Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
I am pleased that Dr. Barry M. Blechman and Dr. William R. Graham are able to join in presenting the unclassified version of the Report of the Ballistic Missile Threat Commission to your Committee.
Dr. Blechman is the founder of the Henry Stimson Center and a former Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Carter Administration.
Dr. Graham is the former Science Advisor to the President in the Reagan Administration Others members of the Commission were:
- Retired four-star general Lee Butler, former Commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command;
Dr. Richard L. Garwin, formerly of IBM, a distinguished scientist with a long record of service on Federal commissions and advisory committees; - Dr. William Schneider, Jr., former Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance m the Reagan Administration;
- General Larry D. Welch, former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and currently CEO of the Institute for Defense Analysis;
- Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Bush Administration and former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and currently Dean of the Nitze School of Advanced-International Studies at Johns Hopkins University here in Washington; and
- The Honorable James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA in the Clinton Administration.
I could not have served with a more knowledgeable, experienced, talented and dedicated group of Commissioners. They deserve and have my respect and my appreciation.
As you know, the Commission was established by Congress. We delivered our report in July, which included a brief, unclassified executive summary and a lengthy classified report Mr. Chairman, I request that the unclassified executive summary be placed in the record at the conclusion of my remarks.
Nominated by the House and Senate Republican and Democratic leadership, the members of the Commission came to their task with a variety of views. Our work covered some six months and included two- hundred briefings. As General Welch observed, the facts finally overrode our biases and opinions and literally drove us to our unanimous conclusions and recommendation.
As required by our charter, we looked only at the emerging and current ballistic missile threat to the U.S. -- not other threats such as terrorism or cruise missiles. We concentrated on the threat to the United States -- not to U.S. forces overseas or friends or allies. We examined the ballistic missile countries, as buyers and sellers, as well as users of the technology, and the state of their capabilities, including biological and nuclear weapons.We consulted with technical, area, functional, and policy experts. We commissioned work to look at technical aspects as to what is possible and the various approaches m missile development. And we examined the availability of nuclear and biological weapon capabilities. I will summarize our conclusions briefly.
China and Russia continue to pose threats, although different in nature. Each is on a somewhat uncertain, albeit different, path. With respect to North Korea and Iran, we concluded each could pose a threat to the U.S. within five years of a decision to do so, and that the U.S. might not know for several years whether or not such a decision had been made.
We concluded that Iraq could pose a threat to the U.S. within 10 years of a decision to do so and that the U.S. might not know for several years when such a decision was made. That view was based on the assumption that the UNSCOM sanctions and inspections would be in place It is now increasingly likely that they will not be in place. Therefore, we would place Iraq with North Korea and Iran as capable of posing a threat to the U.S. within five years of making a decision to do so and underline that we might not know for several years if such a decision had been made.
We concluded unanimously that the emerging capabilities are broader, more mature, and evolving more rapidly than had been reported, and that the intelligence community's ability to provide timely warning is being eroded. We concluded that the warning time of deployment of a ballistic missile threat to the United States is reduced. Under some plausible scenarios -including re-basing or transfer of operational missiles, sea- and air-launch options, shortened development programs that might include testing in a third country, or some combination of these -- we concluded that the U.S. might well have little or no warning before operational deployment.One important reason is that the emerging powers are secretive about their programs and are increasingly sophisticated in deception and denial. They know considerably more than we would like them to know about the sources and methods of our collection, in no small part through espionage. And they use that knowledge to good effect in hiding their programs.
We have concluded that there will be surprises. It is a big world, it is a complicated world, and deception and denial are extensive. The surprise to me is not that there are and will be surprises, but that we are surprised that there are surprises. It is my view we must recognize that surprises will occur and take the necessary steps to see that our country is arranged to deal with the risks that the inevitable surprises inevitably will pose.
The second key factor is the extensive foreign assistance, technology transfer and foreign trade in ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction capabilities. Foreign trade and foreign assistance are, in our view, not a "wild card." They are facts. The contention that there are nations with "indigenous ballistic missile development programs" is, in our view, not correct. We don't know of one such nation. There may not have been a truly indigenous ballistic missile development program since Mr. Goddard. The countries of interest are helping each other. They are doing it for a variety of reasons -- some strategic, some financial. Technology transfer is not rare or unusual, it is pervasive.
The intelligence community has a difficult assignment. There are more actors, more programs and more facilities to monitor than was the case during the Cold War. Their assets are spread somewhat thinly across many priorities. Methodological adjustments relative to collecting and analyzing evidence is, in our view, not keeping up with the pace of events. We approached our assignment not as intelligence analysts, but as policymakers, with decades of experience in dealing with the intelligence community and its products. As such, we approached it in a way that was different from the normal intelligence analyst's approach. Therefore, it should not be surprising that our conclusions diverged from earlier community estimates.
Specifically, Russia and China have emerged as major suppliers of technology to a number of countries. There is the advent and acceleration of trade among second-tier powers to the point that the development of these capabilities may well have become self- sustaining.
For example, today they each have various capabilities the others do not. As they trade - whether it's knowledge, systems, components, or technicians -- the result is that they benefit from each other and are able to move forward on development paths that are notably different from ours or that of the Soviet Union, and they are able to move at a more rapid pace.
To characterize the programs of target nations as "high-risk," it seems to me, is a misunderstanding of the situation. These countries do not need the accuracies the U.S. required. They do not have the same concerns about safety that the U.S. has. Nor do they need the high volumes the U.S. acquired. As a result, they are capable of using technologies, techniques and even equipment that the U.S. would have rejected as too primitive as much as three decades ago. Whether called "high risk" or not, let there be no doubt but that they are rapidly and successfully developing the capabilities necessary to threaten the United States.
Since January, 1998 when we began our assignment, we have seen the Pakistani Ghauri missile launch, Indian nuclear tests, Pakistani nuclear tests, Iran's Shahab 3 test and, most recently, the North Korean TD-1 space launch vehicle effort, to mention but a few events. There has not been a month that has passed where there has not been some event or new information that has reinforced the reality of the extensive technology transfer taking place, or a new surprise because of the sophistication of these countries' deception and denial and their increasing skill at keeping the U.S. from knowing what it is they are doing and where they are doing it.
The recent TD-1 space launch vehicle test is an object lesson and also a warning. Many were skeptical for technical reasons that the TD- 1 could fly at all. It had been the conventional wisdom that "staging" and systems integration were too complex and difficult for countries such as North Korea to accomplish in any near time frame. Yet North Korea demonstrated staging twice.
The third stage solid motor and the satellite were both a surprise. The U.S. was aware that a launch was going to take place, but not that the TD-1 would have a third stage, and certainly not that they would attempt to put a satellite in low-earth orbit. So, while anticipating a flight of a TD-1, none of us anticipated this type of a flight.
The question is, does this bring North Korea to an ICBM capability? The intelligence community is estimating that the system tested is somewhere in a 4,000- to 6,000-kilometer range. ICBM range is in that neighborhood. That means that a three-staged TD-1 might be able to reach Alaska and parts of the western-most Hawaiian Islands. This range, however, was not what was expected of a TD-1. Rather, it is what was expected of their follow-on missile, the TD-2.
How much further might a three-staged North Korean TD- 1 fly? That, of course, is a function of the payload type and size, the weight of the materials used and the number of stages. It would not be surprising if the range/payload calculations suggest that a three-staged TD-1 has a potential greater than that of a 5,500-kilometer ICBM. Overcoming the failure in the third stage should be manageable, and reentry vehicle technology is on the open market.
Even if calculations indicate the TD-I cannot reach beyond Alaska and Hawaii with a useful payload, their recent launch does suggest that, because of their demonstrated technical proficiency, the TD-2 will be more capable than had been thought.
In short, the likelihood that a TD-2 will be successfully tested has gone up considerably since the August 31st flight. The likelihood that a TD-2 flight will exceed $,000 to 6,000 kilometers in range with a useful payload has gone up as well. And, the likelihood that we will not know very much in advance of a launch what a TD-2 will be capable of continues to be high.
Now, what I have said about North Korea is interesting, but given the reality of technology transfer, what happens in North Korea also is important with respect to, for example, Iran. If North Korea has the capability, it has now demonstrated, we can be certain that they will offer that capability to other countries, including Iran. That has been their public posture. It has been their private behavior. They are very, very active marketing ballistic missile technologies.
In addition, Iran not only has assistance from North Korea, but it also has assistance from Russia and China, which creates additional options and development paths for them.
What does this all mean by way of warning? Well, it powerfully reinforces our Commission's conclusions that technology transfer is pervasive and that deception and denial work. Further, it points up the fact that longer range ballistic missiles are increasingly attractive to a number of countries because the world knows from the Gulf War that combating Western armies, air forces and navies is not a wise choice.
This reality makes threats such as terrorism, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles more attractive. They are cheaper than armies and air forces. They are attainable. And ballistic missiles have the advantage of being able to arrive at their destination undefended.
We concluded unanimously that we are in an environment of little or no warning. We believe that arguments to the contrary are not supported by the facts.
This led us to our unanimous recommendation that U.S. analyses, practices and policies that depend on expectations of extended warning of deployment be reviewed and, as appropriate, revised to reflect the reality of an environment in which there may be little or no warning. Specifically, we believe the Department of State should review its policies and priorities, including non-proliferation activities; the intelligence community should review U.S. collection capabilities, given their more complex task; and last, that the defense establishment should review both U.S. offensive and defensive capabilities and any strategies based on extended warning.
In short, we are in a new circumstance and the policies and approaches that were appropriate when we could rely on extended warning no longer apply.
Thank you very much, Mr, Chairman. Dr. Blechman, Dr. Graham and I are available to respond m questions.