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Wednesday, July 17, 2002

The House Government Reform subcommittee on national security looked at the administration's decision to remove MDA programs from traditional technology acquisition channels.

Answering committee members' questions, Air Force Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the agency, said the schedule for Ground-based Midcourse Defense would include problems such as decoys and tumbling re-entry vehicles after September 2004.

"The primary focus of the test site, which is being built at Fort Greeley, Alaska, is to test hardware in the loop using the Pacific Test Range," Kadish told the committee.

GMD is the portion of the administration's "layered defense" that would use radar-guided interceptors to destroy missiles and warheads above the atmosphere.

Kadish is also in charge of programs with shorter-range interceptors and an airplane-mounted laser, all of which must work together.

"At the operational level, no one [branch of the armed services] will operate integrated defenses," Kadish said. "The MDA was created ... to pull all these strands together, regardless of whether any single element was on the ground, at sea, in the air or in space."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, offered the sharpest criticism against remaking missile defense into a largely research project. The reorganization offers too few concrete objectives or development timetables, he said.

"I'm concerned it will significantly reduce the oversight of, and attention to the program's enormous cost and technical challenges," Kucinich said. "Under these circumstance, the possibility for taxpayers to be cheated is pretty serious."

Kucinich also took Kadish to task for playing a videotape of tests where interceptors hit targets head-on, without disclosing the fact that the targets' speed and flight path were known, and were broadcasting their position via the Global Positioning System. Kadish responded the GPS signals were for systems observing the tests, not for the interceptor's benefit.

Concerns about Congress losing control over the project are unfounded, said Thomas Christie, director of the Department of Defense's Office of Test and Evaluation. When an MDA technology proves itself, it would enter traditional operational test oversight channels, he told the subcommittee.

Although current law limits Christie to an advisory role in non-operational testing, he promised to keep Congress informed with yearly reports on evolving technology. Christie's participation in a DOD support group will help ensure access to such developments, he said.

"While it is premature to assess the adequacy of individual initiatives, the MDA plans certainly seem to be headed in the right direction," Christie said. "Testing will gradually increase in complexity and tactical realism as the test bed matures."

Kent Stansberry, deputy director for missile warfare in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, agreed any attempt to move an MDA element to production would trigger existing oversight provisions.

"Integrating several programs into one, centralizing their management within a single defense agency ... and providing a more streamlined oversight process will cause missile defenses to be developed and deployed in a much more efficient manner," Stansberry said.

Not necessarily, said Eric Miller, senior defense investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight. "Fast-track" development efforts, such as those envisioned for missile defense, led the military into wasting millions of dollars on problem-riddled projects such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and B-1 bomber, he said.

One MDA project under particular scrutiny is the Airborne Laser, essentially a 747 with steerable optics in its nose designed to shoot down battlefield or intercontinental missiles immediately after launch. Developers need to incorporate more performance data into their ABL evaluations, said Robert Levin, the General Accounting Office's director of Acquisition and Sourcing management.

"Some ABL technology is almost [showing operational capability], but technology such as the mirrors and windows that focus and control the laser beam ... require additional engineering work before reaching this stage of maturity," Levin said. "The agency must set the ABL's requirements once it determines it has a match between the technology, money and time needed to design and demonstrate an operational system, so that the agency can use those requirements to measure progress."

Other MDA practices already in place should help the system's development, Levin said, including contracting next year for a ground-based mockup to evaluate equipment before taking it aloft.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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