U.S. Homeland Vulnerable to Iran Threat in 2015

/PRNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, Founder and Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org has made some comments on the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing held on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The purpose of the hearing was to receive testimony on ballistic missile defense policies and programs in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2011. Ellison is one of the foremost lay experts in the field of missile defense. Ellison's comments include the following statements:

"Over the past week, Congress held three public hearings on missile defense plans for 2011 and beyond. Hearings were held by the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, the Senate Armed Service Committee led by Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and the Ranking Member John McCain (R-AZ) on Tuesday and most recently the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee led by the Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) on Wednesday.

"During these hearings, the testimony of President Barack Obama's appointees in the Department of Defense and the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, exposed five fundamental elements of the administration's missile defense plan:

1. Iran, with foreign assistance (North Korea), could have the ability to
strike the U.S. homeland with an intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) by 2015.
2. In the current administration's plan, the Phased Adaptive Approach
(PAA), there will be a second shot capability based in Europe to defend
the U.S. homeland from an Iranian ICBM in 2020. This is dependent on
the development, testing and deployment, of a new SM-3 Block 2B missile
and the integration that allows for early intercept by launch and
engage on remote sensors including basing Aegis Ashore platforms in
Europe.
3. The administration's current missile defense plan for the defense of
the U.S. homeland is to rely on 30 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI's),
26 based in Alaska and 4 in California until 2032. They would provide
protection against a maximum of 15 incoming ICBMs, using two GBIs per
ICBM with a shoot, look, and shoot doctrine. Due to distance, parts of
Eastern United States will not have the same confidence of protection
as the remaining U.S. Homeland from an ICBM threat from Iran.
4. There is a gap of protection and vulnerability against an ICBM launched
from Iran at the U.S. homeland, especially to significant parts of the
east coast, for a minimum of 5 years in the President's plan for
missile defense, provided that Iran acquires ICBM capability by 2015.
5. In regards to a hedge for the existent gap in protection from an ICBM
attack from Iran against the U.S. homeland, Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly
presented three options:
-- Fully outfitting missile field 2 in Fort Greely, Alaska with GBIs
adding 8 more GBIs to the existing 30 GBIs,
-- Testing the two-stage GBI, the missile in June of this year, the
same missile system intended to be deployed in Poland for the
canceled 3rd site of the previous administration.
-- Having additional shot opportunities, against an ICBM from Iran,
with two-stage missiles.


"The recent Congressional hearings on missile defense have made it abundantly clear to the American public that a gap exists in the missile protection of the U.S. homeland against Iran. It is also apparent that the administration's plans to develop and deploy a hedge to fill that gap have not adequately been addressed. The administration needs to move forward with urgency for a robust testing and deployment plan of the two-stage GBI on or before 2015 to ensure full protection of the U.S. homeland from Iran.

"The protection of the U.S. homeland from ballistic missiles is the declared and stated number one priority of President Obama's administration missile defense policy."

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Eleven Missiles Fired by North Korea Propels Their Capability to Threaten the United States

/PRNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org explains why the actions of North Korea on July 4th dictate the need for our nation to have a strong missile defense program, and that the ballistic missile tests by North Korea send a strong message to our nation about the need for missile defense. His comments are as follows:

"Seven North Korean ballistic missiles were fired on July 4th from North Korea into the East Sea, the body of water that separates Japan from North Korea. The seven missiles launched were a mixture of Scud - C short-range ballistic missiles and Rodong/Nodong medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges from 350 miles to 800 miles. These North Korean ballistic missiles were liquid fueled, mobile land-based systems and as such their launch pads and locations were not known prior to their launching. Satellite intelligence can only provide post-launch analysis of backtracking the trajectories to the launch locations after the missiles have been fired. The North Korean demonstration of our lack of detection prior to launch provides very difficult challenges for pre-emptive military action to disable or destroy North Korean ballistic missiles prior to launch in possible future scenarios."

"It is with appreciation, that the current Administration understands the future regional threats and has increased $900 million to the 2010 Missile Defense budget. That $900 million for 2010 is allocated for an increase in missile interceptors with the THAAD20land-based mobile system as well as the Aegis ship based missile defense system."

The launching of these seven ballistic missiles on July 4th followed four short-range ballistic missiles on July 2nd by North Korea thus providing more confidence, reliability and robustness of ballistic missile technologies for the North Korean military-industrial complex. These types of multiple tests collectively provide more assurance and technical confidence for those systems as well as for the development of the long-range ballistic missile TaepoDong-2. The first stage of the TaepoDong-2 is made up of three to four rocket engines with the same commonality of liquid fuel for combustion that are exactly used in the one rocket engine ballistic missiles that were fired on July 4th. The second stage of the TaepoDong-2 has the same technologies and rocket engine similarity to the missiles launched on July 4th."

"Admiral Timothy Keating Commander of the US Pacific Command stated in Honolulu this weekend that he believes North Korea has the capability to fire a long-range ballistic missile (ICBM) that will reach the United States or Hawaii. 'We believe they have the capability to do so but they haven't yet demonstrated the intent.' It is apparent with these comments by the head of the Pacific Combat Command and with the still deployed Sea-Based X-band radar that the long-range ballistic missile threat to Hawaii and the United States is and remains real."

"With North Korea continuing to flaunt, deploy and actively test ballistic missiles to provoke our nation and our allies along with its nuclear weapons, it is with hope, great expectation and nonsensical belief that our United States Congress can rectify the Administration's budget decision made against overwhelming public support to decrease our nation's only deployed proven long-range ballistic missile defense system, the ground-based interceptors deployed at Fort Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base."

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Missile Defense Reviews to Focus on Current, Long-Term Challenges

North Korea and Iran pose serious nuclear and missile proliferation concerns for the United States and other nations and will be major considerations in the U.S ballistic missile defense review, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III told the Senate Armed Services Committee Monday.

"The risks and dangers from missile proliferation are growing problems," Lynn said. "The president has made clear that we will move forward with missile defenses. They're affordable, proven and responsive to the threat."

Lynn joined other defense leaders in describing the ballistic missile threat and reviews of missile defense policy and planning under way to address current as well as long-term security challenges.

The recently initiated Ballistic Missile Defense Review and other related reviews, he said, will focus on challenges posed by violent extremist movements, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, rising powers with sophisticated weapons and failed or failing threats, Lynn told the panel.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the global nature of the threats and the rapid pace of technological change imposes big challenges on any deterrent strategy.

"No longer will a monolithic, mutual-assured destruction approach deter our aggressors," Cartwright said. "Our deterrent strategy will need to handle the rapid advances in technologies across a broad range of threats and conditions."

Several broad principles will guide the efforts:

• Defending the United States from rogue states and protecting U.S. forces.

This includes more effective theater missile defenses and more capabilities to warfighters provided through shorter-range and mobile missile defense systems, Lynn explained. The fiscal 2010 budget request includes an additional $900 million to field more systems such as the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense ships and Standard Missile-3 interceptors to defend deployed forces and allies, he said.

• Preparing for emerging threats.

This effort calls for continued investment in national missile defense systems upgrades
and research and development to pursue new and more effective technologies to confront theater missile threats, Lynn said.

• Ensuring the effectiveness of U.S. missile defenses.

Lynn emphasized the need for robust testing, while terminating the troubled kinetic energy interceptor and multiple kill vehicle programs and returning the airborne laser to a technology demonstration program.

• Using missile defense as the basis for fostering international defense cooperation.

No final decisions have been made regarding missile defense in Europe, Lynn told the panel. However, the U.S. approach to missile defense there will be to seek cooperation with international partners, including Russia, to reduce the threat from Iran.

Lynn called ballistic missile defenses an important part of current and future national strategy that must be integrated into broader deterrence and alliance considerations.

"Missile defenses play a key role in both responding to current threats and hedging against future contingencies," he told the senators. "As we move forward with missile defense plans and programs, the Department of Defense will ensure they are affordable, effective and responsive to the risks and threats that confront the United States, our friends and our allies."

Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said the $7.8 billion requested for missile defense in the fiscal 2010 budget will support these endeavors.

This funding, he said, will focus on three areas of improvement: current protection against theater and rogue nation threats, the United States' hedge against future threats and improving the acquisition of U.S. missile defense capability.

"Missile defense is expensive, but the cost of mission failure can also be very high," O'Reilly said, emphasizing that the system must be both affordable and effective.

"The department is proposing a balanced program to develop, rigorously test and field an integrated [ballistic missile defense system] architecture to counter existing regional threats, maintain our limited [intercontinental ballistic missile] defense, develop new technologies to address future risks and become more operationally and cost-effective as we prepare to protect against the more uncertain threats of the future," he said.

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

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Ted Galen Carpenter discusses North Korea's latest nuclear test on WOR

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N. Korea Vows to Punish U.S., S. Korea 'Warmongers'

North Korea vowed Tuesday to punish U.S. and South Korean "warmongers" after the American military said it would go ahead with annual joint exercises that Pyongyang calls an invasion rehearsal.

Tensions in Northeast Asia have spiked amid mounting concern over the North's apparent plan to test-launch a missile believed capable of reaching the U.S. west coast.

Many analysts have said the launch threat is.....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504005,00.html

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N. Korea Says It Is Preparing to 'Launch Satellite'

North Korea said Tuesday it is preparing to shoot a satellite into orbit, its clearest reference yet to an impending launch that neighbors and the U.S. suspect will be a provocative test of a long-range missile.

The statement from the North's space technology agency comes amid growing international concern that the communist nation is gearing up to fire a version of its most advanced missile — capable of reaching the U.S. — in coming days, in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,499046,00.html

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