Don’t Go There: Clinton Pentagon Evidently Still Tempted by Reckless Idea of Killing T.H.A.A.D. Anti-Missile System

(Washington, D.C.): Tomorrow, top Defense Department officials are scheduled to convene
for a
meeting nominally called to discuss the preparation of the FY2000 budget. One item may
overshadow all other aspects of this review, however: the portentous idea of killing the Theater
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system — the U.S. Army’s most mature, ground-based
theater missile defense program.

As the Center for Security Policy noted in early September — when the fact that such an
absurd
proposal first came to public light: “Were this response [to such developments as North Korea’s
long-range Taepo Dong 1 ballistic missile launch] not so inappropriate, so ill-advised and so likely
to translate into both the loss of American lives and increased costs to the taxpayer, this absurd
proposal would be hysterical.”⁽¹⁾

It appears, nonetheless, that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition &
Technology,
Jacques Gansler, officials in the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and others are
poised to adopt just such an absurd recommendation. Their justification seems to be two-fold:
First, THAAD has had, for a variety of reasons, a succession of test problems in its flight test
phase. And second, the present defense budget cannot support full-scale development and
procurement of most, let alone all, the anti-missile systems now being readied.

Thanks to its relative maturity, however, THAAD is in a position to become one of the
nearest-term measures for addressing the emerging ballistic missile threat — a threat of which the
blue-ribbon, bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission warned the U.S. might have “little or no warning.”
As a
result, the appropriate response to the problems this system has encountered to date
would
be to increase the funding needed to find and fix its reliability problems.

The good news is that the Congress has included nearly an extra billion dollars for missile
defense
in the Omnibus Appropriations bill. A portion of that funding should be dedicated to the job of
putting THAAD on a path toward the earliest possible deployment of exposed forward positions
like Korea and Japan so as to provide urgently needed anti-missile protection of U.S. forces and
allies.

Did John Hamre Mislead Congress?

On 2 October 1998, just days before the current congressional recess, Deputy Secretary of
Defense John Hamre testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee concerning the
Clinton Administration’s missile defense programs. In the course of his prepared remarks, he
offered and answered four rhetorical questions. The fourth one was directly relevant to
tomorrow’s meeting. He said:

“The fourth question…is are we just waiting for you all to leave so we can kill the
THAAD? Are we just playing this along until you all are out of town, and then
we’ll kill the THAAD…? Well, the short answer to that is ‘No,’ and I’ve had
several opportunities to talk with Senator [Bob] Smith [(R-NH)] and
Senator [Jim]
Inhofe [(R-OK)] about this.”

The Bottom Line

Were the Pentagon now to make a liar of John Hamre, by killing THAAD during the present
recess, it would not only further erode the confidence many feel in the Administration’s word. If
it cancels or further stretches out completion of THAAD development and deployment, it will be
giving unmistakable notice to the American people and their troops and friends overseas:
The
Clinton Administration is not serious about fielding effective theater anti-missile defenses.

This will be true whether or not the Administration decides to accelerate the Navy’s
Theater Wide missile defense system based upon the existing AEGIS fleet air defense
infrastructure (which it should do⁽²⁾).
The Navy and Army systems are being developed in
parallel and would have considerable synergy. It would be irresponsible to deny America’s forces
and its strategic allies and interests the best theater missile protection possible — namely the
combined effects of properly validated and operationalized THAAD and AEGIS systems.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Only the Clinton Team Could Respond to North
Korean, Other Emerging Missile Threats by Canceling Near-Term T.H.A.A.D.
(No. 98-D 159,
3 September 1998).

2. See Omnibus Bill’s Defense Plus-Ups Offer Hope
That Needed Priority Will Be Given to
Critical National Security Functions (No. 98-D
173, 16 October 1998)., Wanted: An End to
the ‘Hollow’ Military — And a ‘Feasible,’ ‘Practical’ Missile Defense ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_167″>No. 98-D 167, 29
September 1998), and Critical Mass #4: Emerging Missile Threat Concentrates the
Minds of
U.S. Allies; Japanese Admiral Urges End to ABM Treaty ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_163″>No. 98-D 163, 15 September 1998).