Troops vulnerable to missile attack; as rogue states were upgrading their theater-missile arsenals, the Clinton team thwarted U.S. deployment of the next generation of patriot antimissile batteries

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 29, 2002 | by Martin Leibstone

It has been more than 10 years since Operation Desert Storm, when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles against targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia, yet the number of deployable U.S. systems to counter even a modest barrage of modernized theater ballistic missiles will be far from adequate for some time.

Today's forecast is that Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- President George W. Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil" -- soon will be maintaining more than 1,000 Scud-type missiles each, while U.S. systems to counter an attack in likely war zones with greater than 98 percent "hit" assurance are just emerging from development.

Though delivery of U.S. theater ballistic-missle defense systems had started under former president George H.W. Bush before the 1991 Iraqi Scud attacks, their subsequent slow pace of development can be traced to a Clinton White House which, by denial and indifference to the severity of the threat, opened the door for those in position to strike U.S. forces with ballistic missiles.

Not that the Clinton security team did nothing, say defense experts. Rather, it waited three years after Desert Storm before it selected a design for the badly needed antimissile system, a roughly $2.1 million per unit Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3). Then it sat on its hands while Lockheed Martin took more than seven years to roll out the first operational PAC-3, ironically in September 2001.

The Clinton plan called for U.S. forces to have more than 2,000 PAC-3s in U.S. Army inventories within a decade. Right now, the Army has less than 50 barely one-fifth of what Pentagon experts say is needed to match the strike inventory of likely adversaries.

According to an industry source, "With faster system selection, better funding during the Clinton years and an earlier green light for production from a Clinton-softened Pentagon, many more PAC-3s could have been fielded by now, as much of the PAC-3 is built from available parts."

Army units at war today have to rely on the PAC-2 configuration to counter Scuds and similar missiles carrying conventional, nuclear or chemical war-heads. The PAC-3 is more accurate, using a kinetic warhead that strikes incoming missiles like a bullet hitting a bullet. Exact PAC-2 and PAC-3 ranges are classified data, but each is capable of intercepting enemy missiles far from war zones being protected.

What no one in the know even bothers to deny anymore is that, in light of missile-system advances that have taken place around the world since 1991, the Clinton administration rolled the dice with the lives of U.S. troops and mission success. The potential consequences of this neglect will diminish with each PAC-3 that the Army receives, say Pentagon insiders. But, short of a production miracle, the needed antimissile capacity won't be in hand for several years until the Army has more than 1,000 PAC-3s.

Why the delay? Clinton-era strategists were confident that U.S. airpower could pre-empt Scud deliveries by striking enemy launch systems. But this requires precise intelligence; it means identifying launch-site locations with precision easily thwarted by relatively primitive subterfuge, ranging from hiding the platforms in caves to moving them around on trucks.

True, as one intelligence-agency source put it, "Lots of target information comes from overhead satellites, un-manned aerial vehicles, surveillance planes, radar and audio technologies. But, to complete the job, human-intelligence assets are required, and hardly any exist today where they are needed most." Another analyst argues, "Lack of sufficient Clinton-administration backing for recruitment of more spies further harmed antimissile security by increasing, in turn, the need for more-powerful antimissile defense systems like the PAC-3, speedy development of which the Clinton people paid little attention to."

The excuses given for the slow anti-missle progress during the Clinton era included not enough funds, the need for more research and testing, fear of rogue states responding by increasing their missile arsenals and maybe striking U.S. targets early on, the high priority Clinton advisers put on the war in Yugoslavia and the need for reform of systems procurement before big budget changes could be made.

Given the nature of the threat posed by the growing arsenal of theater missiles in the hands of likely adversaries, it is hard for critics to believe that any of these explanations is anything more than an excuse for the longtime opposition of Clinton liberals to antimissile platforms of any kind, a hangover from their polemical crusade to block homeland missile defense as a Star Wars

fantasy.

As a practical matter, Pentagon sources insist, the theater-defense systems could and should have been deployed long ago. A Pentagon weapons-acquisition specialist tells INSIGHT: "In most cases since World War II, the development through production cycle for major defense systems has been more than seven years, but for combat systems needed soonest it just doesn't have to take this long."