National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (Senate - July 25, 2005)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment was offered by Senator Levin and myself would do several very critical and important things. First, the amendment would increase funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program by $50 million. The offset would be twofold: $30 million would be taken from the long lead procurement of ground-based interceptors as part of the National Missile Defense Program and another $20 million would be taken from the funding for initial construction for silos to house these interceptors.

Essentially what Senator Levin is doing with this provision is to recognize the fact that a more immediate threat to the United States rests with literally thousands of locations where nuclear material might be housed from the breakup of the old Soviet Union, and other locations that need attention with respect to the reduction of these materials. I believe the greatest threat we face in this country is the fact that--hopefully not, but the situation where a terrorist might gain control of these materials, bring them into this country and use them with devastating effect.

So this amendment recognizes the most immediate threat comes from these materials and therefore is putting additional resources from the National Missile Defense Program, modest changes, to approach this major effort with respect to cooperative threat reduction.

The funds would come from our ground-based midcourse defense system. The interceptors and silos where the offsets occur are now currently being deployed at Fort Greely, AK, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Because of recent developments, we have an opportunity to address the critical issue of loose nukes by transferring these funds. I would argue this is a most worthy cause. The offset will not affect the missile defense system at all. In fact, as we understand it, in the last several months the missile defense system has been reevaluating itself, looking at whether the technical issues are challenging, in fact, and have not conducted tests as they thought they could over the last several months. So I think now is the opportune time to put more resources in cooperative threat reduction.

We are all aware, as I have mentioned before, that the greatest threat to us today is the possibility that terrorists will acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear material and use it with devastating effect against us. Of course, one country with enormous amounts of this nuclear material is Russia.

It is estimated that Russia has approximately 16,000 nuclear weapons stored at between 150 and 210 sites. While that is a significant reduction from the 40,000 weapons at the end of the Cold War, it is still a huge number of weapons and also a large number of storage sites.

Indeed, there is some imprecision about where all the sites might be. Of course, we have also heard reports of potential sites for, if not nuclear material, other dangerous material in former components of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states. So this is a challenging issue we have to face.

Only about 25 percent of the total number of weapons sites have received any upgrades in the past five years. Many of them still lack adequate security and safeguards. At the rate planned for in the fiscal year 2006 budget request, it would be around 2011 or 2012 before the work at only a portion of the sites would be completed to bring them up to levels of security and safety that we would feel confident this nuclear material would not be stolen, misplaced or somehow find itself in the world community.

The Defense Department only expected work to be scheduled on one or two sites in fiscal year 2006 so they budgeted approximately $60 million in the process. But then in February, when President Bush and President Putin met at the summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, the two agreed on a way to address security upgrades at 15 key nuclear weapons sites. With this agreement, we have the opportunity to accomplish in 2 years what we thought would take 10.

The issue, of course, is funding. The total cost of these upgrades is approximately $350 million. With this amendment, we are adding $50 million to this project, which is not the total needed but will allow for a good start. Again, this is a huge breakthrough that occurred after the President's budget submission. It is a major opportunity we simply must take advantage of.

As I have indicated before, the proposal of Senator Levin is to move this $50 million into cooperative threat reduction from the National Missile Defense Program. I think it is useful to look at this program to indicate where these transfers are possible, available, and even desirable.

When President Bush first took office in 2001, he made missile defense one of his highest priorities. In May 2000, President Bush said America must build effective missile defense based on the best available options at the earliest possible date. Missile defense must be designed to protect all 50 States, our friends, allies, and deployed forces overseas from missile attacks by rogue nations or accidental launches. President Bush's first major action was to significantly increase funding for missile defense.

Since fiscal year 2002, approximately $45 billion, including fiscal year 2006 requests, has been provided for missile defense. That is $45 billion and here we are talking about a transfer of $50 million from that huge program. This amount is half of what has been spent on missile defense since President Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1984. We have seen a huge acceleration of funding with respect to missile defense. Another aspect of President Bush's plan for missile defense was that the systems would be developed and acquired under an approach called spiral development. As the Congressional Research Service succinctly summarizes: A major consequence of the administration's proposed evolutionary acquisition strategy is that the Missile Defense Program would not feature the familiar phases and milestones of the traditional DOD acquisition system. Another consequence is the Missile Defense Agency cannot provide Congress with a description of its final missile defense architecture, the capabilities on any near or longer term system, the specific dates by which most elements of the emerging architecture are to be tested and deployed, or an estimate of the eventual costs of the Missile Defense Program.

So President Bush's plan was to spend an enormous amount of money in a short period of time with little plan and no traditional checks and balances with respect to traditional procurement programs.

This program has, in fact, come under self-generated pressures. Tests that were proposed to be conducted over the last several months have been postponed and cancelled. There is a hard relook at the technology. There is potential here, but certainly there is not the kind of progress that would justify the robust spending to date and certainly not indicate that they need an additional $50 million to keep doing what they are doing.

In the past, we have looked very carefully at this program of national defense. Like so many others, I believe if we can produce--and I think we can ultimately--a workable system to protect this country, protect its allies, our troops in the field, we have to do that, but we have to do it with deliberate speed, and I would emphasize deliberate speed, not all-out haste, which generally means waste.

I believe we should pursue this system, but I also believe we should take the time to determine that the technology, which is extraordinarily complex, is mature and effective. So beginning in 2002, I offered amendments which I felt would improve the Missile Defense Program. In the fiscal year 2003 bill, I introduced an amendment requiring a report on flight testing of the ground-based midcourse defense, or the GMD, system. In fiscal year 2004, I offered an amendment which would direct that the Missile Defense Agency provide information on procurement, performance criteria, and operational test plans for ballistic missile defense programs. In fiscal year 2005, I introduced an amendment requiring operationally realistic testing and independent evaluation of the ballistic missile defense system.

All of these amendments were modified by the majority. Then they were passed. Indeed, it is unclear if they were not modified whether they would have passed.

Furthermore, when the Missile Defense Agency met these requirements, in many instances details and quality of reporting were lacking. For the most part, the Missile Defense Agency has been doing what it wants to do with very little detailed supervision by the Congress and it has led to a situation now where the program is being seriously looked at. We certainly have not made the kind of technological breakthrough which was anticipated. One thing is certain, we have spent a great deal of money in this pursuit.

Now, where we are today, interceptor tests are the critical tests which involve a real missile defense interceptor hitting a real target missile. These tests are the only means to truly assess whether a missile defense system has the chance of working against a real enemy missile. There is nothing elaborate or sensational in this proposition. In order to see if a system works, one has to take it out and use it. One missile has to be fired against another missile and knock down the intruding missile. If that is done with enough frequency and enough confidence, then the system is ready to go.

The first intercept flight test of the system was conducted in December 2002 and it failed. Six days after that test failure, President Bush announced the United States would deploy the missile defense system. Usually such announcements are reserved for success, not failure. In effect, it is almost like looking at a new, expensive jet fighter prototype going down the way, malfunctioning and then turning around and saying let us buy a lot of them, let us put them in the sky. That is not what most people believe is the appropriate criteria for being operational.

Over the next 2 years, seven other planned tests were cancelled. Yet, in September 2004, the system was declared nearly operational, with six interceptors at Fort Greely, AK, and two interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Three months later, in December 2004, the Missile Defense Agency then conducted the only second integrated flight test on a multibillion system. It too failed, and the system was now described as operational in the near future.

On February 14, there was another integrated flight test and it too failed. After these three consecutive failures, Lieutenant General Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, established an independent review team to examine test failures and recommend steps for improving the test program. The team made some very interesting observations.

First, I believe they confirmed suspicions that there was a rush to deployment, a rush not justified by the technology, its maturity, and by the operational techniques that were necessary to deploy it, but simply to get it deployed. The team report states:

There were several issues that led to the flight test failures of the Integrated Flight Tests ..... With the focus on rapid deployment of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, there was not always adequate opportunity to fully ground test the system prior to each flight attempt. Again, skipping over critical steps to rush to a deployment. The team also found:

Schedule has been the key challenge that drives daily decision making and planning in the program.

Not the technological maturity of the system, not technical issues, but schedule was driving the technology, not the other way around.

The independent review team also took issue with the spiral development and lack of testing. Again, in their words:

Due to the lack of application of a few well-known verification specification and standards by the GMD program, failure evidence suggests that some problems might have been during the launch. The team feels that considerable opportunity exists to improve the confidence in the reliability of hardware and software by adopting industry best practices that exist as specification and standards.

In effect saying, we have to have requirements, we have to have standards, we have to have specifications, we have to be able to measure this program and its components before we rush to deploy it, much of it echoing comments made on this floor by myself and many others.

The team report further states:

There are not enough ground tests available to verify/validate system operational performance and reliability. The Joint Program office should consider redirecting some production assets for ground tests to gain a higher confidence in the GMD system performance.

The GMD review team would again recommend, in their words:

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense Program enter a new phase focused on Performance and Reliability Verification, in which Missile Defense Agencies make tests and mission success the primary objective. The new phase should validate the technical baseline and should be event driven rather than schedule driven.

In effect, build on success, don't build based on schedule.

General Obering also requested Rear Admiral Kate Paige to direct a Mission Readiness Task Force to study the review team's recommendations and put the program on a path to flight test and management success.

The Mission readiness task force, under the Admiral, made the following recommendation: Four interceptors previously planned for near-term operational deployment will be diverted to serve as ground test missiles. There will be a significant increase in ground testing of all systems, components, and processes before resuming flight testing. Contractors will be held accountable for their performance. The first flight test will not be an intercept test and the first intercept test will not take place for more than a year.

Let me commend General Obering and the Missile Defense Agency for implementing these recommendations. I believe they will go a long way toward improving the missile defense system, an objective we all share. However, I note these recommendations sound very familiar and one could only contemplate how much effort and money would have been saved if we had approached the system this way from the beginning--not rushing to failure, but building for success.

There are presently six ground-based interceptors in silos at Fort Greely and two in silos at Vandenberg Air Force base. The administration also requested, and the Congress has already approved, most of the funding for these 30 interceptors. As I have noted, there has yet to be a successful flight test of these interceptors, so we are already buying an additional 30 interceptors when we do not know how to make the first 6 work. I think a responsible approach is to slow the allocation of funds for the procurement of these interceptors until they are proven operational and to use that funding for more pressing needs. This amendment does that.

The President's budget request seeks long-lead funding for 10 operational interceptors and 8 flight test interceptors, 18 missiles in all. However, the actual production rate capacity for the interceptors is 1 per month, or 12 per year. That means the Defense Department is seeking funds for more missiles than they can build in 1 year. There is no need to pay for more interceptors than can be built in 1 year.

Instead, we can provide 1 year's worth of funding for 1 year's worth of missiles--12 instead of 18. This amendment will not cause a break in the production line.

I also note the House Armed Services Committee, in its fiscal year 2006 Defense authorization bill, reduced the long-lead funding for five of the operational interceptors. The administration has not indicated that the proposed reduction would cause any serious problems for the program.

I also want to state that the President's budget request includes $53 million in long-lead funding for eight test missiles. It is essential to produce missiles for testing. This amendment would not reduce that funding for the test missiles at all. We realize we are in the test phase. The problem becomes we are attempting to buy operational missiles before we are sure the test missiles will really work. That, I think, is at the heart of much of the criticism.

Our missile defense systems are robustly funded in this bill with about $7 billion. What this amendment does is take money that cannot even be spent this year and allocate it to a new opportunity to prevent loose nukes, which is truly an imminent threat, an existential threat to this country. This amendment, which enhances security by funding one program without causing any harm to another program, is a win-win situation, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

We are trying to exploit a diplomatic breakthrough that was engineered by President Bush in his meeting with President Putin that allows the expansion, rapidly, of inspection and securing of sites in the former Soviet Union and Russia. We are taking a truly modest amount of money, given about $6 or $7 billion for overall missile defense, and using that to try to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials across the globe, which is the most serious threat that we face as a nation.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might ask my distinguished colleague a question or two. We are all good, strong supporters of the CTR program. But I am informed that you are taking $50 million from the missiles. I will address that question momentarily. But I think the Senate should know this--and I ask if I am in error, if the Senator would correct me, if not now, perhaps one of your staff members, in due course, could assist. The Senate should know there is $500 million of unspent 2005 money in the CTR program. The amendment would take this program, which as you point out has some test problems, and to give it the body blow this amendment would render, for $50 million will virtually cause a very severe perturbation in the production line. The Senator is familiar with how the production lines work. There are estimates of cost up to as much as $270 million to restart the line at some point in the future. But with $500 million for 2005 unexpended in CTR, I hope, if colleagues look at this amendment fairly and practically, maybe judge it on the merits--the use of these funds, to me, is not a justification for supporting the amendment.

Mr. REED. I thank the Chairman for the question. My understanding is that the production cycle for the system, these interceptors, is 12 per year. Yet the budget is asking for more than that. So I don't think taking $50 million--as I understand the amendment, $30 million taken from long-lead, ground-based interceptors--taking $30 million away I do not think would upset the production line schedule. There is no intent to do that, and I think the effect would not be to do that also.

With respect to your point, which I think is well taken, about the buildup in funds in the comprehensive threat reduction, some of that--we will check more dutifully--but some of that to my knowledge is the result of the inability to agree on a way to deal with some of these sites. We hope that difficulty has been substantially reduced by President Bush and President Putin's discussion in Bratislava. Now that they have agreed on a framework, they can start applying this money.

Also, again, I think this money would be well spent, would not disrupt the production of the missile systems, and just the sheer scale--this is $50 million total, $30 million from the ground-based interceptors, $20 million for initial construction of silos and housing for the interceptors--again, this is truly long-lead procurement. We have, in my view, and I believe that of Senator Levin, much more of a problem in the site in Russia that contains the nuclear materials.

We have all heard the horror stories of people being able to walk in, walk around, and walk out of these sites without anybody interfering with them--no electronic equipment or sensors that would detect or report their presence to anyone's attention. So our view--my view, speaking for myself--is that this money could be much better spent, without disrupting the missile defense program, by applying it to comprehensive threat reduction.

Frankly, $500 million is an impressive amount of money that has not yet been spent, but we all recognize, if any of this material made its way outside these sites and got into the hands of irresponsible people, it would be serious.

Mr. WARNER. I agree with the Senator's premise but I wouldn't want Senators to believe that, if I am correct, the shortage of money is in CTR. I am informed there is, in the bank, $500 million of 2005 unexpended funds. Does the Senator want to address that now?

Mr. REED. I could say, Mr. President, we will try to determine this, but unexpended does not mean that it is not committed. Some of these funds could in fact be committed to specific sites already so that money can't be spent again elsewhere. We will try to get a number on that.

But the scale of the problem, the number of sites--it is in the order, just within Russia, of 200 sites.

Mr. WARNER. I am a big supporter of CTR. I happened to be in the room on the day CTR was born--by Sam Nunn. I will never forget it. I have followed the program. I have been a supporter. I think there is quite a bit of funding in this budget for CTR right now. I point out, if the Senator is persuaded by the fact that CTR needs the money more than the missile program--and I will argue the point strenuously that is not the case--there is quite a bit of money. We are way into the 2005 cycle. As a matter of fact, September is on the horizon.

So I hope the Senator could carefully research that point, come back, and if I am in error, I would certainly like to hear his views.

I point out the current bill is consistent with the President's program that allocated $50 million toward this next tranche of the long-lead, cumulative money for ground-based interceptors. If you take $30 million out of the $50 million, I assure you, that does considerable disruption to the production line.

Then I point out the amount available for construction of associated silos, reduced by $20 million. I wonder if you might take the chance to check on the fact that the President's budget in this bill only allocates $13.5 million to the initial construction of the associated silos, and therefore your $20 million is considerably in excess of the $13.5 million.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, my information indicates the fiscal year 2006 budget for expansion, there is $20.682 million. I will ask my staff to coordinate with your staff.

Mr. WARNER. We will have our staffs check those figures. I thank the Senator.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov/