1996 Congressional Hearings
Intelligence and Security

Good morning Chairman Specter and other members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to brief the Conmittee on the Intelligence Community's assessment of long range missile threats to the United States. My remarks are based on the National Intelligence Estimate "Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years" that was released one year ago this week. I will outline the key judgments of that study and comment on the process that generates NIEs in general and this one in particular. I would note that the focus of that estimate was an emerging threats from countries other than Russia and China.

I will also respond to those criticisms most frequently leveled against this particular estimate. In this open forum I an obviously constrained in what I can say about our intelligence sources and methods, I would be glad to most with you in closed session, where we can provide a more detailed assessment. But I would like to say here that after a year of criticism, we still regard this Estimate as a sound intelligence product -- one that clearly reports results of analytic work in response to the questions of those who requested the NIE. Its judgments are still supported unanimously by Intelligence community agencies and their analysts.

Looking at the Estimate...

Mr. Chairman, let me begin with some brief remrks on the missile forces of Russia and China before I turn to the bulk of the judgments in the Estimate dealing with other countries. Although this Estimate did not deal with Russia and China in any detailed way, we were asked to address the possibility of accidental or unauthorized launch from those countries.

Russia

Despite dramatic political changes over the last six years, Russia continues to maintain a strategic force capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads against the United

States. START I has resulted in a numerically smaller force, but Russia retains its strategic capabilities and continues strategic force modernization programs, albeit within the constraints of a greatly weakened economy.

China

The Chinese force of nuclear tipped ICBMs is small by US and Russian standards and will retnain so for the foreseeable future. Many of China's long-range systems are probably aimed at the United States. China plans to update this force with new missiles and, unlike the Russians, to increase the number of missiles deployed. Possible future improvements are to include a mobile ICBM.

Unauthorized Launch

In this NIE, the Intelligence Community reaffirmed earlier assessments that the current threat to North America from unauthorized or accidental launch of Russian or Chinese strategic missiles is remote, so long as Moscow and Beijing maintain current security practices. As the Estimate also noted, however, the Community remains concerned that a severe internal crisis in either country could compromise their nuclear command structures.

Other Nations

Nearly a dozen countries other than Russia and China have ballistic missile development or production programs. In the view of the Intelligence Community, these programs are intended to serve regional goals. Making the change from a short or medium range missile--that could pose a threat to US troops located abroad--to a long range ICBM is a major technological leap.

The key judgments of the estimate I noted above are as follows:

First, we believe North Korea is developing a missile, which we call the Taepo Dong 2, that could have a maximum range capability sufficient to reach Alaska. The missile may also be capable of reaching some US territories in the Pacific and the far western portion of the 2000 km-long Hawaiian Island chain.

Second, the Intelligence Community judges that in the next 15 years no country other than the major declared nuclear powers will develop or otherwise acquire an intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten the contiguous 48 states or Canada.

• For instance North Korea, with the most active missile program among the countries we examine, would still have to develop a new propulsion system, it would have to develop or acquire improved guidance and control systems, and it would have to conduct a flight test program. Even with substantial foreign assistance, meeting these challenges will take time, given the technical and manufacturing infrastructure of North Korea and the political and economic situation in the country.

• We have no evidence that Pyongyang has begun or intends to begin such a program.

• No other potentially hostile country has the capability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile threat to any part of the United States by 2010.

Third, any country with an indigenously developed space launch vehicle--for example, France, Japan, Israel or India--has the technical capability to develop an ICBM within five years if so motivated.

We are likely to detect any indigenous program to develop a long-range ballistic missile many years before deployment.

• A flight test in a surely detectable sign of a ballistic missile program. Given the technical hurdles that would have to be overcome, the Intelligence Community is confident that the first flight test would provide at least five years warning before deployment.

• Moreover, we would almst certainly obtain other earlier indicators of an ICBM program.

Fourth, foreign assistance can affect the pace of a missile program. Since specific technological assistance is difficult to predict, the potential for foreign assistance introduces some uncertainty into our predictions of timelines. Our assessments allow for the acquisition of some foreign technology by the countries of interest.

• The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) has significantly limited international transfers of missiles, components, and related technology, and we project it will continue to do so.

• That said, leakage of components and critical technologies into developing countries has occurred, and will likely continue. A gcod case in point--subsequent to the publication of the NIE--is the interception of Russian missile guidance components enroute to Iraq.

Fifth, we expect no country that currently has ICBMs will sell them. Each of these countries has agreed to adhere to the MTCR, and transfer of an ICBM would show blatant disregard for the MTCR Regime. Also, exporting countries probably would be concerned that the missiles might be turned against them.

Sixth, we examined worldwide development programs for cruise missiles because of the possibility of their being launched from forward-based ships. By 2005, several countries, including some potentially hostile to the United States, prqbably will acquire land-attack cruise missiles to support regional goals. We believe that an attack by cruise missiles launched from ships off the coast would be technically feasible, but unlikely.

Let me conclude these comments on the Estimate itself with mention of the time frame of the study. During the formative stages of this NIE, the time frame was a topic for discussion. A convromise was reached at 15 years -- 20 years being too speculative, and five or ten years not being of sufficient value to the acquisition community.

Uncertainty of course grows as we project more distantly into the future. As we have seen in recent years, world politics can change quite rapidly. But because ICBM programs move slowly, and because the technological base and economic resources of potentially hostile countries are all limited, we have concluded in the NIE that these countries are highly unlikely to deploy ICBMs within 15 years.

• Our problem would have been harder if we had attempted to predict what will be in development or on the drawing
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  board in 15 years, or if we had evidence today of either an ICBM program or strong technological infrastructure.

The fact that we project out 15 years does not mean that we can safely dismiss this subject until well into the next century. This is one of the highest priorities for the Intelligence Community. Our analytical work will continue. We expect to monitor developmentss, pursue collection, produce additional studies, and bring to the attention of the President and the members of Congress new intelligence information and analysis on this important subject.

The National Estimates Process...

I have discussed what the NIE said. Let me spend a few minutes outlining how the NIE process works. A national intelligence estimate is the Intelligence Community's most authoritative projection of future developments in a particular subjet area. It is prepared by the National Intelligence Council with the participation of all relevant agencies of the Intelligence Community, and it contains the assessments and judgments of these agencies. Each NIE is discussed and approved at a meeting of the most senior members of the Intelligence Community.

The process for producing NIEs is directed particularly at ensuring the presentation of all viewpoints. We do not impose consensus; in fact we encourage each of the participating agencies to express their views. Major differences of view are included in the main text. Lesser reservations are expressed in footnotes.

The estimate on which I based my testimony today is no exception. It is the most authoritative current statement on the subject by the Intelligence Community. Moreover, the key judgments I outlined were free of contention.

It is worth pausing, though, to mention some of the dilemmas we face in producing National Intelligence Estimates. How we deal with those dilemmas often affects how readers react to an Estimate, and I suspect that has been the case with this Estimate, in particular.

• One dilemma concerns the length of Estimates -- the requirement to strike a balance between those consumers who want Estimates to be brief and to the point, and those who want to see a more detailed presentation. One of the most frequent criticisms of Estimates is that they are too long and detailed for busy, often harried, readers. In response to that criticism, we have sought to keep them to a
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  manageable length, a practice that inevitably limits the amount of supporting evidence and detailed reasoning we can display. While there is considerable evidence and reasoning displayed in the Estimate under discussion, our attempt to be brief probably accounts for some of the controversy about our conclusions.

• Another dilemma flows from the tension between the readers' expressed desire for clarity in the judgments and the need, on the other hand, to lay out the uncertainties, qualifiers, gaps, and alternative outcomes. Erring too much in the latter direction has led to the other most frequent criticism of Estimates: that they too often drift in their judgments toward the "least common denominator", that they avoid clear positions, that they waffle. Needless to say, we have not been accused of that in the present case.

• A third dilemma flows from the fact that Estimates are often treated as though they represent "revealed wisdom" or the final chapter in a story, when in fact they are exactly what their name implies -- our best estimate at a finite point in time on difficult questions facing the Intelligence Community and its consumers. Our analysts are constantly debating an Estimate's conclusions against new evidence, and we report changes in judgments when they occur.

Criticisms...

In closing, let me briefly give you our perspective on three of the specific criticisms registered over the last year. By far the most serious accusation we have heard is that the conclusions of the Estimate were politically influenced, that we, in essence, took our orders from someone in the political arena rather than "calling it as we see it". This is the most serious charge you can level at a professional intelligence officer, and I cannot let the occasion pass without rejecting it in the strongest terms. I can state categorically that there was no attempt by Administration officials to shape or modify the judgments in the Estimate at any time.

A second, and presumably related criticism is that we have reversed assessments of recent years without sufficient justification. This, too, is unfounded. To be sure, some projections of missile developments were changed by a few years, but this was in response to new information. Moreover, the general nature of the judgment about ICBM developments in this Estimate is consistent with government assessments published in 1993 and later, including one published by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in July, 1995. 1 also note that the GAO review of the Estimate concluded it is not inconsistent with two NIEs published in 1993.

And finally, there is the criticism that the Estimate did not address threats to all of the United states, particularly Alaska and Hawaii. Yet the second key judgment of the estimate clearly describes the threat to Alaska and Hawaii. with regard to most of the matters discussed in the Estimate, however, the threat to Alaska or Hawaii is no greater than to the rest of the US and therefore is not spelled out separately.

This concludes my testimony Mr. Chairman, and I will be glad to take the Committee's questions.