By Emelie Rutherford
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told senators yesterday he would support increasing the number of ground-based missile interceptors in the United States–despite the lack of funding for more in the Pentagon’s budget proposal–if he is advised they are needed to protect against North Korea.
“The judgment and the advice that I got was that the 30 (missile) silos that we have now or are under construction (in Alaska and California) are fully adequate to protect us against a North Korean threat for a number of years,” Gates testified before the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee (SAC-D). “Now, the reality is if that threat were to begin to develop more quickly than anybody anticipates, or in a way that people haven’t anticipated, where the 30 interceptors would not look like they were sufficient, it would be very easy to resume this program and expand…the number of silos.”
He added that “if the circumstances should change in a way that leads people to believe that we need more interceptors than the 30, then there’s plenty of room at Fort Greely (in Alaska) to expand.” Fort Greely is slated to receive the bulk of the 30 planned interceptors.
Gates’ comments were similar to those he made June 1 when visiting Fort Greely.
Before the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2010 defense budget request was finalized, Gates, opted against following a previous plan to increase the number of ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely and Vandenberg AFB in California from 30 to 44. Boeing [BA] builds the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.
The budget proposal seeks to cut Missile Defense Agency funding overall by more than $1 billion.
In response to questioning yesterday from SAC-D Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Gates said Fort Greely has an “immensely capable system,” and that he has “confidence that if North Korea launched a long-range missile in the direction of the United States, that we would have a high probability of being able to defend ourselves against it.”
Yet he told the panel it “is important to remember it is still a developmental system.” The Pentagon’s budget proposal seeks to “robustly fund” further development and testing of interceptors at Fort Greely and Vandenberg AFB, he said, so new capabilities can be swapped into the silos.
“The idea is this is not just a static system up in Fort Greely, but something that is undergoing continuing improvement,” Gates said.
The defense secretary also said he “still (has) hope” the United States and Russia can reach a deal to partner on missile defense to protect from Iranian threats. Gates told SAC-D member Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) that that even though he took money out of the Pentagon’s FY ’10 budget request for the so-called third site in Europe, there is enough money in the budget from FY ’09 that will enable the United States to proceed with any necessary construction.
Yesterday’s SAC-D session was the final FY ’10 defense budget hearing Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen plan to attend. The first congressional panels–House Armed Services subcommittees–plan to start marking up the budget request on Thursday.
On the Air Force’s KC-X aerial-refueling tanker effort, Gates said he remains committed to starting a winner-take-all competition “mid-summer” with a draft request for proposals (RFP).
He said he expects to decide “within the next week or 10 days” whom the acquisition authority for the new competition will be.
Gates transferred tanker source-selection authority from the Air Force to the Pentagon’s acquisition chief last year, after the Government Accountability Office sustained Boeing’s protest of a now-canceled tanker contract award to a rival Northrop Grumman [NOC]-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team.
“I’m in the process, the final decision process, in terms of the acquisition authority and the structure we’re going to put in place to ensure that it is a fair, open, and transparent process,” Gates said.
He added he asked Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn to “take a very close interest in this process.” Gates also pledged to share the draft RFP with lawmakers.