European Missile Defense Wouldn’t Work Against Iranian Missiles, Report Asserts; Its Authors Include Missile Defense Critics

Lt. Gen. O’Reilly Rejects Anti-European Missile Defense Report As Based On Incorrect Assumptions, ‘Not Accurate’

A new EastWest Institute report co-written by Russian and U.S. analysts predicts that Iran won’t be able to develop a nuclear-tipped intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for up to 15 years, unless Tehran obtains outside assistance.

That report came as Iran launched a missile with a 1,200-mile range, easily able to reach Israel and parts of Europe. It also is of a superior solid-fuel design. Further, Iran three months ago launched a satellite into orbit. (Please see separate story in this issue.)

The report also asserts that the proposed European Missile Defense (EMD) system wouldn’t be able to take down missiles that Iran might launch against Europe.

However, the top leader of U.S. missile defense programs discredited the report, saying that it was based on errors.

Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the Missile Defense Agency director, was asked during a House Armed Services Committee strategic forces subcommittee hearing whether he agreed with the report assertion that the EMD would be ineffective against Iranian missiles.

"No, sir, I do not," O’Reilly told Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.). The report, the general added, is based upon "a lot of assumptions that are not accurate."

Providing fodder for those opposed to the EMD, the report was issued as the subcommittee and others in Congress are considering the White House missile budget for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, a plan providing starvation-level funding for the EMD.

A couple of key points about the Russian-U.S. authorship of the report should be observed here:

• Russia vehemently opposes the EMD plan, with top Moscow leaders threatening at times to use missiles to blast the EMD system to oblivion if it is built in the Czech Republic (radar) and Poland (interceptors in ground silos). The report also notes that its authors don’t agree on every point it makes.
• Some of the U.S. report authors or contributors are strident critics of the EMD and other American missile defense programs. Those critics include Philip Coyle, a former Pentagon test and evaluation official who has said that the Airborne Laser couldn’t defeat a missile if the enemy painted it white (even though a laser test blew a large hole in a missile body painted white — please see Space & Missile Defense Report, April 21, 2008), and Theodore A. Postol, an MIT professor who joined with Russians in saying EMD interceptors could threaten Russian ICBMs (please see Space & Missile Defense Report, April 28, 2008). Pentagon leaders, however, note that Russian ICBMs are much faster, and in any attack on the United States would be moving northward, away from Polish territory where EMD interceptors are to be based.
• However, those U.S. missile defense critics are not without an audience, being cited, and invited to testify at hearings by some Democrats who wish to cut or eliminate missile defense programs.

The Institute report was presented to retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, who now is national security adviser in the Obama White House. He previously served as Marine Corps commandant and separately as Supreme Allied Commander in NATO. The report also was presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and to Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council.

"Iran will not be able, for at least ten to fifteen years, to independently master the technologies necessary for advanced intermediate-range ballistic missiles or intercontinental ballistic missiles," at least not without help from outside sources, the report states flatly.

That prediction should be viewed with great caution, a Pentagon leader said.

"We’ve been surprised before" by unexpected developments not foreseen by U.S. or armed services intelligence, Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, commander of the Space and Missile Defense Command, noted. He appeared before a National Defense University Foundation-National Defense Industrial Association breakfast forum on Capitol Hill.

"I think we should be very modest about our ability to predict the future and what could come at us," he cautioned.

Indeed, predictions about future Iranian capabilities have proven to be wrong at times, including estimates by U.S. intelligence agencies.

For example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress that it would be two to three years before Iran would develop a missile capable of striking European targets. About two weeks later, however, Iran launched a satellite. That spacecraft in half an hour was over the United States, using the same basic technology as is required for constructing an ICBM. Then, a day later, Gates advanced his defense budget proposal for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, which ultimately provided just $51 million for EMD, guaranteeing that the program wouldn’t advance to construction in the near future. Congress also has placed curbs on EMD construction until multiple hurdles are cleared. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Feb. 9, 2009).

However, the weak EMD funding isn’t a sign that Pentagon leaders consider the EMD system to be ineffective against Iranian missiles. Rather, the meager funding was all that previous restrictions by Congress on EMD construction would permit to be spent in fiscal 2010. (Please see separate story in this issue.)

As far as the claim that the EMD wouldn’t be effective against Iranian missiles, that claim has been made previously, and rejected by Pentagon officials. They note that the EMD interceptor would be a two-stage variant of the three-stage Ground-base Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors now deployed in Alaska and California. The GMD is the only current U.S. defense against incoming long-range and ICBM missiles, focusing on the threat from North Korea.

As far as help from outside, Iran previously has gained assistance for its missile program from North Korea.

To read the Institute report titled "Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Potential: A Joint Threat Assessment by U.S. and Russian Technical Experts" in full, please go to http://docs.ewi.info/JTA.pdf on the Web.