to the previous programs in which you
operated so well, the Missile Defense Agency sets its own requirements. Is that
correct?
GEN. KADISH: At this point in our concept of
capabilities-based, we will do it together with the war-fighter, yes, sir, not
totally in isolation.
REP. SKELTON: And you design your
own tests.
GEN. KADISH: Yes, sir.
REP. SKELTON: And you exercise some of your own milestone authority. Is
that correct?
GEN. KADISH: That's correct.
REP. SKELTON: Unlike any other program you've been with.
Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH: I guess I'd have to
answer yes.
REP. SKELTON: And you can reprogram your
own money. Is that correct?
GEN. KADISH: We can only do
it up to $10 million limit. That's up from $4 million, which was granted to us
by the last Congress; so at the $10 million reprogramming limit.
REP. SKELTON: And you do have a broad category within which to
reprogram. Am I correct?
GEN. KADISH: We have major
restrictions on that reprogramming authority. So with the language that came out
of last year's appropriations bill, we're restricted very tightly from
reprogramming much more than $10 million without coming back to --
REP. SKELTON: To make a long story short, in any of the
programs that you worked on so effectively and so well, did you have anything
like the lack of guidance like you have today, that's not self- imposed? In
other words, did you have self-imposed guidance on any of those systems -- the
F-15, F-16, C-17, the B-1B?
GEN. KADISH: I had an awful
lot of authority within those programs to do what I'm asking to do in the
Missile Defense Agency.
REP. SKELTON: Unlike what you
have today, however.
GEN. KADISH: Well, it's a little
bit larger. For instance, in the F-15 and F-16, as well as the C-17, we set our
own specification requirements within a larger framework of the user's
operational requirements document. We set our own testing milestones and set up
our own test program in regard to that activity. So it's not unlike what we're
asking for in this particular case. It's a little bit broader, however.
REP. SKELTON: It is broader.
GEN.
KADISH: It is broader. And the whole idea there is to help us with the
cycle-time decision-making, based on the fact that -- let me say it this way. We
have 100 years of flight technology behind us, as of the year 2003. And in the
F-15 and F-16, C-17, B-1, we were advancing the state of the art of over 80 or
90 years of development activity in aircraft development.
In the case of missile defense, we've been at this about 15 or 20
years. So we're still very early in that process. And the management required
from a technical and acquisition standpoint for that maturity level, for a
national priority program, in my view, is different than when you're trying to
push the state of the art in a technology that's 100 years old.
REP. SKELTON: One last question, General. Using Mr. Taylor's
hypothetical, you would have a high expectation of success in the year 2004. Am
I correct?
GEN. KADISH: If we go according to plan.
REP. SKELTON: Going according to plan, at what date or
approximate date would you have a high degree of confidence in a successful hit
or strike with an unannounced North Korean missile coming into an unannounced
target within the continental United States? At what year?
GEN. KADISH: Two thousand four.
REP. SKELTON:
Two thousand four. Thank you.
GEN. KADISH: Again,
that's a test-bed capability. I tried to articulate this in the last testimony.
Should we choose to put it on alert and it works as we think it will, based on
our test to date, I would have a high confidence that we could be successful;
but again, against a very, very limited, though unannounced as you point out,
activity.
REP. SKELTON: What if they fire two, three,
four, five simultaneously? At what point would you say you have a high sense of
confidence of knocking them down?
GEN. KADISH: I'd
rather not answer that question.
REP. SKELTON: I
understand that. (Laughter.)
GEN. KADISH: It has
nothing to do -- I'd be perfectly happy to talk to you about it at a closed
session on that activity, because -- but, again, when you start talking about
quantities of warheads coming in, our test bed currently has a plan to have five
interceptors. And I would certainly want to increase the number of bullets, if
you will, in that magazine if we're going to worry about more than just one or
two or --
REP. SKELTON: You do understand that we need
such information.
GEN. KADISH: Absolutely,
Congressman.
REP. SKELTON: Thank you.
GEN. KADISH: I'd be happy to talk to you about it in other forums.
REP. SKELTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. And let me just remind our members,
too, we've got -- we're going to have another joint session next week with Pete
Aldridge, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, and we can talk to him also
about the programming aspects of missile defense, including the
spiral-development issue. That's going to be available.
And tomorrow we've got a meeting with DARPA in which we're going to
have an opportunity to talk about this issue also; one of our 8:00-
in-the-morning breakfast briefings. So maybe we'll even have a movie at that
briefing. That seems to be highly popular.
Just one
question, General, before you move on. Mr. Skelton asked if we could stop the
single incoming ballistic missile, which question I've always asked SecDef,
because a lot of the American people think we have a missile defense. We don't
have one yet. That's why we're developing it.
But in
terms of the missiles that killed our soldiers in the Gulf War in the early
1990s, do we have now a much better chance of knocking down a high percentage of
those missiles than we had at that time?
GEN. KADISH:
Yes, we do, with the Patriot III initial capability that we had declared last
September. We're working on our first 16 missiles for that capability. And we
have a great capability against the short-range threat represented by the
Persian Gulf War.
Now, the question here is how fast
and how affordable do we want to make that production rate, because it becomes a
function of how many missiles we have as to how effective we're going to be.
REP. HUNTER: Thank you. Mr. Saxton.
REP. JIM SAXTON (R-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Kadish, thank
you for being with us today, and we appreciate the dedication that you have
exhibited in this area.
Let me ask two questions. It
has been mentioned by Mr. Weldon and others the potential for cooperation with
other countries. Let me just pose this question this way. It is fairly obvious
to me that other people in other governments around the world share the
vulnerability that we do in terms of missile defense because they don't have one
either.
The question, I guess, is kind of a general
one. What is the potential for cooperation with other countries? And if you'd
care to be specific on which other countries you might look to as being most
interested in a cooperative program, that would be helpful.
The second question is more of a technical one. Each time that we have
discussed the development of missile defense system, the radar component has
been discussed. And you and I have discussed it both publicly as well as
privately on a number of occasions. Can you talk for just a minute about the
progress that has been made in coordinating various radar bands in the program
and where we are and where you see that element of the program going? Thank
you.
GEN. KADISH: Well, sir, if I might take the second
question first, on the radars. We've had an investment program in different
bands of radar frequencies -- X-band, S-band for the Aegis cruisers. And we're
looking at other radar bands. They all offer very specific advantages for
discrimination capability in the mid-course.
I have to
confess, however, that as I've looked at the problem of how we do the investment
in the radars, certainly over the past year and in recent months, I think we
need to do a better job of deciding or when we actually put in decision points
to decide which route we want to go in terms of these radars. And I think you're
going to see us be more aggressive in that regard over the next six or eight
months, certainly for the next budget.
Let me give you
an example of what we're struggling with. The X- band radar is a very
small-wavelength radar. And because of the nature of that radar, we could, for
instance, if we had a radar here at the Capitol building, the kind of which
we're going to use for our THAAD program, if you will, we can detect the motions
of a golf ball -- I guess -- let me start over.
If
we're going to use a ground-based radar like we have at Kwajalein here at the
Capitol, we could detect the motion of a golf ball over Seattle. So these are
very, very accurate radars.
The S-band radars gives us
a whole set of different capabilities. And what we're struggling with now is
that some of the rules of missile defense are such that you want the radars as
far forward as you can get them to handle the threat. And that's where mobility
of sea-based radars are very important. And sorting all that out is a very
complex problem.
So I guess the bottom line is, I don't
know exactly at this point how this decision process is going to turn out. But I
can assure you we're going to have a better one than we have today in the next
six or eight months.
Now, let me turn to the idea of
cooperation. I think the secretary has made it clear, certainly to me, that the
allies and friends around the world who face the same problem that we have with
missile defense need to be in our equation on developing this program.
We are on the verge of proposing to the department some
ideas on how to do that, and to do it in a way that makes sense with what we're
facing today in the development program. Those ideas are not yet vetted, and I'd
rather testify to those at a later time, when we do have them vetted. But I can
assure you we're thinking very hard about that problem.
And in regard to which countries, we have very good relations across a
broad range, starting with Israel and the UK and Germany and Italy and the MEADS
program. And what we need to do now is -- and Japan, in a cooperative program on
the Aegis side. And what we need to do now is make sure that those
relationships, as well as others who might want to join us, can be accommodated.
And we're certainly looking very hard at that. But we're not ready to talk in
detail about it.
REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Spratt.
REP. JOHN SPRATT (D-SC): General Kadish,
I've followed this program for almost 20 years now; have known every director of
it. And I want to commend you, because you've brought to the program a steady
hand and a straightforward manner and a very practical attitude.
But I have to tell you that as I read the briefing book last night, I
was sort of swept away by the brace of what you're embracing here compared to
what we've been doing over the last few years. I even had the feeling that I see
the reincarnation of SDI rising from the pages of that briefing book, even the
resurrection of Brilliant Pebbles, which I thought was dead and not to be
exhumed.
I've often said that the problem with
ballistic missile defense, in my opinion, has not been a lack of funding as much
as a lack of focus. In terms of funding, since March of '83, we've spent about
$60 billion in today's money; even before that on Sentinel and Safeguard. In
Nike Zeus, we've probably spent $50 billion; in today's money, $100 billion -- a
substantial sum of money. And still we're not there yet. We don't have a system
fielded.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, having
followed the system, is that we've gone off frequently in pursuit of red
herrings and multiple systems to the detriment of those systems that had some
near- term potential. As you know, I've been a strong supporter of the
ground-based interceptor because I thought it had, having watched all of the
other systems fall by the way with SDI, the nearest potential for giving us a
limited but effective ballistic missile defense.
As I
looked through here, I kept looking for the X-band radar. It would seem to me,
to make the mid-course intercept system achieve its potential, you've got to
have SBIRS-low, if for no other reason than to put that pencil-beam X-band radar
in the right box. It can't volume search search the sky looking for the incoming
object. It's got to be directed to approximately the right location. You've got
to have SBIRS-low and, for that matter, SBIRS-high to cue up SBIRS-low for that
to work.
I don't quite understand why we aren't moving
forward with the x- ban radar, if we're going to have a -- some kind of a
deployment and some kind of a test band at Shemya. And I think you've --
underestimating still the scope of your problem with SBIRS-Low in the Congress.
As you know, I'm a strong supporter of it too. Where do we stand with that,
because wouldn't you agree they are central components of a ground-based
intercept system?
GEN. KADISH: The SBIRS-Low and what
it represents as a compliment and an integral part of the missile defense system
in conjunction with an x-ban radar are extremely important elements of any
architecture that I could foresee that is practical at this point.
REP. SPRATT: But it's slipping on the schedule, still
technically suspect. It's got problems. You're probably going to put it through
a redesign before you down-select it and go with the final system. How much
slippage are we looking at here before we will have deployed a SBIRS-Low which
is a critical component of making a credible ground-based intercept system,
which is bound to be the first thing you deploy and call a missile defense
system?
GEN. KADISH: That's an excellent question, Mr.
Spratt. And I know you follow this very closely, and that you've seen us
struggle with SBIRS-Low for many years, all the way from the time it was
Brilliant Eyes and that type of thing until where we are today.
I -- we are working very hard in this restructure of SBIRS-Low to
maintain the focus not too far off of what we originally thought would be a
deployment capability. What enables us to think that way, given the fact that
we've had turbulence in the program in the last budget, is the idea that we are
going to build a less integrative satellite than what we originally intended to
do, that was driven in large part by the requirements in the operational
requirements documents by the using community.
Now,
that doesn't mean we're not going to pay attention to those and do it eventually
in this capability based approach, but we're going to take a much harder look at
making sure that we can do what the promise of SBIRS-Low was for missile defense
very quickly.
REP. SPRATT: Let me ask you, because
time's ticking away, about sea-based mid-course intercept. Here, as I understand
it from your testimony, from the charts you put up there, we're not talking
about an ICBM, we're talking about something that is theater or intermediate
range because an ICBM RV would be coming in at too fast a velocity, would it not
be, to take out what we've got now designed as -- (inaudible) -- standard three
booster.
GEN. KADISH: That's correct. However, that
given that we are looking much broader because of the treaty restrictions being
lifted, I will not rule out the possibility that with other sensor cues that
were prohibited in the past, that we may be able to do a little bit better than
what we have been.
REP. SPRATT: Even if you do that,
you're probably going to have took at the leaf (?), it's got a one-color
seeker.
GEN. KADISH: Yes.
REP.
SPRATT: It's a very lightweight system. You've got limited velocity in the
standard booster, and once you start changing the dimensions of those things,
you're probably going to have to redesign the magazine on the bow of the AEGIS
cruiser, aren't you?
GEN. KADISH: All of the above is
correct.
REP. SPRATT: Big bucks.
GEN. KADISH: And we have -- what you might be seeing when you look at
the budget book is that I believe we have focused -- we have focused on the
near-term, and the dollars are on the things we think we can do, like ALI, the
ground-based system, early on, and the investment dollars later on in the stream
are to look at sea-based against long-range missiles, concepts that we can
invest in that build on the technology we have today. That includes SBIRS and
other activities.
REP. SPRATT: Let me ask you about
boost phase intercept. Now, I take it we're -- there were are talking about an
ICBM, or some other system, but it would include taking out an ICBM rising from
a silo.
GEN. KADISH: In most cases, a boost phase is
indifferent as to whether or not it's short-range or long-range because it's
still in boost. And, therefore, it tends to cover a lot of the ranges of
missiles by --
REP. SPRATT: What the conclusion that
SDI reached, even under Abramson was that if the adversary had a boost phase
system that burned out as quickly as 180 seconds, three minutes, it was probably
futile to even try to design a system that could intercept it. Do you still
think that that's a limiting factor?
GEN. KADISH:
That's -- that's true, but that's why we want layered defenses. And I don't
believe at this point -- I cannot foresee that the nations that threaten us the
most right now with ballistic missiles will have that capability in the time
frames we're talking about.
REP. SPRATT: That's another
aspect of it too, because boost phase would only be effective -- it's ideal, you
can put a ship out in the Sea of Japan and show how it's applicable to North
Korea, but large landmass countries, you wouldn't have nearly enough proximity
to the likely missile in order to take it out the boost phase.
GEN. KADISH: Not unless you go to space.
REP.
SPRATT: All right.
GEN. KADISH: But that's again a
valid argument for a layered missile defense.
REP.
SPRATT: You've changed the name, it seems to me, from theater missile defense to
terminal defense. Is there a reason for this? It used to be we had a kind of a
clean categorization, and the Congress was of one mind pretty near consensus on
theater missile defense. We are all committed to that. As you cross the line
into ballistic missile defense, you've got more different levels of support and
opposition. But is there some reason that we aren't calling it theater defense,
you're calling it terminal defense now?
GEN. KADISH: I
think that the distinction between theater and national missile defense has gone
away because we're looking at this problem a lot differently. The fact that you
could protect Japan might be theater for us but national for them. The fact that
you can protect Israel is theater for us, national for them, and so on and so
forth. And at some point in time, a short-range missile, in my view, can
threaten us in this country, in the homeland, just as well as an ICBM, launched
from the sea.
So, as we look at this problem,
especially post September 11th from my point of view, is that we want to make
sure we're effective against all ranges of threats, and that it becomes a
national decision as to where we deploy these, against what ranges.
REP. SPRATT: Well, let's take the airborne laser system.
That was sold to most of us as an answer to the boost phase take out for
tactical theater missile systems -- theater missile systems particularly. And
now we've moved it from that role or mission up to an ICBM take out mission,
boost phase take out mission. Is this because you're worried about the problems
of propagating the beam inside the atmosphere and would rather shoot it through
the thinner upper exo-atmosphere.
GEN. KADISH: No,
Congressman. I think the first tests we intend to do as of right now are against
those very short range missiles. And I'm looking at -- and we are looking very
hard at the ABL to include longer range missiles in there because it will have
an inherent capability to do so. So, as we step up the capability of the ABL, I
believe we can reach the ICBM. And in fact, given the fact that the ICBMs would
necessarily have to burn longer than short-range missiles, we may have an
inherent capability that exists in that weapon system.
REP. HUNTER: Let me interrupt --
GEN. KADISH:
But we're not ignoring the short range at all in ABL.
REP. HUNTER: Let me interrupt for one minute just to let the committee
know that we're going to continue the hearing -- and Mr. Weldon's left to vote,
he's going to come back and run it while I vote, but we are going to continue.
So, if members want to leave and vote and come back, it's not a bad idea. And I
think we're going to have to do that to be able to make sure we get through. Go
ahead, John.
REP. SPRATT: General Kadish, the
Congressional Budget Office has a study dated January 2002 in which they tried
to do a take off on the likely cost of a likely layered system -- a two to three
site ground- based system, a stand alone sea-based mid-course system, and a
space- based laser system. I don't know how they have any idea of what a
space-based laser system is going to cost, but they took a stab at it anyway,
and the numbers are pretty sobering. And one of the concerns we have, picking up
on what Mr. Taylor was saying earlier, is if this all comes to fruition at the
same time, how do we accommodate it without major trade-offs in other weapons
systems that are equally important to the defense of this country?
What they are projecting is that a double-site system, a
two-site system, which I would think we'd end up -- one on each coast for a
ground-based intercept system with 250 interceptors -- would cost about $58 to
$60 billion.. Three ships, three locations, each ship with 35 missiles would
cost about $55 billion. And 24 lasers in orbit would cost about $68 billion. Add
it all together, you get 150, 160, 170 billion dollars -- but that's just the
beginning, because what I see is that as counter-measures develop, we'll have a
lot of incremental changes to all of these systems, gradual improvements to make
them more robust. In addition, of course, you've got life cycle and operating
costs to add to it.
Are you concerned about starting
all of this, as to whether or not you can finish what you began?
GEN. KADISH: I'm always concerned about affordability issues. I might
point out, as I understand that report, that is a life cycle cost estimate for
those activities over maybe 15 or 20 years. But, even if it -- and there are a
lot of problems with the estimate, as you pointed out, I'm not sure we --
anybody knows how to estimate what an SBL would cost if we did such a thing.
But, I believe that whatever we do in the missile defense deployment arena will
be expensive -- there's no doubt about it. The question is whether or not the
country wants to afford that protection when we can state as clearly as we can
what it will afford us in effectiveness. Now, that is a to go type of thing on
this.
REP. SPRATT: The chair has indulged me the
opportunity to ask you these questions. I don't even see a clock down there, so
I don't guess I'm running past a red light. But a couple of last questions.
First of all, on the old space-based interceptors, they originally wanted to be
satellites which would garage a number of interceptors, and then we came up with
this idea from Livermore of having a single, autonomous, Brilliant Pebble,
multiple Brilliant Pebblescoursing around the world. What do you have in mind
for your design of a space-based interceptor?
GEN.
KADISH: To be frank, I don't know. What we have laid out in the program is that
we took stock of where we thought the technology was for this type a thing in
space, and we put in January of this year a broad area announcement to the
entire community -- tell us, given where we are in technology today, how would
you do a kinetic energy intercept from space, given that that basing mode gives
us a lot more coverage of area than a ground-based or terrestrial-base would be.
To date, we've got 50 responses to that broad area announcement, that we are
analyzing very carefully in this regard. And I think that -- and some of them
are very interesting and promising to us to go and experiment with, and that is
our intention -- it is to pick some that we can experiment with and gain the
confidence in very short order that this feasible, and then we can come to you
with a program that we believe makes sense as a complement to anything we do in
a layered defense activity.
REP. SPRATT: As one final
comment, and I commend you for your history of management ability throughout the
acquisition years that you've had -- but I am really concerned about the extent
to which we are dispensing with the rules that have proven to be worthy of
enforcement over the years, ORDs, milestones, staff meetings, SARs -- all of
this stuff is basically being dispensed. I worked in DOD some years ago, and my
boss was the first program manager of the Polaris. And one of the things that
the Polaris system did, even though they did get a broad dispensation from most
of the procurement rules, is they invented even stricter rules for
internal management. They invented perc cost analysis. They were really the
first to get that fully effective. They designed the variance cost baseline that
became the sort of the predecessor of the SAR. They stressed value engineering.
And I hope, as you dispense with all of these other external reviews, you
strengthen the internal reviews to make up for it. And I really think that some
of these rules ought to be reapplied to your system, but let's --
GEN. KADISH: Congressman Spratt, I've got tell you that I
worry about this a lot because people, even internal to the agency, kind of see
the rhetoric that we're using at this early phase and think that they won't have
to do certain things. Quite the contrary. In order for us to be successful in
this kind of management complexity that faces us, in my view, it requires
tougher discipline than the department would ever impose on us using the normal
views, and that our challenge ahead of us, and particularly my challenge, is to
make sure that we do exactly what you say. We're not going to give up earned
value management, we're going to strengthen. We're not going to give up the
base-lining process, we're going to strengthen it. What will be different is
that I hope we'll be able to make decisions quick as a result of seeing those
trends under those restrictions than we have today.
REP. SPRATT: The problem for oversight for us -- you'll have your
internal reporting devices and oversight devices, but it's going to be all the
harder for us. This is a lot of money, and as I said, it has huge trade off
implications as well.
Thank you for your testimony.
GEN. KADISH: Thank you, sir.
REP.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. And we've got about three minutes left for the
vote, so we are going to suspend here briefly --
REP.
ABERCROMBIE: Mr. Chairman --
REP. HUNTER: -- even
though you're having a lot of fun, General.
REP.
ABERCROMBIE: Mr. Chairman --
REP. HUNTER: Yes, Mr.
Abercrombie --
REP. ABERCROMBIE: When we come back, do
you suppose that General Kadish can consider the idea of just buying North
Korea?
REP. HUNTER: Well --
REP. ABERCROMBIE: I understand it might make a nice adjunct to Hawaii.
(Laughter.)
REP. HUNTER: We'll be back in a few
minutes, General. Thank you.
(Recess.)
REP. WELDON: The subcommittee will reconvene. General, we appreciate
your bearing with us. We know you've been a little bit under the weather. We
appreciate you hanging in there. We expect members to come back for questioning
and keep the process moving. I'll just start as soon as Mr. Allen is ready to
ask his questions.
Mr. Allen, I will yield to you.
REP. TOM ALLEN (D-ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can
just catch my breath here a moment. General Kadish, I appreciate very much your
being here. I do have just a few things I have to find, if you can hold on one
moment.
General Kadish, you've been here -- you've
appeared before this committee now for a number of years. And I have always had
and continue to have great respect for your integrity. You're a straight
shooter. And that was demonstrated in the video when you showed failures as well
as successes. And I certainly have -- I've always appreciated your candor and
your integrity when it comes to describing what you are trying to do.
Now, it seems to me -- it's not clear to me that your
civilian superiors are doing you any favors right now. And I say that because
you've been asked to implement new and, in many ways, unprecedented acquisition
approach, one where your agency is able to establish its own requirements,
review its own programs against criteria that it creates, shifts money from
program to program at will, and initiate and cancel programs without external
review.
Now, I've heard what you said earlier about the
importance of discretion, and I don't fault you for wanting that discretion. But
I do worry about what happens a few years from now when probably someone else is
seated in your chair to defend the future Missile Defense Agency budget.
I'm worried about credibility; I really am -- the lack of
oversight, the sense that maybe we're relying on one agency to do the
requirements, to oversee the testing, to be both the agency that's carrying out
the program and the agency that is evaluating the program. It seems to me that
we are likely to wind up with more skepticism, more cynicism than would be the
case with a different approach.
And I guess I'd like
your reaction to that. I mean, do you see potential pitfalls in the future for
an acquisition program as broad as this, with as much flexibility as this? Do
you agree with me that there is at least a risk of losing public credibility as
you go forward?
GEN. KADISH: Well, Congressman Taylor,
I think we can always make serious mistakes, not intentionally, but just by
virtue of making mistakes. But I would -- if you will, I would challenge the
fundamental assumptions that you articulated about us being almost at will being
able to do some of the things that you postulated.
As
we look at the way we're implementing those new authorities, they're basically
departmental authorities to begin with. We're not asking for any relief from
specific statutes. And it's the way in which the oversight will be carried out,
as opposed to whether it will be carried out. There will be oversight on this
process.
I work for Mr. Aldridge, and we will be
accountable to the secretary of Defense through a very tough group of folks,
which are the SEC members, the secretaries of each service, plus the
undersecretary and Mr. Aldridge. And I can assure you, in my dealings in that
environment, the standards are very high in terms of accountability for the
decisions. And, in fact, even in this year's budget, we took some major changes
in canceling Navy area for somewhat lack of performance and taking some action
in SBIRS-low.
So I don't think that there's a track
record here that's building that we are going to, in one agency, make unilateral
decisions that will increase the risk of losing credibility because we're off
doing something that nobody knows about.
REP. ALLEN:
Let me ask a more specific question. I mean, entities that are normally central
to the DOD weapons acquisition process, like Operational Test and Evaluation,
the Joint Requirements Oversight Committee and the Cost Analysis Improvement
Committee, have not been given formal seats on the Senior Executive Council.
They have an indirect and advisory role only. Can you explain why they don't
have positions on the Senior Executive Council?
GEN.
KADISH: Well, to the best of my knowledge, the Senior Executive Council, as the
secretary has outlined it, doesn't have seats for those people on anything that
they do, not only missile defense. And they're invited in, as the case may be.
That's the way the process is working right now, to the best of my knowledge.
They do, however, OT&E, the J-ROC, through the
(J-TANDO?) process that we have, and the Cost Analysis Improvement Group, will
have seats on the Missile Defense Support Group that's being formed. And so
these issues -- I'm as interested in making sure that we take advantage of what
OT&E has to say, as well as the CAIC and the JROC, as anybody. It's the way
in which we do it.
And the cycle time here, I can't
over-emphasize. If we went through the normal departmental processes, the
reviews that we would get would be episodic in terms of program events, and
there could be years in between those events unless there's a big breach
problem.
What we're trying to do here is get a focus,
at a minimum, every year, if not every quarter, on the program, to get more
involvement on a real-time basis, to have cycle-time decision processes in
place. So I'm confident that -- we can always make mistakes in implementation,
but I'm confident that we have a track where we're going to have the proper
oversight and we're going to do a better job of management under this process.
And as I said to Mr. Spratt, I believe that we'll hold ourselves accountable
more internally than we have in the past.
Another point
I would make -- and I think it's important to understand why we're doing some of
this in terms of authorities -- we're facing two major problems from a
management standpoint: the way -- and their fact of life. The first major
problem is we're dealing with an unprecedented technology. As much progress has
been made, it's still unprecedented. And it demands a different kind of
management flexibility at this crossroads.
The second
point that I would like to make is we are dealing with three services plus the
OSD in terms of the operational nature of who actually operate these things.
When you're talking about complex programs like F-22 or DDG-21s or Challenger
tanks, they are complex systems, and the oversight processes' design are
single-service. And very seldom do we cross the boundaries between the
services.
What we are being asked to do is look at all
these different basing modes where no one service has the monopoly on the
operation of a layered defense of the type we're talking about. So we've got to
look at the oversight and management processes from a Missile Defense Agency
point of view, why we were created to begin with, that match the challenge of
dealing with those three services. And the processes were invented for
single-service activities, and I believe they need to be modified to some degree
to handle the multi-service issues that we're talking about. And I think we're
taking a pretty good step with the secretary's letter of the 2nd of January.
REP. ALLEN: I have just one more question, then a request
of the chairman. Can you break out what is now called the long-range missile
defense component of this budget? We used to call it national missile defense
and we used to be able to tell a little more easily how much money was going
where.
I would appreciate it if you could get that
information for me, if you don't have it today; if you could somehow break out
how much of the $7.8 billion is spent on programs that are primarily connected
to what is now called long-range missile defense.
GEN.
KADISH: I'll certainly be able to do that. I'd like to make sure we do it for
the record to get you the specific figures. But a rule of thumb in the budget
is, out of the over $7 billion that we're asking for department-wide, about $3.1
(billion) or so is against long-range missiles.
REP.
ALLEN: That's helpful. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make a pitch for having Deputy
Secretary Wolfowitz here at some future hearing. It seems to me this is maybe
the most significant policy change in an acquisition area of this
administration, and yet we don't have the deputy secretary here. And I would
hope, before the bill is marked up, that we'd have a chance to have him here to
answer questions about the changes in policy, with all due respect to General
Kadish.
Thank you very much.
REP. WELDON: I thank the gentleman for his questions and for his
acknowledgement of the need for Mr. Wolfowitz. I agree with my colleague and
friend. And he was invited here, but because of, I guess, the protocol that they
have at the Pentagon, he said he would come to a full committee hearing but not
necessarily this one. But I agree with you; I think we need to have him here,
and we will do that.
And General, the other question I
have, relative to Mr. Allen's question, which I think is a valid one, is, now
how do we define a long-range missile? I mean, you know, is 6,000 kilometers a
long- range missile or 7,000? I mean, so I think to answer that question,
there's a range of missile capability that you have to give us. Is that
correct?
GEN. KADISH: That's exactly the reason why
we're talking about this in layered defenses against all ranges.
REP. WELDON: It's not clearly just this system versus another, because
you're dealing with -- as the Iranians develop Shahab-4, -5, and -6,they're
going to continually have longer-range missiles.
GEN.
KADISH: That's right.
REP. WELDON: So I would -- in
your summary of the costs, I hope you could layer that in, depending upon the
length of the missile that we're trying to defend against, since that's the way
the Iranians are developing their system in particular.
GEN. KADISH: It's always a difficult question to parse out. Let me say
it this way. It would be great if we had a technology that could do all of
missile defense, all ranges, against all threats, in one specific technical
system. And then you could -- and so it would be like the F-22. You'd be able to
parse it out and you could decide exactly what's affordable and you want to do
it.
Unfortunately, we're going to be dealing with this
for years, because it's not going to be that way. And if we could ever get it
that way from a technical point of view, it'd be a huge breakthrough. But I
don't see it right now.
REP. WELDON: Thank you. Mrs.
Davis from Virginia.
REP. JO ANN DAVIS (R-VA): Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. General, it's good to see you again. I want to talk a little
bit about Nunn- McCurdy. I think you alluded to it a moment ago by saying that
you cancelled the, I believe, the area-wide missile defense. What effect is this
going to have with the changeover? What effect will it have on future
Nunn-McCurdy reviews? And do you foresee future Nunn- McCurdy notifications
coming out of the MDA?
GEN. KADISH: I think, given the
fact that even last year we structured this program for an RDT&E focus
without procurement, we got into a -- I don't see that Nunn-McCurdy is
going to be totally relevant, as we understood it, to the new program structure,
because we don't have procurement.
The way
Nunn-McCurdy is structured, we have RDT&E and procurement and you
have different breach criteria for the program in terms of cost. We will have a
Nunn-McCurdy-like baseline for RDT&E, but not for procurement.
In the case of the Navy area program, we were still in the
midst of transition with that. And the fact that it had a Nunn-McCurdy breach
and it resulted in the cancellation, I think, was a confluence of events that
were very unusual.
I think I'm right in saying this,
but the Navy area program was the first program since 1981, the institution of
Nunn-McCurdy, that was actually canceled because of the breach.
REP. DAVIS: That's my understanding. That work was being done in my
district; that's why I was asking about that.
GEN.
KADISH: But I think, from an overall perspective, the Nunn- McCurdy breach was
the manifestation of the fundamental problems we had in the program, because we
basically had three different breaches achieving the flight-test arrangement in
almost a four-year period. So we were struggling with the program, and the
decision of the department was taken, and using Nunn-McCurdy as the instant
problem to terminate that effort.
Now, as we go in the
future, this program is constructed such that we can make those decisions when
program elements get in trouble without Nunn-McCurdy, because that's what we
intend to do. We can't afford to keep all our activities going that we have
ongoing right now.
REP. DAVIS: Well, I still remain
concerned about the future development of the sea-based mid-course defense. And
I was wondering, can you expand at all on where we're going to go with that? I
mean, I would assume we're not going to be left high and dry with nothing.
GEN. KADISH: The test that I showed in the video -- I
can't overemphasize -- I've been here a few years now, and I haven't been able
to put a Navy hit-to-kill on the table as a success, and we've been able to do
that. It was a very limited test, but a success nonetheless in terms of hitting
the target. And so that's very encouraging.
The
sea-based component to missile defense, certainly for intermediate-range and
short-range missiles, is extremely important to us. And that's primarily because
of the mobility that sea-based offers us. And we're going to look very hard --
we're going to pursue those aggressively; I can assure you of that. How it will
turn out, I'm not sure.
But I think that, given the
success we're having against long- range missiles in the ground-based program,
using similar technology in the mid-course, with Navy -- with the ELI program,
but with different propulsion activities, I think we're going to be able to work
that out. And when we do, we're going to have a very powerful sea-based
component of this later system.
REP. DAVIS: Thank you,
General. I appreciate you being here today.
GEN.
KADISH: Thank you.
REP. WELDON: We thank the gentlelady
for her questions. And we'll now yield time to Mr. Abercrombie from Hawaii.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Chairman -- in fact, both chairmen -- I just want to comment before I get into
my remarks. I see we've got microphones up here for C-SPAN. It'll come up
because I guess they think there'll be more interest in the ongoing activities,
military activities, right now. But it's a shame that they didn't broadcast this
hearing. It's a real disservice that they didn't.
Maybe
we ought to think about getting a congressional broadcast system in here that
operates 24 hours a day and let people pick up on what they want, and to do it,
because I will tell you, General Kadish, you've been receiving all kinds of
compliments this morning. They were compliments, by the way. I know you had to
filter your way through to this. (Laughter.) You've been getting a lot of
compliments this morning.
But I want to tell you -- and
I'm going to use Mr. Hunter as my foil on this. The conversations between Mr.
Weldon and yourself and Mr. Spratt and yourself are something that, among other
things, I'm going to get a transcript of so I can go back over it, because I
couldn't keep up with all of is.
And I pride myself on
doing a little bit of homework, but I can't begin to match the knowledge that's
in this committee and the knowledge that you have and your staff has with
respect to the genuine issues to be discussed here and for resolutions to be
made legislatively and so on are complicated and difficult and detailed. And the
command that Mr. Weldon and Mr. Spratt have over them and the illumination that
thus occurs for the other members of the committee trying to follow it is
extraordinary.
And I just -- I was almost serious. I
said to Mr. Spratt when he came into the ante room over here, you know, "Why
don't we just take the money that we're talking about here and buy North Korea?"
And I said that, you know, before we left. We might as well make an offer,
because -- when we're thinking of an annuity program of some kind, because of
the expenses involved.
And so the issues are real. The
expenses are extraordinary. And the amount of knowledge out in the general
public is virtually nil. And so I'm going to ask these questions, some of which
you don't necessarily have to answer, but the money part of it really -- you
don't have to answer right now, but I would appreciate an answer.
If you look on page eight of your testimony -- I believe
it's page eight -- I'm going to quote it at some length, because this is what
really bothers me here -- "There will be annual decision points at which time
assessments will be made on the basis of effectiveness and synergy within the
system, technical risk, deployment schedule, cost and threat. This assessment of
progress will determine whether a given developmental activity will be
accelerated, modified or terminated."
And these are
points that you've sort of addressed in general, General Kadish, but I think
they're going to need a lot more specificity, even though you've stated within
your testimony so far to both Mr. Weldon and Mr. Spratt in particular that you
personally want to see some of these questions addressed. But I don't think we
can base legislation on personalities, and I'm sure you agree. This is an
institutional question.
So my question is, against what
measurements -- excuse me, against what requirements will these measurements be
taken, with no structure to the missile defense program? You say you yourself
have used the word "architecture" in this regard. There's no envisioned end
product, and the use of -- I'm still not quite sure what spiral development is
as a concept. How will we know when an element is performing?
In other words, don't you think we, as the Congress, have got to set up
for you, regardless of what happened last year in legislation, some kind of
requirement-specific measurements that can be -- and some accountability in
terms of end product and making judgments as to how things are performing so
that we can try to make a better decision about how to do funding?
GEN. KADISH: Well, Congressman Abercrombie, let me try to
answer your question this way, and then maybe I could do a better job if I took
it for the record, for amplification. But let me oversimplify this approach
we're taking with (these?) requirements by talking about getting a grade of A,
B, C or D in a college course.
In the requirements
approach, it's akin to shooting for an A and getting -- in order to get a B,
because you got a very tough course. And instead of coming to the point where we
come to you saying we either met a requirement or we didn't, we want to come to
you and say, "We shot for this level of performance, but we have this level of
performance."
REP. ABERCROMBIE: Excuse me, General
Kadish. I agree with that. But you're saying a course. That's part of my point
here. It's like -- the better analogy, if you're using it -- to what you're
saying to me is that we're taking 10 courses all at once. I would prefer it if
it was just on a course. I would like to see some discernment.
GEN. KADISH: Well, I'm trying to oversimplify. I'm not doing a very
good job of it. But the point is, we do have requirements. We will have
requirements. We've got to have them to build something.
What we're doing a little bit differently is that we're not setting a
requirements bar in a sequential manner with the traditional military
requirements process where somebody invents the requirement and then some time
later we develop specifications in development and then we develop the test
program to do it.
What we're trying to do -- and I
think we will be successful at this -- is to do it together, because we don't
have experiences with missile defenses like we do airplanes and ships and
tanks.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: Well, I won't pursue it
further because my time is going to run out. But I will tell you, as an old-time
sociologist, which I did in my real life before this, and, say, small- group
dynamics, you're asking an awful lot of people, not to sit there and say, "Well,
look, these guys don't really have any oversight over us anymore; we can go
where we want."
You're going to have a tough time
without -- part of it -- let me go over it and start again quickly. Part of the
reason you had those specifics and part of the reason it's so damn tough to get
something through in the hierarchy that you just outlined there is because there
is good reason for establishing it in the first place. It made people do things
in certain ways and at certain times that other people could oversee and get
some knowledge of what was going on.
The problem with
the way you're organized here is it's so amorphous right now that people are
going to be able to skate all over the place without accountability.
GEN. KADISH: I would disagree with that, but it's for us
to prove to you that we don't have that situation.
REP.
ABERCROMBIE: Okay, fair enough. And may I submit for the record, Mr. Chairman,
so I don't take up more time, that you can get back to me in writing or someone
can call me about the Pacific missile range.
GEN.
KADISH: Sure.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: There's some
environmental questions, testing questions and infrastructure questions that I
think are -- they're parochial to me, obviously, being out in the Pacific, but
they're fundamental to the mission, particularly the testing that you'll be
doing.
GEN. KADISH: The Pacific missile test range has
become extremely important to us.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: We
want to do the right thing.
GEN. KADISH: That's
right.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: So may I submit that, Mr.
Chairman, and perhaps, General, you or someone can get back to me with some of
the specifics?
GEN. KADISH: I'd be happy to.
REP. WELDON: Without objection, the distinguished
sociologist from Hawaii -- (laughter) -- will have all of his request made, and
as always, he provides new insights into issues that we deal with, and I respect
him immensely for the contribution he makes to this committee and to the
Congress.
General, I had some additional questions. I
know you're not necessarily feeling that well, so I will give mine for the
record. I don't know whether Mr. Hunter has any or Mr. Spratt, but I will turn
to them and see what their feelings are. Mr. Davis.
REP. DAVIS: I'm fine, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank you for
co-chairing this hearing with me. And General, thank you for the excellent
testimony. And I think the -- I think your format of illustrating these tests,
showing us the tests that you have done and then reviewing what you're going to
do this year have been very constructive and instructive. Thanks a lot.
REP. WELDON: Mr. Spratt, do you have any additional?
REP. SPRATT: No.
REP. WELDON:
Thank you. Mr. Davis. Thank you again, General, for your testimony and for your
outstanding service to America.