THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 1996
Pentagon Missile Study Faulted
GAO questions finding that no threat looms for 15 years
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A major US. intelligence estimate of missile threats to the United States was seriously flawed, a congressional report says, because it failed to back up its main conclusion: that no missile will threaten the United States for 15 years.
The General Accounting Office said in the report, to be released today, that a National Intelligence Estimate on missile threats also failed to give clear judgments, did not identify the basis for its conclusions, and did not explore worst-case scenarios for future missile developments among foreign nations.
The report is likely to bolster Republican charges that the estimate was "politicized" to fit Clinton administration polcy of opposing deployment of US missile defenses.
Rep. Floyd D. Spence, South Carolina Republican and chairman of the House National Security Committee, who requested the report, said the GAO "raises further. doubts concerning the admnistration's sanguine attitude about the growing missile threat to Americans."
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, said the report. "totally reinforces what we said a year ago:that this administration has totally politicized the:intelligence process!"
The dispute over the NIE has made many CIA analysts defensive and reluctant to produce bold judgments for fear of being accused of politicization.
The GAO report did not address whether the estimate was skewed to fit administration missile defense policy. That will be the subject of a special independent intelligence review that is required under the current defense authorization bill, expected to be signed into law soon.
The main judgment of the estimate is that "no country other than the major declared nuclear powers will develop or otherwise acquire a ballistic missile in the next 15 years that could threaten the continguous 48 states or Canada," the unclassified version of the GAO report said.
The document, signed by Richard Davis GAO's director of national security analysis, said the conclusion "was worded with clear, 100 percent certainty."
"We believe this level of certainty was overstated, based on the caveats and the intelligence gaps noted in NIE 95-19" the number given the estimate, report said.
The estimate failed to explicitly identify its "critical assumptions" -- what intelligence analysts define as debatable premises that hold arguments together and back up the validity of judgments, the report said.
This failure led readers of the estimate "to believe that the [intelligence community] considers these assumptions as fact-based judgements," the report said.
The GAO identified five assumptions.that were improperly presented as fact-based judgements, including that the 31-nation Missile Technology Control Regime will "significantly limit" international missile transfers and that no country with intercontinental ballistic missiles will sell them.
The GAO also challenged the evidence for the estimate's judgment that three unidentified countries will not be interested in building long-range missiles, and that deploying ICBMs will need five years of flight tests.
Another unsupported assumption was that a seaborne cruise-missile attack on the United States is feasible but unlikely, the GAO said.
The CIA refused to cooperate with the GAO and did not comment on its report.
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