I was under the impression that Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering’s briefing to Pentagon reporters on Tuesday was his “outbrief” – since the Army’s Maj. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, Obering’s deputy commander at MDA, is slated to take over when Obering goes on “terminal leave” in November. (Obering doesn’t retire until January.)
The outbrief will wait for another day. MDA is taking advantage of current events a bit – with the recent signing of an agreement with the Czech Republic and the Iranian missile tests earlier this month. Early in the brief, Obering cited Defense Intelligence Agency analysis stating Iran is working on an extended range version of the Shahab-3 and a new 2,000 kilometer medium range ballistic missile, dubbed the Ashura. In light of an invigorated Iranian missile effort, Obering indicated the MDA is moving on from focusing its efforts on a North Korean threat to the Iran threat — and the need to expand protection for deployed forces and allies in Europe from it.
Obering sidestepped questions about Iran’s exact present capabilities, refusing to confirm that the country fired a 2,000 kilometer missile earlier this month or back in February – saying only that the Iranians have stated publicly they had tested such a weapon. He argued there is “good evidence” the Iranians are developing longer-range missiles and anticipating the capability in the near future, Obering stated. He noted that US intelligence says that as soon as 2015 the Iranians could have an ICBM-class missile that could reach across the Atlantic – and that some of this capability could be gained through research obstensibly dedicated to a civilian space launch program.
Theater missile defense for European allies from the Iranian threat is a priority for MDA, Obering said, touting the NATO endorsement in the Bucharest summit this past April and the recent agreement with the Czech Republic on a future radar site. When asked about the Russians’ objections to the effort, he insisted that most of the objections raised stem from misunderstanding. “Russia’s primary concern was that we were exaggerating the Iranian threat and thereforce these sites in Europe must be directed at them,” he said. He emphasized that the presence of 10 kinetic interceptors in Poland could not do anything against the thousands of warheads the Russians have deployed.
The Russians, on their part have said publicly they would work to develop capabilities to counter any radar development in the Czech Republic.
Obering clearly has lost some patience with the matter, and had some pretty blunt comments for the Russians. “I won’t speculate on what the Russian motivation is. In fact, what I would ask you to do is to ask them, because frankly, I think it is… incumbent on them to justify those,” he said. “There is absolutely no justification in our eyes for some of their statements and some of their concern about these sites.” Obering reiterated that the interceptors are kinetic, don’t carry warheads and that any effort to turn them into missiles would be “imminently evident” to a casual observer.
“I think it’s time that world turns and asks the Russians to justify their position on why are they are acting, in our case, in such an unjustified way,” he added.
When not berating the Russians, a good bulk of the brief was dedicated to defending MDA’s track record – particularly in flight testing – since 2001.
The 2010 program objective memorandum is right around the corner, you know.
Thirty-five of 43 hit-to-kill intercepts have been successful since then, Obering said – arguing that the few failures were not a result of design flaws. “A component broke, or this particular component… had a malfunction that we had to replace. We have not had any major showstoppers in our overall program.”
Obering touted the five of five successful tests with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense program and the 13 of 15 tests with Aegis (arguably the most mature portion of the MDA portfolio) and six of nine tests with the long-range Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Program. Of course, he did a little expectation-lowering at the same time – announcing the delay of a planned interceptor test scheduled for July 18 due to a faulty testing component in the interceptor — a data card that records flight data and telemetry that was bad across the test fleet. A flight is planned for Friday, only now no interceptor will be used due to the danger of losing the test data – a prospect that is unappealing for a test that could cost upwards of $80 million. The full test has been pushed back until December, with Friday’s launch planned as a simulated intercept of a target missile.
While admitting that programs such as the Multiple Kill Vehicle and the Airborne laser are still eight to ten years from being operational, Obering touted the expansion of MDA’s activities since 2004 — pointing out that the agency plans to have a total of 30 interceptors by the end of the year for the long-range systems fielded between Alaska and California. As of today, 15 of the Navy’s Aegis destroyers are capable of launching the Standard Missile -3 interceptor (the marquee player in February’s satellite shootdown), with 30 of the missiles delivered to the Navy to perform the post-boost intercept mission.
“Now, one thing to remind you is that none of this existed just four years ago,” Obering said, adding a little rhetorical bear hug for the legislative branch. “We were able to do this in that time frame because of the special authorities and the special flexibilities we were given, both by the department and by the Congress.”
With the program objective memorandum for FY 2010 currently under construction, it remains to be seen whether the Congress – or a new administration – will extend the agency more rope, particularly on its less mature efforts.
-MVS