Lawmakers Slash Funds for Space Based Radar
Wed Jul 21, 2004 06:49 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5736739 By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers have gutted the budget for a satellite system aimed at boosting U.S. ability to track moving targets, dealing a major blow to the project on which Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. have been working.
The Space Based Radar project would get only $75 million of the $327.7 million requested by President Bush, conferees from the House of Representatives and Senate said Wednesday.
The system was designed to provide all-weather, around-the-clock detection and tracking of moving targets worldwide as well as 3-dimensional radar mapping data.
>>>>>>>>>>>
In arguing against the cuts in the Space Based Radar project, the Defense Department said in a July 7 appeal they would fly in the face of an acquisition strategy strongly backed by the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community.
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In an article for the Washington Monthly in the summer of 2000, Stephen Hadley, now Condi Rice's Deputy, cited a 1999 National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that "Iraq could test a North Korean-type ICBM that could deliver a several hundred-kilogram payload to the United States in the last half of the next decade (calendar year 2000) depending on the level of foreign assistance."
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_09-10/nieso99.asp It has been noted by some that only North Korea possesses missiles that could reach any part of the U.S., and that missile (the Taepo-Dong 2) is currently untested.
But Hadley concluded that, " Only against ballistic missiles does the United States remain vulnerable through continued adherence to the ABM Treaty.
Also that , interim "quick fixes" offering even the most limited capability against the ballistic missile threat would provide a deterrent to countries now seeking these weapons; the so-called "scarecrow defense."
http://usinfo.org/wf/2001/010502/epf306.htm In this way, Hadley argued, the United States would have an "emergency deployment option" in case of crisis. The way around amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty would be to declare the system "temporary".
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/abmpage.html Anything to get the industry in the Pentagon chow line. Its clear that no matter what the obstacles or objections, Hadley would insist that the constructs of a new missile defense regime were essential to the nation's defense.
A senior U.S. military officer warned in October of this year that, "Space may become a war zone in the not-too-distant future," in an apparent reaction to China becoming the third country besides the U.S. and Russia to put a man in space.
http://www.cryptodesk.com/war.htm "In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, Deputy Commander, United States Northern Command, and Vice Commander, U.S. Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command, said at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17329"Our military forces depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be," he said.
Anderson has served on the Army staff in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Acquisition in the Pentagon as a space acquisitions and appropriations warrior.
"They can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems," said Anderson, who was formerly with the U.S. Space Command.
"Now how they do that and who that's going to be I can't tell you in this audience," he warned ominously.
In a Reuters article published in the same month as Anderson's remarks, Rich Haver, former special assistant for intelligence to Donald Rumsfeld, said he expected battles in space within the next two decades.
"I believe space is the place we will fight in the next 20 years," said Haver, now vice president for intelligence strategy at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. (sincere, concerned look on his face as he speaks)
"There are executive orders that say we don't want to do that," Haver explained. "There's been a long-standing U.S. policy to try to keep space a peaceful place, but ... we have in space assets absolutely essential to the conduct of our military operations (and our portfolios), absolutely essential to our national security. They have been there for many years," he asserted.
"When the true history of the Cold War is written and all the classified items are finally unclassified, I believe that historians will note that it was in space that a significant degree of this country's ability to win the Cold War was embedded," Haver extolled.
Responding to a question about the implications of China sending a man into space, Haver said: "I think the Chinese are telling us they're there, and I think if we ever wind up in a confrontation again with any one of the major powers who has a space capability we will find space is a battleground."
Spies and criminal intrigues everywhere afoot!
All of this advocacy contradicts a previous report by the CIA, which stated that it was not necessary to rapidly deploy a missile defense shield.
The threat from North Korea is their main justification for a missile defense system. NK's Taepo-dong 1 missile can only carry a 1,000-kilogram nuclear bomb for about 2,500 kilometers, short of U.S. territory. It could also carry lighter biological or chemical weapons for 4,100 kilometers, but it would still fall about 400 kilometers short of Alaska and the Hawaii islands.
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/articles/nmd.htm Similarity, the Taepo-dong 2 missile, when fully operational, is only expected to barely reach Alaska.
The General Accounting Office cautions, in a 40-page report released in Sept. 2003, that the Bush administration's push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-08-12-special-interestlaw_x.htm The GAO report said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task.
The Pentagon's 2004 budget request includes $8.5 billion for unclassified space programs, an increase of about $600 million more than 2003, including funding increases for work on an advanced network of laser-based communications satellites.
The request also includes $274 million for a space-based radar system which the U.S. Air Force hopes to launch in 2012 to track moving ground targets at all times regardless of weather conditions. That marked a sharp rise from $48 million in 2003.
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp?id=news/jsf06253.xml Teets has said that winning approval to increase funding for the radar program would be "one of the real tests" for future space programs. Defense officials plan to spend about $4.4 billion in the next five years on the program, which will provide data to both military and intelligence agencies.
The GAO report faults the stepped-up schedule proposed by President Bush for premature integration. "As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system".
http://www.clw.org/nmd/rush2.html Despite the GAO report, the Defense Department has budgeted approximately $10 billion a year over the next five years to fund the missile defense program, and appropriators approved $9.1billion to be spent next year on the system.
Of course, there exists the possibility that President Bush actually assembled the Pentagon's recent pack of aerospace executives to run his foreign policy in his own anticipation of a credible 'space threat', to deter a future assault on our nation's security.
What foresight he must have had from his Texas ranch. What of it, if executives and shareholders in the space industry happen to rape of our treasury to fulfill their own hunger to dominate military and commercial space?
Lockheed Space & Strategic Missiles, has to date, built and orbited more than 875 spacecraft for military, civil government and international commercial markets.
The Arms Trade Resource Center, reported that 80% of Lockheed's business is with the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. It is also the largest provider of information technology services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. government. Such business has grown substantially during the Bush tenure, especially in fiscal year 2002 as plans for war were formulated.
http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/links.html The ATRC report calculates that Lockheed was awarded $17 billion in defense contracts in 2002, up from $14.7 billion in 2001. First quarter sales for 2003 were $7.1 billion, an 18% increase from the corresponding quarter in 2002.
The ex-Lockheed Martin employees with the most direct connections to nuclear and missile defense policy are:
Former chief operating officer Peter B. Teets, who is now Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a post that includes making decisions on the acquisition of everything from reconnaissance satellites to space-based elements of missile defense.
And, Everet Beckner, who served as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's division that helped run the United Kingdom's Atomic Weapons Establishment.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/uk/uk-usa.htmBeckner is now Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, charged with oversight of maintenance, development, and production of nuclear warheads.
http://www.dp.doe.gov/about_nn.asp In their new positions, both Teets and Beckner are well-positioned to make decisions on procurement and research programs that will directly or indirectly benefit their former employer (Lockheed),which has major portfolios in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and military space systems.
Peter Teets, undersecretary of defense, and former Lockheed president, is a major promoter of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the Military in Space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the U.S. does not thoroughly "dominate all aspects of space."
"Clearly, space is the high ground, and we need to capture that high ground and then exploit it," said the former chief executive of the aerospace contractor.
http://www.fas.org/spp/military Despite the Bush administration's mad rush into military space, the renewal of the missile defense program didn't begin with them.
In response to the call from some in the Clinton-era's Republican Congress for the rapid acceleration of national missile defense development, "leading to deployment of a defense system as soon as possible," the United Missile Defense Company (UMDC) was formed in 1997 as a joint venture; equally owned by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW.
http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP181 In fiscal years 1996 through 1998, the Republican congress authorized and appropriated a total of $1,174 million more for missile defense than President Clinton's budget requested for those years.
Despite President Clinton's opposition, a multimillion dollar contract was signed in 1998 for a "Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator" with Lockheed Martin, TRW, and Boeing as the contractors.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm On the 25th of April 1997 the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization announced that two contracts for the concept definition study phase of the National Missile Defense (NMD) Lead Systems Integrator were awarded to United Missile Defense Company, Bethesda, MD, and Boeing North American Inc., Downey, CA.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2002/b03072002_bt109-02.html According to a 1997 U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command news release, the then- commanding general of the Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Hartzog, and the then- commander of the SSDC, Lieut. General Anderson signed a memorandum of agreement to recognize SSDC as the Army's specified proponent for space and missile defense.
http://fas.org/spp/military/commission/report.htm The MOA also permitted SSDC to establish the Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab.
The Space and Strategic Defense Command was set up as the Army's specified proponent for space and national missile defense and an "integrator" for theater missile defense issues - recognized by the military establishment as a "one stop shop".
The Space Battle Lab is intended to develop "warfighting concepts, focus military science and technology research, conduct warfighting experiments, and support exercises and training activities, all focused on space and missile defense."
Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Northrop Grumman Space Technology ended up with the contract for the Space Battle Lab.
Today the Lockheed Space Systems website describes the corporation's ambitions in "space-based telecommunications; remote-sensing; missile systems; and the capability to integrate these complex elements into a total "system of systems," as an enterprise built by heritage aerospace companies including Lockheed, Martin Marietta, RCA, GE and Loral.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems is one of the major operating units of the Lockheed Corporation. It designs, develops, tests, manufactures and operates a variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil, and commercial customers.
Chief products include space launch and ground systems, remote sensing and communications satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space observatories and spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles and missile defense systems.
Everything for the next-generation of meddling in space. Everything for a down-on-his-luck weapon's manufacturer to get his blood money-grubbing career back on track.
Specific defense projects for the Lockheed Space Battle Lab:
-Global Positioning System IIR (GPS).
-Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
-Space Based Infrared System (Space-Based Lasers)
-International Space Station
-Theater High-Altitude Area Defense
-Airborne Laser
-Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile: The D5 is the latest generation of submarine launched ballistic missiles
-Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile: (UK FBM). The D5, built by LM Space & Strategic Missiles, is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense's strategic nuclear fleet.
Lockheed Space & Strategic Missiles, has to date, built and orbited more than 875 spacecraft for military, civil government and international commercial markets.
It should be remembered that there is no pot of money sitting around unneeded to dip into for these space projects. No starry-eyed mission to the moons of Pluto can be sustained without the military bonanza of nervous cash; and you can't easily turn this industry off once you've given them the money and licence to fiddle.
There seems to be no limit to aerospace ambitions. The Bush administration is intent on pushing ahead with the expansion of the military space program, despite the limitations of the nation's weak economy and the adoption of many other costly ‘priorities' for the armed forces.
This is an excerpt from my book, 'Power of Mischief'
http://www.returningsoldiers.us/pompage.htm
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