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US DoD assails NMD critics
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03/07/00
US DoD assails NMD critics DAVID MULHOLLAND JDW Staff Reporter
London
Voicing confidence in the technology of National Missile Defense (NMD), the US Department of Defense (DoD) has begun a counter attack against criticism by a group of scientists who say NMD is fundamentally flawed and will never work.
The proposed $14 billion NMD programme, which some estimate could cost up to $60 billion, is preparing for a 7 July test. President Bill Clinton must decide late this year whether the system is ready to begin construction.
Jacques Gansler, the US DoD's acquisition chief, testified to the House Armed Services Committee last week that NMD critics simply lack the information to judge the system as technically unfeasible.
An unclassified summary of a report by a DoD-appointed panel, dubbed the National Missile Defense Independent Review Team, led by retired US Air Force (USAF) Gen Larry Welch, concluded the NMD could defend against missiles with simple countermeasures. There are other concerns, however. Welch told lawmakers the schedule, which calls for deployment of the first 20 interceptors by 2005, is liable to slip.
US intelligence estimates suggest countries, such as North Korea, some may be capable of launching a nuclear-armed missile at the USA by 2005.
The criticism from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), led by Ted Postol, a missile expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, centres around how physical laws limit the amount of information radars and infrared sensors can gather. They contend it is impossible to acquire enough data to differentiate a real warhead from a decoy, such as an aluminium-coated mylar balloon.
Senior DoD officials said the critics are basing their argument on data from the first test of the kinetic exo-atmospheric kill vehicle (EKV), which destroys a warhead by ramming into it at more than 7km/sec. But that data is inapplicable because that EKV, which was designed by a Boeing Co-TRW Inc team and had one infrared sensor, has been replaced by a Raytheon Co EKV that has one visible light and two infrared sensors. The scientists said changing the manufacturer does not affect the laws of physics.
USAF Gen Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), told JDW it is not just the sensors on the EKV that allow the system to find a warhead amid decoys. Rather, the combined information from launch detection satellites, early warning radars and the X-band tracking radar reveals which object is the real warhead.
Gansler said: "You have to have multiple discrimination techniques, not a single one." He said decoys can be made to have similar characteristics in heat, radar reflection, size or tumble, but it is difficult to make decoys that share all those qualities. The discrimination system looks at all the characteristics.
Additionally, Gansler said, NMD will be continually upgraded so that as the threat evolves, so will the system. When asked how this discrimination is accomplished, DoD officials said the information is classified.
Despite using combined sensor inputs, the Welch report notes: "The NMD programme requires critical attention to potential countermeasure challenges." Curt Weldon, chairman of the House Armed Services Military Research and Development Subcommittee, said if NMD could defend against an accidental Russian launch of one or two missiles or a strike from a hostile country such as North Korea or Iran, it would fill a hole in US defence.