Pentagon behind schedule, short on funding for national missile defense
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES - 06 May 1997
President Clinton's plan to build a national missile defense
in six years is seriously flawed, and Defense Secretary
William S. Cohen is adding $2 billion to the program to rescue
it, according to Pentagon officials and documents.
Critics say the funding shortfall, outlined in internal
documents created by a major four-year strategy review,
shows the administration's national missile defense program is
hollow and might not work even with additional funds.
"Three-plus-three has always been a fantasy. Now the
administration is confessing that it's a more expensive fantasy,"
said a Republican defense specialist on Capitol Hill.
The three-plus-three national missile defense program
was announced last year by the Pentagon in response to GOP
legislation requiring deployment of a nationwide missile defense
by 2003. The plan calls for three years of development before
deciding whether to build a system in three more years.
In addition to long-term funding increases, Mr. Cohen has
decided to put $500 million of the fiscal 1998 defense budget
into the national missile defense effort as a beginning, said
officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to internal documents used to brief Mr. Cohen
in mid-April, the schedule for a three-plus-three program is "no
longer realistic with the president's budget."
Unless the budget is supplemented, "the three-plus-three
program becomes, at best, four-plus-five for [an] initial
threshold system," the minimum number of interceptors, radar
systems, communications and other components needed to
thwart an attack by a small number of long-range missiles, the
documents say.
The documents indicate that the secretary should consider
adding deployment funds to the budget schedule and that
failure to do so could raise questions in Congress about the
Pentagon's commitment to missile defenses.
Defense officials said Mr. Cohen decided last month not
to begin adding deployment money until a decision on fielding a
system is made in 1999.
Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon confirmed that the $2
billion was needed to keep the three-plus-three plan viable.
"The secretary's goal is to keep the program whole and on
target," he said.
Another Pentagon official said the money for missile
defenses will be added despite the balanced-budget agreement
reached Friday. He said the White House will support adding
the money as long as overall defense spending is not increased.
The program's funding problems were uncovered as part
of the Pentagon's nearly complete strategic review of U.S.
forces. The Quadrennial Defense Review is to be completed
by May 15.
The documents describe the six-year plan as a high-risk
program in terms of cost, schedule and technical development.
The program also "defers significant development until after a
deployment decision."
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
(BMDO), in a mid-April presentation to Mr. Cohen, drew up
three options to deal with the funding shortfall: slowing down
the entire program under the current budget, adding money to
meet the six-year goal, and adding funds but extending the
development and deployment deadlines.
Mr. Cohen chose the second option, officials said.
Disclosure of the funding shortfall is likely to bolster
arguments of congressional Republicans who have dubbed the
administration plan "three-plus-infinity."
"They will do everything they can to avoid deployment,"
said Rep. Robert L. Livingston, Louisiana Republican and
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "With the
Iranians buying Russian missile technology, we think the time to
think about deployment is now, not later."
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi
introduced legislation to require the Pentagon to deploy a
missile defense by 2003. The administration opposes the bill.
The fiscal 1998 defense request of $259.4 billion calls for
spending $2.58 billion on missile defenses, including $504
million for a national missile defense.
The current schedule for a national missile defense calls
for spending more than $2.9 billion through 2004 and making
the decision on deployment sometime in the late summer of
1999, according to the documents.
To keep the three-plus-three program on schedule, the
Pentagon estimates it will need to add $930 million to $2.1
billion over five years for a "bare minimum to more robust,
well-defined program," according to the documents. The
BMDO has "greater confidence" $2.1 billion will be needed.
Another BMDO option calls for adding $1.48 billion over
five years for a program aimed at deploying a system no earlier
than 2006. Documents describe this option as a "more normal"
acquisition effort.
The Pentagon documents say that stretching out the
program would be a "politically charged shift in policy" and
warn that a long-range missile threat "may emerge before
system is available."
Another option under the current budget would be to
revert missile defenses to a "technology" program that "does
not prepare or support readiness to deploy a system in the face
of a threat."
None of the alternatives includes money needed for
deployment, the documents say. Deploying a system between
1998 and 2003 would require an additional $2.3 billion to $5
billion, and deployment by 2006 would cost $2 billion to $3
billion more.
The documents note that by not funding deployment,
"Congress questions DOD commitment" to a national missile
defense.
Stretching out deployment until 2006 would be "the most
cost-effective approach," the documents say, but would delay
the Pentagon's "ability to counter sudden change in threat,
political climates."
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