U.S. Officials Brief on Missile Defense (23 February 2007)
23 February 2007
 |
|
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Dan Fried and U.S. Air Force Lt. General Henry A. Obering, Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, briefed and took questions from members of the press at a U.S. Foreign Press Center Briefing in Washington, DC on February 22. The two discussed U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe.
Dan Fried, Assistant Secretary for European and
Eurasian Affairs; Air Force Lt. General Henry A. Obering, Director of
the U.S. Missile Defense Agency
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
February 22, 2007
MR. BAILY:
Good afternoon and welcome to the Foreign Press Center for this
afternoon's briefing on U.S. missile defense. We have with us
Lieutenant General Henry Obering, who is the Director of the Missile
Defense Agency, and Ambassador Daniel Fried, who is the Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
We'll
start with Lieutenant General Obering and he'll have a few slides to
show you on the systems that are under discussion and then we'll have
some opening remarks by Ambassador Fried. Thank you very much.
LTG OBERING:
Thank you very much. Well, good morning, everybody. I'm going to run
through a set of slides that hopefully will put this in context, and
then I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may have with
respect to that. If I could have the next slide, please.
Here's
what we're concerned about. We know that rogue nations such as North
Korea and Iran are very much interested in ballistic missiles and their
technology not only for the operation of these missiles, but to be able
to have them for coercion and for intimidation purposes. We've seen
proliferation to non-state actors of some of these technologies and we
saw that, of course, this past summer in the attacks by Hezbollah with
rockets on one of our allies, Israel, and some of the consequences of
not being fully prepared for that type of attack.
And also, if
you look back over the past several years, if you go back to 1972 when
we were in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the then-Soviet
Union, there were only about eight countries around the world that had
ballistic missiles or the technologies. Today, that's grown to more
than 20 and we've been surprised in the past and we anticipate that we
will be surprised in the future. So we are building a context here for
making sure that we are prepared for uncertain threats for the future.
Next slide.
Now if you go ahead and run this, this is just
some of the video that's been coming off -- out of Iran recently. I
think this is the Great Prophet II exercise in the November timeframe
of this year that shows their interest and their intent in developing
these missiles, developing this technology, and showing that they can
use them in a fairly robust fashion.
So that brings to bear
and to mind for us that we have to be concerned about this, because a
threat consists of two things. It consists of capability, it consists
of intent. And in both cases, we're very concerned about what we see
happening there. Next slide.
We've established a policy in the
United States that we are going to build a defense against these
threats. We began a deployment back in 2004, the summer of 2004 against
the threats with the capability to protect ourselves initially from the
North Korean threat. We've been building and expanding on that ever
since. And this is determined to protect not only the United States,
but also our allies and our friends and our deployed forces around the
world. And we're going to do this by building an integrated layered
system that is capable of defending against these missiles, all ranges
of these missiles in all phases of their flight. Next slide.
A
very busy slide, but this shows our program of record and it shows the
overall context and the seriousness about which we are taking this
threat. We are building defenses in each one of what we call the phases
of an enemy missile's flight. There's a boosting phase, a mid-course
phase, and a terminal phase. We're developing the airborne laser and a
very high-speed kinetic energy interceptor to attempt to intercept in
the boosting phase. We've got our long-range ballistic missile defense
system, the GBI system that we have begun deployments to Alaska,
California that could protect against the long-range missiles. And of
course, we have the Aegis, the sea-based interceptors that can protect
us against the shorter-range missiles in that regime.
And then
on the terminal phase, we have the PAC-3 that we've used in combat in
the past and, of course, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or the
THAAD system that we have in development and have achieved successful
intercepts. You'll see a couple of those in some subsequent videos that
I will show. And we've also established a sea-based terminal program in
conjunction with the Navy.
Now supporting this family of
interceptors, we have a whole host of sensors, everything from
modifications of existing radars such as the ones that we have in
Alaska and California and in the United Kingdom and eventually in
Greenland as well, along with mobile radars like the very powerful
sea-based X-band radar that we have recently deployed to Alaska. And
then eventually, moving these sensors, taking advantage of not just the
on-orbit sensors that we have with satellites' early warning, but being
able to get to where we have precision tracking from space as well.
And
we've build a command and control and a battle management foundation
that allows the commanders and allows the forces to be able to use this
system in an integrated fashion in real-time, because the challenge of
missile defense is that you may have to have simultaneous situation
awareness across 10 or 11 different time zones at the same time. Next
slide.
This is the system that we have today and that we will
have by the end of this year, 2007. What's not shown on here is we have
a radar that we have deployed to Japan, a transportable radar as part
of the overall sensor-netting. We have a modification of a radar in
Cobra Dane which is in Alaska, also a Beale radar in California. We
have the interceptors in the ground in Alaska today. We have 13
interceptors currently. We will have 14 just in the next two weeks and
we have two in California for a total of 16 here in the next two weeks.
We have the sea-based X-band radar that I talked about and you'll see
what that looks like and the fact that we have that now located in the
Alaska region.
We've got cruisers, the Aegis cruisers and
destroyers. We have a total of 16 ships that we have modified to be
able to track ballistic missiles. Seven of those ships are capable of
engaging shorter range ballistic missiles and we've delivered 18
interceptors to be able to do that.
Now we are in a process of
doing the final testing and checkout of the radar in the United Kingdom
and we'll be bringing that online later this year. But what you see on
this slide, none of this was here two and half years ago. So we've made
remarkable progress since that summer of 2004 when we began to place
the first interceptors in the field in Alaska.
Next slide.
This is where we're headed and where we're growing. We want to be able
to expand coverage to our allies and our friends and that includes the
interceptor site and the radar site that we are proposed to establish
in Europe and that we're in discussions with our allies to do so.
Could
I have the next slide? Now, the reason for this is that we have a gap
right now. We cannot protect ourselves from a long-range threat from
the Middle East for our deployed forces in Europe, our allies and our
friends, and that's one of the reasons why we have to use a
ground-based system to be able to do that. That's the only capability
we have against a long-range threat and that's why we believe it's
important to proceed with these interceptors, again, focused on what we
believe to be an emerging threat from the Middle East.
Next
slide. These are just some of the photographs to give you a feel, an
idea of what we're talking about. This is an interceptor field at Fort
Greeley. This is the -- what we call the readiness and control building
there. We have an interceptor that's going into the ground there. It's
about 60 feet long -- about 55 feet long, about 56 inches wide. This is
the interceptor field at Vandenberg and you can see the kill vehicle
there that we use. We do not use explosives; we do not use any type of
warhead in these interceptors. It is pure hit to kill. So we just run
the interceptor basically into the target because we have discovered
that that is the most effective way of destroying these threat
warheads.
Next slide. This is a snapshot of Aegis ships, which
is the long-range surveillance and track destroyer at the top and one
of the engagement destroyers -- I mean, one of our engagement cruisers
that is capable of launching the Standard Missile Three sea-based
interceptor. Next. This is a picture of the forward-based X-band radar
that we now have located in Japan, about the size of a tractor trailer
van, very capable of acquiring, initially acquiring and providing
initial tracks of missile threats.
Next slide. The early
warning radars that we have modified in Alaska and California and the
ones that we will be finishing up in the United Kingdom and in Thule,
Greenland. Next slide. And this is the sea-based X-band radar, a very,
very powerful X-band radar. It's about 30 stories high. This is what
has made its way to Alaska. We are very proud of this. It is capable of
withstanding the very intense conditions in the North Pacific. And as I
said, I just visited the platform last week and it's doing very well.
Next
slide. Now, let's talk very quickly about our testing and then I'll get
to the actual elements in the European theater. There's this
misconception out there that missile defense doesn't work and I'm here
to say it does work. And we have the test record to show that. If you
look in -- just in the last 15 flight tests, we've had 14 successes.
One of those was a failure -- basically a crew operator error on an
Aegis test that we conducted last December. But we've had a string of
successes that continues to build our confidence in the system, both
from the low atmosphere intercepts that we are able to achieve with the
Patriot system, all the way up to the very high altitude intercepts
with the long-range system.
We've had successful intercepts by
the Aegis system that occurred in November of ‘05 and in June of '06,
but we've also had successful tests of the Terminal High Altitude Area
Defense or the THAAD program. We've now had two of those, one in July
and one in January of this year. And of course, we had a very
successful ground-based long-range intercept last September. We have
several more coming up. Two more intercept tests with the THAAD, five
more with the Aegis system and two more of the long range. In total, we
have now had 24 hit-to-kill intercepts successful since 2001. So we are
well beyond the idea that this system doesn't work. It works and it
works very well. Next slide.
Here's one of the flight tests
from September of '05. This is a PAC-3, if you'll go ahead and hit
that. Just to give you an idea of what these intercepts look like, this
is the low-altitude interceptor, the Patriot. This happens to be the
soldiers with the unit there, getting ready to prepare for the test.
And we do use soldiers and operational crews across the board in our
testing. A snapshot of the launcher. This is out in the White Sands
area. We had a ripple fire of two interceptors. You'll see the
interceptor fly out here and then the interceptor, the target here in
slow motion. I think you also have a couple of intercept slides here,
the target there, and you get an idea of the destruction of the target.
Next slide.
This is the Aegis, the sea-based capability -- go
ahead. This took place off the coast of Hawaii. This is off of the --
I'm sorry, go ahead. This is the Lake Erie. We had -- obviously, this
is a target that we launched from Hawaii. We had an operational crew on
board. This is a camera looking out, operational crew and you'll see
the interceptor fire from the back end of the ship. This is what we see
in the control room, the fly-out. We have optical cameras. And if --
when it runs out of range, we actually have a telemetry-driven
animation that shows us what's going on in real life, such as in this
case, staging, that when you have staging occur in real life, it then
occurs in the animation.
The next thing you'll see is the
orientation of the third stage. We're able to turn on or turn off the
third stage of this interceptor and that is also useful in the
selection of targets. The jettison of the third stage here, and then
again, a kinetic kill vehicle at the top. No warhead, no explosive, it
destroys the target by pure kinetic energy running into it.
Now
one thing we're able to do here is you will see in real time the
intercept. We actually have -- it's not really a video feed, but it's a
telemetry feed from the kill vehicle, so a green box will show up and
we see this in real time, so we see what is being tracked by the
intercept. There's the adjustments of the kill vehicle as it's moving
in, there's the green box, and you'll see a picture here of the target
coming up as we intercept it in space. And we know exactly, precisely
where it is that we intercept these missiles. Next slide.
This
is the THAAD system. It took place in Hawaii. It was the first time
that we had taken the system out to the Pacific Missile Test Range in
Hawaii. You can turn off the -- that's some of our Army brethren and
soldiers. They like to get into the music, but anyway, here is a
snapshot of the interceptor leaving the silo -- I mean, leaving the
launch tube there. You can see the fly-out of the interceptor from the
island. Now in this particular test, it happened in the high
atmosphere, so we're actually able to pick up a kill vehicle with our
cameras and you can see the kill vehicle maneuvering just before it
hits the target, which will be coming in from the upper left-hand side
of your screen.
That's the fly-out of the interceptor. There's
the kill vehicle, the rocket firings of the kill vehicle, there's the
target that's coming in, and you'll see that we effect the intercept.
And this is an infrared of that same intercept. Next slide.
And
finally, this is the long-range system. This is an example of the
interceptors that we would propose to place in the European theater. We
conducted this -- go ahead. This was a target launch out of Alaska. We
brought it down off the coast of California in the Pacific and we
intercepted out of Vandenberg, so here is the target launch from
Kodiak, Alaska and the next thing you'll see is the interceptor silo at
Vandenberg. Again, very representative of what we have proposed for the
European theater.
There's the silo clam shell doors opening,
the exit of the interceptor from that. Now it happens that those of you
familiar with Vandenberg, you know that we do have fog banks there. It
went into the fog bank, comes up, and you'll see that we pick it up
with a high-flying aircraft.
This is a three-stage
interceptor. It is a little faster, a longer-burning version of the one
that we would put in Europe. Again, very high altitude intercepts that
we would achieve with this and you'll see the fly-out of the
interceptor here. And then this occurs so high in space that we
actually have to go up and get a very high-flying aircraft, in this
case, a Gulfstream flying at about 45,000 feet to capture pictures and
photographs of the intercept, so what you'll see is a fly-out here of
the interceptor and the next thing is a series of intercept scenes in
which you see the infrared photography of the intercept.
So
the first thing you'll see is a true perspective from the aircraft.
There's an arrow here that shows the intercept there and then we blow
that up and you can see this in real time to start with. There's the
intercept and then we actually do it again in slow motion. Okay, next
slide.
We're going to continue to build out the system through
2013. That includes a total of 54 interceptors. We would have 40 in
Alaska, four in California, and we would propose 10 in the European
area. We would have 18 engagement ships and more than 130 of the
sea-based interceptors. We would have four of those Terminal
High-Altitude Air Defense weapons like you saw coming out of the launch
tube, four units of those with almost 100 missiles associated with
that. And again, the four deployed radars like the one we have in
Japan, we would have an additional three of those. Next slide.
Now
let's talk about why we want to go to Europe. We do not have defenses
in the European theater against the long-range threat, as I said. We
have mobile shorter range defenses like the Patriot or the Standard
Missile 3 that could be brought to bear, but we don't have an effective
defense against the longer-range weapons. And again, it takes time to
build these. It takes -- it's going to take us three or four years to
build out any kind of capability, so we can't look at what's happening
today and say that's what we need to base our decision on. We need to
look at what's happening today and project to see what may be the
threat for the future. And that's very important in missile defense
because it takes time to build these capabilities. Next slide.
This
is what we're talking about, a silo-based interceptor field, up to 10
interceptors. We would be able to place the first one in the field, we
believe, in about the 2011 timeframe and finish that out in 2013. We
would relocate a radar that we have today that's been operating in the
Marshall Islands for a long time. We would relocate that radar into
Europe. We would obviously modify it and upgrade it as part of that and
bring some of the processors up to speed and then we would field an
early -- a smaller version and acquisition radar that would be farther
forward that would help tie in the whole -- tie together the whole
system. Next slide.
This is what an interceptor field looks
like. You can see the mechanical electrical building here. This would
be 10 silos here. That's -- just for comparison purposes, that is a
football field that's overlaid on the top of that. You can get almost
all of the interceptors basically in a football field's footprint. Next
slide.
This is a snapshot of the radar that is in the South
Pacific that we would do -- modify, do the modifications, and redeploy
that. Next slide.
This slide, and near the last one, just
shows that we have a whole family of allies that are working with us in
missile defense and in varying degrees of participation. We have a
country like Japan, who is actually co-developing with us an expanded
version of that sea-based interceptor, a very, very big deal, a very,
very complex program. We're working very closely with them, but we have
relations with many countries around the world in a variety of
development and cooperative research in a whole host of activities. And
so what we're proposing is an expansion, again, of that cooperation.
Next slide.
Now my last one: I want to talk a little bit about
some of the issues that have been raised, first of all, the Russian
reaction. It's been briefed that they consider this a threat and it
changes the strategic balance between the United States and Russia. And
frankly, speaking from a technical perspective and a programmatic
perspective, we just don't see that.
First of all, these
interceptors, the radars, are not designed against the Russian threat.
You're not going to counter the hundreds of Russian ICBMs and the
thousands of warheads that are represented by that fleet with 10
interceptors in a field in Europe. The radar that we were putting there
-- first of all, it is designed against the Middle Eastern threat, not
against the Russian threat.
With the radar that we have there
that we have proposed, it is a very narrow beam radar. It has to be
queued. And so even if we wanted to try to track Russian missiles with
that radar, we could only track a very, very small percentage of those
missiles. And even if we could, passing that information off and having
an interceptor try to intercept the Russian missile, we can't do it.
The interceptors that we would place in Europe are not fast enough to
catch the Russian ICBMs. We're in a tail chase from a location in
Poland and if you'd like, in that -- in response to any questions, I
can show you some slides on that as well.
Debris is another
issue that's brought up. Well, you're going to be raining down debris.
Well, there are a couple of things to point out. Number one, the debris
that we have from these intercepts, as you can see from the videos and
what we are actually able to measure with very precise radars in our
test bed, we have -- the debris pieces from the actual intercept itself
are very, very small. Even from some of the largest targets, you have
pieces that don't survive more than eight inches in length. We know
that from our data.
We also know that the probability of
casualty on the ground, even in some of the most densely populated
areas, from many of that debris is very low. You're talking on the
order, depending on where you are in location, anywhere from one and a
thousand chances to one in 2.4 million in terms of having some type of
problem. So debris is not something we have to worry about.
On
the other hand, if you have a warhead to impact in the European theater
with our deployed forces and allies, it's a totally different story.
You could have tens of thousands of casualties from that impact. And
even if there was not a missile site, interceptor site in Europe to try
to protect the European allies and let's say that there was some type
of a problem in which the Iranians were firing at the United States,
not all the missiles that the Iranians would fire at the United States
are going to make it to the United States, just from not working
themselves. And so we think it's very prudent to have that protection
of our allies and our deployed forces in that region.
Electromagnetic
impulse is another one. If you intercept a nuclear warhead and it
detonates, assuming that over time, somebody is able to develop that,
we mitigate that by the very high altitude that we intercept. And those
electromagnetic pulse effects are negligible at the altitudes that
we're talking about in terms of where we intercept and the effects of
that EMP on the ground. That's how we mitigate against that.
And
finally, there are some concerns about the effects of X-band radars.
There is nothing to worry about in this case. X-band radars are used
around the world. The one that we would propose to be relocated in the
European area has been operating in the Marshall Islands for years.
There are people who have been living and working with that. There are
no health issues or health problems with that and in fact, they are
used very extensively with respect to airplane tracking and that type
of thing.
So I've run through quite a few slides in a very fast
period of time and hopefully, that would generate some questions a
little bit later on. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED:
My colleague made points about the threat from Iran. He also made
points about the Russian reaction and it's important to emphasize this:
Russia is not the intended target and the Russian offensive, the
Russian strategic nuclear deterrent, is not intended to be the target
of this system and the Russians know this. Everything that has been
briefed to you today has been explained both to NATO allies and in the
NATO-Russia Council and to the Russians bilaterally in a series of
detailed discussions, both at high level and at expert level, and these
discussions are going to continue. We have not developed this system in
the dark. We have not developed this system without intensive
consultations with both Europeans and the Russians and that is how it
should be.
We were, of course, surprised by General
Solovtsov's remarks earlier this week in which he said that Russia
could target Poland and the Czech Republic if they accepted elements of
a defensive system on their territory. We were surprised by those
remarks and frankly, found them both incomprehensible and negative. A
threat against Poland and the Czech Republic makes no sense in the
early part of the 21st century and we assume and hope that the General
was not speaking for the entire Russian Government.
And
indeed, I noticed that Foreign Minister Lavrov, the following day,
spoke to this issue in far more measured and reasonable tones, saying,
among other things, that Russia would not respond hysterically -- his
words -- not hysterically to a missile defense system deployed in
Europe. And that is indeed how it should be. This is not directed
against Russia. The Russians know this. Their technical people are
certainly aware of the capabilities of the system -- what it can do and
what it cannot do, and what it cannot do is threaten Russia.
But
questions have also come up earlier this week about the Russian
reaction and whether this portends a new period of U.S.-Russian
tensions. I don't think it does, and I certainly hope it does not. But
let me say something about U.S.-Russian relations generally, since
that's generated a lot of interest. We have a relationship with the
Russians which is very broad and includes a great deal of cooperation.
And Secretary Rice pointed out after President Putin's speech at
Werkunde that his speech did not seem to reflect the reality of the
cooperation ongoing with Russia in areas such as counterterrorism,
counterproliferation, cooperation on issues such as North Korea and
Iran.
Yesterday I spent most of the day in productive and
useful discussions with one of my Russian counterparts discussing some
issues of European security, and we had good discussions. So there was
a mismatch between the public tone and the private diplomatic reality.
Certainly that mismatch was extreme with respect to General Solovtsov's
remarks about the Poles and Czechs. We hope to get past this. There's a
lot of work we have to do with Russia and work we look forward to doing
with Russia.
In anticipation though of a question, let me talk
about what might have motivated the Russians and my remarks have to be
speculative since I'm not inside their heads. One of the themes of the
Russian remarks seem to be that Russia is back as a power in the world
after the decade of the '90s which was in Russian -- as many Russians
have said, a terrible decade for Russia, a decade of internal retreat
and foreign policy retreat. We would welcome -- we, the United States,
would welcome Russia being back as a force for good in the world, if
Russia being back means that Russia will play a constructive role with
respect to Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, with respect to North
Korea, in Kosovo, in the war on terror. This is a Russia whose
partnership we welcome -- a stronger Russia helping in these areas is a
good partner. But we hope that Russia will play this constructive role
and not use its newfound energy wealth to exert pressure on its
neighbors or to threaten Poland and the Czech Republic or any other
country, so we have hopes for a good, solid partnership with Russia.
National
Security Advisor Steve Hadley is in Moscow working on the constructive
elements of our agenda, as well as addressing, I'm sure, some areas
where we have differences. But my point is simply this: We want to work
with Russia as a partner. We have our disagreements with Russia in some
areas, but our goal is partnership. That's why we don't understand why
it is that the Russians would feel obligated to make remarks like this,
but that's a question to them. All I can do is talk about our own
policy. And with that, I'm happy to take questions with the general.
MR. BAILY: Yes, sir. Right here in the middle. Please state your name and organization.
QUESTION:
Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times. I had one question for both of
you. For Mr. Fried, if this system is so important for Europe, why are
you not asking Europe to put more money into it? Why is the U.S.
footing the bill? And for the General, the Russians have threatened to
pull out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. If they did
that, if they started targeting Poland, the Czech Republic and other
countries in Europe with medium-range missiles, how will that affect
your calculation about what kind of missile defense you would have in
Europe and how would it make it more difficult? And would it then not
just exacerbate the situation?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED:
Well, with respect to the first question, missile defense has its own
history in discussions between Europe and the United States. We are
talking about this at NATO, which is a good venue for it. We've also
talked about it at the NATO-Russia Council. We think it's important for
reasons of European and American security. But we did -- we wanted to
start our work now. And Europeans will decide how much they want to be
part of this system, but they will certainly benefit from it.
On
the INF Treaty, I should say that the Russians have been talking about
the INF Treaty and -- for some years, well before any of this -- any of
the stationing of missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic was
contemplated. They've had other reasons why they've considered pulling
out of the INF Treaty. You should ask them, but their rationale has not
always been missile defense. In fact, it has not been missile defense.
QUESTION:
Just to get an actual answer, but are you going to ask for the
Europeans for more money then? And despite the fact that the Russians
have brought up this before -- they brought it up with Ivanov and
Rumsfeld two years ago. My question is, if they go ahead and do it, how
does it affect -- I'd like the general to answer that -- how do they
affect your calculations for missile defense in Europe?
LTG OBERING:
Well, first of all, as I mentioned, the system that we are developing
and deploying is not aimed at a Russian threat, and I'll reiterate
that. The system that we are deploying is not aimed at a Russian
threat. And so the fact that they would pull out of an INF treaty and
then start targeting our allies, that's a different scale and a
different level in terms of missile attack or a threat. This is geared
toward what we perceive to be the more urgent threat with respect to
missiles, which again, is what we see happening in Iran. And the thing
that we all know that goes back many decades now is that we have a
stable relationship with Russia with respect to deterrence. We know
that they are deterrable; they have been deterred. We've had that
relationship for quite a while.
So you're asking me a
hypothetical question in terms of that, and as I said, I'll reiterate
it; it is not geared for that type of threat.
MR. BAILY: Yes, sir.
QUESTION:
Yaron Deckel from Israeli Television and my question is for the
General. You mentioned Israel and we know that Israel is under a direct
threat from Iran. And I wonder, according to your assessment, how
vulnerable is Israel? And you work with Israel on the Arrow missile.
How effective is the Arrow missile in preventing the ballistic missiles
from Iran?
Thank you.
LTG OBERING: I will tell
you this in terms of the Arrow program. The participation that we've
had with Arrow and the test program, I think, has been very successful,
and I believe that that is a very effective weapons system that will
provide protection to the Israelis and to the Israeli forces.
The
second part of that, we are continuing to work with Israel. We are
participating with them on short-range defense. We're investigating
possibilities there in terms of helping them with that vulnerability
that they have exposed, and we intend to continue to pursue that if
we're allowed to do so by the Congress.
MR. BAILY: Okay. Right there in the back.
QUESTION:
Daniel Anyz of Czech daily paper Hospodarske Noviny (Financial News). I
have two questions. How far is Iran, according to your knowledge, from
developing functional long-range ballistic missile? And the second one,
NATO finished a feasibility study last year for their own defense
system. What are the technical overlaps there? Is there a chance that
this system would be incorporated in this missile defense U.S. system?
LTG OBERING:
Okay. Very good question. Let's see, the first question -- let me
answer the last one first. We believe that -- first of all, we are
supporting very strongly the Active Layered Theater Missile Defense
program in NATO. We actually have people participating in NATO and
helping to guide that, and we believe that the system that we would
propose be located in Europe complements what would happen with respect
to the NATO -- the outcome of that NATO program.
Just as I
showed you, we're building an integrated layered defense with respect
to defense of the United States and our allies and friends around the
world. This just fits into that very concept of where that system would
be able of handling shorter-range threats. This, of course, is able to
handle the higher-end threats.
And the first question you asked me was -- how far is Iran from developing a capability?
Let
me tell you this: If I could stand here and predict that with
precision, I could save a lot of people a lot of money, but I can't. I
will tell you what we do know, and what we've experienced in the past.
In
1998, there were experts around the world in the community that were
saying that the North Koreans were years and years away from being able
to develop a long-range missile. The next month, they did so. They
fired a Taepodong-1 that actually overflew Japan. It was a three-stage
missile -- that also shocked a lot of experts and they were able to
show that they could stage, they could control the missile through
staging. And they had all the building blocks of an intercontinental
ballistic missile.
I will tell you that what we see happening
in Iran is following down that same path in terms of growth and in
terms of their stated intent, for example, to be able to launch a space
launch vehicle. If you're able to launch a space launch vehicle, you
have also demonstrated all of the basic building blocks for a
long-range ICBM.
In terms of the actual timing, we want to make sure that we have a defense in place before that occurs.
QUESTION:
Philippe Gelie of Le Figaro, France. My question is for Mr. Fried. Do
you fear or would you welcome a revival of the Old Europe-New Europe
split?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED: No.
QUESTION: And since there are obviously political risks attached to this move, what are the political benefits that you expect?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED:
Well, the political benefit from greater security is obvious. The
political risk from insecurity, should the Iranian threat develop as it
might, is also obvious. This system is no good against the Russian
ballistic missile capability. It has the potential to be effective
against the Iranian threat, and the benefits to Europe are clear. It's
also clear that the United States could defend its own territory
without benefit of these systems, but it is better if our security is
indivisible. And you know, as for Old Europe and New Europe, that's
something forgotten and best forgotten.
I should say, though,
with respect to Poland and the Czech Republic, that we have gone
through some preliminary discussions, but we haven't started
negotiating the details. The Poles and Czechs are going to have a lot
of very legitimate questions. They're going to have military questions,
financial questions, and legal questions. These are very legitimate.
This
is -- we're going to sit down with them and look -- frankly, I look
forward to being able to work through these issues in a very
cooperative and transparent spirit.
MR. BAILY: Yes, sir.
QUESTION:
Thank you. Marcin Gadzinski, Gazeta Wyborcza of Poland. A question for
you, General. Sir, when you listened to General Baluyevsky actually
threaten that Russia will withdraw from INF treaty, meaning will start
building intermediate missiles, and you listen to the other general,
your counterpart in Russian missile defense, when he says that Russia
might target U.S. installations in Poland and Czech Republic, don't you
feel this urge to really respond to talk like General to General, to
use maybe more blunt language? And maybe you could start it today.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: And a question for Assistant
Secretary Fried. Weren't you caught kind of off guard with Putin's
speech in Munich and then General Baluyevsky talking about INF and
then, you know, those other threats? Weren't you caught off guard with
that escalation?
LTG OBERING: Well, first of all, I
have had discussions with General Baluyevsky and I will continue to
have discussions with General Baluyevsky. But as I said before, you
know, we have been facing the Russians in the past and we have been
allies with the Russians in the past. And as far as I'm concerned,
nothing has changed with respect to that relationship.
What
has changed is the threat that we see emerging from the Middle East,
and I believe that the question that was asked earlier about the
benefits, if I could address that in the context of your question as
well, is we had a significant event last summer in the United States
where we woke up one morning and discovered that the North Koreans were
getting ready to launch a long-range missile that they had not told
anybody what was on the top of. And all of a sudden, we had millions of
Americans wake up and understand that they needed to have some
confidence that we would be able to protect ourselves should that be a
threat to the United States.
What we hope and what we are
making sure does not happen is that we have a similar scenario play out
in the next five years where you wake up and you find out that you have
a threat that is threatening your borders and your neighbors that you
can have a system to turn on the way we did last summer to protect
yourself against that. And that is the overarching benefit, I believe,
of what we're trying to do here. And as I said, I will continue to have
discussions with General Baluyevsky.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED:
As to your question about surprises, well, I don't enjoy surprises but
I have come to expect them from time to time, including from the
Russians. The Russians made -- President Putin made the decision to
give the kind of speech he gave. And Secretary -- Defense Secretary
Gates responded, I think, with a dose of good humor and calm and
perspective, which I think was exactly right.
The fact is we
have a complicated relationship with Russia. We cooperate in some
areas. We would like to cooperate in more areas and more deeply. Other
areas we have differences with Russia. Now, the United States is
capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time with respect to our
Russia policy. We are capable of working with the Russians wherever we
can, as much as we can, and dealing with our disagreements when they
arise.
And as I said, with respect to issues like NATO
enlargement, which President Putin raised, with respect to this missile
defense system, with respect to certain aspects of Russian democracy or
energy policy, we have spoken of our disagreements. With respect to
other areas -- cooperation on Iran, on North Korea, hopefully
cooperation on Kosovo -- we look forward to more of it. And we've got
to be able to do both at the same time. Poland does the same thing. You
speak out strongly in defense of your interests, yet you cooperate with
Russia wherever possible. Very wise policy. We try to do the same.
MR. BAILY: We're going take a question from New York, please. We're calling New York. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Adrian Novac from Romanian Television on Channel 1. And my question for you is --
MR. BAILY: We're not hearing --
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR. BAILY: New York, we're not hearing your question. We're going to have to go someone else.
QUESTION:
Andrew Gray from Reuters. I wonder if you could tell a little bit more
about the extent of the protection that will be given by these initial
facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. What kind of area -- what
kind of a shield and how big an area will that cover?
And
could you also say what you would like to do with the United Kingdom?
Would you like to place interceptors there as well? And how far are you
along in your discussions on increased cooperation with the United
Kingdom?
LTG OBERING: Actually, I brought a chart that will help you answer the first part. Steve, would you go to slide number 35?
To
answer your question, the extended coverage that we would have from the
interceptor site -- as you can see on the map, it would extend almost
down to the Black Sea with respect to the coverage of the Europe -- it
extends us close enough to where there's no longer a long-range threat
to those countries. Otherwise, to be able to attack or target any of
the nations that would be outside that coverage, they wouldn't do so
with a long-range weapon. It would not be able to do that. It would
have to be a shorter-range weapon, like a short-range ballistic missile
or medium-range.
So this is geared toward the longer-range and
the high-end intermediate-range ballistic missiles. And this is a
combination of coverage between what we would have from Fort Greeley,
from California and from Europe and all of the sensors tied in, versus
an Iranian threat. So you see it's pretty good coverage.
And it
goes back -- we are always pursuing areas where our interests and our
allies' interests overlap. And we believe this is one of them, where we
also get redundant coverage of the United States from that interceptor
field. So we think it's a wise decision on our part and on our allies'
part to put our heads together to do that.
QUESTION: And the U.K. in terms of --
LTG OBERING:
The United Kingdom is a tremendous partner and we have a longstanding
relationship with the United Kingdom in missile defense. We have a
whole spectrum of activities that we've had with the United Kingdom
with respect to cooperation with research, development, lethality
testing, that type of thing. We will continue that relationship. We
will -- we are always looking for new ways to partner with the United
Kingdom, whether that is co-development or hosting or any of the
activities of that nature. But I can't answer anything more specific
than that at this time.
MR. BAILY: We're going to take that question in New York. Go ahead, New York.
QUESTION:
Hi, my name is Adrian Novac from Romanian Television on Channel 1. My
question for you is if the plans in Poland and Czech Republic will
prove successful, would you consider expanding them to other countries
in Eastern Europe? And I'm talking here about Romania or Bulgaria. Are
these countries another option for you?
LTG OBERING:
Actually, if we get the interceptors located in Poland and the radar
site in Czech Republic, as you can see from the slide that I showed
previously, we get the coverage that we would anticipate and expect,
and we do not have any further plans at this point to expand into any
additional nations over there.
MR. BAILY: Christophe.
QUESTION:
Christoph von Marschall. I'm the U.S. correspondent of the German daily
Der Tagesspiegel. I have a question for the General and one for Dan
Fried.
And if I look from the Russian side, of course it was
very convincing that you said today that it wouldn't -- had no effect
to the balance, to the strategic balance between the United States and
Russia. But if you had said you'll put all this up in two and a half
years, and I would like to continue this idea on the timeline, then in
10 to 15 years might that not change if you have further technical
development? If you place much more radars and interceptors, wouldn't
it then affect if that might be one? That's my question to the general.
And to Dan Fried, we all try to understand what might be behind
the Russian threats and, of course, we just can guess. One short-range
guess would be the system is not very popular in the Czech Republic and
the Polish government is just breaking apart. You have lost your main
partner in the former Polish government, Radek Sikorski, so maybe
they're just thinking it's a good idea to make troubles now and then
you have to look for new partners. And the long-range thing could be
maybe they would like you to share the technique with them. Do you have
-- could you comment on those two guesses, whether there's the
short-range or the long-range interest?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRIED:
Well, in my -- this is speculation. Although in my experience, it
doesn't usually pay to threaten Poles or Czechs, and I think the
response from the Poles and Czechs was predictable for anyone who has
experience with them; no country likes to be told that it's going to be
put in nuclear crosshairs. No country likes to be threatened in that
way.
I don't -- and as for the Polish Government, you know,
it's a democracy. I don't sense that, you know, whatever is going on
domestically is going to impact this. We have a good relationship with
the Poles. We look forward to working with the defense ministry and
their experts as these discussions proceed both in Poland the Czech
Republic. But those governments spoke for themselves and, frankly, I
think they spoke rather well.
LTG OBERING: With respect
to the -- you said 10 or 15 years in the future. Now, what I can say is
this. We have funding that has been outlined all the way through 2013
today, and that funding supports what you see. And I don't know of
anybody that's clamoring to be able to spend more money on missile
defense in the United States, especially in the new phase that we are
now entering into. Certainly, I don't see anybody trying to hand me
more money.
But be that as it may, we are trying to pace this
development based on what we see happening with respect to the threat.
And therefore, again, this is targeted for the Middle Eastern threat
and we will react they way they do, but I think it will be many, many,
many, many, many years before they would be able to present anywhere
near the capabilities that the Russians, for example, have today.
MR. BAILY: One very short question.
QUESTION:
My name is Masaya Oikawa with Japanese newspaper Mainichi, and I'd like
to ask about China's space missile test, which might be something that
could pose a threat to your BMD system, especially in terms of
satellite system. How do you estimate the threat of it and do you have
any countermeasure against it?
LTG OBERING: Well, first
of all, the Chinese launch represented years and years of work on their
part in terms of what they demonstrated, even though their success in
doing that was obviously a surprise, I think, around the world. I will
say this, though. It does not present a threat to the ballistic missile
defense system that I've outlined here with respect our capabilities
against North Korea or what we are building toward for the Middle East.
It may do so in the future, but it does not today based on what we have
seen them to be able to demonstrate.
And the missile defense
system, as I've said before, we have capabilities that we are fielding
against the North Koreans and the potential threat from Iran. We have a
development program that we could begin to address things like that
type of development with respect to China, but that's not something
that we have any plans or intent to field.
MR. BAILY: Thank you, all, very much. I'm afraid our briefers have to go. Thank you.
