Meanwhile, Missile Threats Increase; Kyl Warns Nuclear-Missiles-Armed Pakistan Could Fall To Taliban In One To Six Months
Gates Plan Involves $900 Million More Cuts To Missile Defense Programs, Beyond The $1.4 Billion Slash That Gates Specified
The defense spending plan that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled would kick key missile defense programs into limbo and slash them by a total $900 million more than he announced, a key congressional leader said.
Gates and others at the Pentagon have said it is vital to develop capabilities to kill enemy missiles in their boost phase just after launch — before those enemy weapons can spew forth multiple warheads or confusing decoys or chaff. But the Gates budget proposal leaves boost phase programs on hold, according to Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate minority whip.
The Gates budget proposal would drop plans to buy more planes for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, just as the initial prototype ABL is about to prove it can work in a test later this year. And it is unclear where the Gates budget plan would leave the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI), the other boost-phase program. A top general said recently that in the Gates plan, missile defense programs should be shifted into research and development — not procurement — efforts, adding that there are “things that we’ve got to understand before we go any further with the boost phase.” But Gates denied that his no-more-planes decision means he is killing ABL, saying the R&D work can continue.
The Gates budget only provides funds for some research and development work on KEI, otherwise leaving the program idled, according to Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank near the Pentagon focusing on defense and other issues.
Given that Gates and other Pentagon leaders say they recognize the value of hitting enemy missiles while they still are in the boost phase, “it makes no sense,” Goure told Space & Missile Defense Report.
Kyl bristled at the decision to buy no more ABL planes, asserting that Gates shouldn’t say a program is still alive when it is nothing more than an R&D exercise. If a program really remains alive, then there should be a clearly definitive time stated when hardware is purchased and placed on operational status, the high-ranking senator said.
“It is important to continue to think about what we want to do, to have active and honest research going on, and to at least have policy that you driving toward, so that the research is not just an academic exercise, but is designed to get you to a specific result in a certain period of time,” Kyl asserted. “And that is what I don’t see in this budget.”
He referred to the Gates proposal to President Obama for the defense budget covering the looming fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010.
Kyl spoke before a National Defense University Foundation and National Defense Industrial Association breakfast in Washington at the Capitol Hill Club. (To read exactly what he said, please see partial transcript in this issue.)
A key point here, Kyl stressed, is that there is no time to waste in completing development of a multilayered ballistic missile defense program to protect the United States, its forces and its allies. The threat from multiple enemies is growing, and won’t wait if the United States dithers in erecting a barrier against enemy missiles, Kyl argued.
While he, as many others have done, cited the threats posed by Iran and North Korea, Kyl voiced far greater concern about Pakistan. (Please see separate story in this issue.)