THAAD’s Second Successful Intercept Confounds the Skeptics, Argues for Program Acceleration

(Washington, D.C.): Today the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) had its
second
successful intercept of a simulated ballistic missile over the White Sands Missile Range in New
Mexico. The test involved stressing flight conditions, including intercepting the Hera test target
outside the earth’s atmosphere and further validates the feasibility of hit-to-kill technology.

The recent successes of the THAAD system clearly demand that greater efforts must be
made to
complete its development and begin initial deployment as soon as possible. Toward this end,
Congress should clear the way for THAAD to enter the critical Engineering and Manufacturing
Development (EMD) phase.

Get On With It

Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee deleted the $50 million requested for
THAAD EMD in the FY 2000 Defense Appropriation bill. The full House did not change this
recommendation.

Accordingly, the Armed Services Committees must provide authorization for this amount
and the
Approriations’ conferees the necessary funding if the following important benefits are to be
realized:

• Now that the successful flight intercepts have validated the system’s major components
  including battle management, the launcher, the radar, and the missile, near-term
  production and deployment of the urgently needed User Operational Evaluation System
  (UOES) is now a possibility;





• A UOES would permit as many as forty missiles to be deployed by the year 2000 to
  begin providing protection against theater ballistic missiles currently aimed at U.S. forces and
  allies in places like East Asia and the Persian Gulf;





• THAAD EMD would help identify and exploit opportunities to achieve synergy between
  the THAAD program and the Navy’s “Aegis Option” that may include the employment of
  the THAAD radar system to improve the Navy Theater Wide missile defense system; and





• EMD could also facilitate further refinement of the THAAD system so as to enable it to
  perform intercepts against simulated longer-range missile like those currently being
  acquired by Chine and North Korea. Such testing would be required by September 2001
  pursuant to H.R. 2596 recently introduced by Rep. David Vitter (R-LA).

The Bottom Line

Today’s successful THAAD intercept should put to rest any lingering doubt that missile
defense
is technically possible. Further refinements and improvements will, of course, be required in the
future — and will be forthcoming, provided the necessary funding is available. Given the acute
urgency associated with getting effective missile defense deployed, there is no time to waste in
providing that funding and the authority to expend it on THAAD EMD.