Using sea-based Aegis weapon control systems and Standard Missiles to protect Europe from Iranian missile attacks would cost almost twice as much as the European Missile Defense (EMD) system proposed by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Some Democrats in Congress would like to defer or jettison the EMD system that would be built in the Czech Republic (radar) and Poland (interceptors in ground silos), and instead rely on Aegis ships to defeat Iranian missiles aimed at Europe or the United States.
But the new report from the nonpartisan CBO, which compares the EMD with the Aegis and other alternatives such as the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) or land-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, found that none of the alternatives provided as much additional defense of the United States from Iranian missiles as the EMD.
As far as costs, KEIs or SM-3s would cost about the same as EMD, $9 billion to $14 billion over 20 years, by deploying them at existing U.S. bases in Germany and Turkey.
Using SM-3s on Aegis ships, however, would cost twice as much as the EMD because the Navy would have to buy more Aegis ships, for a total of $18 billion to $26 billion over 20 years, the CBO calculated.
“For roughly the same cost as MDA’s European system — total of about $9 billion to $14 billion over 20 years — the United States could deploy either SM-3 interceptors or Kinetic Energy Interceptors at its existing bases in Germany and Turkey, supported by tracking radars in Azerbaijan and Qatar,” the study found. “At greater cost, the United States could deploy SM-3 interceptors on U.S. Navy ships and station them permanently at three locations in European waters. That system would cost almost twice as much as MDA’s proposal — a total of about $18 billion to $26 billion over 20 years — largely because CBO assumed that the Navy would need to buy additional ships to operate it.”
Further, those alternative systems for protecting Europe from Iranian missiles “might not be available as early as MDA’s proposed” EMD, the report cautioned. While the EMD is planned to be complete in 2013, about the time U.S. intelligence sees Iran completing development of nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, the SM-3 systems would be up around 2015, and the KEI system around 2018. And the alternative systems would require overcoming technology development issues equal to those in the EMD program.
EMD interceptors would be variants of interceptors that The Boeing Co. [BA] already developed for the existing Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system now emplaced in Alaska and California.
The report does find that without the EMD, the GMD by itself could defend 99 percent of the U.S. population from Iranian missile attacks, while EMD would protect the other 1 percent. But it isn’t that simple. The EMD would hit Iranian missiles far sooner in their trajectory, so that if the EMD interceptor missed a kill, there still would be time for the GMD to fire an interceptor and take out the enemy weapon.
CBO prepared the report for Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee strategic forces subcommittee, and for Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, the subcommittee ranking Republican. Tauscher has been critical of the EMD, and led a move to bar use of funds for building EMD until preconditions are met (some already have been). She also has been critical of some other missile defense programs still in development, such as the Airborne Laser. Turner generally has been supportive of missile defense.
The full report titled “Options for Deploying Missile Defenses in Europe” may be viewed in entirety at
http://www.cbo.gov on the Web.