Excerpts of TESTIMONY OF FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. before the HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE

‘SEE NO EVIL’ IS NOT A SOUND
PRESCRIPTION FOR
U.S. SECURITY IN THE FACE OF EMERGING MISSILE
THREATS

The Clinton Administration strongly disagrees
with our assessment that ballistic missiles pose a clear
and present danger to this country. In support of this
position, President Clinton has averred that “our
Intelligence Community does not foresee in the coming
decade” a long-range missile threat to the United
States. In this regard, he is, reportedly, referring to a
recently produced National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). I
have not had an opportunity to review this NIE
personally. I have, however, been exposed to its broad
thrust by press reports and the comments of distinguished
members of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of
Advisors like Rep. Curt Weldon and Senator Jon Kyl.

According to Senator Kyl, the NIE concludes that:

“While several countries continue to seek
longer-range missiles, the North Korean ICBM system
is now reassessed as having a ‘very low’ probability
of being operational by the year 2000. In addition,
the NIE assumes it is extremely unlikely any nation
with ICBMs will be willing to sell them. Finally, the
NIE states that the U.S. warning capabilities are
sufficient to provide notice many years in advance of
indigenous development of ICBMs.”

Such pollyannish statements cause me strongly to
second Rep. Weldon’s characterization of this NIE as
“the most politically biased intelligence brief I
have ever seen…” These are some of the
relevant facts:

• The trend in the proliferation of ballistic
  missile technology is unmistakably in the
  direction of longer- and longer-range missiles
  coming into the hands of ever more dangerous
  nations.
• 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…
• There are lots of ways rogue nations can
  reduce the time it would take to have deployable
  long-range ballistic missiles. The transfer
  of militarily relevant technologies by the U.S.
  and other Western nations, by Russia and by China
  — with the active support or tacit approval of
  the Clinton Administration — is one
  short-cut…Another way is through the sale of
  Russia’s so-called “Space Launch
  Vehicles” — missiles that are functionally
  identical to Soviet SS-25 ICBMs. Incredibly,
  these transactions have been blessed by an
  amendment to the START I Treaty negotiated by the
  same Clinton Administration that is publicly
  minimizing the missile threat!
• It should be remembered that even relatively
  primitive and inaccurate ballistic missile
  systems can pose a lethal threat to populous
  areas like the East and West Coasts and other
  major urban centers of the United States.
• And arguably most important of all, a
  nation that already has deployed ballistic
  missiles of sufficient range and accuracy to
  reach this country has begun engaging in
  “nuclear blackmail” of the United
  States. As you know, within the past few
  months, communist China has communicated to the
  highest levels of our government the threat of
  devastating attacks against Los Angeles.

In short…it is simply no longer possible to
describe the threat of long-range ballistic missile
attack on the United States as a distant possibility. It
is literally a present danger.

Needed: A Second Opinion

So out of touch with these realities does
the latest National Intelligence Estimate appear to be
that it begs an urgent recommendation to this Committee
and to the Congress as a whole: Get a second
opinion!

This sensible medical practice has a precedent in
national security policy: Faced in 1975 with growing
concerns from serious national security experts outside
the U.S. government that the official assessment
significantly understated the Soviet Union’s military
build-up, then-CIA Director George Bush arranged to have
the Agency’s estimates formally second-guessed. This
so-called “Team B” initiative produced a much
more sober, pessimistic and accurate evaluation of
the Soviet threat.

Last year, the Heritage Foundation asked a new group
of recognized experts in the field to provide a similar
“second opinion” on the Clinton
Administration’s ballistic missile threat estimates and
to offer recommendations concerning the best way to
protect against such threats…Permit me to highlight our
key finding with respect to the relatively robust
threat assessment the Administration subscribed to prior
to the adoption of the latest NIE:

“The Clinton Administration’s portrayal of
the ballistic missile threat is unjustifiably
sanguine, particularly with regard to threats to the
territory of the United States. On the one hand,
Administration officials have expressed alarm at the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. On the
other hand, the Administration’s official view mutes
any sense of urgency about protecting the American
people from that proliferation threat…

“This optimistic view of the threat is not
consistent with the observable pace and nature of
proliferation, the technical facts of missile
development, or the political instabilities of the
former Soviet states and China. The
Administration’s assessment of the threat is
consistent with its slow approach to developing
ballistic missile defenses, raising concerns that the
Administration’s estimate of the threat may have been
tailored to match its leisurely pace in building
missile defenses. This is a huge mistake. The
failure to respond to clear and ominous signs is, in
fact, a failure of strategic proportions, potentially
threatening U.S. interests worldwide and American
security at home.” (Emphasis added.)

Team B is currently preparing an update to this study
that will take into account the further dumbing down of
the National Intelligence Estimate and other developments
since the first edition was published…

The American People Expect — and Deserve
— to be Defended

Permit me to close with one final
observation. If for no other reason, Members of
Congress must take the threat of ballistic missile attack
seriously because opinion research conducted for the
Coalition to Defend America indicates that your
constituents do.

More to the point…our research demonstrates that most
of your constituents think their government is already
protecting them against missile attack. Indeed, a
focus group conducted just last Friday in San Diego with
Rep. Duncan Hunter…powerfully showed that most
Americans are incredulous and many actually become
angry when they learn the truth — namely, that we
cannot stop even a single ballistic missile launched at
the United States.

That posture is ever more untenable militarily and
irresponsible strategically. To those in the executive
and legislative branches who still oppose
defending America, I would argue that such a posture will
increasingly become a serious political liability
— one that I encourage you to eliminate promptly, for
your own sake if not for that of our country.