[Senate Hearing 105-847]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 105-847
THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT
TO THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 6, 1998
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
53-879 WASHINGTON : 1998
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
James W. Nance, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Rumsfeld, Hon. Donald H., Former Secretary of Defense,
Representing the Ballistic Missile Threat Commission........... 3
(iii)
THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1998
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m. in Room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jesse Helms,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Helms, Coverdell, Hagel, and Grams.
The Chairman. The meeting will come to order. These are the
closing throes of a session, and both policy committees are
meeting today. I am trying to ascertain whether Joe Biden is
out of his yet, and I apologize for my tardiness. You were here
ahead of me.
Senator Coverdell. That is unusual, is it not.
The Chairman. We will wait just a moment. I will use the
time for my statement and Joe can make his when he gets here.
Today's hearing is focused on the remarkable, unanimous
conclusions reached by the Rumsfeld Commission regarding the
threat of ballistic missile attacks on the United States and
the capacity of the U.S. intelligence community to keep abreast
of those developments.
This afternoon's distinguished witness is the Honorable
Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense under President
Ford and Chairman of the distinguished commission that was
established pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act
for fiscal year 1997.
Mr. Secretary, we appreciate your coming. It is always good
to see you. It brings back a lot of good memories that I am not
experiencing these days.
At the outset, I will observe that there is no greater
threat to America's national security than the proliferation of
ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological
warheads.
We had a closed meeting yesterday on this very subject. I
was alarmed about some of the things that I heard.
At least 10 countries have operational ballistic missiles
with ranges greater than 300 miles. That is today.
That number will grow by half again within the next 10
years, and many of these nations, for example, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Syria and North Korea, are clearly hostile to the United
States.
Given North Korea's recent flight test of a three-stage
intercontinental ballistic missile, it is an absolute
irrefutable fact that a hostile tyrant will soon possess
missiles capable of exterminating entire American cities.
Now, I have watched in disbelief as the Clinton
Administration and the U.S. intelligence community have
willfully and repeatedly ignored the handwriting on the wall.
Like many, I was appalled by the National Intelligence
Estimate on Missile Threats, NIE 95-19, which simply made too
many intellectual errors, all of which underestimated the
looming threat, to not have been politically skewed.
NIE 95-19, as Senators may recall, made a number of
ludicrous assumptions, such as that concentrating on indigenous
development of ICBMs adequately addresses the foreign missile
threat to the United States; that foreign assistance will not
enable countries to significantly accelerate ICBM development,
and that the Missile Technology Control Regime will continue to
significantly limit international transfers of missiles,
components and related technology, that no country with ICBMs
will sell them, that no country other than the declared nuclear
powers are capable of developing ICBMs from a space launch
vehicle program will do so, nor will, they decided, will space
launch vehicle programs enable third countries to significantly
accelerate ICBM development.
They also decided that a flight test program of 5 years is
essential to the development of an ICBM, that development of
short and medium range missiles will not in turn speed ICBM
development; that no country will pursue a biological warhead
as opposed to a nuclear warhead, for an ICBM; and that the
possibility of unauthorized or accidental launch from existing
nuclear aarsenals has not changed significantly over the last
10 years.
I continue to shake my head in puzzlement and in
astonishment that for the last 3 years, our national security
policy has been driven by these assumptions, not one of those
claims stands up to any scrutiny at all.
We established your Commission, Secretary Rumsfeld, due to
our frustration over the intelligence community's refusal to
give us a straight answer, at least a straight answer on the
record, and true to all of our expectations, your bipartisan
commission has served as a breath of fresh air, for which I for
one am most grateful.
In the wake of your report, the intelligence community has
begun a long awaited, desperately needed revision of its
estimates relating to the emerging ballistic missile threat.
Certainly, much remains to be done and the changes in the
community's estimation process will leave much to be desired.
For example, rather than eating humble pie, the latest
National Intelligence Estimate vainly clings to a variant of
the formulation first used in NIE 95-19.
The unclassified key judgment of the 1998 NIE is, and I
quote, ``beyond the North Korean TD-2, we judge it unlikely,
despite the extensive transfer of theater missile and
technology, that other countries, except Russia and China, as
mentioned, will develop, produce and deploy an ICBM capable of
reaching any point of the United States over the next decade.''
It is beyond me why the intelligence community cannot
simply say within the next decade, North Korea is likely to
join Russia and China as a country that has ICBMs capable of
threatening the United States.
This second statement is equally accurate, but heaven
forbid that the intelligence community convey a sense of
urgency regarding the emerging missile threat.
I am going to close, Mr. Secretary. I think we should all
be agreed that the missile threat is real and it is
threatening.
I look forward to your presentation of the Commission's key
judgments and a chance to discuss the intelligence community's
latest NIE with you and the other distinguished members of the
Commission.
Let me ascertain for sure whether Senator Biden, our
distinguished ranking member of our committee, is able to be
with us. I am informed that Senator Biden has been detained on
another committee matter, and he suggests that we proceed.
Mr. Rumsfeld.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DONALD H. RUMSFELD, FORMER SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE, REPRESENTING THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT
COMMISSION
Mr. Rumsfeld. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of
the committee. I am very pleased that Dr. Barry Blechman and
Dr. Bill Graham are able to be with me today to present the
unclassified version of our report 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 President
Reagan and was also Deputy Director of NASA.
We are hopeful that Dr. Paul Wolfowitz will join us as
well. Paul is the Dean at the Johns Hopkins School of
International Affairs, the Nitze School.
Other members of the Commission were Lee Butler, former
Commander of the Strategic Air Command. Dr. Richard Garwin of
IBM, a scientist with a long record of service on Federal
commissions. Dr. William Schneider Jr., former Undersecretary
of State for Security Assistance in the Reagan Administration,
and General Larry Welch, former Chief of Staff for the Air
Force and currently the CEO of the Institute for Defense
Analysis.
Last, the Honorable James Woolsey, former Director of the
CIA in the Clinton Administration.
I must say that we could not have had a more knowledgeable,
experienced and talented group of commissioners than the names
I just read. They certainly deserve my respect and appreciation
and they have it in full measure.
As you know and said, the Commission was established by
Congress. We delivered our report in July including a brief,
unclassified executive summary that you all have before you. It
is some 36 pages. The actual report is 306 pages, I believe,
plus a couple of hundred pages of classified back-up.
I would ask, Mr. Chairman, the unclassified Executive
Summary be placed in the record at this point.
The Chairman. There is no objection. So ordered.
A copy of the unclassified Executive Summary of the Commission's
report will be maintained in the Committee's files. The Executive
Summary is also available on-line at:
http://www.house.gov/nsc/testimony/105thcongress/BMThreat.htm
Mr. Rumsfeld. The members of the Commission were nominated
by the House Democratic and Republican leadership and the
Senate Democratic and Republican leadership.
Our work covered more than 6 months and included some 200
briefings. As General Welch observed at one point, the facts
finally overrode all of our biases and opinions that we came
into our work with and literally drove us to our unanimous
conclusions.
As required by the charter, we looked only at the emerging
and current ballistic missile threat to the United States, not
to other threats, such as terrorism or cruise missiles. We
concentrated on the threat to the United States of America as
opposed to U.S. forces overseas or friends or allies.
We examined the ballistic missile countries, both as buyers
and sellers, as well as users of 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 in the various approaches in missile
development, and we examined the availability of nuclear and
biological weapon capabilities.
I will summarize briefly our conclusions. First, that China
and Russia continue to pose threats, although different in
nature. Each country is on a somewhat uncertain, albeit a
different path.
With respect to North Korea and Iran, we concluded that
each could pose a threat to the United States within 5 years of
a decision to do so, and that the United States might not know
for several years whether 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 and effective. It is now
increasingly likely that they will not be in place or
effective.
Therefore, we would place Iraq with North Korea and Iran as
capable of posing a threat within 5 years of making such a
decision, and we underline that we might well 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 they 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
ballistic missile threat to the United States is reduced.
Indeed, under some plausible scenario's, 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.
All of these possibilities have happened, so they are
hardly unlikely.
One important reason for reduced warning 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. 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.
In my view, we need to recognize that surprises will occur and
take the steps and investments 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 do not know of one such nation
that in fact has what could be correctly characterized as an
indigenous ballistic program. There may not have been a truly
indigenous ballistic missile development program since Robert
Goddard. The countries of interest are helping each other. They
are doing it for a variety of reasons, some strategic, some
financial, but technology transfer is not rare, it is not
unusual, indeed, 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 development of these capabilities may well have
become self sustaining.
For example, today they each have various capabilities that
others do not. As they trade, whether it is knowledge, systems,
components or technicians, the result is that they each 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 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 long ago as three decades.
Whether called ``high risk'' or not, let there be no doubt
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, the Indian nuclear
tests, the Pakistani nuclear tests, Iran's Shahab 3 test, and
most recently, the North Korean TD-1 space launch vehicle
effort, to mention only the unclassified 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 that is 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 but it is 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 timeframe. 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 it would attempt to put a satellite in low
earth orbit. While anticipating a flight of a TD-1, the IC did
not anticipate this type of flight.
The question is does this bring North Korea to an ICBM
capability. The intelligence community is estimating that the
system tested is somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 kilometers.
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, 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 5,500 kilometers, the ICBM range.
Overcoming the failure in the third stage should be manageable
and re-entry vehicle technology is on the open market.
Even if calculations indicate that the TD-1 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 considerably 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 31 flight. The
likelihood that a TD-2 flight will exceed 5,000 to 6,000
kilometers in range with an useful payload has gone up as well.
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.
What I have said about North Korea is important but given
the reality of technology transfer, what happens in North Korea
is also important with respect to other countries, for example,
Iran.
If North Korea has the capability it has now demonstrated,
we can be certain 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 actively
marketing ballistic missile technologies.
In addition, Iran not only has assistance from North Korea
but it also has assistance from Russia and from China, which
creates additional options and additional development paths for
them.
What does all this mean by way of warning? It powerfully
reinforces our Commission's conclusions that technology
transfer is pervasive and that deception and denial work.
Further, it points out the fact that the longer range
ballistic missiles are increasingly attractive to a number of
countries, because the world knows from the Gulf War that
combating Western armies 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. 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 that
are 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.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you. Dr. Blechman and Dr. Graham and
I are prepared and available to respond to questions.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, this is a frightening report.
I was sitting here thinking as you proceeded that it would
be very advantageous if some of the television times lamenting
the convoying of some Federal officials, at least one, if there
could be some attention paid to the risks and the threat to the
security of this country of ours.
Have you offered to make this information available to the
administration?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We have offered to make the information
available to the administration. We have offered to brief the
Pentagon, the Chiefs, the State Department and the National
Security Council.
We have a meeting scheduled to brief the senior officials
of the intelligence community at the CIA and the DCI has
requested that we meet.
We had a brief meeting with Secretary Cohen prior to the
release of our report and with the Chairman of the Chiefs,
General Shelton. We have not briefed them on the report.
The Chairman. I am particularly interested in all of them,
of course, but particularly so in the reaction of our fellow
North Carolinian, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Hugh
Shelton. The media refer to him as Henry Shelton. Nobody calls
him Henry except people who do not know what he is called back
home.
You have offered a full classified briefing on the results
of your Commission findings to the Chairman; is that correct?
Mr. Rumsfeld. Yes, we have. I believe we have scheduled a
meeting for next month with General Hughes, the Director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Chairman. Bill Cohen, with whom I enjoyed serving in
the Senate, he has not apparently been interested either?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We have not met with him since issuing our
report.
The Chairman. I am going to defer my further questioning
until my colleagues----
Mr. Rumsfeld. I should add, if you will excuse me, that we
did meet also with the National Security Advisor to the
President, Mr. Berger, prior to issuing our report, to give him
a review of what we were thinking and spent some time with him,
but we have not given a full briefing to him or his staff on
our report since it's been issued, nor have we talked to anyone
in the executive branch after they have had a chance to read
the classified version. The most constructive way to do it,
would be to have them read the classified version and then have
the members of the Commission meet with them.
The Chairman. Senator Coverdell, I am going to defer to you
to begin the questioning.
Senator Coverdell. I apologize for the fact that I had to
leave for a moment. Mr. Secretary, we were chatting a little
before the hearing. I would like to have your observations, and
maybe the Chairman has already asked, just generally the
response in the intelligence community, an overview.
It was a pretty shattering report. What is the general
response among the professionals that you are talking to, (a),
and (b) how is it that--I mentioned it, I cannot cite it
exactly, but basically we have had on the heels of this report
an Administration ratification of no requirement to accelerate
a time table dealing with this kind of threat.
I would just like your observations or any of your
colleagues' observations to this point.
Mr. Rumsfeld. I will open by saying that there is a lot of
anecdotal information I can find in terms of people's reaction.
I think some people just wish the problem would go away.
There have been two written documents that have occurred since
our report that bear on our report. One was by Mr. Gannon and
one by Mr. Walpole, both unclassified, and each reflect that
they have read the report carefully and their comments indicate
that the IC is migrating away from prior community positions to
positions more closely approximating what we have submitted in
our report.
I would say our report is having an effect in the
intelligence community.
One other written document was this letter from General
Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Senator
Inhofe. It has a series of statements in it.
One was that after reading the report, they remained
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.
The problem with that statement, with all respect, is that
we don't believe there are any indigenous development and
deployment programs in the world. Therefore, the fact that they
remain confident that the intelligence community can provide
the necessary warning of such indigenous development and
deployment by a rogue state of an ICBM threat to the United
States is not relevant.
Second, the letter says 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 the intelligence community may
not detect it.
That's true. We did point that out and we did point out
that the intelligence community may not detect it. But, they go
on to say we view this as an unlikely development. The problem
with that statement is that we do not believe it is an unlikely
development. It is not only not unlikely in our view, but it is
a fact that each of those have happened, so they can hardly be
``unlikely.''
There have been countries that have purchased entire
missile systems. There have been countries that have launched
ballistic missiles from ship board. There have been countries
that have tested missiles on other countries' soil.
There have been countries, including the United States,
that have placed their missiles on other people's real estate.
And, the Soviets tried to do it in Cuba.
If tomorrow Iran announced they were placing a ballistic
missile system in Libya to defend Libya, they would be 1,000-
plus kilometers closer to the United States, so they could
threaten us with an abbreviated development program.
The most disturbing part of the sentence I quoted is it
says that through unconventional high risk development programs
and foreign assistance, and then it goes on to say they view
that as an unlikely development.
Foreign assistance is not an unlikely development. It's a
fact. It is happening all over the world as we sit here. Russia
is helping India. Russia is helping China. China is helping
Pakistan. China is helping Iran. North Korea is helping
Pakistan. These countries are trading with each other, and they
each provide assistance that brings the other countries along
faster than otherwise would be the case.
In answer to your question as to what has been the reaction
to our report, this is one of two written reactions, and we
find it disturbing.
Senator Coverdell. It is a denial or it comes close.
Mr. Rumsfeld. The Pentagon has to worry about budgets and
they have to worry about other threats beyond ballistic
missiles. They can't look at just the ballistic missile threat.
They have to look at the full range of threats--conventional
threats, terrorism, cruise missiles, what have you.
That's true. Therefore, in my view, the thing to do is then
say that that is the fact.
Senator Coverdell. Only in deference to the rest of the
committee, if the others want to comment on this, I would
welcome it. Is that appropriate, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Chairman. That is fine.
Senator Coverdell. Dr. Blechman.
Dr. Blechman. I thought that was a very good response. I
would only add that I believe the issue of the administration's
reaction and so forth is complicated by the intense partisan
nature of the debate on this issue.
As a citizen, I find it very unfortunate among the people
in the administration that I interact with, people on the sub-
Cabinet level, there is a great acceptance of the report and of
the indisputable facts behind it as witnessed by events like
the North Korea launch recently.
I think there is an opportunity in the new year for a
change in positions and for constructive movement toward more
reasonable policies.
Senator Coverdell. Dr. Graham.
Dr. Graham. I think it has all been said, Senator.
Senator Coverdell. I yield.
The Chairman. Senator Grams.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, thank
you for being here. Gentlemen, appreciate your opportunity to
join us today.
When you talked about no indigenous programs--by the way, I
think your report is just another warning signal that we have
been receiving of our increased vulnerability of not paying
attention to the defense of this country, which of course, is
the first and foremost charge, I think, of the Federal
Government, over and above everything else.
When you talked about no indigenous programs, technology
transfers, partnerships for different reasons, strategic or
economic, why do you think the Chinese or the Russians would be
involved? Some of this is posing probably as big a threat to
them because today's allies could be tomorrow's opponent.
What would cause them to be part--I can see Iran, Iraq and
some of the developing countries wanting to latch onto this
technology, but why countries like Russia and China being
involved in this type of exchange?
Dr. Graham. I think Russia and China have some different
interests and different concerns than ours, and they are
reflected in their activities in this area very directly.
For example, states that we call rogue states, Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Libya, might better be characterized as client states to
Russia and China as well, North Korea certainly fits in that.
Those are states with which they have in the past and I am
sure hope to continue to exercise some political and diplomatic
and possibly military influence, so they see them very
differently than we do, and look to greater interaction and
cooperation with them than we would.
Second, of course, in the case of Russia and to some
degree, China, and certainly North Korea, there is good money
in selling ballistic missiles and ballistic missile
technologies and at least by implication, the technology that
supports the warheads for missiles as well, which in their most
effective form are weapons of mass distruction, nuclear,
biological and chemical weapons.
This is an area where even a country as backwards as North
Korea, as poor and as isolated as North Korea is, can find a
significant market in the world for its ballistic missile
technologies, and for the same reason that Chairman Rumsfeld
mentioned, ballistic missiles have an appeal to the developing
part of the world, the ability to sell to the developing part
of the world has good economic potential.
For all of these reasons, for influence, for the economics
or military cooperation and involvement, and in some cases,
just to provide the ability for the engineering and scientific
cadres to survive in Russia today and possibly other countries
as well, North Korea, the potential to transfer this technology
looks very appealing.
Mr. Rumsfeld. I would add that, clearly, China's interest
in helping Pakistan is strategic. They have a long border with
India and they have had border wars and they would rather have
India occupied on the other side.
The other thing I would point out is that the United States
and Western Europe are major technology transferrers as well.
We live----
Senator Grams. Intentionally or unintentionally, like the
missile technology transfer that may be in a different hearing?
Mr. Rumsfeld. I would say both, but mostly unintentionally.
We live in the post-Cold War world which is relaxed. All kinds
of students train in our country and other western countries.
Numerous international scientific symposia, leaks of classified
information, espionage, and the demarches the U.S. makes end up
supplying information to other people as to how they can do a
better job of deceiving us.
The reality is that these technologies, over time, are
going to get in other people's hands. We ought to try to stop
it. We ought to do what we can to delay it, but the reality is
that our country is going to have to recognize that other
nations are going to have increasingly sophisticated
capabilities.
Thinking we can plug all the holes is a mistake. I don't
think we can plug all the holes. I think we are going to have
to be willing to invest so that we can live with the increased
risks that are inevitably going to follow increased
sophisticated weaponry in the hands of people who do not wish
us well.
Senator Grams. Just quickly before my time runs out, former
CIA Director, Robert Gates, had a different conclusion. He said
we did not face any long range missile threat before the year
2010. Why do you think your Commission reached such a different
conclusion?
Mr. Rumsfeld. I would say first that I think if you talked
to him today, he would have a different answer. I shouldn't
speak for him and I can't, but a great deal has happened in our
world since he issued his report.
Time has passed. There have been many events that have
occurred. We are living in a situation where I think people are
increasingly aware and will become even more aware over the
coming 6 to 8 months. I suspect you will see the intelligence
community views evolving.
I can't believe you will see another letter like this one
out of the Pentagon.
Senator Grams. But today's facts are better than
yesterday's estimates, we know more today than we did?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We do.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Gentlemen, welcome
and we are all grateful for the good work you have done here.
You have advanced a very serious issue in considerable ways and
you are continuing to work, and that is not, as you know,
always the case. We are all better off for what you are doing.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, would you and your colleagues give me your
thoughts on this Administration's current ballistic missile
defense position, if there is one?
Dr. Blechman. Yes, sir. The Commission, of course, did not
look at this issue and discuss it and we don't have a position
as a commission. My personal view is that the U.S. should be
deploying a limited missile defense, as the technology becomes
feasible.
These deterrents, there is always a weak read, and in the
case of the Soviet Union, it was the best we could do, given
the size of their missile forces, but against these smaller
forces now emerging, we can provide effective defenses as a
supplement to deterrents.
However, I think we should do this in a way which doesn't
jeopardize relationships with the Russians. We need to start
talking with them, to have a strategic dialog and to move to
alter the arms control regime, both on the offensive side and
the defensive side, to modify the ABM Treaty or replace it with
something else, do this cooperatively, but make clear from the
outset, we are doing this, we are deploying this limited
defense system, that we hope you will move with us in a
cooperative relationship so that all of us can live in a safer
world.
Senator Hagel. In your opinion, does that require changing
the 1972 ABM Treaty, as Ronald Reagan once said, a nation now
assigned to the dust bin of history, is that treaty relevant?
How can you move forward with a defense system unless you
engage the treaty?
Dr. Blechman. The treaty is relevant to our relationship
with the Russians. Since Russia is a powerful country
militarily and has very large nuclear forces, I think it's only
sensible to not tear up the treaty but rather to change it in a
cooperative way with them.
It depends what specific system you want to deploy. If, for
example, as has been suggested, we should deploy our national
missile defense system in Alaska, that would require a change
in the treaty. That shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle.
Senator Hagel. Thank you.
Dr. Graham. This Administration has stated several times
that the ABM Treaty is a cornerstone of our national security.
I believe if that is the cornerstone upon which the policy is
based, then we will never have an effective ballistic missile
defense either at the theater level or at the national level.
As far as the Soviet or Russian response is concerned, I
believe that as a practical matter, there is no way that Russia
or anyone else could construe a light missile defense that we
might build in the next few years, as being something which
would threaten their ability to destroy the United States
whenever they wished to do so.
Personally, I think it is a terrible point of national
security policy that we grant them the ability to destroy our
country any time they wish to do so, and have only the ability
to destroy their country as our response to that.
Even if you accept that chain of logic, then there is no
way anything we are going to build in the next few years will
go to that level of defense.
Nonetheless, we could defend ourselves against threats from
developing countries and China within the next few years.
However, the ABM Treaty prohibits us from doing that very
explicitly. It says we may not construct a territorial defense.
That treaty was negotiated and written by diplomats in the
currency of diplomacy, although I'm an engineer, I have come to
learn as ambiguity, so everyone can agree to it, once there is
a treaty, that is then interpreted in the United States at
least by our lawyers who deal in precedent and precision in the
language, so suddenly this document born in ambiguity is being
interpreted in a very precise way, usually with the greatest
possible constraints imposed.
The product that comes from that process is given to the
engineers to build and the currency of their realm is cost,
schedule and performance. If they don't know what they are
allowed to do and what they aren't allowed to do, it's very
hard to make something that has a known cost, schedule and
performance, and if anything comes out of that process, and not
much has, it is handed to the military to try to operate and
defend the country with.
I don't think I could invent a worse way to defend the
country if I spent all month trying to think about it.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. I think that was rather clear.
Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Rumsfeld. Very briefly, as Dr. Blechman said, we did
not take this as a Commission assignment, so these are personal
views.
Weakness is provocative. It encourages people to do things
that they otherwise would not think of doing. The reason
ballistic missiles are so attractive is because they can arrive
at their destination undefended.
Therefore, countries look around the world and asking
themselves, how can they assert influence in our region and
dissuade other nations, the United States included, from
involving themselves to our disadvantage in those regions.
What can they do that will give them that kind of weight.
They know their armies cannot do it, their air forces cannot do
it. The answer they come to is ballistic missiles.
It seems to me by not addressing that as a country, we are
encouraging nations. I do not know what the number is today,
but it is somewhere between 20 and 30 countries that either
have, have had, or are acquiring ballistic missiles of various
sizes and shapes, the ranges of which are going to increase
over time and the warheads of which are going to become more
powerful over time.
I come out right where our recommendation is. First, three
plus three, it seems to me, is overtaken by events. One can not
favor ballistic missile defense for other reasons, such as
budgets or the technology, but not because they believe three
plus three is credible, in my view.
I would think it is important for the administration to
study the report, to look at our recommendation and have a
systematic review of their positions. I would hope they would
change and reflect the reality of the little or no warning
environment we are in.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. You two gentlemen go ahead and vote and then
come back. Paul Coverdell will be here shortly and he can
succeed me for a while.
One of the great issues today in the political arena is the
very thing we are talking about. There is a tendency among some
to say, look, nobody is dumb enough to start a war. I hope
nobody is dumb enough to believe that.
Yesterday, we had a thorough discussion of it. The thing
that bothers me is the chief executive of our country diverted
in terms of his attention to other things and he is not
thinking straight on the question of the defense of this
country. There are a lot of people who believe that most
sincerely.
On my part, Mr. Secretary and gentlemen, my belief is that
the Clinton Administration's non-proliferation policy has
collapsed so completely that the administration genuinely,
perhaps, but obviously mistakenly, believes that the leaders of
foreign countries have at heart the same basic interests we do.
They do not. They do not think like we do. Their goals are not
the same.
On that assumption flows the belief that if only we could
give them all the information they need, they would seek out
and terminate the activities of those who are misbehaving.
Anybody who believes that is overdosed on dumb pills.
As a result, the administration has been sharing a deluge
of sensitive intelligence information. I wish I could go into
it this afternoon and I cannot. Intelligence information in the
form of diplomatic statements and questions with Russia and
China.
I want to have your opinion of what effect all of this
sharing of information has had upon the U.S. intelligence
community's ability to monitor missile proliferation. Do you
want to take a crack at that, Mr. Secretary?
Mr. Rumsfeld. Sure. I have been told that the United States
probably makes more demarches around the world than all the
other countries on the face of the earth combined.
There is no question if you go to another country and tell
them you would like them to do something based on some
information you have, it is not surprising they are going to
ask for the information, the evidence. To the extent that you
give them the information and it reveals sources and methods of
intelligence collection in ways that enable those countries to
know that a specific channel of communications is compromised,
they will likely use different channels.
The one effect of a demarche is that the information that
you have that is confidential is now in the hands of the other
people and they then use that information to close down that
channel. It leads the people who are doing the proliferating to
follow a different path.
The second point you made I think is correct, that
countries do have different interests. There are countries that
we have intimate relations with that we are not going to change
because some other country comes over and tells us we should.
Every country has countries like that, that they have intimate
relationships with. They are not going to severe relationships
with such countries simply because the United States comes and
asks them to do so. It is expecting too much.
I should begin by saying anti-proliferation has been a good
thing. That is to say we have achieved some successes in
keeping countries from not developing nuclear weapons and/or
not having ballistic missiles.
On the other hand, it is far from perfect and over time, we
have to face reality. We are not going to live in a world that
is static. Other countries are going to get advanced weapons.
The Chairman. I am going to vote and I will be back, if you
will take over, Senator.
Senator Coverdell. All right, Mr. Chairman. I am going to
proceed with the formal questions that were prepared for the
Chairman, but before I do, now that we have a public
demonstration of the launch now in the public sector, the
launch of the three-stage ballistic missile by North Korea over
the land mass of Japan, subsequent to your report, any
observations about the public nature of that demonstration and
what particular note the United States and the free world ought
to make of that?
Dr. Graham. One of the arguments that was made in favor of
it taking 15 years to develop ICBM capability by these
developing world countries, such as North Korea, although in
their case, they may be the undeveloping world, since they seem
to be going backward in their economics and other dimensions
except for missiles, but in any case, one of the points made
was that missile staging was difficult and sophisticated and
required systems integration and advanced capabilities, which
they had not yet acquired and had not demonstrated, and it
would take them a long time and many tests to show they could
do missile staging.
What the Taepoe Dong 1 launch showed after the U.S.
intelligence community finally figured out what the data
collected meant was that in fact the missile had not
successfully staged once but it had successfully staged twice.
The second stage had worked and the second to third stage had
worked.
What this meant in terms of the advancement of the program
was enormous because it said now they understand enough about
multi-stage missiles to build them and in this case, have the
staging part of the flight work the first time they tried it, a
very impressive accomplishment.
It also gives the Taepoe Dong 1 a capability to shoot a
small payload, probably in the 10's of kilograms region, to
intercontinental missile ranges, which are above 5,500
kilometers, but potentially, as the Chairman said, out to 6,000
and potentially even beyond that.
These are probably payloads that once you get beyond 6,000
kilometers at least, they are small enough that they are not
suitable for most nuclear weapons, but they are certainly
suitable for biological weapon deployment. Perhaps more ominous
yet, the North Koreans have in development a Taepo Dong 2
missile, which is a much larger missile, which had been
estimated to be a two stage missile by the intelligence
community up until now, but if operated and configured as a
three-stage missile, would be clearly an ICBM capable of
delivering nuclear warheads to essentially any location in the
United States.
One way to look at that is that we are one Taepo Dong 2
three-stage missile launch away from the North Koreans having
clearly demonstrated a nuclear capable ICBM, and I think that
is of great concern and there is no reason to believe that is
in the distant future and in fact, there is no reason to
believe it couldn't happen with little warning at essentially
any time, as we say in our report.
Dr. Blechman. I might add the North Korean launch is very
interesting. Its impact is perhaps greater on the not so free
world in that I understand the Chinese are furious at the North
Koreans because the test, of course, pushed Japan forward into
developing jointly with us missile defenses for Japan,
something the Chinese had hoped to avoid.
The North Korean program tells us, one, the enormous
priority they give to developing these kinds of capabilities.
After all, this is a country that we are told is starving and
millions of people are starving, and yet somehow they find the
resources to pour into these programs, which as you know, are
not inexpensive.
Second, the audacity of launching over Japan, over Japanese
air space and triggering the kinds of reactions it has had in
Japan and elsewhere.
Third, the willingness to risk their relationship with us
in the small steps that had been taken toward some cooperation
with us. It tells us that they are very serious about this
program. They give it a high priority and have good reasons of
their own which we probably don't understand very well. We know
very little about it. We were surprised, again, at it having a
third stage, at the type of engine this third stage had, at the
satellite attempt, attempt to launch a satellite. We know very
little about North Korea. We know very little about its
programs and we certainly know very little about its motives.
Mr. Rumsfeld. Three quick comments. There is no question
but that to the extent Japan and Korea have, over decades,
arranged themselves under the umbrella of the United States and
thereby avoided doing certain types of things, including the
development of nuclear capabilities, the concern in Japan about
this is real and it has to raise questions on their part about
U.S. intelligence capabilities to defend them, because they
know ballistic missiles are undefendable. So, that is a factor
that will affect behavior in Northeast Asia.
Second, from the standpoint of the North Koreans, it was a
fine advertisement. The launching of the TD-1 told the world
that they have an advanced capability that the rest of the
world didn't think they had, and that it's for sale, to Iran or
whoever, to the extent they want it, they can buy it. That is
an important complicating factor.
What happened in North Korea is interesting and important
for North Korea, but it is also exceedingly interesting and
important from the standpoint of other nations that can
abbreviate their programs toward acquiring those kinds of
capabilities.
Senator Coverdell. Mr. Secretary and to the others, now
that the report is out and we have had it in the world of
debate for a period of time, your report was not commissioned
to do so, but I would be interested if the President or the
Secretary of Defense, the congressional leadership, were to ask
you what do you think as a result of this report the United
States should do or change, what would be your response?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We would not have a Commission response
because as you say, we didn't address that. We do have one
response as a Commission, and that is our recommendation that
they ought to sit down and look at the world as it really is,
not the way they wish it were, and review all of our policies
that are anachronisms, that go back to an earlier time when we
had extended warning, when we had overwhelming capabilities,
when we had different degrees of deterrent effect, when we were
conceivably somewhat less vulnerable to some of these
asymmetric responses by other nations.
I think that is the first task.
Dr. Blechman. I was struck by the opportunity afforded to
me by service on this Commission and to see the vast array of
information on proliferation by the extent to which the
knowledge and techniques to develop and build weapons of mass
destruction of various types and the missiles to deliver them
has spread and continues to spread around the world.
To my view, there is no threat in the same league to the
United States and its security than the threat of weapons of
mass destruction on ballistic missiles.
Although we give a lot of rhetoric to this issue, to my
mind, this Administration or any administration before it has
given that threat the seriousness with which it requires. This
is a threat that can kill us, kill many millions of Americans,
and we talk about it and we take halfway measures, and that is
about it.
It requires comprehensive policies. No defense is going to
provide total immunity against these forces. No defense is
perfect and no proliferation, non-proliferation or anti-
proliferation policy is perfect. It takes a comprehensive
policy that covers diplomatic approaches, including arms
controls. It requires defense strategies. It required offensive
means. It might require conventional actions, military action.
If you take the threat seriously, you have to begin to look
seriously at the range of options. To my mind, any
administration and any congressional leadership should look
comprehensively at these threats and how we might deal with
them in a serious way.
Senator Coverdell. Just to comment on that, then I will
come to you, Dr. Graham, I agree with you that is one that does
not rest at the feet of any one administration, with one
exception, and that is your report.
Your report is changing the dynamics. Everything up until
your report is based on the language that was in General
Shelton's letter, that is parroting what former presidents have
been told.
I agree with you, Mr. Secretary. Japan has to be looking at
this in a very different way because prior to that missile
going over their air space, they were reading the same reports
that former presidents, former national security councils, et
cetera, were reading. You have changed the paradigm.
Dr. Graham, do you want to comment on this?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Senator. I agree with my colleagues that
from the Commission point of view, our single recommendation is
the course that we would pursue. Beyond that, personally, I
agree with Dr. Blechman that the U.S. needs a comprehensive
policy to deal with the ballistic missile and by association
probably the cruise missile and other external threats to the
U.S. That is very clear and well stated and formidable. We do
not have such a policy at this point.
In addition to that, I have watched the effect of the
various arms control constraints and in particular the ABM
Treaty, upon our ability to develop and deploy ballistic
missile defense systems, both theater range and longer range,
for both regional defense and for national defense for many
years.
I looked at it when I was President Reagan's Science
Advisor in his second term. I was the Chairman of the SDIO
outside advisory committee for 3 years during the Bush
Administration.
I must tell you, the ABM Treaty, as it is interpreted by
the U.S. and implemented by both Republican and Democratic
Administrations, has a corrosive effect upon our ability to
defend ourselves against ballistic missiles.
Just as one example, there is an office in the Department
of Defense called the compliance review group, the CRG, which
looks at whether defense systems we are considering developing
are in fact compliant with the ABM Treaty. It is actually an
interagency group chaired by an individual in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense.
When you approach them with a ballistic missile defense
system concept, what you are told is they do not deal in
conceptual systems. They want to see a specific system design
and then they will judge whether it is compliant with the ABM
Treaty or not.
The compliance review group probably cost a few hundred
thousand dollars a year to run. The development of a ballistic
missile defense system costs a few hundred million dollars a
year to run, and sometimes it is $1 billion.
What you are doing is you are putting in jeopardy a few
hundred million dollars a year in system development while the
compliance review group waits until you have a sufficiently
well specified system, so that they have what they consider to
be a development program in hand, which they can then judge the
compliance.
This has a completely backward order of doing things. What
it does is it forces the defense system designers to be
extremely conservative in how close they approach to the limits
of the ABM Treaty, and in fact, they usually come down quite a
way from it so they won't be torpedoed at the last moment by
the compliance review group.
This is just one of about a dozen examples I could cite to
you of not always obvious and not always flagrant, but subtle
corrosive effects this Treaty has on our ability to develop
defense systems. I believe the Treaty has made a major
contribution to the delay and the cost of building defense
systems to this point in time.
Mr. Rumsfeld. I would like to come back to that question.
If you think about the circumstance of the Japanese and the
Korean people, their governments, and defense establishments,
when North Korea launches their missile, and the helplessness
that they have to feel about the situation. They do not
currently have the ability to do anything about the fact that
North Korea is developing those capabilities except preemption.
Similarly with Israel. If you think of the feeling of
helplessness in Israel when the scud missiles were coming in
during the Gulf War, and consider how they feel about the
Iranian missile launches of the Shahab-3.
When such events occur, those countries reconsider their
positions. Japan and South Korea are now in the process of
manifesting their concern, discussing and deciding to do
something about that.
Israel is in the process of doing something about that
vulnerability.
It says something about warning. Does the United States
need to have missiles raining down on us like Israel did before
we decide that we ought to do something about it? Does the
United States need to have missiles launched over the
continental U.S., as Japan recently has, before we decide to do
something about it?
The question of warning is a fascinating subject. What is
it? How much of it do you need to have it? What do you do with
it? When does information become actionable? When does
something so register in our minds, collectively, as a body
politic, that we decide yes that is sufficient warning?
The important book by Roberta Wohlstetter about this
subject suggests that there was a great deal of warning,
depending on how you define the word ``warning,'' before Pearl
Harbor. There was an enormous amount of information.
Was there information explicitly that they were going to
attack Pearl Harbor? No. Was there just an enormous amount of
information that things were happening, attacks could occur a
number of places, that there were activities that reasonable
people could take as warning? Yes, an enormous amount.
It is interesting to ask one's self, what do you suppose it
will take for the United States to decide that the nature of
the threats in the world have changed and we really ought to do
a systematic, thoughtful, constructive, bipartisan review and
analysis of how we want to be arranged in this new and
different circumstance.
Senator Coverdell. I could not agree more. For one, I do
not need any more warning. I think there is a factor here that
responds to the question you raise, and that is it is my
interpretation anyway that a large number of the American
people do not realize that there's not an effective--they have
always assumed there was a defense mechanism and do not know
even today that there is not.
My guess is the answer to your question is when enough
people like yourselves or myself build a large enough audience
to understand the vulnerability, that the policy will begin to
change.
I am perplexed, as I said to you before the hearing began,
that the initial response, and I do not say this in a partisan
way, but the original response of the administration is not
unlike that letter that Senator Inhofe got from General
Shelton. That is a question that you wonder what does it take.
My conclusion is that what it takes is a population in this
country that recognizes the vulnerability, and I suspect when
that happens, you will really begin to see a momentum to change
and to address the issue your report has raised.
Mr. Chairman, I became a lone ranger here and got off on
some matters that are not really in the official questions.
The Chairman. Thank you, Paul.
Senator Coverdell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will
apologize to the panel. I appreciate very much the work you
have accomplished, the service that you represent and continue
to do for our country. I will excuse myself at this point.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Gentlemen, it is good to be with you again.
Walking back and forth is a wonderful thing and I hope I get to
do it again. People say, what is wrong with you. I say, well,
what do you think? Having double knee replacement is an
interesting experience. Howard Baker told me that it would be,
and he was exactly right.
Let us talk about dual use technologies for just a minute.
I belong to kind of a conservative element who believes that it
is folly for the United States to ignore the fact that the
increasing availability of dual use technologies, particularly
through space launch programs, will enhance the ability of
countries to produce ballistic missiles and re-entry vehicles.
As a matter of fact, we have already mentioned here this
afternoon that we particularly discovered this fact with
respect to the satellite launches from China.
I want to know how your Commission assesses the
intelligence community's confidence levels in monitoring space
launch programs to ensure that they do not contribute to a
ballistic missile program.
Mr. Rumsfeld. It's a subject we have talked about.
The Chairman. Have you already covered this?
Mr. Rumsfeld. No, not today, in our Commission hearings, we
have talked about this. Dr. Graham was one of the two skilled
technical people on the Commission and in the Commission
hearings, he contributed a lot on this subject.
Dr. Graham. Space launch rockets and ballistic missile
rockets are essentially identical up to the point that they
deploy their payloads. In the case of the space launch vehicle,
the payload is a satellite, and in the case of a ballistic
missile, it's one or more re-entry vehicles.
All of the machinery to get you into space is the same and
in fact, I believe all of the U.S. large space launch vehicles
today, except for the shuttle, are derived from ballistic
missile launchers.
In the case of Russia and China, there are also a number of
space launch vehicles which were derived from ballistic
missiles.
It's also possible to go the other way, make a space launch
vehicle and then derive a ballistic missile from that.
There is a great deal of overlap and similarity in the
technology, some of it essentially complete and identical.
Anything that helps a space launch vehicle capability will
certainly help an ICBM capability based on that or similar
technology. If the space launch vehicle doesn't need help, then
it already has the capability. If it needs help, then probably
an ICBM that is similar to that also needs help and if you help
the space launch vehicle, you will help the ICBM capability or
ballistic missile capability as well.
It's a deeper issue than that because it goes on back
through the technology of not only making the launcher but
educating the technical and other personnel to operate the
systems and conduct the launches, monitor the payloads before
they are launched and so on.
There is a great deal of technical information that has to
flow back and forth between countries, for example, if we are
going to launch one of our satellites on another country's
boosters, that country has to know a great deal about the mass
distribution, the structural response, the way the satellite is
put together mechanically, so that they can be sure it will
survive and the rocket will survive to launch it into space.
Finally, going back even further, in the U.S., probably the
greatest technical transfer we make is the one the Chairman
mentioned earlier. We have over 100,000 foreign graduate
students in the U.S. at any given time, many, many of them in
the fields of advanced technology, studying in our
universities, and while our public schools, elementary and high
school level aren't always the best, by the time you get to our
graduate universities, you have the best schools in the world
teaching all of these individuals the most advanced technology
in the world.
Some of these people stay here and are very constructive
members of our society and some of them go back to Iran or back
to other countries, Russia, China, many, many from China, where
they take this technical capability with them. That is the
foundation of any technical infrastructure and high technology
country, the people who understand the field and are competent
at it.
Their graduate students are as good as our graduate
students. They learn as much as our students do. Unfortunately,
when they are given Visa's to come in to study, the actual
field that they end up studying is not tracked by the
Government, so we don't know what they do once they get through
the Immigration and Naturalization Service as far as being
university students.
As far as I can determine, there is nothing reported back
to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or the State
Department other than perhaps the fact they are still students.
They can change majors, audit courses, study what they like
once they get here, and we have no knowledge of it. It is very
hard for us to even know what we are teaching them and follow
that, much less control it.
You could make this process too restricted, but in my view,
it has gone completely the other direction at the moment and we
are far too unrestrictive in who we educate and what we educate
them in and what we know about what we are educating them in
today.
Mr. Rumsfeld. You can see why I selected Dr. Graham to
answer that question.
The Chairman. I was smiling because I was remembering an
episode that occurred to me back when George Bush was
President. I got a call from the White House, what kind of
universities do you have down there which specialize in
engineering and other technical things.
I said we have North Carolina State University, where there
is no better anywhere, and that's true.
Arrangements were made and the President invited me to
accompany him to my home town and we went to North Carolina
State University, and all the students waved to him and blew
him kisses and all the rest of it, and then we went over to a
very technical engineering section.
On the way, he said who attends, who are the dominant
students who attend this university. I told him about the farm
boys from eastern North Carolina and all the rest. We got in
there, and vow that this is correct, there were nine students,
all in their white laboratory jackets and smiling and waving to
the President, and seven of them were Oriental's. He said, all
these grew up on a farm in eastern North Carolina, I suppose.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Let us talk a little bit about the dual use
technologies. I am interested in the space launch programs and
you may have covered this while I was gone. We have discovered
that the space launch program will enhance the ability of
countries to produce ballistic missiles and re-entry vehicles.
Tell me, how does the Commission assess the intelligence
community's confidence levels in monitoring space launch
programs to ensure that they do not contribute to a ballistic
missile program?
Dr. Blechman. I don't think we have looked specifically at
the programs that are in place to monitor these cooperative
programs that go on, and I know personally I am awaiting the
results of the investigation going on in the other House at
this point.
I think this question of cooperation in space projects is a
difficult one. There is absolutely no doubt that space
launchers and ballistic missile launchers are based on the same
technology and improving one potentially improves the other for
the other side.
On the other hand, isolating these countries' space
industries' infrastructures and in some ways, provide them with
more incentive to work with countries that we would prefer not
to get these capabilities.
You have the Russian program, for example. The American
aerospace companies and satellite industries, association
members have testified as to the benefits the U.S. gets from
its cooperative programs with the Russians, both in terms of
cost savings and in terms of technology coming into here. The
Russians are very good at rocket engines, for example, and are
utilizing some of that technology.
Also, we are providing work for Russian missile engineers,
missile engineers who might otherwise go to work for North
Korea or Iran or add to the Russians who might already be in
these countries.
It's a difficult question. There is certainly the risk of
compromise. I wouldn't want to see any American companies or
individuals working with Iran, Iraq or North Korea, countries
directly hostile to us, but whether there should be a
succession, termination, curtailment of our cooperative
programs with Russia or China, commercial programs, I really
don't know at this point. I think it deserves a serious look.
The Chairman. Let me ask it another way and maybe you
answered it earlier. Let us say Russia were to construct a
space launch facility or facilities in countries already
receiving massive Russian ballistic missile assistance, like
China and Iran.
What will be the effect on the speed of the development of
those countries' ballistic missile programs? Would it hasten
them or have any effect?
Mr. Rumsfeld. There's no question but that it would hasten
them to the extent that Russia assists another country with a
space launch activity like Iran or Iraq.
As Dr. Graham indicated, the dual use aspects of so many
elements and so much of the knowledge have to accelerate their
ballistic missile development programs.
The Chairman. What do you think is the intelligence
community's ability to monitor such developments as I have
described?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We really didn't focus on that. We looked at
the intelligence community's ability to monitor ballistic
missile development itself, but not necessarily directly
relating to space launch vehicles and the interplay between the
two.
Our general view on the intelligence community's ability to
monitor ballistic missile developments in the target countries
was that those capabilities have eroded and are eroding.
The Chairman. The 1998 NIE assumed, and I am quoting,
``unauthorized or accidental launch of a Russian or Chinese
strategic missile is highly unlikely as long as current
security procedures and systems are in place.''
I think you touched on this earlier, but I think we ought
to elaborate on it. What do you think, in view of the fact that
this statement is at odds with a September 1996 CIA report,
which according to the media articles, concluded, and I am
quoting, ``the Russian nuclear command and control system is
being subjected to stresses it was not designed to withstand
and that the command posts of the Russian strategic rocket
forces have the technical capability to launch without
authorization of political leaders or the general staff. Given
time, all technical security measures can be circumvented,
probably within weeks or days, depending upon the weapon
involved.
I would like your analysis of that.
Mr. Rumsfeld. We had briefings directly on that point.
The Chairman. Good.
Dr. Graham. We were and are very concerned about that. We
went back and reviewed incidents that we had in the 1979/1980
timeframe, when we had gotten false indications on our warning
systems, and then took the analysts who are currently
responsible for looking at Russian capabilities with us, so
that they would understand the experience the U.S. had, so we
could discuss that issue in a common framework.
We have pursued that and generally, it was our conclusion
from the intelligence data we were presented that the Russians
are seriously concerned about the possibility of accidental
launch, that they have attempted to configure their systems so
that their rockets, their ICBMs, could not be launched
accidentally or launched capriciously by some lower level of
command.
I would say two caveats to that. One, I agree with the
general notion that if you have a long enough time with an ICBM
in your possession, you should be able to make it launch,
particularly if among your personnel are the people who
maintain that ICBM and therefore know a lot about its technical
implementation and functioning.
It seems to me possible that one or some ICBMs might be
launched that way but difficult to launch a huge number of
them. Nonetheless, one ICBM can take out more than one city.
This is not a small matter, even when it comes to one ICBM.
Second, even since we wrote our report, the stresses in the
Russian system seem to be increasing substantially. I saw a
report in the press this morning in which the First Deputy
Minister was basically making a threat, that he demanded the
IMF pay Russia the next increment of loans, and then in the
next breath he seemed to say that it was important that Russia
continue to make modern and increasingly accurate ballistic
missiles.
This is a country which is basically going bankrupt or
perhaps already bankrupt.
I think it is a serious worry and I think the situation
there is very dynamic and even if we thought they had a
reasonable control system 3 months ago when we wrote the
report, I would want to go back and look at the data again
before I thought they had one today, and I would watch the pace
of change of their social structure as a key indicator as to
the stability of that system.
Mr. Rumsfeld. We also have a small section in our report,
both the classified and unclassified versions, concerning the
year 2000 computer problem, and the issue that could interplay
in one way or another, either with the missiles, the control
systems, the external infrastructures or the warning systems,
in a way that could be worrisome.
In your question, you used the phrase ``as long as current
security procedures are in place.'' Just to underline what Dr.
Graham said, if you are not paying your army salaries and you
are not paying the Navy salaries and you are not paying the Air
Force or the rocket forces' salaries, and you are not paying
Customs and Border guards' salaries, it doesn't take a lot of
imagination to figure out what is going to happen over a period
of time.
People are going to feel they are not getting paid,
therefore, they are going to be ``entrepreneurial,'' to feed
and support their families.
It has to be a worry that the salaries are not being paid
in the governmental structure. One would hope that people who
are in charge of nuclear weapons are being paid faster than
people who are not.
The Chairman. Even if they are being paid, when was it,
1995, I think, Norway launched a meteorological rocket and what
some have said was the closest call of the nuclear age. In the
midst of this crisis, what happened? The Russians' strategic
and nuclear force control terminals, I think they called them
nuclear footballs, were reportedly switched to alert mode for
several minutes.
Did your Commission look into that and do you have an
opinion about the implications?
Mr. Rumsfeld. We did look at it, and then a series of
events followed. People are of two minds on it. One view is
that the concern about that Norwegian sounding rocket moved too
far up the chain toward Mr. Yeltsin. The other view is that the
warning system worked and that in fact, nothing was done that
should not have been done.
Unfortunately, a good deal of it is classified, the
briefing we received, and I do not know that I can say much
more about it.
Dr. Graham. I might add one thing. The official U.S.
position has been, as far as I can tell, that everything worked
as it should have there and control was maintained. Clearly,
they didn't launch anything. The message by which Russia was
notified of this launch was delivered several days in advance
to their Foreign Ministry and apparently didn't make it from
the Foreign Ministry to the missile warning people before the
launch occurred. That indicates some unraveling of the
infrastructure there.
If you compare it with the U.S. situation, and I believe it
was 1979, we had a technical problem that resulted in a few
minutes of false warning at our North American Air Defense
Headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs.
The indication of warning did not go as high as the
President in that event. It did go as high as the Commander and
Chief of the Strategic Air Command, and as a result of that,
very substantial and widespread changes were made throughout
our missile warning and defense system. That was considered a
major event and in fact, a major problem, and to this day, they
live with the changes that were made because of that.
When it happened to us, it was a very big thing. My view is
since the message seems to have gotten all the way to President
Yeltsin in Russia, it was a very big thing in Russia.
The Chairman. We have kept you folks here too long, but it
has been very helpful to me. I am going to try to make it
helpful to a lot of people who will read our report on what you
have said here today. I think all Americans ought to read it.
Maybe enough people will to stir up a little interest in
something besides what happened at the White House on a certain
night.
The last question I am going to ask you, I was concerned to
note that one of the Commission's key conclusions was that the
intelligence community's ability to provide accurate estimates
of ballistic missile threats to the United States is eroding,
quoting.
The Downey report warning was that the Clinton
Administration has imposed policy restrictions on the
recruitment of intelligence sources, which, and I quote ``may
hamper the effects or the efforts of national intelligence
agencies and lead to what they call intelligence gaps.''
I asked Jim Woolsey about this. He warned that the
intelligence community has erected formidable barriers to the
recruitment of sources having questionable backgrounds.
I believe, if my memory serves me right, he cautioned that
the United States should not think that it can simply recruit
Boy Scouts to spy on terrorists. That is an interesting
statement.
My question to you, and I want you to respond as
extensively as you will, did the Commission find that these
arbitrary policy restrictions have had a negative impact upon
our ability to monitor the ballistic missile programs of rogue
nations.
Dr. Blechman. I couldn't answer that specifically. I would
say that we did find that our human intelligence sources needed
to be strengthened, that it was increasingly difficult to
obtain information by technical means on the targets.
North Korea, Iran, other countries have learned a great
deal about how our technical systems work. They do things
underground now or above ground when satellites are not
present. They don't blab on the phone the way they used to.
They go to closed circuits and so forth.
There is no substitute for good human intelligence and we
certainly need to strengthen those sources in any way we can.
Mr. Rumsfeld. Mr. Chairman, those two countries, Iran and
North Korea, are of course closed societies. We do not know a
lot about the decisionmaking process in those countries. They
are as secretive, and successfully so, as any countries in the
world.
We have prepared a letter, a side letter, that will be made
available to the intelligence committees, and we would be happy
to make it available to you with some observations on the
intelligence community. While it's not a comprehensive review,
it is a collection of the observations that we made as a result
of our 6 months of study.
It's a classified document at the present time, and we just
completed it this morning. We will be submitting it to the
appropriate chairmen of the committees, and we would be happy
to include you.
The only other thing I would say on submitting questions
for us to supply answers for the record, our Commission is
disbanded. The staff is gone. We have all gone back to our day
jobs.
I hope that the questions are not too many and I hope you
will not expect ``a Commission response,'' because we are not
meeting together any more. The responses might be Barry's, or
Bill's, or mine as opposed to a fully coordinated one.
The Chairman. I suggest that the staff can help guard
against abuse of length and all that. Do the best you can. Your
information has been startling, even though I feel sometimes we
are in dire jeopardy.
We have kept you here for 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it
has been one of the most helpful 2 hours and 15 minutes that I
have spent. I am sorry that more Senators were not here. At
least we had three or four on our side.
I want to thank each one of you for devoting your time to
this and devoting your time to the now defunct Commission, and
I hope it becomes activated in January, 3 years from now.
I thank you for coming. Before you leave, I see fairly
regularly as Chairman of this committee, as we end a Committee
meeting, the best speeches I ever made are when I am driving
home after the speech. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. I wish many times that I could go back and
say, wait a minute, folks, do not leave yet.
Let me suggest that if you have anything on your mind that
we have not covered that you think should be covered, will you
do that now? Do you have further comment?
Dr. Blechman. No. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. Do you?
Mr. Rumsfeld. No, sir. I think we have covered a great
deal.
The Chairman. It has been a special pleasure seeing you
again, Mr. Secretary. You are a good guy and I enjoyed our
relationship in better political times. That is the only
partisan statement I am going to make.
There being no further business to come before the
committee, we stand in recess.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]