Deliver the Mail: Legislators Seek Overdue Pentagon Study on the Utility of Sea-Based Missile Defenses

(Washington, D.C.): In a letter dated 11 April, three members of the leadership
of the House of
Representatives — Majority Leader Dick Armey, Majority Whip Tom DeLay
and
Republican Conference Vice Chair Tillie Fowler — joined Rep. David Vitter
of Louisiana and
twenty-three other legislators in an urgent appeal to Secretary of Defense William Cohen:
Release the latest Defense Department study confirming that Navy AEGIS fleet air
defense
ships can contribute significantly to protecting the United States — as well as its forces and
allies overseas — against ballistic missile attack.

This study was mandated in the report that accompanied final conference committee action
on
the FY2000 Defense authorization bill. In their “Statement of Managers,” the conferees tasked
the Pentagon to go beyond a very positive study delivered to Capitol Hill last year by providing
more detailed information and analysis concerning “the engineering steps that would be needed
to develop a sea-based National Missile Defense (NMD) system to supplement the ground-based
NMD system.” A deadline of 15 March was established for this follow-on
report.

Unfortunately, the Defense Department has yet to release this document, although it was
completed by the Navy and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in time for submission by the
due date. Press reports indicate that political appointees in the Clinton White House and
Pentagon have intervened to prevent the American people and their elected representatives from
acquiring further, damning evidence of the wrongheadedness of President Clinton’s efforts to
negotiate a new U.S.-Russian arms control deal that would effectively preclude adoption of the
“AEGIS Option.” For this reason, among others, the congressional request for this classified
report to be “released forthwith” should be honored, together with an unclassified version for
public consumption.

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives

April 11, 2000

The Honorable William Cohen
Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

Dear Mr. Secretary:

As you know, the Statement of Managers accompanying the National Defense Authorization
Act
for Fiscal Year 2000 (P.L. 106-65) included the following language:

“The [conference] committee directs the Secretary of Defense to conduct a follow-on study
to
supplement the analysis that was included in the 1998 report entitled ‘Utility of Sea-based Assets
to National Missile Defense.’ This report shall address the engineering steps that would be
needed to develop a sea-based NMD system to supplement the ground-based NMD system. The
study should evaluate requirements, performance benefits, design trade-offs, operational impacts,
and refined cost estimates. The committee directs the Secretary to provide a report to the
congressional defense committees by March 15, 2000, on this follow-on report.”

Although the deadline established by the conferees has come and gone, Congress has yet to
receive this important report. We understand, however, that the Navy and the Ballistic Missile
Defense Organization have completed — and reached agreement on — the requested analysis.

This study reportedly has confirmed the findings of the earlier report submitted to Congress
in
1998, namely: that there is no technical reason preventing the evolution of the Navy Theater
Wide system into a National Missile Defense (NMD) role and that there are significant
advantages in overall NMD system performance, readiness and effectiveness by adding Naval
ships adapted to the NMD mission.

These conclusions are of considerable interest to the Congress and, potentially, of enormous
importance to the Nation. That is especially true if, as has been reported, the Clinton-Gore
Administration is pursuing a new arms control agreement with the Russians that would explicitly
preclude sea-based and other anti-missile capabilities needed to provide comprehensive
protection of the American people against ballistic missile attack. One of our colleagues, Senator
Joseph Biden, has confirmed that just such an effort is underway. He is quoted in the March 30
Washington Post as describing the purpose of this effort to be “to get the limited
system [i.e., a
single ground-based site in Alaska] locked down in a deal with Putin’ in order to block
Republicans from pushing forward with a broader, full-scale national ABM system.”

Information has reached us that the reason the requested report has not been released is that
officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense believe its analysis will undermine the
Administration’s bid to complete a new arms control agreement that would foreclose testing,
development and deployment of competent sea-based missile defenses. If true, such behavior
would clearly be unacceptable.

Efforts by the Clinton-Gore Administration to pursue a treaty that could deny the Nation
layers
of anti-missile defenses that may prove vital to its future security only add to the need for the
requested report to be released forthwith. We urge you to ensure that the direction contained in
the Statement of Managers is complied with at once, and we await your immediate reply.

Sincerely,

Dick Armey, Texas
Tom DeLay, Texas
David Vitter, Louisiana
Tom Bliley, Virginia
Dan Miller, Florida
Tillie Fowler, Florida
Van Hilleary, Tennessee
Chris Cannon, Utah
James Rogan, California
Richard Baker, Louisiana
Jim Saxton, New Jersey
Frank Lucas, Oklahoma
John Shadegg, Arizona
Joseph Pitts, Pennsylvania
Todd Tiahrt, Kansas
Sam Johnson, Texas
John Cooksey, Louisiana
Jack Metcalf, Washington
John Hostettler, Indiana
Pete Sessions, Texas
Bob Barr, Georgia
Tom Tancredo, Colorado
Ken Calvert, California
Jim Kolbe, Arizona
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland
John Doolittle, California
Steve Largent, Oklahoma