PAC-3 units, and early warning and tracking sensors based on land, at sea, in the air, and

in space.

Before the President's decision, the FY 2004 President's Budget would have reflected the development of a set of Test Bed capabilities that could have been made operational. Instead of building a Test Bed that might be used operationally, we are fielding an initial defensive capability that we will continue to test. All RDT&E activities will support the initial defense capability, and the system elements and components we field will continue to support RDT&E. Because of the relationship between initial defense capabilities and testing, we are asking that all funding associated with both efforts be under Defense-wide appropriations RDT&E. With the December announcement we have quickened the pace at which we are moving forward, but we have not changed the direction in which we are moving.

We are proposing to do in FY 2004 what we said we were going to do in previous hearings, that is, field tested missile defenses a little at a time using a step approach. The missile defense operations we are proposing are unprecedented, and there still is much to learn. I believe there is tremendous benefit in putting this unprecedented technology into the field, in manageable increments, to provide some defense, to learn more about it, gain experience with it, and improve it over time.

The Israeli Arrow program stands out as an example of how fielding militarily useful capability in block increments and in a timely manner can work and how successful it can be. With only four successful intercept flight tests, Israeli officials declared their first Arrow battery operational on October 17, 2000 and fielded that

country's first capability to defeat incoming ballistic missiles launched from nearby states. The Israeli system has been operational for more than two years now, and during that time it has conducted additional intercept and flight tests to enhance the system's performance. Plans are moving forward to augment it even further. Surrounded by states having an active interest in ballistic missiles, Israel found a way to field a limited defensive capability on an accelerated timeline and at a time when it could not afford to wait for system testing to be completed.

We in the United States, of course, are not strangers to fielding an unprecedented military capability on an accelerated schedule. Our leadership struggled in the early stages of deploying the first reconnaissance satellites and land- and sea-based ballistic missiles. Urgent national security requirements pressed us to deploy capability soon, and through trial and error we did. Despite test failures, the country persevered and made militarily useful capabilities operational. Since that time, we have dramatically improved the capabilities of those first-generation systems. The parallels between these pioneering programs and the missile defense program are clear.

I believe, Mr. Chairman, that we are ready to take this next step in missile defense. Our fielding approach will not only help rationalize the force structure we deploy from the technological and threat standpoints, but also from the standpoint of cost. We do not now have adequate understanding to submit a bill of many tens of billions of dollars for a huge, long-term fixed architecture. We are able, however, to purchase, produce, and field capabilities in small numbers. This approach will allow us to control costs. With a modest investment and increase by the Department of a total of $1.5 billion spread over

the FY 2004 and 2005 budgets, we will provide this country with militarily useful

capabilities where none exists today.

In short, this $1.5 billion primarily will add a small number of ground-based

interceptors as well as more SM-3 interceptors to the test bed capability we are already

building. Future fielding decisions, as we have said all along, will be made in the

outlying years based on the progress of technology and the evolution of the threat, subject to the annual congressional appropriations process.

Confidence in Initial Defensive Operations

In assessing our level of confidence with the planned initial missile defense capabilities, we have to strike a balance between our desire for perfection in the missile defenses we deploy and our desire to have as soon as possible a defensive capability where none exists today.

Adequate testing is the key to achieving that balance. And while this testing may not fit the mold of classical operational testing that would traditionally take place prior to full-rate production, we do follow a testing discipline that I believe can give us the confidence to say that what we deploy will work as we have said it would under threat circumstances that we believe we might have to face.

I believe that to strike the right balance we must go through an intense period of testing to demonstrate that the technologies on which we are relying can work

consistently under conditions that are increasingly stressful and realistic. We have spent the past two years demonstrating the technologies we propose to employ in the Block

2004 Test Bed. We have said all along that when we do field we will not field a system that will fully meet our missile defense needs. We will face limitations and have gaps, let there be no illusions there. The system we are initially fielding will be limited operationally. But we went down this road knowing that there would be gaps and with a process that is specifically designed to fill those gaps and make up for performance limitations as soon as practicable.

Among the limitations that should be included here is that of operational experience. We need to build operational experience over time with the system that will be guarding our nation and our troops. There is no better way to do that then to put basic elements out into the field and to begin working with those assets to develop the doctrine and concepts of operation we will need and to train the military personnel who will operate it.

We have spent significant amounts of money on testing the GMD and Aegis BMD elements of system. All of the tests to date have been what we have called "developmental tests." Regardless of the names we apply to our testing, we must have assets and infrastructure in the field if we are going to begin to test that system under operationally realistic conditions. If we do not have the weapons and sensors fielded at operationally useful locations, we cannot really do a good job of hooking it all up to make sure it works.

The President's decision allows us to put this materiel out in the field for testing, in locations that make sense from an operational point of view. Given the recent events in the international security environment, the President's decision reflects an urgent need

to make that test bed as operational as we possibly can. That decision also recognizes

that we will not be fielding the perfect system at the outset.

What we are faced with today is a timing issue. Must we do what has been traditionally called “operational testing" before we can say that we have a capability we can use in an extreme security situation, or can we do both? Can we continue to test the elements and components of a system we also could use to defend ourselves if needed? I believe we can.

Why do I believe that? Because we have shown that the nuts and bolts of the missile defense capabilities we are planning to field in Block 2004 can work. We have had a significant degree of repeatability represented in the tests we have conducted to date, and we are well along in our goal of conducting these tests reliably. We are now to the point where we need to assemble selected missile defense elements into a test bed that will permit operationally realistic testing using different azimuths and trajectories, different launch and target points, and different arrangements in our sensors and weapons. That test bed will allow us to test in different ways so that we can refine our all-too-important battle management and command and control infrastructure. The elements of the test bed also will have some inherent defense capability. We can do operational development testing while having the system on alert. We should take advantage of that.

Our intentions are to test the complete system and to be ready to respond to ballistic missile threats against the United States, our deployed forces, and our friends and allies. We have conducted the rigorous testing needed to give us the confidence that