Uphill Fight Seen To Reverse Gates Missile Defense Cutbacks

Attempting to use Navy ships with Aegis weapon control systems and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors to defend allied nations from Iranian missiles would be far more expensive than building the European Missile Defense (EMD) system, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), co-chairman of the congressional Missile Defense Caucus, said.

He rejected "the idea that they would place Aegis and SM-3 on land … as a potential mechanism to defend Europe at twice the cost and at almost no benefit to defending the homeland of the United States," compared to the planned EMD system. He spoke before a breakfast forum of the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.

This approach, he said, makes "no sense."

It also is puzzling how the Obama administration now proposes buying only 30 interceptors for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), or National Missile Defense, system, when combatant commanders only a few months ago said 44 interceptors are required, he recalled.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed providing just a token $52 million for the EMD system in the upcoming fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010. Gates said, however, that the EMD program isn’t dead, and that maybe later the United States might push forward with a European defense. (Please see separate story in this issue.) The EMD system in the Czech Republic and Poland would be a third site, adding to the existing GMD sites in Alaska and California.

"The secretary of defense a year ago didn’t have some of these convictions" to slash some defense programs deeply, Franks observed. Threats of missile attacks have risen, he added, so that "the only think that has changed from last year" is a desire to cut defense.

In terms of the threats, North Korea has built nuclear weapons and is proliferating missile technology, while Iran has put a satellite into orbit using technology similar to an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Franks remarked on the rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said Israel should be wiped from the map, and that Israel soon shall cease to exist. The Iranian leader also said he envisions a world without the United States.

As for Osama bin Laden, mastermind and financier of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, he has said it is the religious duty of the al Qaeda terrorist group to obtain nuclear weapons, Franks observed.

That is why it is so frustrating to see cuts proposed in missile defense systems needed to counter these rising threats, Franks said, "threats that are inevitably coming."

While the Obama administration defense budget that Gates wrote may not make sense, Franks acknowledged it nonetheless will be an uphill battle to block the cuts it proposes in many major defense acquisition programs.

Given the budget rules that any funds restored to missile defense programs must be offset by cuts elsewhere, Franks said that is a challenge, adding that what should happen is that the total defense budget should be increased.

"The bottom line is, the budget has been presented" to Congress, and the cuts are likely to survive the process, Franks said. "It may seem we’re in an impossible situation now," he said. Still, he said, the administration has no sound reason not to buy the final 14 interceptors for the GMD system, so perhaps the Obama administration ultimately will buy 44 of them.

He responded to a question from Baker Spring, a research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. Spring has outlined the problems facing defense programs, including missile defense, which Franks said has been an "invaluable" contribution to the cause of providing for an adequate defense.

Those proposed Obama funding cuts also make no sense in another way, Franks said: comparing the $120 billion cost of missile defense systems over a quarter of a century to the $90 billion needed to clean up after the 9/11 attacks, or the $2 trillion in economic and other damage caused when airliners hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon, make one wonder what math is used at the Pentagon and White House, he indicated.

While some critics of missile defense say the programs being cut are not far advanced, involving new technology, Franks said that some setbacks in such programs are to be expected. "Any time you are on the cutting edge of innovation, there will be failures," he said.

He observed that while tough cuts are hitting missile defense programs, military personnel costs are soaring.

But Franks warned that if missile defense is cut now, if in a few years those capabilities suddenly are required to meet an emerging enemy threat, that won’t be possible. It takes years to develop missile defense systems, he warned.

Obama budget cuts are "a terrible mistake," he concluded, adding that "we don’t want to lose this [missile defense funding] trajectory that we’re on."