SEN. THURMOND: (Sounds gavel.) The committee will come to order. The committee meets today to receive testimony from the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. I would like to welcome the Honorable Donald S. Rumsfeld, chairman of the commission, and the rest of the commissioners joining us today.

Let me begin by congratulating the commission on a job well done. In my view the Rumsfeld Commission has made a significant and valuable contribution -- not only to our understanding of the emerging ballistic missile threat to the United States, but also to any consideration that may be given to strengthening and reforming the U.S. intelligence community.

Simply stated, the Rumsfeld Commission has fundamentally changed the debate on the ballistic missile threat. Through its comprehensive assessment and lack of bureaucratic inertia, the commission produced a report that is filled with insight and valuable judgment.

I hope that in the wake of the commission we will begin a comprehensive reassessment throughout the United States government of existing and (charged ?) assessments regarding the emerging ballistic missile threat and the policies that stem from such assessments. I hope that we all heed the commission's unanimous recommendation. I quote, "The U.S. analyses, practices and policies have been 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," end quote.

Following the opening statement, it will be my intention to proceed to a single round of questions in open session. Following that round of questions we'll move to SH-219 for a closed session.

Before recognizing Chairman Rumsfeld for his opening remarks, let me turn to the ranking member. I don't believe he's here. Senator Robb, go ahead.

SEN. CHUCK ROBB (D-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask that when the ranking member does arrive that he be permitted to make an opening statement. I'll have no opening statement at this point myself. I'll have a statement that I will submit for the record, but I join you in welcoming this distinguished panel, and thanking those who are members of the Rumsfeld Commission for a very provocative and important and timely wake-up call to all of us who have policy responsibilities in that regard.

And at that point, Mr. Chairman, I will yield to the ranking member who is now here, for whom I was simply marking time. (Laughter.)

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Levin?

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman --

SEN. ROBB: Take your rightful place, senator.

SEN. LEVIN: -- and my acting ranking member, thank you. Senator Robb is always for filling in --

SEN. THURMOND: He'll take your seat if you want him. (Laughter.)

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you. I'll be very brief, but let me join the chairman, and I know Senator Robb, in welcoming the members of the commission, thanking you for your work. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling the meeting. I think it's the first opportunity this particular committee has had at least to hear from Secretary Rumsfeld and his fellow commissioners, and we are looking forward to it.

There are a number of threats to our security, and to the security of our armed forces and our citizens and our allies overseas, including threats posed by ballistic missiles. And we do need to assess each of these threats, and understand both their likelihood and their consequences, so we can determine the best course of action in response. In this report of the Rumsfeld Commission will help us to better understand one of these threats, and we very much appreciate all of your efforts.

SEN. THURMOND: Now we are to begin. I think probably we'll have about five minutes each. And if you have a long statement, the whole thing will go into the record. Mr. Rumsfeld, we'll be glad to hear from you.

 

STATEMENT OF

DONALD RUMSFELD
Chairman, Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile
Threat to the United States

 

MR. RUMSFELD: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you see here at the table, we have a total of four commissioners. We are expecting Dr. Wolfowitz to come shortly. And several of the commissioners were not able to make it -- Dr. Bill Snyder (sp) and General Lee Butler and Jim Woolsey -- all of whom serve with distinction as members of this commission.

As you know, we were created by the 1997 Authorization Act. We delivered our report in July. It was a very brief, unclassified report, and a rather lengthy classified report, which as I understand it we'll be discussing the classified version later this afternoon.

Nominated by both the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership, the commissioners came to this with different views. They spent some six months and 200 briefings. And, as General Welch likes to say, the facts finally overrode all of our biases and drove us to a unanimous set of conclusion and a unanimous recommendation.

As Mr. Levin points out, we looked at the emerging and current ballistic missile threat. We did not look at other threats. We concentrated on the threat to the United States. We examined the various countries, both as buyers and sellers and users of technology, as well as the state of domestic capability with respect to development of ballistic missile. We consulted with technical, area, functional and policy experts. We commissioned work to look at technical aspects as to what was possible, various approaches to missile development. And we examined the availability of nuclear and biological weapon capabilities.

Very briefly, I will just summarize our conclusions, that obviously China and Russia continue to pose a threat, although very different threats. But they are each on somewhat uncertain paths. North Korea and Iran, we concluded unanimously, could pose a threat to the United States within five years of a decision to do so, to develop that capability, and the U.S. might not know for several year whether or not such a decision had been taken.

With respect to Iraq, we concluded that it could be within 10 years, but that was based on the assumption that the UNSCOM sanctions and inspections would be in place, and increasingly it appears that they will not be in place, and as such we would certainly lump them with North Korea and Iran in the same timeframe.

We concluded that emerging capabilities are broader, more mature, and evolving more rapidly than had bee reported, and that the intelligence community's ability to provide timely estimates is being eroded. We concluded that the warning time of deployment of the ballistic missile threat to the United States is reduced; and in some scenarios we see it as deployment could occur with little or no warning. That is to say we unanimously assessed the circumstance our country is in as one of little or no warning.

The nature of the problem, very briefly, is that emerging powers are secretive about their programs. They are increasingly sophisticated. Deception and denial is extensive. Nations are trading capabilities with respect to deception and denial. They know more than we would like them to know about the sources and methods of our collection -- partly through espionage -- and they use that knowledge to good effect in hiding their programs.

We have concluded that there will be surprised, that it is a big world, it is a complicated world, that deception and denial is extensive, and that the only surprise is that we are surprised that there are surprises. They will occur, and we need to be arranged to deal with the risks that such surprises impose.

Second is foreign assistance -- technology transfer, foreign trade -- in these capabilities -- ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Foreign trade and foreign assistance is not a wild card -- it is a fact. The idea that there are indigenous ballistic missile developments is not correct. There aren't. There probably has not been an indigenous ballistic missile development since Mr. Goddard. These countries are helping each other, and they are doing it for a variety of reasons -- some strategic some financial. But it is pervasive.

The intelligence community as a difficult assignment. There are more actors, more programs, more facilities to monitor than was the case during the Cold War. They 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 approach this not as intelligence analysts, but as policymakers, and we approached it in a way that was different from the normal intelligence evaluation.

Russia and China have emerged as major suppliers of technology to a great many countries. There is the advent and acceleration of trade among second-tier powers to the point that the development of these capabilities is almost self-sustaining; that is to say that they now each have various things that they know others don't know, and to the extent they trade them, whether it's knowledge or physical pieces of equipment, or elements or components or technicians -- the result is that they are able to move forward in a development path that is vastly different from ours, vastly different from the Soviet Union's, and certainly considerably more rapid.

To characterize it as high risk it seems to me is a misunderstanding of the situation. They do not need the accuracies the United States required of itself. They do not care about the safety that the United States cares about. They do not need the volumes that the United States needed. So they are perfectly capable of using technologies or approaches or techniques, or even equipment, that we would rejected as too primitive two decades ago, and still have a capability of threatening the United States.

Since January 1998 when we began this process, we've seen the Pakistani Ghauri launch, we've seen the Indian nuclear test, we have seen the Pakistani nuclear test, we have seen the Indian Shahab-3 (sp) test, we have seen the North Korean TD1 space launch vehicle effort. There has practically been no month that has gone by that hasn't reinforced the reality of extensive technology transfer and that's reinforced the sophistication of other countries' deception and denial and ability to prevent the United States from knowing what it is they are doing.

The TD1 space launch vehicle test recently is an object lesson and also a warning. Many were skeptical for technical reasons that the TD1 could fly at all. The first flight demonstrated staging which it had been conventional wisdom in the United States that staging was extremely complex, very difficult for countries such as North Korea to undertake -- and yet they demonstrated staging twice. The third stage, solid motor and satellite, were both a surprise; that is to say the United States was aware that a launch was going to take place, but certainly not that the TD1 would have a third stage, and certainly not that a TD1 would make an attempt to put a satellite in low Earth orbit. So even anticipating, as it did, the flight of the TD1, none of us anticipated this type of a flight.

I suppose the question is what does this -- does this bring North Korea to an ICBM capability? The intelligence community is estimating that at something like a four to six thousand kilometer range, an ICBM range is in that neighborhood. That means that a three-stage TD1 might be able to reach Alaska and parts of westernmost Hawaiian Islands. This, however, was not what was expected of a TD1; it was what was expected of a TD2, which is the follow-on missile. How much further might a three-stage TD1, North Korean TD1, fly? Well, that's a function of payload size; it's a function of materials that are used; it's a function of the number of stages and the type of payload; and I suppose the weight of the fuselage -- whether they use aluminum or some lighter metal.

It would not be surprising if the range payload calculations suggest that the three-stage TD1 has a potential greater than that of a 5,500 kilometer ICBM. Overcoming the failure in third stage should be manageable. Re-entry vehicle technology is on the open market. But even if calculations prove the TD1 cannot reach beyond Alaska and Hawaii with a useful payload, it does suggest the technical proficiency of North Korea when it takes up the TD2 -- and it will be higher and more capable than we thought.

The likelihood that a TD2 will be successfully tested has gone up considerably since the August 31st flight. The likelihood that it will exceed five to six thousand kilometers in range with a useful payload has also gone up. The likelihood that we will not know much in advance of the event -- what a TD2 would be capable of -- continues to be high.

Now, I would make the point that that is interesting about North Korea; but, given the nature of technology transfer in the world, it also is interesting with respect to for example Iran. If North Korea has the capability it's demonstrated, you can be absolutely certain that they will offer that capability and make it available to other countries, including Iran. That has been their public posture, it has been their private behavior. They are very, very active.

In addition, Iran not only North Korea's assistance, but it also has assistance from Russia and from the Chinese, that create a number of other options for them.

What does this all mean by way of warning? -- just in concluding. Well, it certainly reinforces our conclusions and our recommendation that technology transfer is pervasive, deception and denial works, that ballistic missiles are attractive to other countrihey are attractive because countries know from the Gulf War that dealing with the United States Army, the United States Air Force and the United States Navy is a very difficult task, and trying to overcome them with conventional capabilities is not likely. It makes other threats more attractive -- terrorism, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles -- and cruise missiles have the wonderful advantage of being able to arrive at their destination undefended.

We are in an environment of little or no warning. I think any argument to the contrary cannot be supported by the facts. It is our unanimous recommendation that, as the chairman pointed out, that the United States government recognize that that's the environment we are in and undertake a serious, thoughtful, prompt review of the entire national security community; that is to say the Department of State with respect to our policies and proliferation activities, with respect to the intelligence community and our collection capabilities, given the more complex tasks, and the defense establishment -- not just defense, but also offense. And review all of those premises and policies and approaches and strategies and tactics that are premised on an extended warning environment, because it does not exist. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. THURMOND: Thank you. Dr. -- (inaudible) -- do you have an opening statement?

DR. GARNIN: No. I support the chairman's statement, and I look forward to answering questions. I think that we have seen --

SEN. THURMOND: If you don't mind, speak in the loud speaker -- this is a big room -- hard to be heard.

DR. GARNIN: Yes. I think that we have seen in recent months, with the launch of the North Korean TD1 missile not only the staging that we were looking for as a step on the way to ICBM capability, but a three-stage missile -- and that worked quite well, despite the failure of the third stage to put a satellite into orbit. So we see that North Korea now has the ability to send small payloads to a considerable range, and it may be that they will test the Typodan II (sp) missile this year, which if successful could put a considerably larger payload to intercontinental range.

And we see also from the statements of Robert Walpole's (sp) speech just a week ago, which I thought was really quite frank and revealing -- he evaluated some of our scenarios, and he agreed that they are possible -- but we did not attach likelihood judgments to it. Walpole (sp), a national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, says that the intelligence community does attack likelihood judgments, and they advance their most likely estimates; but they also consider some of the others.

But sometimes, when you have a number of possibilities, it is not the most likely that comes to pass. And so we have to consider what can be done and what is being done. But the intelligence community goes on, especially John Gannon in his testimony yesterday, to say that it is very likely that North Korea will offer the Taepo Dong I for sale, as they did the Nodong itself even before it was tested, and that there will be willing buyers. So that is something that we need to look for also.

And finally, I would just like to note the existence of the other threats that Senator Levin mentioned and that we in our report acknowledged; that is, the launch of short-range ballistic or cruise missiles from ships, the terrorist smuggling of weapons, the detonation of nuclear warheads in harbors, and to quote here also Mr. Walpole, who says that adapting missiles for launch from a commercial ship could be accomplished covertly, and probably with little or no warning.

So I want to emphasize that our commission is unanimous on the threat. We are not in any way unanimous on what can be done about the threat because we have not seen appropriate responses. And in any case, we didn't study this as a group. So I stand ready to answer questions and look forward to it.

SEN. THURMOND: General Welch?

GEN. WELCH: I have nothing to add to the opening statement, sir.

SEN. THURMOND: Speak in the loudspeaker. This is a big room.

GEN. WELSH: I was saying I have nothing to add to the opening statement, sir.

MR. GRAMM: Mr. Chairman, I support the opening statements as well.

SEN. THURMOND: Now we'll go to questions. We'll have five minutes each senator, and I'll start off.

Secretary Rumsfeld, in a recent public speech, Mr. Robert Walpole, the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, stated that the intelligence community's methodology for assessing ballistic missile threats is really not different than that used by the commission. Mr. Walpole stated that, and I quote, "The biggest difference in methodology is that the intelligence community must attach (likelihood?) judgments to our projections. The commission did not." The question is, do you agree with this statement?

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I would have to have read it in the full context to know whether I agree or disagree, but I would say that there were a number of differences that I would cite. One is that the normal intelligence analyst has an opportunity to look in the compartments that relate to his particular area of responsibility. They do not have an opportunity generally to look across countries and across functions.

This commission, by virtue of the access we were provided, did have an opportunity to look at the most classified information, much of which is not seen by the general intelligence community across the full spectrum. And as a result, we had a perspective that is somewhat different. And if you're looking at somewhat different facts, it's not surprising you come to somewhat different conclusions. So I would say that the perspective we had was different from that which is normally the case in the intelligence community.

Second, the intelligence community is a big, broad place, and there are lots of people and they do things differently from each other frequently. And I think making a blanket statement that they used one methodology and we used another probably isn't a useful way to approach it. I know that this commission looked at alternative hypotheses consistently, and I know that the intelligence briefers who briefed us did not look at alternative hypotheses consistently.

Now, I can also cite an example where they did. There's one particular area where the briefers were first-rate, and they showed a whole series of alternative hypotheses and showed that their brains were working and they were thinking and they were looking at possibilities and they were coming to judgments and evaluations. On the other hand, we were briefed by a number of people who didn't -- I'll just say didn't -- (laughter) -- to be courteous.

Now, I suppose Mr. Walpole can have his view and we can have our view. But we felt there was clearly a difference in approach by the members of this commission. We're not intelligence analysts. We're people who've had several decades, each of us, as policymakers. And we approached it from that standpoint. We were willing to look at all the evidence. But the absence of evidence ought not to lead one to a conclusion that that is evidence of absence, because it is not. There have been too many surprises for anyone to believe that.

I still generally -- I thought Mr. Walpole's remarks, the ones that I saw, the portions of it that I saw at the Carnegie Foundation or Institute, were really quite forthcoming and reflected a great deal of what we had in our report.

SEN. THURMOND: Any other commission members have any comment on that question?

MR. GARNIN: I think that the intelligence community, as reflected by the Walpole speech a week ago, has come a long ways. And I think there would not be all of the disputes that there have been over the 1995 estimate if it had been couched in the same terms that Mr. Walpole used in his September 17 speech. So I've read the whole thing and I do not have a lot of dispute with it. He says, for instance, that he judges that we would agree with the projection that the Taepo Dong I and Taepo Dong II could be tested this year. And that's right.

And now they seem to agree that once there has been a successful test, any missiles of that type could be used as if they were deployed. There are also indications that there are deployment facilities for these missiles, even if they are not yet ready for use. So there may not be a lot of warning. And, in fact, the current projections are that the Taepo Dong II would be tested as early as the year 2002, which is surely a long time ahead of 2010.

SEN. THURMOND: Next question. Secretary Rumsfeld, the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs recently stated that, and I quote, "Although the launch of the Taepo Dong I as a missile was expected for some time, its use as a space-launch vehicle with a third stage was not." In your view, how significant was this missile test? And how significant is it that the intelligence community did not foresee some of the more significant aspects of the test?

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, first I would say that it's significant for several reasons. It's significant first because it's another surprise. And I think it reinforces the point that we cannot expect that we're going to know everything that's going on in the world. It was, as he said, unanticipated that it would be an SLV, space-launch vehicle. And it was unanticipated that it would have a third stage, although they apparently made no effort to hide the fact that they were going to launch a missile, so everyone in the world who was looking was able to be aware of that.

I think it is significant for the fact that it demonstrates that those who have argued in the past that the North Koreans or other so- called rogue countries or undeveloped countries with other problems, like famine and various other things, are not capable of doing things like staging, not capable of doing systems integration, not capable of developing ICBMs and weapons of mass destruction, are wrong, that those countries are capable of doing that. And if they set their mind to it and if they take advantage of the foreign assistance available to them and time passes, they're going to get there. And they are getting there.

And I think it's also significant because it was done by a country that is the loudest, most public, most visible, most vociferous marketer of ballistic missile technology on the face of the earth. And that means that it is significant well beyond North Korea.

SEN. THURMOND: Any other commissioners have any comment on that?

MR. GARMNIN: I would like to correct what I said. In the March 1998 report to the Congress, it was noted that both the TD-1 and TD-2 could be flight-tested in 1998 with operational deployment of the Taepo Dong I as early as the year 2001 and the Taepo Dong II as early as the year 2002. So I misspoke. I said flight tests both this year and the year 2002. But its operational deployment was predicted as early as the year 2002.

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Levin.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, am I correct that the commission did not look at other threats beside the threat of ballistic missiles to the United States?

MR. RUMSFELD: Our charter ran to ballistic missiles, and we included weapons of mass destruction. But we did not get into terrorism or cruise missiles.

SEN. LEVIN: Weapons of mass destruction that would be delivered by ballistic missiles?

MR. RUMSFELD: (Off mike.)

SEN. LEVIN: Pardon?

MR. RUMSFELD: Exactly.

SEN. LEVIN: Okay. So non-ballistic missile means of delivery such as airplanes, trucks, ships, were not looked at. Is that correct?

MR. RUMSFELD: Not in our charter.

SEN. LEVIN: Right. Am I also correct in my understanding that the commission was not tasked to nor did it examine the questions of what actions could or should be taken in response to ballistic missile threats to the United States?

MR. RUMSFELD: Except for our recommendation, which was that because of this changed circumstance we're living in, we believe that both policies and procedures and strategy should be reviewed and, as appropriate, revised. We did not -- were not asked to and did not look at responses.

SEN. LEVIN: For instance, did you take any position relative to the national missile defense program that we now have?

MR. RUMSFELD: No position on any response -- offensive or defensive, including diplomatic, including that one, certainly.

SEN. LEVIN: Did the commission conclude that any of the emerging ballistic missile powers, including North Korea and Iran, would deploy a long-range ballistic missile without first testing it? Did you take a position on that, the likelihood that there would first be a test of a long-range missile before those countries deployed it?

MR. RUMSFELD: We observed that other countries are using approaches and development patterns that are vastly different than the United States or the old Soviet Union. We pointed out that a country had had one test flight and then deployed, which was unusual. We pointed out that it's possible to test-fly in someone else's country, which is not the normal thing, in which case you might not even know there was a test flight.

We pointed out that some country could sell (turnkey?) an entire system to a country. We pointed out that a country could place their ballistic missiles, as we did in Europe and as the Soviet Union tried to in Cuba, on someone else's real estate and end up with the capability. I don't recall precisely if we addressed the question as you quite narrowly cast it.

SEN. LEVIN: By the way, any other members of the commission who want to jump in on any of these questions, I won't ask if you want to; just do it.

MR. GARNIN: We did judge that the Nodong was deployed at about the same time that it was tested. It was certainly sold by then. And it might be that there would be a number of missiles, long-range missiles, multi-stage missiles, deployed or available at the time of the test. But I personally did not believe that there would be a widespread deployment before a successful flight test. I thought that would be rash even for these countries. MR. GRAMM: Just to emphasize the variations of themes here, Senator Levin, we did note that apparently Saudi Arabia has an operational deployment of the Chinese CSS-2 missile. And as far as we know, there have been no tests of the CSS-2 from Saudi Arabia.

SEN. LEVIN: Well, I wanted to exclude the purchase and sale of a complete system. Other than that, did your commission assess the likelihood that a country would indigenously produce and deploy a long-range missile without first testing it somewhere, either from their own country or on some other country's land mass, or from a ship, for that matter?

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I can say this, that I don't believe there is a single commissioner who thinks there is such a thing as an indigenous ballistic missile development program.

SEN. LEVIN: All right. Let me just ask it a little differently.

MR. RUMSFELD: They just don't exist.

SEN. LEVIN: All right. Do you think that a missile would be deployed without having been tested? I'm not asking do you think. Did the commission reach any conclusion on the likelihood that one of these emerging countries would deploy a missile that had not been tested somewhere? Did your commission reach any conclusion on that is my question. I'm not challenging the conclusion. I'm asking whether there was a conclusion, if you remember. Maybe you could give us that for the record, if you'd like.

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I don't want to do it for the record. I'd like to do it right now. But I guess my problem with the question is that the answer is yes to almost every piece. But whether it's yes to the aggregation of elements you've posed, I can't recall whether the commission ever cast it that way.

SEN. LEVIN: Okay. Mr. Chairman, I would ask consent that the speech which has been referred to by a number of our witnesses, and indeed by our chairman, that Mr. Walpole's speech of the 17th of September be inserted in our record. It's been recognized, I think, as a thoughtful speech by our witnesses here. I thought it was, too. It's very interesting. And the chairman indeed himself referred to it. So I would ask that that speech be made part of the record.

SEN. THURMOND: Without objection, so ordered.

SEN. LEVIN: I want to thank again our witnesses. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up.

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Inhofe.

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, Mr. Rumsfeld, let me just tell you that I kind of welcome the statement that you made twice during that line of questioning when you say an indigenous system doesn't exist. I've tried to express that without the proper scientific background to be believable. And yet they keep using that, you know. We do know there are missiles that will reach the United States of America. They're out there today.

We know that there are weapons of mass destruction. We know that countries like China are trading technology and systems with countries like Iran. And for that reason, if you look at what is possible, it's possible for them to sell a system to a country like that, and that country could use it. And so it would take no indigenous development to make that happen. Wouldn't that be correct as a possibility?

MR. RUMSFELD: There is no question but that's correct, that it is perfectly possible for one country to sell an entire missile system to another country, and it's happened. It's possible for a country to place their ballistic missiles on another country's real estate, not sell it to them but help to defend them. And that's happened.

It's possible to launch these things from ships. It's possible to do part-indigenous and part-purchase. It's possible to do all kinds of mixing and matching. And that's what's basically going on in the world. I just don't think that it's relevant to talk about indigenous ballistic missile development in this day and age.

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you. General Welch, do you have any comment about that?

GEN. WELSH: Well, I agree with that.

SEN. INHOFE: Anyone disagree with that? Because that's important to me, this point.

GEN. GARNIN: Well, in Mr. Walpole's speech he said, "I must tell you that we consider foreign assistance to be fundamental to the threat, not merely an incidental aspect of the problem." Now, just because we agree more with Mr. Walpole doesn't mean that the truth is someplace in between. We might both be wrong. But I think the likelihood is less when there is more agreement than when there is great disagreement.

SEN. INHOFE: I chair the Readiness Subcommittee and have taken quite an interest in this. And when your commission released its findings, I was very interested. One reason is it confirmed everything I believe. But I wrote a letter after that to General Shelton, and he responded. And I'm going to read to you a portion of this letter, and I'd like to have each one of you respond to this. I'm doing this early on in my questioning, because apparently we just have one round and it's only five minutes.

So, a paragraph -- a portion of the letter, in the second paragraph, talking about the commission's findings. This is a letter to me, dated the 24th of August. That's seven days before the deployment of TD-1. From General Shelton to me.

"We remain confident that the intelligence community can provide the necessary warning of the indigenous development and deployment by a rogue state of an ICBM threat to the United States. For example, we believe that North Korea continues moving closer to the initiation of a Taepo Dong-1 medium-range ballistic missile testing program. That program has been predicted and considered in the current examinations. The commission" -- that's your commission -- "points out that through unconventional high-risk development programs in foreign assistance, rogue nations could acquire an ICBM capability in a short time, and that the intelligence community may not detect it. We view this as an unlikely development."

I'd like to ask you, if you'd each one respond as to your feelings about the accuracy of that statement.

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, General Shelton was kind enough to send me a copy, which I sent to the members of the commission some time ago, in late August. I will respond this way. With respect to the first point he makes, he says "we have some different perspectives on likely development timelines and associated warning times." We agree with that. We do, we differ from his assessment, which I understand from this letter is the Chiefs' assessment.

Second, it says "After carefully considering the report, we remain confident that the intelligence community can provide the necessary warning of indigenous development and deployment by a rogue state of an ICBM threat to the United States."

We don't disagree with that. That is to say, if there were such a thing as an indigenous development program, we probably would be able to track it, and provide adequate warning. The problem with it is, an indigenous development program doesn't exist. What is stated here, is an illogical premise. And you can proceed perfectly logically, to an illogical conclusion. And that's where that would take you.

Next section. It says, as you quoted, that the commission points out that "through unconventional high-risk development programs and foreign assistance, rogue nations could acquire an ICBM capability in a short time, and that the intelligence community may not detect it. We view this as an unlikely development."

We do not view it as unlikely. We view it as a fact. It's all happened. First of all, "unconventional development program," is what all those countries are doing, if we're what's conventional. No country is going to do what we did. We had totally difference interests in accuracies, and survivability, and in volumes.

Second, "high-risk development programs." They couldn't care less about safety. Naturally it's high risk. To characterize it as high risk, and therefore it doesn't exist as a threat, would be wrong.

Next it says, "and foreign assistance.'' Well, of course there's foreign assistance. It's happening every day, it's happening as we sit here. "Rogue nations could acquire an ICBM capability." They ARE acquiring an ICBM capability. So, I underline: we do not view it as unlikely. We view it as a fact of life that's happening all across the globe. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Garwin first, and then General Welsh, and Bill Graham.

MR. GARNIN: Well, fortunately, there is a direct threat from only a few of the countries that are interested in ballistic missiles. And those are dedicated enemies of the United States, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Other countries are interested, but India and Pakistan don't pose a threat to the United States.

However, they do pose an indirect threat, because the developments in Pakistan, for instance, are linked to those in North Korea. For instance, a test of a Nodong or Gauree (ph) missile, can feed back to the capabilities of North Korea. And furthermore, there may be, if these countries are outside the pale, outside the interaction with the United States, they may share not only missile technology, but nuclear technology and materials, which can be a big problem.

So yes, the idea of totally indigenous development is a red herring. That's not what we are talking about. We are talking about a great deal of foreign assistance, mutual assistance, and assistance from other countries that have advanced ballistic missiles, such as Russia.

SEN. INHOFE: My time is expiring, and so there's no time to get a response. Do each one of you two other gentlemen generally agree with the responses given by Mr. Rumsfeld and Dr. Garwin (ph)? MR. GRAMM: Yes.

MR. WELSH: Well, I would just add one point, and that is that there is a natural tendency to mirror-image. And I think that when we see estimates like that, that is, that we will see this chain of events unfold, so that we're not surprised, we're mirror-imaging. We'll assume they'll do things the way we did things. And I think it's very important. And we see the community moving away from this mirror-imaging. SEN. : The last question I have, just take one or two words to answer, and that is I think you've said that the threat, when you're measuring it by country, North Korea was five years -- I mean, you're using five years. Did this development, the deployment that took place the other day, change that in your mind?

MR. RUMSFELD: No, because our report assessed North Korea as being capable of developing an ICBM to threaten the United States, within five years of a decision to do so, and that we might not very well know when that decision was made. It could have been made four years ago.

SEN. INHOFE: I see.

MR. GRAMM: So it was that calculation. The only thing I would add, is that the last paragraph that you didn't mention, they point out that these rogue nations currently posing a threat by using weapons of mass destruction, through unconventional terrorist-style delivery means. And of course, that's true. But the fact that there are other threats, as Senator Levin pointed out, doesn't diminish the ballistic missile threat.

SEN. INHOFE: Yes. I've fought that on the floor several times.

MR. GRAMM: Senator Inhofe, I would only add that the thing I find most disturbing about General Shelton's (ph) letter on his judgment that they consider the circumstance of acquiring an ICBM capability with less than, say, three years' warning to be unlikely, is that if you changed "ICBM" to "medium- ballistic missile," then the circumstance he describes as unlikely, has in fact already occurred.

The North Koreans produced and deployed the Nodal (ph), the immediate predecessor of the Taepo Dong-1 (ph). And the U.S. basically understood what had transpired, about three years after the deployment, not three years before the deployment.

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my time has expired.

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Lieberman.

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D-CT): Thanks, Mr. Chairman, Secretary Rumsfeld. Gentlemen, thanks very much for the work that you did on this report, which I think makes a substantial contribution to a growing debate here, and hopefully across the country. I think it's a clarion call.

We have ourselves in an unusual thicket on this matter here in Congress. We've acknowledged that there's a problem. We're appropriating substantial amounts of money to develop ballistic missile defense, though we're comfortable only talking about theater missile defense, not national missile defense, presumably because of a difference of opinion about how that will affect the ABM Treaty, which of course is now almost 25 years old, and was arrived at in a very different geopolitical strategic context.

And we've got ourselves committed to this so-called 3 plus 3 program, where presumably by the year 2000, we will be able to decide whether to deploy within three years, if the threat justifies. But no one really thinks that's realistic any more, in the sense that no one thinks we're going to be ready, as the current programs go, by the year 2000.

So, somehow, we've got to break away. Perhaps this really does require us to focus on the ABM, and figure out how we can begin to renegotiate that with the Russians, which is what the concerns are around here.

It seems to me, that in the recent trip the president made to Moscow, there was actually an agreement to share some information with the Russians about the launches that might be occurring elsewhere in the globe, using our own better-developed reconnaissance systems. And, you know, that's the beginning, I think, of a recognition that we may have more of a mutual interest here than a hostile interest with the Russians.

Anyway, I hope that your sobering statement here, will break us out of this policy gridlock we're in. And let me just ask a few questions. And of course, this goes directly to the differing estimates you've made, about the nearness of the threat to the nation, national threat to the United States, as compared to what is accepted within the intelligence community, and what we've been hearing.

In your report, you say that the commission used an expanded methodology, which provides -- and I'm quoting here -- "insights into emerging threats that the prevailing approaches used by the intelligence community may not bring to the surface."

Could you amplify on that a bit, that is, as to your methodology, and which may in part explain the difference of estimates between yourselves and what we're hearing from the intelligence community.

MR. RUMSFELD: I'd like to ask Dr. Graham or General Welch to comment on it, either one.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Dr. Gramm.

MR. GRAMM: Well, as our chairman, Mr. Rumsfeld, said, we really had the benefit of the full cooperation from the Director of Central Intelligence. And because of that, we had access to all of the compartments of intelligence, more on the issue of the ballistic missile threat.

I believe that possibly, with the exception of the DCI and one or two very senior officials, no one else in the community, including the (All-Source ?) analysts, had that thorough an access. So, that was one difference in approach we had.

Second, we were willing to look at a variety of hypotheses, which is what we called an alternative hypothesis analysis, in part because the nine of us came to the commission with a variety of biases and working assumptions on what was going on. And we tested those against the data continually. And when we couldn't resolve a difference, we went back and acquired more data, or investigated the briefings more thoroughly, until we could come to a resolution of it.

Third, we were very careful to not confuse the absence of a piece of information, with the confirmation that that piece of information did not exist. As the chairman cited, we tried not to confuse evidence of absence with absence of evidence.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: That's a quotable quote.

MR. GRAMM: I don't think it's original with any of us. But it's -- nonetheless, it's an easy problem to fall into, and so we were continually on the alert for that. And finally, we were willing to do "what if?" excursions, which apparently are somewhat beyond the cultural norms in the intelligence community today.

For example, we learned that the Iranians had received RD-214 engine technology from Russia. This engine is used both in a medium- range ballistic missile that the Russians make, the SS-4, and also in a space launch vehicle, the SL-7. And so, we asked the intelligence community what capability the Iranians might be able to develop, based on the RD-214 engine. And the answer we got back, as best I could understand it, was, "we don't know, because we haven't seen them build an ICBM or a ballistic missile with the RD-214 engine yet."

And we said, "We understand that. But just assume for a moment, that they are building a longer-range rocket with the RD- 214. We know enough about its performance, that you should be able to say something about its range payload characteristics. What are they?" And they told us that they didn't ask that kind of question, unless they saw the Iranians building such a system.

So, we took funds that the Congress had provided for the commission, and went back to the technical community, and had them range payload calculations on RD-214 engine variants. And we included those in our report. So, that was definitely a methodological difference.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: My time's expired. I want to ask you one follow-up quick question, if I may, with my colleagues' permission, which is what would you say to critics who would say that the report is base don worst-case assumptions?

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, what I would say is that the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate picked nine people, all of whom had spent 20 or 30 years in public policy and military and intelligence products, and intelligence community activities. And they spent six months, 200 briefings, over 300 briefers, and they came out unanimous.

And anyone who suggests that it's worst-case, hasn't read it.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Smith.

SEN. ROBERT SMITH (R-NH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. INHOFE: Could I ask unanimous consent and request in here, that I meant to submit for the record the letter from General Shelton to me, dated the 24th of August. I'd like to ask that it be put in at the conclusion of my questioning. Thank you very much.

SEN. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I would also ask unanimous consent that the commission executive summary, the non-classified version, be also placed in the record, next to the Walpole (ph) speech that was put in by Senator Levin.

SEN. THURMOND: Without objection, so ordered.

SEN. SMITH: I really feel obligated, Mr. Secretary, to you and to all of your members, to say thank you for the job that you did. I think the recent events have really demonstrated your accuracy and your conclusions. I'm glad that we have this to rely on, especially since it was a bipartisan commission of very respected people.

I'd like to focus on a couple of areas. You certainly refuted any theory about an indigenous development, and I'd certainly agree with you. Can you comment on what you found regarding the decontrolling of certain strategic technologies by our own government? Can you find any linkage between those decontrolling efforts, and some of the technology that is now possibly going to be used against us? Any direct correlation there?

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I'll make a very brief statement, and then possibly some of the other commissioners will have some examples. But Dr. Bill Snyder (ph), who wasn't able to be here today, is a leading expert on that subject. And I would simply say that when the Cold War ended, the world relaxed. And the United States and other countries went through a period where they decontrolled a good many things.

The things they still controlled, they possibly did not track as vigorously as they had previously. The extent to which students come to the United States, the extent to which international symposia occur, and people talk, and answer questions, and exchange. The extent to which international commerce, the extent to which dual-use technologies are available. Probably the United States has to be ranked right up near the top in a supplier of things, information, processes, technologies, that can, in some instances, end up in the wrong hands.

Honestly, I've thought about this a good deal. And it is so pervasive, that it is increasingly clear to me, that thinking that that's not going to happen in a relaxed world of global commerce, I think is unrealistic. I think that what we need to do as a country, is to recognize that it has happened, it is happening. That the endpoint is fixed -- that is to say, ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, and the ability to deliver it.

And every year that goes by, other countries get closer to it. And you can't say "Stop the world, I want to get off." I think what we have to do, is recognize that's where it's going, and see that we're arranged, and we have policies, and approaches, and capabilities, so that we can live with those increasing capabilities in the world.

SEN. SMITH: Anybody else have a comment on that?

MR. WELSH: Well, I just want to remind that the Taepo Dong launch shot was a space launch shot. And of course, there's no prescription against space launch capabilities.

MR. RUMSFELD: And the relationship between space launch capabilities and ICBM capabilities, is a short step.

MR. : Yes.

SEN. SMITH: What about the relationship between the intelligence community and the cinc, and the Joint Chiefs, and the policymakers? I'm, not asking you to comment on the policy, I know that's not what you're here for. But what about -- there's a striking contrast between what Senator Inhofe read in that letter and what the facts are. And yet is the intelligence community -- is there any evidence that this stuff is not getting up there to the policy people and the military leaders of our country? Is there some process that we're not fulfilling here?

MR. RUMSFELD: I can't speak to that question very effectively except to say that we did not create any information. All we did was look at information that is available in the community. Our conclusions were different in various ways from the 1995 NIE. They were different from the March 1998 report to Congress. And there are some differences with the speech that Mr. Walpole made very recently, although very modest.

Now, it's a moving target. These things have been happening. I can't believe that Senator Inhofe would get this same letter today after the North Korean launch. This was dated the 24th of August. The North Korean launch was the 31st. Now, we happened to conclude it well before the North Korean launch.

SEN. SMITH: Well, he did say they might get it in a short time, so it was only a week.

MR. RUMSFELD: Yeah, that's right. No, I think the information is available. And I can't explain the differences. And I will only say this. I will bet a dollar to a dime when the 1999 March report to Congress comes out that it'll be different from the 1998.

SEN. SMITH: I hope so.

MR. GRAMM: Senator Smith, might I add one thing?

SEN. SMITH: Yes, sir.

MR. GRAMM: That while the Taepo Dong I, in the three-stage configuration, can reach intercontinental ranges, ranges greater than 5500 kilometers -- and with some payloads, small payloads, can reach much of the United States, certainly the northwestern part, and perhaps can reach Alaska with payloads large enough to include small nuclear weapons -- the Taepo Dong II is a substantially bigger missile, and in a three-stage configuration should be able to carry a nuclear weapon to essentially any place in the United States. And today we are potentially one Taepo Dong II test away from the North Koreans having that capability, as we described in our report. That test could take place at any time.

SEN. SMITH: My time has expired. I just have one last question, if you could comment on it. Is it your conclusion that North Korea is the leader here in this technology? Where would you put Iran and Iraq -- I mean, aside from China, where would you put Iran and Iraq on this scale here with North Korea? If you had to put them in order, where would you put them?

MR. RUMSFELD: You want to take that?

MR. GARNIN: We have put North Korea first, but Iran has a very substantial effort. And it's not at all clear that they won't overtake North Korea. But Iran is farther from the United States than is North Korea. So I don't think it's particularly important which one is ahead. Certainly in demonstrated capability, North Korea is far ahead. But how long they will hold that lead, I don't know.

On the test of the Taepo Dong II, they need to make some modifications in their test structure. And so it may not happen this year, but it could happen soon.

SEN. SMITH: I'm sorry. The interesting part about your -- the interesting observation to your comment is the intelligence community believes, quote/unquote, "in some ways" that Iraq is further along than North Korea.

MR. RUMSFELD: Iraq or Iran?

SEN. SMITH: Iraq, I believe.

MR. IRAQ: Iraq probably has more knowledge, but we'll see. Iraq, of course, is strongly suppressed by the existing U.N. restrictions and inspections. And only after those are lifted or abandoned will it make great progress.

MR. RUMSFELD: First of all, there's a lot we don't know about all of those countries, particularly Iran and North Korea. So asserting things is hard. Second, it's hard to do it in an open hearing.

SEN. SMITH: Well, it's interesting that Iraq is the most observed, supposedly, country in the world, and yet you can see where we are.

MR. RUMSFELD: Right. Our report did say that Iran's infrastructure is somewhat more advanced than North Korea's. And without question, Iran has been getting more assistance from Russia and China than has North Korea. Both countries hide a great deal of what they're doing. Therefore, we and the entire community are uncertain as to exactly where they are.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you.

SEN. THURMOND: Senator Snowe.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R-ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to welcome you, Mr. Secretary, and members of your commission. I want to thank you for the valuable service that you have rendered in our country and the contributions you have made on this very critical issue. Clearly your report should be a wakeup call to all of us in terms of the severity of this issue and the threat that it does pose to this country in the short term.

I'd like to follow up on the questions that were posed by Senator Lieberman on the whole issue of methodology, because obviously that methodology is what you really based your ultimate conclusions (on), and there is nothing equivocal about your conclusions with respect to the severity of the threat, that it's in the near term and not a distant threat.

So could you explain to the committee the variance again? You used a more comprehensive methodology, as I understand it, than CIA uses in analysis from a known starting point. Why is their methodology such that it underestimates the scope and the timeliness of the threat to the degree that it did with respect to your conclusions?

MR. RUMSFELD: Let me repeat something that I think is important, and I may have slipped over it too rapidly, and that is that there is no intelligence community. There are, you know, any number of entities and agencies and organizations. And within each, there are sub-elements and they do things differently. So it would be unfair to say that the intelligence community uses one methodology and we used another.

The reality is that the intelligence community uses a variety of methodologies. Our conclusion was that they tended to not use the approach of looking at alternative hypotheses to the extent that we felt it was appropriate. If you know certain things and you state certain things and then you draw your conclusions from those things you know, but it excludes some things you also know -- namely, that you don't know certain things -- I think it was Colin Powell who was quoted as saying, "Look, tell me what you know, tell me what you don't know, tell me what you think" -- and Larry Welch added, "And make darn sure you differentiate between the three." (Laughter.)

That's not bad advice, because you also know the things you don't know, and they can help you. If you know there's this blind area and you know this country is very successful at hiding things and you know that another country with which they have intimate relationships has done a certain thing that would advantage that country and you see airplanes flying back and forth between them and you see observers and visitors every time they have a test flight, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's entirely possible that some of that stuff from country B may very well end up in country A.

And even though you can't see it because they're tunneling and digging out mountains and doing things underground, the fact that you can't see it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And therefore, if you take the first approach, you're surprised when a Taepo Dong I is launched with three stages. If you take the second approach, you're not surprised because you know the nature of the world is going to mean that there will be surprises. And that is an attitudinal difference.

I would say this as well. I think that the users of intelligence need to do a better job of interacting with the intelligence community and demand better work. If something comes up and it has not looked at alternative possibilities, it ought to be sent back and asked for those alternatives. You need a self-correcting process. You need a cycle-back process so that that kind of -- the conclusions based on single-point estimates are rejected in favor of alternative hypotheses estimates.

I would say one other thing. The president of the United States announced to the world that the sanctions legislation was leading him to fudge. Fudge means that when certain sanctions are going to be automatically opposed if certain events occur, that the executive branch is going to fudge as to whether or not those events have occurred.

Now, to the extent you create -- that's a very honest statement that we're fudging, but to the extent that signal goes out to the intelligence community that they do not want intelligence estimates that are going to put their superiors in uncomfortable positions because it'll cause them to have to do something that they don't want to do, and they don't think is in the interest of the country -- that corrupts the entire system. That forces people to not study things if in fact the outcomes would be uncomfortable. It forces you to delay studying things, or delay issuing the report. It forces the intelligence community to so narrowly construe things that they don't end up putting the right information in the hands of the policymakers. People have to -- superiors have to want to hear bad news. They want to have to hear the truth. And to the extent it's awkward for them or uncomfortable -- that signal goes down through the community. If you are putting your boss in a position where he has to fudge, the boss doesn't like it. That's a problem in this community.

SEN. SNOWE: Well, to follow up on that, I mean this is not something we would want to get wrong. I mean, the difference and the variance between the CIA's estimates and your commission's estimates in terms of acquiring that capability by these countries, between five and fifteen years. I mean, that's a huge discrepancy. So we cannot afford to underestimate the threat if it's on near term. So what I don't really understand is why there is this -- and I understand that you've used the different methodology. What I don't understand -- why, for example, in the letter that was written by -- in comments made by General Shelton that would be so dismissive of your conclusions that were reached unanimously. I mean, there is nothing equivocal about your conclusions in terms of how you arrived at it and how strongly you feel about it. So why would for example General Shelton be dismissive of the bottom line conclusion which says that we have got a real threat, and it's near-term rather than distant?

MR. RUMSFELD: (?) Well, you know, General Welch was a member of the Joint Chiefs, and he's sitting right here. (Laughter.)

GEN. WELCH: Well, I'm not going to try to get inside of somebody else's head, but I think there is an important point to be made here regarding why there can be these very significant differences in judgments about the significance of what we saw. Now, you ask about the methodology issue. And one way that I would explain it is that the traditional way to track progress in somebody else's program is to know what they have done. And then you add up everything they have done and make a judgment about where they are. Now, that works fine -- that worked fine with the Soviet Union, because in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union had an excellent counterintelligence program, and they had an in-depth denial and deception program, if you were trying to make judgments about where the Soviet Union was on some capability, you really just had to know where the Soviet Union was. If you knew what they had done, then you could make a quite good estimate about where they were. But we're talking about an entirely different world. We are talking about a world where you not only have to understand what the North Koreans have done; you have to understand their relationships with China and with other people, and what kind of helping and what kind of help they are giving.

So the fact is the intelligence community's task is today, in my view, much, much more complex when it comes to making those judgments. So the real difference was is that instead of making the assumption that what they have accomplished is the way to determine where they are, we made the assumption based on the evidence that we saw that they are getting all kinds of help. And then when we looked at the kinds of help available to them, we said, "What's left?" So instead of looking at what has been done, we said, "What's left? What is it that they can't get? What is it that they have left to do?" And if you take that approach, you arrive at quite a different conclusion.

So I don't -- I am not in a position of arguing with what conclusions they arrived at. They arrived at those conclusions based on the traditional method. We arrived at our conclusions based on a completely different set of assumptions. Now we obviously believe that the approach we use is more germane to this world that we live in today. I also think that you will find -- you see great changes already, in the way other people are looking at this. And you will see more changes in the next six months.

SEN. SNOWE: Even if they don't admit it.

MR. WELSH: Yes.

SEN. SNOWE: Well, all I can say is, is that the difference between four or five years and the year 2010, is a big difference. And on this particular issue. It's not just any issue. It's an emerging threat, with respect to ballistic missiles. That's a big difference, and one I don't think that we would want to get wrong. MR. : And of course, that difference has already disappeared.

MR. GARNIN: We asked some of the people who came to see us, decision-makers, former decision-makers, how useful national intelligence estimates were to them. And we got a very big difference of opinion. Some said they never read them, because they knew more about the subject. So, I'm not sure that some of these people have really read, either the national intelligence estimates, or our report.

But if I look at Mr. Walpole's (ph) speech, for instance, let me just quote you two sentences about Iraq. "They have not lost the technological expertise and creativity. If sanctions were lifted, and they tried to develop indigenously a 9,000-kilometer range ICBM to be able to reach the United States, it would take them several years. If they purchased an ICBM from North Korea or elsewhere, it would be quicker."

Now, I don't know myself, that I would say that Iraq could do it indigenously in several years. I think they could do it, and they could find plenty of foreign assistance that they would be able to pay for. But there has been a big movement. And one might ask those folks why their views are different from what were concluded by those who read their reports previously.

SEN. SNOWE: Thank you. SEN. THURMOND: Senator Cleland, I call on you for five minutes. But after that, we'll move the hearing to room SH-219, to continue in a closed session. Senator Smith, would you take the chair now, and conduct the rest of this hearing, and then conduct the closed hearing? Thank you very much. I have another engagement. I have to go.

SEN. MAX CLELAND (D-GA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you gentlemen, for being willing to serve our country in such a special way. May I just ask you each to then give a summary of your views in assessing the ballistic missile threat to the United States. Start with the gentleman at the far left over there, and move right along. Please, sir, your summation of where we are.

MR. GARNIN: Well, my views on the threat assessment are as indicated in the report, that these named countries, which we care about, because they are our enemies, North Korea and Iran, and Iraq after sanctions are lifted, could, within five years of a decision, place weapons of mass destruction by ICBM delivery on U.S. territory, if they made the effort to do so, and given enough foreign technological assistance.

Furthermore, the threat already exists for using weapons of mass destruction on the United States from these countries by terrorism, specifically by detonating nuclear warheads in containers on ships in our harbors, or by launch of shorter-range missiles, ballistic missiles, or cruise missile from ships in the neighborhood.

And finally, that this threat includes for the biological weapon approach on long-range missiles, the use of bomblets that are released early in flight, and that could fly unhindered to their targets, which is a big problem, because it not only increases the military effectiveness and simplifies the program, compared with a warhead that dispenses the material in the target area, but it makes it more resistant to the kind of missile defense that we have been developing.

So, those are my views.

SEN. CLELAND: Thank you. Mr. Rumsfeld.

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, our commission report was unanimous, that the threat to the United States is broader, more mature, and evolving more rapidly than had been reported in estimates and reports of the intelligence community; that the community's ability to make timely and accurate estimates of ballistic missile threats to the United States is eroding, and that the warning times the U.S. can expect, are being reduced under a variety of plausible scenarios, including re- basing or transfer of operational systems, sea launch, air launch, shortened development programs that might include testing in a third country, or some combination. The U.S. might well have little or no warning of deployment.

SEN. CLELAND: Thank you. General.

GEN. WELSH: That about covers it. (Scattered laughter.)

SEN. CLELAND: Doctor.

MR. GRAMM: Yes. I agree with the previous statements, and would just emphasize one word which we said. Our phrase was that the U.S. -- let's see. "However, these countries would be able to inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability." Not in five years, not five years from now, but sometime between essentially now, and five years from a decision to acquire such a capability.

And during several of those years, we might not be aware that such a decision had been made. So, we could well be on a five-year clock, but not know when the clock started.

SEN. CLELAND: Yes. May i just ask one question? I would presume -- or maybe I'm making a wrong presumption. But the kind of ballistic missile threat you're talking about, obviously, is developing an offensive capability here, by the countries involved. You don't see them using these technologies for defensive purposes. I mean, it's an offensive capability that you're referring to. Is that correct? Attack capability.

MR. RUMSFELD: Well, yes. I think, however, they would characterize it as defensive as well. That is to say, I think a country that develops a weapon, would look at it both as an offensive capability, but also as a deterrent to dissuade others from interfering with things they wanted to do.

SEN. CLELAND: And that part of the strategy for developing such a threat, would be maybe increased balance of power in a region or a theater.

MR. RUMSFELD: No question. To the extent a country like Iraq, were able to announce in the region that they had ballistic missiles that could threaten at short, medium- and long-range, and had weapons of mass destruction to go with it, the behavior of their neighbors would be altered.

SEN. CLELAND: Thank you very much. Well done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Cleland. The committee will now recess for 10 minutes, and re-convene in Room 219, the intelligence room, for a brief classified session.