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.

GEN. KADISH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

END

LOAD-DATE: February 28, 2002