Center’s Bryen Blows Whistle on Tech Transfer Fiasco

The Center for Security Policy today urged the Bush Administration and Congress to take heed of warnings made by a member of its Board of Advisors, Dr. Stephen Bryen, in a forceful article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal entitled "Don’t Sell the Patriot to Moscow." (A copy of Dr. Bryen’s article is attached.)

In this op.ed., the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and head of the Defense Technology Security Administration cautions that the Administration is on the verge of decontrolling a host of powerful and militarily relevant technologies, including:

• Patriot missile components including advanced radar waveguides, microwave devices, high-speed analog to digital converters, microprocessors, precision gimbals for the missile-seeker system, highly miniaturized radio frequency communications, on-board sensors, advanced signal-processing systems.

 

• Microelectronics manufacturing capabilities including the latest state-of-the-art equipment needed to build custom computer chips and subminiature microwave devices.

 

• Sensitive, high-power computers including VAX computers (now being used to upgrade the U.S. Air Defense Operations Center in Cheyenne);

 

• Specialized sensors including "gravity meters," a key to calculating correct missile trajectories; and

 

• Advanced night-vision equipment and image-intensifier tubes — the backbone of night-fighting capability.

On 25 February 1991, in a press release entitled From Bad to Worse: Why is the Administration Making It Easier for Potential Foes to Obtain Our Technology?, the Center voiced similar concerns to those expressed by Dr. Bryen about the upcoming meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) in Paris. At this meeting, the United States is poised to agree to the most sweeping decontrol of dual-use technology in history.

"Given the ominous developments in the Soviet Union and the lessons to be learned in the Persian Gulf concerning the importance of maintaining America’s technological edge in military systems, the United States should call a ‘time-out’ to permit a reevaluation of U.S. and allied technology security needs," said Frank J. Gaffney, director of the Center.

Fortunately, these warnings also coincide with imminent consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives on S. 230, legislation reauthorizing the Export Administration Act — the statute which governs U.S. export controls. S. 320 was passed by the Senate on 20 February in a form only a slightly different from a bill Congress adopted last October — only to have it pocket-vetoed by President Bush. The President vetoed the earlier legislation on the grounds that it imposed too stringent penalties on countries and companies engaged in the transfer of chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missile systems.

House consideration of this legislation affords Members of Congress an opportunity to add amendments that would prevent the further hemorrhage of leading-edge technologies to unreliable end-users. Such amendments might, for example, stipulate that:

• The Soviet Union and other end-users should not be able to acquire U.S. goods and technologies exceeding or equal to those technologies currently deployed in U.S. weapons systems.

 

• The Secretary of Commerce should be obliged to obtain the consent of the Secretary of Defense as to items on the Control List — the list of goods and technologies whose export is restricted for national security purposes. The bill currently gives the Commerce Secretary exclusive authority for drawing up this list;

 

• In addition, the Secretary of Commerce should be required to obtain the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense on a wide range of export control matters with implications for U.S. national security, not simply be required to consult with him as is currently the case.

 

• The export of supercomputers — systems of immense value to those interested in developing nuclear weapons capabilities — should not be liberalized as currently contemplated in the bill. The bill contains an inane formula which allows the export of supercomputers with a performance capability of 25% or less of the average of the two most powerful supercomputers currently available commercially. Such exports would be allowed with no security safeguard required.

The Center recommends that the White House immediately recall U.S. negotiators now in Paris and postpone for at least six months any further decontrol proposals at COCOM. It also calls upon the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to undertake immediate hearings to permit evaluation of those technologies — including Patriot missile technologies — being proposed for decontrol.