Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
Appendix III: Unclassified Working Papers
W. Seth Carus 1 : "Ballistic Missiles in Iran and Iraq:
1988-1998"
It is just over a decade since the missile programs in Iran and Iraq first
attracted my attention. At the end of February 1988, Iraq first employed
its new Al Husayn missiles, firing them at Tehran and other major Iranian
cities. These missile attacks had a profound impact on the Iranian
leadership, reflected in the substantial attention accorded to the Iraqi
missiles by Iran's top political leaders.
The following comments are intended to provide an impressionistic view of
missile developments in Iran and Iraq, rather than a review of the missile
programs. Others have surveyed what is known about these programs, so that
anything that I might add is likely to be redundant. What I would like to
focus on are several key issues that are of significance to understanding
the changing character of missile threats. These comments are based on more
than a decade of following the missile programs of Iran and Iraq. I claim
no special ability to predict missile developments in those two countries.
During the past decade, I have been surprised by unexpected developments in
the two countries. Equally important, I have been surprised by what never
transpired. And while I can claim credit for taking assigning importance to
the missile programs of those two countries well before most people, my
track record of prediction is no better than that of anyone else. Perhaps
more than anything else, it is the surprises that have given me some key
insights into the character of missile proliferation.
Let me stress that the following comments are based totally on unclassified
material. While I have had access to classified material, and in fact
served a short, undistinguished stint on the Missile Threat Assessment
Group (MTAG), these comments rely on information that can be gleaned from
the public record. Usually, in fact, there is no need to examine the
classified literature, because sufficient information exists in the open
sources to draw appropriate policy conclusions. I have not examined the
classified sources for information on recent developments with respect to
the Iranian missile program, so the views here are totally unaffected by
any awareness of the classified literature. Rather, my views reflect the
insights gained from a decade of following efforts by Iran to develop
ballistic missiles.
Surprises
Let me start by talking a little about surprises. When Iraq claimed to have
fired a medium range ballistic missile in August 1987, few paid attention.
Those of us following events in the region either dismissed the claim, or
assumed that the Soviet Union must have supplied one of its older tactical
ballistic missile systems to the Iraqis. Thus, the Iraqi missile
bombardment that initiated the last of the so-called "War of the Cities"
was a complete surprise to everyone following the Iran-Iraq War. It was a
surprise for two reasons. First, we had no reason to suspect that Iraq
possessed a medium range ballistic missile, much less an inventory that
would permit it to launch some 189 missiles during a six week period.
Second, and perhaps more significant, there was absolutely nothing in the
public record that would have given any analyst a reason to believe that
Iraq had the technical and manufacturing infrastructure to produce the Al
Husayn. Indeed, so far as we knew, Iraqi military industries were capable
of producing little more than small arms and mortars. As we subsequently
learned, this was a profound error, but one not correctable with open
source information.
This was not to be the first of the surprises from the Iraqi missile
program. Indeed, between February 1988 and February 1991 we were to be
surprised on at least three accounts by the Iraqis in this arena. First,
the impact of the missile attacks on Iran was far more substantial than
could have been predicted. A substantial portion of the population of
Tehran fled the city every night, creating massive disruption and causing
substantial political problems for Iran's political leadership. According
to Iranian accounts, the missiles may have killed as many as 2,500 people,
but that may have been less significant than the social and political
fall-out from the attacks.
A second surprise occurred after the end of the war. On December 5, 1989,
the Iraqis announced the test launch of the Al-Abid, a three stage space
launch vehicle. The appearance of this missile was a complete surprise to
the international community. Indeed, for a period of time there was some
uncertainty about whether or not the Iraqi rocket may have put an object
into orbit. It took a few days before it became clear that the rocket had
exploded during the launch, but no before it had successfully lifted off
the ground.
A third surprise, which should not have been a surprise, came from the poor
technical performance of the Iraqi missiles. Specifically, the coalition
partners were surprised to discover that the Iraqi missiles broke apart in
flight, apparently because the extended length of the Al Husayn missiles
put stresses on the missile body beyond those for which the Scud was
designed. As a result, our Patriot missiles had to hunt for the missile
warheads in a sea of debris. Moreover, the warheads often corkscrewed,
adding to the complexity of hitting them. This problem was potentially
knowable. The Iranians claimed in March 1988 that the Iraqi missiles were
breaking apart in flight, so there is no reason for us to have been
surprised. In defense of our intelligence community, even though I
described in print the Iranian descriptions of how the missiles were
breaking apart in flight, I completely forgot about that at the time of the
war and it was only after the conflict that Steve Fetter drew my attention
to those passages in my 1990 articles on the Al Husayn.
A fourth surprise involved the effectiveness of the Iraqi Al Husayn
missiles during the Gulf War in 1991. The intelligence community, perhaps
egged on by the military, determined that the missiles were too inaccurate
and carried too small a payload to be militarily effective. And, indeed,
the missiles were not militarily effective, although the missiles killed
more U.S. soldiers than any other Iraqi weapon. Unfortunately, the analysis
provided a valid answer to the wrong question. For while the missiles were
militarily insignificant, they were not strategically unimportant. They had
a profound political affect on the war, and as a result affected the way in
which our forces were operated. To keep Israel from entering the conflict,
a significant number of combat sorties were flown in Scud hunting missions,
often involving some of our most effective attack aircraft. This diverted
those assets from missions that might have had greater operational utility.
As it happens, we could afford the diversions, because of the overwhelming
resources made available for the war effort. But the missiles were the only
significant military action taken by the Iraqis that forced the coalition
to react to Iraqi moves.
A fifth surprise was the status of the Iraqi program to develop chemical
and biological warheads for its Al Husayn missiles. The intelligence
community did assess that Iraq probably possessed such warheads, but it is
evident that they had little or no substantial information on which to base
those conclusions. In retrospect, it appears to an outside observer that
they were guessing. We still do not know what the Iraqis possessed. Our
only information is what the Iraqis have told us. Specifically, they
claimed that they filled 25 missile warheads with biological agents:
thirteen with botulinum toxin, ten with anthrax, and two with aflatoxin.
The Iraqis claim to have destroyed these warheads, but there appears to be
no proof that they in fact did so. Similarly, while the Iraqis claimed to
have 75 chemical warheads, only about 30 were examined and destroyed by
UNSCOM. The Iraqis claimed to have destroyed the rest, but evidence
supporting their claims are tenuous at best.
What should one make from this series of surprises? Our track record for
anticipating unexpected events is uneven at best. We are often extremely
good at finding what we are looking for. We are far less capable of
discovering the unexpected. So, I would expect further surprises in the
future.
Project Management and Systems Integration
Let me now say a few things about project management and systems
integration.
When I first began following the Iranian missile program in 1988, Iran's
leadership appeared to assign a high priority to missile development. They
wanted to develop their own version of the Scud missile, they were working
on solid fuel rockets with an intent to produce short range ballistic
missiles, and they expressed an intent to develop a medium range ballistic
missile. At the time, I believed that within the next five years Iran would
have achieved all three of these objectives. In fact they accomplished none
of them. The only advances came as a result of external assistance. They
build Scud missiles thanks to a turn-key facility provided by North Korea.
This dependence on North Korea was and remains extremely surprising, given
that Iran almost certainly has more technical and scientific talent than
North Korea. There were some incremental developments. Press accounts
suggest that the Iranians acquired a rocket test facility, apparently now
being used to test a new rocket motor for the new medium and intermediate
range missiles that Iran is working to develop.
According to press accounts, the concern that I felt a decade ago is now
being repeated at intelligence agencies here and abroad. We are told that
in 1998 or 1999 the Iranians will test a new medium range ballistic
missile, possibly making use of technology provided by Russia, China, and
others. I have no information about why the intelligence community is so
concerned about Iranian activities, but experience suggests some reason for
skepticism.
The primary problems holding back the Iranians have not resulted from
difficulties with technology. This is not to say that Iran possessed all
the technology that it needed to develop longer ranged missiles. They
almost certainly did not. But it is my belief that the primary limitation
in the development of new missiles has resulted from considerations that
are difficult to assess, and certainly cannot be tracked or detected using
national technical means.
Specifically, the key to success missile development programs is project
management and systems integration. Let me comment about several different
programs that illustrate this issue. These were the key skills responsible
for the Iraqi successes with the Al Husayn. It is unlikely that the Iraqis
developed the design of the Al Husayn, and the workmanship on the missile
conversions was crude in the extreme. Yet, the Iraqis understood what
needed to be done, and took those steps to ensure success. It was not
pretty, but it was effective. They devoted the right resources to solving
the critical problems, and managed the different aspects of the program to
accomplish a great deal in what appears to have been a relatively short
period of time.
Similarly, it is evident that those responsible for India's Integrated
Guided Missile Development Program were quite aware of the significance of
such management issues. India's defense technologists were aware that their
scientists and engineers were highly competent, but that they had great
difficulty producing final products. Elegant design was followed by poor
execution. As a result, it appears that the Indians deliberately structured
elements of their missile program to inculcate patterns of management
success. This is perhaps best illustrated by the Prithvi program. The
Prithvi is not a sophisticated missile. In fact, it is based on forty year
old technology used to produce the Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile. The
key, however, is that India's defense industry designed, developed, tested,
produced, and fielded the system. It took many years, but the Indians
proved to themselves that it could be done.
It is these project management and systems integration issues that are
among the greatest challenges for any missile development team.
Specifically, they are probably the greatest challenges facing the
Iranians. It is not the technology, but the ability to marry it together.
It is not designing a missile, but rather ensuring that the right resources
are available when needed to solve the most critical problems.
Hence, the significance of Russian assistance for Iran's missile program is
unclear. Certainly additional technology enhances prospects for success.
But in the absence of project management skills that appear rare in Iran in
any context, there is little reason to believe that Iran will quickly move
a missile from design through development into production and then deploy
it.
In the absence of any information about improvements in Iranian management
skills, I am doubtful that they will be able to successfully test a medium
range ballistic missile test this year or next. Moreover, even when they
finally develop a viable system, there are reasons to doubt their ability
to produce it in quantity and deploy it in significant numbers.
Note the qualifier. The key is management. If the Iranians have taken steps
that solve many of their weaknesses in this arena, then the assessment here
would be wrong. My suspicion, however, is that we know virtually nothing
about these issues, either because it is hard to get information about them
or because nobody has bothered to look. Yet, at the end of the day these
are the critical issues.
Conclusion
Let me end this discussion of Iran and Iraq with a few general observations
and predictions about the future threat that these countries are likely to
pose. And let me go beyond the previous remarks to introduce some new
issues.
First, it is highly unlikely that Iraq will remain under UN sanctions for
the next decade. And it is certainly possible that the country will
continue to be ruled by a leadership that is hostile towards the United
States. As a result, we should assume that Iraq will reappear as a
proliferation problem in the next decade, Moreover, they are likely to be
significantly more competent than they were a decade ago. As a result, they
are likely to once again pose a missile challenge to the United States and
its partners. If past experience is any guide, they will seek intermediate
range ballistic missiles to supplement shorter range systems. Moreover, the
Iraqis also appear to understand the significance of satellite surveillance
systems, and hence they may seek to resume their space launch vehicle
program. While we can significantly affect their prospects for success in
these areas with effective export controls, the notion that a hostile Iraq
will remain permanently crippled is unlikely in the extreme.
Second, Iran will continue to seek missiles with longer ranges, just as it
continues to work on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Despite my
skepticism about the prospects for success of Iran's latest missile
development efforts, there is little reason to doubt that eventually the
Iranians will have medium and intermediate range missiles. It may take far
longer than people believe, but it will happen so long as the current
regime remains in power and continues to put resources into missile
development activities. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the
scope of Iranian ambitions will grow as they achieve success with their
missiles. So, it seems likely that at some time the Iranians will strive
for space launch vehicles and missiles with yet longer ranges. It may not
be until 2010, or even after, but if the Iranians achieve success with
IRBMs, it is only a matter of time before a hostile, Islamic regime seeks
ICBMs. And, I will note, that by 2010 the ICBM will be more than 50 years
old, and the growth of commercial space launch capabilities will have made
the technology more accessible to would-be proliferators.
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1. Dr. Carus is with the Center for Counterproliferation Research at
National Defense University. Formerly with the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, he is one of the country's foremost experts on missile
proliferation. Has testified before Congress regarding proliferation of
chemical and biological weapons and surface-to-surface missile
proliferation.