Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a key lawmaker overseeing missile defense programs, indicated she was unimpressed by the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptor killing a target missile, because the target didn’t emit countermeasures.
Tauscher, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) strategic forces subcommittee, said she must see the GMD take out a target missile that deploys countermeasures before she knows it will work. That would make it a credible system, she said.
But, she added, apparently Iran and North Korea don’t see the GMD system as credible, because they continue working to develop steadily longer-range missiles. “The Ground-based system needs more testing,” she said.
Her critical response to the GMD test stood in marked contrast to the laudatory reaction voiced by Republican HASC members. (Please see separate story in this issue.)
The United States has time, years, to develop a counter to an Iranian long-range missile, she said, adding that such a weapon “may emerge in the 2015 range.”
Tauscher said Iran and North Korea do have short- and medium-range missiles, and the United States already has other ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems to take down such threats, such as the Aegis/Standard Missile and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems.
“We have a short- and medium-range system” to shield the United States and its interests against BMD threats, she said.
The United States has signed agreements for construction of a European Missile Defense (EMD) system with the Czech Republic (radar) and Poland (interceptors in ground silos) to take down long-range missiles from rogue Middle Eastern nations such as Iran. The EMD system would use a two-stage variant of the GMD three-stage interceptor.
But Tauscher noted that NATO is developing a system to take down incoming short- and medium-range enemy missiles, and that can suffice.
“We need to NATO-ize” the European missile defense system, she said.
However, NATO has approved the EMD plan twice, seeing it as complementary — not competitive — to the NATO missile defense system.
“I don’t believe we should have a two-stage variant of a three-stage system that hasn’t been tested sufficiently,” she said. Criticizing the lack of testing where the target missile deploys countermeasures, she said the Missile Defense Agency “writes the test, takes the test and grades the test.”
Tauscher was unhappy with the quality of the target missiles, saying they are 40 years old.
In future, for GMD, Tauscher said she wants the missile shield protecting against long-range missiles to be “tested and tested and tested again.”
She termed the EMD “not a system ready to be deployed,” and said that the European defense against long-range enemy missiles is something that armed forces could “bolt on” to the NATO missile defense system at some future date, adding that adequate testing should come first, and it will “take a few years to do that.”
At the same time, however, Tauscher is aware of appearances here, and how it will look if the United States backs off and postpones construction and installation of the EMD system, after Russian leaders have bellowed their opposition to it, and threatened to move Iskander missiles near Poland to demolish the EMD system if it ever is built.
“We can’t allow the Russians to veto what we do,” Tauscher conceded.
But she said the Czechs and Poles were pushed to rush into agreements to host the EMD by fears generated when Russia invaded another former Soviet bloc nation, Georgia, an act of aggression that “threw them into George Bush’s arms.”
But regardless of the problem of appearing to cave to Russian bellicosity and threats, Tauscher said, “We are not going to deploy … anything that hasn’t been tested” to her satisfaction.
She will participate in a congressional delegation trip to Europe to speak with Russian, Czech and Polish officials about the EMD. The United States has signed agreements with the Czech and Polish administrations, and awaits their parliaments approving the EMD as well.
No less than Russian President Dmitry Medvedev himself threatened — in a very public speech to Russian legislators on the state of their nation — to deploy the Iskanders and obliterate the EMD if it is built.
Medvedev made his comments just hours after then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) won election as president of the United States.
The Medvedev comments were seen in Washington as an attempt to strong-arm Obama and bully him into dropping U.S. plans to deploy the EMD.
While Obama has said he favors missile defense, he wants to be sure it works before funding its development. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, Nov. 10, 2008.)