Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) is calling on lawmakers pushing for a new missile-defense site on the East Coast of the United States to temper their support and wait for the Pentagon to assess if it is needed.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced last Friday that the Pentagon is taking several steps to boost its missile-defense efforts, including following congressional direction to conduct environmental-impact studies to find a potential third missile-defense site in the United States.
SASC Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in response called on President Barack Obama to require the Pentagon to build a third interceptor site in the United States, which the senator advocated for at a committee hearing yesterday. The fiscal year 2013 defense authorization act only directs the Pentagon to take initial steps to assess such a location for missile radars and interceptors (Defense Daily, March 18).
“I’m just urging folks who are committed to an East Coast site let two things happen,” Levin told Defense Daily yesterday, after a SASC hearing on matters including missile defense. “One is let this assessment take place, which is underway, and secondly to let this expansion of the Alaska site with California also take place before they reach a conclusion that we need an East Coast site.”
Hagel said last Friday that, in response to Iran and North Korea’s work to develop long-range missiles, the Pentagon also is planning to deploy 14 more Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) at Ft. Greely, Alaska, restoring previous plans to have a total of 44 missile interceptors in Alaska and California.
Levin said he hopes the Pentagon’s announcement “tempers some of the automatic support that otherwise is there for an East Coast site, because what this does is it sets us on a very sound, logical course of strengthening the Alaska site.”
“If anything I think that that is a change which should cause people to at least pause and think through what the arguments (are) for that change,” the SASC chairman added.
Inhofe quizzed Army Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, at yesterday’s hearing about the United States’ ability to defend against a missile attack from Iran.
“We have the capability of limited defense right now,” Jacoby said. “And I think that it’s not optimum and I think that we’ve made some important steps forward in what was rolled out. And I think that we need to continue to assess the threat and make sure that we stay ahead of it and not fall behind it.”
Asked by Inhofe if an East Coast site with missile interceptors and radars would “improve the posture that we’re in,” Jacoby replied: “Certainly, exploring a third site is an important next step. What a third site gives me, whether it’s on the East Coast or an alternate location, would be increased battle space. That means, increased opportunity for me to engage threats from either Iran or North Korea.”
Still, Jacoby told Levin during the hearing that at the present time “we have coverage (for the entire United States) against both Iran and North Korea with the current system,” which consists of 30 interceptors in Alaska and California.
Levin noted how Jacoby said last year that the Pentagon did not have a requirement for an East Coast missile defense site.
“The condition is still the same,” Jacoby said “We currently can defend the entire United States from an Iranian long range missile, missile threat. The question is, how do we stay ahead of the evolving Iranian threat, and how do we keep our options open for the continued evolution of either Iranian or North Korean threats?”
“As the Iranian threat evolves, we need to be prepared to continue improving the resilience, the redundancy and the agility with which I’m provided to defend the entire United States, and that could include additional missile sites,” Jacoby added.
SASC member Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and other SASC Republicans have been citing reports that Iran could have a ballistic missile that could strike the United States in 2015.
“I would say that it’s my belief that Iran is actively pursuing an (intercontinental ballistic missile) ICBM capability, and so I think it’s prudent to be taking steps to hedge against the evolution of that threat,” Jacoby told Fischer yesterday.