missile defense cooperation

LIEUTENANT GENERAL HENRY A. “TREY” OBERING, III

Director, Missile Defense Agency
March 1, 2007
Q&A SESSION

QUESTION:  What do you say to the Russian concern that these rockets, missiles are badly placed, they are not in the right place?
LTG OBERING:  First of all let me address the overall Russian concern .  There have been statements saying this changes the strategic balance between the United States and Russia and we strongly disagree.
First of all, the total amount of interceptors we’re talking about building is 54.  That’s in our budget, that’s in our program plans, that’s open to the press and to the public in terms of those in the budget that’s on the Hill, in Congress I should say.  Those 54 interceptors, and certainly the ten interceptors that we are placing potentially in Poland cannot begin to address the hundreds of missiles and the thousands of warheads that the Russians have.  So this system is just not designed for that.
In addition, if we were worried about the Russians and trying to do something against a Russian threat we would not pick Poland to do that because it is frankly too close to the Russian space to be able to achieve the intercept, just like we can’t put missiles, interceptors in Turkey to address the Iranian threat, it’s just too close.  So these are not optimally placed for a Russian missile.
Primarily, though, we don’t consider the Russians a threat.  They have been our allies for the past several years.  We try to treat them as partners.  So as I said, we were surprised by the Russian reaction and we think it is unwarranted and we believe that, I’m optimistic, though, that as we go along and explain more and more to the Russians and engage them more fully, I am hopeful that we can not only have them understand what we’re doing, but potentially have them participate in what we’re doing as well.

QUESTION:  Do you want NATO to take part in this program?
LTG OBERING:  NATO has its own theater missile defense program that they are undertaking and we are part of that as well, but what we see is this can be very complementary to that program.

QUESTION:  Let me take you on a little bit further from what you said about Russia.  You seem to have addressed all the concerns about growing missile defenses in the future and having to be ready.  Could you perhaps speculate as to why Russia was making so much noise right now?  Are they worried about you snooping on what they’re doing?
LTG OBERING:  I can’t.  And I don’t want to guess.  But there’s something else, obviously.  There must be something else they’re concerned about.  But I frankly don’t believe it is a concern of changing the strategic balance between the United States and Russia.
Again, I want to reiterate these are not offensive missiles.  They are defensive missiles.  They do not have warheads.  And we have said that, by the way, we don’t, obviously we don’t control the territory that potentially these interceptors in Poland or the radar could be hosted on.  But it is completely okay with us to invite the Russians to come visit those sites in terms of any verification of that.  Again, with this idea toward transparency.

QUESTION:  There is another thing.  Not only the missiles but also the radar on the Czech territory.  What is the range of this radar?  There are some Russian generals, some Russian military are more concerned regarding the radar than the missiles.
LTG OBERING:  Mark do we have the backup slides?  See if you can find them.  I’ll show you a chart that shows you the range of the radar and it’s the chart that I used with the Russians.
There are two radars associated with the system.  There’s the forward deployable radar that we would put somewhere in the Caucasus region and then there is a radar that we would.

QUESTION:  Where in the Caucasus?
LTG OBERING:  We don’t know.  It’s a transportable radar.  It’s something you can set up in a matter of days very fast.  So we have time to work where that location would be.
But that radar, for example, would be oriented toward Iran.  We don’t physically turn it around to look into Russia.  And even if we did, it can’t see far enough to be able to track a Russian missile, to establish a track on a Russian missile.
On the other hand the radar that could be hosted in the Czech Republic does have the range to look into portions of Russian territory and it could track a very very small percentage of their ICBMs.  But as I said, even if we did that and provided that information to an interceptor, we can’t catch the Russian ICBM because the interceptors are too close and we get into what we call a tail chase from that position.  So it does not pose a threat to the Russians.

QUESTION:  Two questions.  The first connected to what the Russian [inaudible] said.  Are you willing to let the Russians inspect the installations in Europe?  Otherwise they’ll have to take your word for it.
LTG OBERING:  That’s what I said.  Again, that’s not totally up to us.  Right?  This is not a U.S. site.  This is a Czech Republic site, this is a Polish site.  If it’s okay with those host nations it’s okay with us.  We have nothing to hide in that regard.
Obviously we have a standing invitation for them to visit Fort Greely, Alaska today to take a look at the interceptors we have loaded in the silos there or the radar facilities as well.

QUESTION:  I understand [inaudible].  Do you think that European governments have been too reluctant to realize this threat and are only now starting to realize it?
LTG OBERING:  I don’t know that I would characterize it as being too reluctant.  I think just like anything else, the United States with all the resources that we have, we have been surprised.  We were very surprised with the North Korean launches in 1998.  We were obviously overwhelmingly surprised with the September 11^th attack.  So we know we’re going to be surprised.  Maybe that’s the difference and the distinction.  Because of September 11^th and because of some of our experience we have learned a lesson to try to begin to think ahead more than we did in the past.
If you remember, after September 11^th there were many government officials that were called to testify before Congress and they were asking hey, why didn’t you connect the dots before this happened? 
Go back -- Let me just point this out.  Here’s the radar coverage from the Czech Republic.  This represents the range of the radars.  That gives you a map perspective.  One thing to note, it’s a very narrow beam radar, so this is not a radar that is like an air surveillance radar or a radar like a weather radar that paints a large picture.  This is a precise, narrow beam radar.
Here it shows potential launches from Esfahan, Iran Shahir, and you see the tracks.  The green part is we’ve been able to establish tracks.  In some cases, as you see, you can fly into the radar coverage but if you’re not there long enough you can’t establish a track on the missile.  So this is the coverage that would provide.
Next slide.
As you see, if there are Russian launches from interceptor sites we could establish tracks on those, but although we can establish those coverages the interceptors cannot catch them.  Let me show you that.
If you go to the next slide, here is the potential interceptor site, let’s say, located here.  You get the Russian ICBM launch.  By the time we get the track established, get the interceptor loaded, the missile is out to here.  At 400 seconds the interceptor is still here.  At 600 seconds the interceptor is here.  At 800 seconds the interceptor is here.  We never catch them.  Then we get to burnout.  So this does not represent a physical challenge to the Russian missiles.

QUESTION:  Just on the Caucasus, who are you negotiating with?
LTG OBERING:  We’re not yet.  This is something that, I shouldn’t say that.  I am not at liberty to talk about that in any lengthy discussion but suffice it to say that we would like to place a radar in that region.

QUESTION:  Is there some technical reason to choose Poland and Czech Republic, not Germany for example or Romania or Bulgaria or other country?
LTG OBERING:  Like I said, it’s because of that optimization in terms of the coverage of the radars and in terms of the coverage of the interceptors.  You have to play with a number of factors.  You have to look at what is the capability of the radar.  What is what we call the kinematic range of the interceptor?  How far can it reach and still be effective?  You have to look at other factors such as the timing, how much time do you have to make a decision and to effect an intercept?  All that went into the location of those sites.

QUESTION:  Is the location also based on the assumption that missiles might be launched by Iran specifically?  Let’s assume that one day Pakistan might become a threat.  Would these systems be capable of intercepting, tracking and intercepting also missiles launched from Pakistan?
LTG OBERING:  This is primarily oriented toward Iran.  If you look at a Pakistani threat, we would have to go through and look at the analysis to see if they had any capability whatsoever.  There may be some, but I don’t know.  We haven’t looked at that.

QUESTION:  On the slide you mentioned you create like a place or country with possible project [inaudible].  Can you elaborate a little bit about that?  And the second question, has it been called for a lot of radar systems, you know, especially for long-range missiles.  Is it possible to settle some kind of information or exchange with existing systems?
LTG OBERING:  Very good idea.  That’s a very good idea.  In fact that’s an idea that we’d like to pursue because we believe that’s one of the areas of participation that we could share radar data, because a lot of the radar orientations, Russian radars for example and other countries, are such that they would be useful in the system.
I will not comment on the specific cooperation with Ukraine.  Obviously those are discussions that take place inside our government.  But suffice it to say that I have visited the Ukraine, I have seen some of the technical capabilities of the Ukraine in terms of their industry and I was impressed.

QUESTION:  Can I ask how important it is to have full agreement with NATO allies for this program?  And as regards the UK have they definitely [inaudible] this program?
LTG OBERING:  The UK is one of our strongest partners.  We’ve been collaborating with the UK on missile defense for several years.  We have a wide variety of activities with them and we will continue those.
In terms of your first question, we think it’s important that we get the understanding and that we get what I would consider to be as much partnering as we can do with our NATO allies and NATO countries.  We’re not looking for approval, per se, because I think it’s important that each nation can pursue its interest as well as those jointly with its allies, but certainly we would like to partner as much as we can with our NATO allies in this system, and again, in the hopeful complementing of the system with some type of NATO capability.

QUESTION:  Back to the Caucasus, how critical is it that you get this [inaudible], the workings of the overall European --
LTG OBERING:  It would be very useful for the operation of the system.  We could still operate the system without that, but it would be useful for that.

QUESTION:  Can I ask a bit about the contracting strategy for the European part of the project?  Is there any contract already?  Is it Boeing, for example?  What business do you expect to give to firms in Poland and the Czech Republic?  What’s the budget?  How much will you be investing in the European phase over how many years?
LTG OBERING:  We will take advantage of the experience that was learned in Fort Greely, Alaska with respect to the interceptor site so Boeing is a logical nomination to be the lead, but we will compete contracts below the prime contract.  And specifically for the interceptor site, we’re looking at anywhere from $2 to $2.5 billion for that activity.  There could be as much as $700 to $900 million in participation by companies, local companies in that.  So we think that’s a substantial beneficial gain for the country.
The Czech Republic, roughly we’re talking about $500 million for the radar, work that would have to be done.  I think of that there’s about, anywhere from $150 to $200 million, almost half of that could be made available for site construction activities for host nation companies.

QUESTION:  And Poland?
LTG OBERING:  That is Poland.  Poland was the interceptor site.  Remember?

QUESTION:  Ah, yes.  And you said Boeing is the logical nomination to be the lead.  Does that mean --
LTG OBERING:  For the interceptor site.  We haven’t decided on the radar yet.

QUESTION:  But you decided with the interceptors.
LTG OBERING:  We are in the final stages of that but that’s what I would anticipate.

QUESTION:  When you had SDI in the ‘80s you had the double track contracts -- the Pentagon and the nation concerned had an umbrella contract.  And on these you had each case had a [inaudible] and the Pentagon side contract.  Is this the same concept you are taking --
LTG OBERING:  We have a similar -- I talked about the memorandum of agreement frameworks that we had up there.  What we do there is we establish an overall framework of understanding that outlines what the general conditions in terms would be for the collaboration for missile defense.  Then underneath there we establish project arrangements that detail any specific activity within that.  Some of those project arrangements would be contracted with companies in the United States.  Some of those are contracted with companies in that host nation or that country.  So we have a combination of those approaches.

QUESTION:  So it’s tailor-made for each case --
LTG OBERING:  It’s always tailor-made for each case, right.

QUESTION:  The Financial Times reported last week that [inaudible] sense, if a threat is Iran, I can’t remember if it was interceptors or what radar or both, they were deployed further east-ward, say Ukraine or  [inaudible].  Is that correct?
LTG OBERING:  No.

QUESTION:  Second, if you’re only talking about 54 interceptors, what if the Iranians start using decoys or multiple warheads? 
LTG OBERING:  Good question.  Go back to the program of record slide.

QUESTION:  [Inaudible].
LTG OBERING:  First of all, in terms of the number of warheads and the number of missiles we may be concerned about, you have to remember one thing.  We’re not trying to build a defensive system that just keeps defending against attack over and over and over again without anybody doing anything about that.  You have to have enough defense to be able to absorb a strike, so to speak, to allow the offense time to get engaged.  That’s why, as I said, you have enough missiles to handle something like a North Korean threat. You have nowhere near enough missiles to handle something like a Russian threat.  So it’s geared for that.
But for your specific question, if you look at each individual missile.  If we have a missile that’s fired by North Korea that has very complex countermeasures that come with that, or Iran, what we do is two things.  Number one, we have radars that we can install, very powerful algorithms to go through and help us to discriminate what is that warhead.  And if we can’t discriminate the exact warhead, if we get it down to a smaller number, then we use this program which I didn’t  really talk about very much.  It’s called a Multiple Kill Vehicle program.
Right now each one of our interceptors has only one kill vehicle, like you saw in the snapshot here.  What this does is it turns every interceptor into the ability to have multiple kill vehicles on the one interceptor.  So that doesn’t mean that with this one missile I can kill 10 or 50 missiles.  What it means is with this one missile I can kill a complex threat suite that’s coming at me in the same area.  For example, decoys or countermeasures.  That’s how we would counter that.  But that program won’t deliver for a while, until in the future.

QUESTION:  How far into the future?
LTG OBERING:  About the mid of the next decade, so about 2014, 2015.

QUESTION:  Two questions please.  First, do you have any specific plans or details about how this system would be included in a wider NATO system?
LTG OBERING:  That is something that we’re looking at.  As I said, we believe that by the participation and the collaboration with NATO in a lot of the planning for what NATO is doing, so the U.S. personnel that are participating in those programs, along with a better understanding of our NATO partners and what we are doing in our program will allow us to achieve that understanding.  So that’s what we are doing right now, is to lay down the foundation for what that may look like.

QUESTION:  The second one is about the debris.  What happens if there is a nuclear warhead?  There is not a risk of nuclear fallout?
LTG OBERING:  First of all, if there is a nuclear detonation, so to speak, on one of these intercepts you certainly, first of all, do not want that nuclear detonation on your soil.  Then you’re going to get nuclear fallout.  Nuclear fallout, as you know, is the upswing of the debris and dirt from a surface burst or land burst where you’re close enough to suck that in to cause that type of -- so you radioactivate the particles and you get that kind of fallout.
When you intercept very high in space, the affect you could have is an electromagnetic pulse affect.  The good news there is the higher you do that the less affect that has on the ground. That’s another reason why you want to get these intercepts as high as you can, and that’s why we use a very long-range interceptor to be able to affect that.  You minimize those affects.
But in all these cases -- debris, electromagnetic pulse, et cetera, you have to remember what are you comparing that against?  You’re comparing that against a potential warhead impacting on the ground, killing tens of thousands of people and causing, as I said, trillions of dollars of damage.
I got asked this question earlier today and I’d like to just point it out here.
We get asked the question, you’re spending a lot of money.  You have $9 billion a year that you’re spending and the program has varied between $7.5 and $7.8 up to a little more than $9 over the past several years.  Isn’t that a lot of money?  Let me try to put it in perspective for you.
If you go back and look at every penny that’s been spent on missile defense since 1983 when President Reagan started the program, it’s $100 billion.  Roughly $100 billion.  If you look at the damage costs from 9/11,  September 11 alone, to New York City, it’s $83 billion.  Damage cost.  That’s not airline opportunity lost, that is not other losses in Washington, et cetera, that’s New York alone.  And that was not a weapon of mass destruction.  It was a terrible tragedy with loss of life but it was not a weapon of mass destruction.
If we were to have a weapon of mass destruction impact New York or any other major American city or any European city, you're going to have cost in the trillions.
So our ability to stop one attack from one city would more than pay for this program since its inception many many times over.  So we think of this as an investment in security, and it’s even better than an insurance policy because with insurance policies something has to happen and then you get paid back.  In this case we’re trying to prevent something from happening to start with.

QUESTION:  You said [inaudible] Russians [inaudible].  Do you think Poland should invite the Russians?  And the second question is, [inaudible] a lot of companies [inaudible] jobs on this side of [inaudible]?
LTG OBERING:  For your first question, obviously what I described is that is okay with the United States.  That is up to the Czech Republic or the Polish government if they choose to do that invitation along with us.  That’s a discussion we will have obviously before that would happen.
On the second question, we do anticipate there will be jobs created in the area of these locations but I can’t tell you the extent of that or qualify that or quantify that in any way, shape or form now . But typically when you put that kind of investment in an area you do get some type of economic benefit from that.

QUESTION:  Can I just ask you again to clarify the dollar value of the interceptor contract that you said Boeing’s likely to take the lead on?  Over what period of time? 
LTG OBERING:  The dollar contract I was referring to is there’s about $2 to $2.5 billion would be spent on the interceptor site.  That’s not necessarily the value of the contract with Boeing.  That would be what we would spend on the interceptor site.  Again, if we conclude successful discussions and we reach an agreement this year, we would anticipate that we would begin site construction in 2008, clearing and then site construction.  We would be able to emplace the first interceptors in 2011.  And that we would complete the program by 2013.  That gives you an idea of the timeframes.

QUESTION:  [Inaudible] cooperation with the Russians in building this system?
LTG OBERING:  We are looking for cooperation with the Russians overall in the system, what I’ve shown you in terms of that cooperation.  And hopefully, we’ve tried in the past to do some cooperation that has been stalled at certain times for various reasons, and maybe what we can do is kind of break free of that and get some momentum moving forward in that cooperation with the Russians.
Thank you very much.  I appreciate it.  I hope that was helpful to you.