CENTER TEAM WARNS HOUSE COMMITTEE OF ‘PRESENT DANGER’ FROM — AND NEED FOR U.S. DEFENSE AGAINST — MISSILE ATTACK

(Washington, D.C.): The House National Security
Committee yesterday received four hours of powerful
testimony from experts associated with the Center for
Security Policy concerning the threat of ballistic
missile attack against the United States. This testimony
was particularly timely insofar as the Clinton
Administration last week substantially restructured the
Nation’s missile defense program — protracting the
development and postponing the deployment of systems
capable of protecting large areas against missile
strikes. The Administration’s decisions, in turn, were
apparently predicated upon recent threat reassessments by
the U.S. intelligence community which contend that there
will be no danger of long-range missile attack against
the United States for at least the next decade.

The witnesses at yesterday’s hearing were Center
director Frank J. Gaffney Jr., and two
distinguished members of the Center’s Board of Advisors
— Dr. William R. Graham, the former Director of
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
and Science Advisor to President Reagan, and Dr. Keith
B. Payne, president of the National Institute for
Public Policy. All three expressed grave concern about
the trend, as one put it, “in the direction of
longer- and longer-range missiles coming into the hands
of ever more dangerous nations” and the United
States’ current, utter vulnerability to such
missiles.

Dr. Graham observed that the Administration’s
pollyannish view of the threat of missile attack stands
in stark contrast to an executive order Mr. Clinton
signed on 14 November 1994 (which was reaffirmed a year
later). This order said, in part:

“I, William J. Clinton…find that the
proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons (‘weapons of mass destruction’) and of the
means of delivering such weapons, constitutes an
unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security, foreign policy and economy of the United
States, and hereby declare a national emergency to
deal with that threat.” (Emphasis added.)

The three experts emphasized the myriad shortcuts
that rogue nations could employ to acquire modern
ballistic missiles far faster than the U.S. intelligence
community now projects. For example:

• Nations can acquire key technical personnel
  and modify existing ballistic missiles to extend
  their range. Dr. Graham reminded the
  Committee that just such techniques were employed
  by both the United States and the Soviet Union
  after World War II to jump-start their respective
  ballistic missile programs with German scientists
  and V-2 missile technology.
• This danger is being exacerbated, as Dr.
  Graham noted, by such facts as: “the West’s
  schools and universities teach advanced
  technology to students from all over the world;
  missile designs are well understood; missile
  components are available on the world market; and
  whole missile systems can be bought and
  delivered.”
• In the latter connection, Dr. Payne and Mr.
  Gaffney put special emphasis on the
  availability of so-called “space-launch
  vehicles” — for example missiles that are
  functionally identical to Soviet SS-25 ICBMs.
• Dr. Graham also pointed out that one advantage
  of mobile missile systems now being sold on the
  world market is that “training and launching
  by customer nation crews can take place in the
  missile’s country of origin, so that the first
  launch of a missile from a customer country may
  occur without advance warning.”
• A measure of the gravity of the missile
  proliferation problem is, as Dr. Graham observed:
  “North Korea is one of the smallest,
  poorest countries on earth and one of the most
  isolated geopolitically. Yet, it is able to
  produce and export ballistic missiles. If North
  Korea can accomplish this, there are few
  countries that cannot.”
• Worst of all, perhaps, nations interested in
  attacking the United States — or, as Dr. Payne
  underscored, interested simply in having the
  ability to “deter and coerce” this
  country — do not necessarily have to have long-range
  ballistic missiles to do so. Dr. Graham
  recalled that:

“In the 1950’s, the U.S. launched several
ballistic missiles from the deck of a ship and sent
them to high altitudes where their nuclear weapon
payloads were detonated. Most of the population of
the U.S. lives near the East and West coast, and thus
is highly vulnerable to a ship-launched missile that
could be covertly deployed in the merchant traffic
several hundred miles at sea. The modifications to
such a ship would not need to be obvious, and a few
test missile launches could be performed in remote
locations in attempts to avoid detection.”

Unfortunately, as Mr. Gaffney argued in his testimony
(excerpts of which are attached):

“In the absence of effective, global
American anti-missile defenses, there is little if
any disincentive to rogue states’ pursuit of ever
more capable ballistic missiles. Such weapons
currently promise to make them instant world powers,
capable of blackmailing their neighbors and even the
great United States. If anything, the Clinton
Administration’s policies of rewarding proliferating
nations like North Korea for trying to ‘go nuclear’
has created incentives for doing so…”

Copies of the witnesses’ full submitted testimony may
be obtained by contacting the Center.