07 September 2000 Defense Report on NMD Schedule, Troop Readiness, Landmines Next NMD Test Expected In Early 2001 The next test of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, initially scheduled for December, now will probably take place "sometime early next year," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters at the Defense Department September 7, after the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) has completed its analysis of the failure of Integrated-Test number five last July. The BMDO wants to make sure that it "understands how to make the fixes if necessary so the same problem doesn't happen again," he said. Bacon cited Defense Secretary Cohen's recent statement in which "he vowed to continue to work as aggressively as possible on the development of a workable NMD system. So we'd like to get this test done and successful as soon as possible." If one had to choose between success and speed, "We'd choose success," the spokesman said. "So the BMDO will work as hard as it can to make sure it can perform the test successfully. . . My guess is it'll be sometime early next year. We're not going to sit on our hands. On the other hand, we've always wanted to take the time necessary to assure as much success as possible." Delay means added cost, he said, and NMD program expenses are expected to rise. "We don't know how much at this stage. We'll try to come up with a good figure as soon as possible." Bacon Says Military Readiness Increased in Past Decade Asked about Republican campaign allegations that U.S. readiness has suffered under the Clinton administration, Bacon cited higher pay and better benefits for the troops in recent years, borne out, he said, by a lower percentage of food stamp use "far less than when (George) Bush was president and (Dick) Cheney was secretary of defense." He said he used percentages to measure this statistic since troop strength has decreased and numbers would not give an accurate picture. Military readiness can also be measured by the amount of money spent per troop, he said, an amount which "increased by 20 percent in real terms in the last decade, from $50,000 per troop in 1992 to over $60,000 per troop on active duty in Fiscal Year 2001." Further, Bacon noted that the U.S. military started to "draw down" (reduce its strength) at the end of the Cold war from a high of 2.1 million personnel when the Berlin Wall was torn down to a current troop strength of 1.4 million. "This reduction was not all made during the Clinton administration," he said, noting that the so-called "peace dividend that we realized from the draw-down has funded the move from large budget deficits during the Reagan-Bush years to large surpluses during the Clinton years." He said that "some of the information being thrown around in the presidential campaign" is a year old or more. Lack Of Readiness Charges Rebutted Asked about recent charges that a Navy ship had been forced to return to port early because of lack of fuel, Bacon said the ship had completed its training mission and was able to come back early, accomplishing two goals: reduced stress on the crew who could return to their families early, as well as cutting down on fuel use. Responding to a question about a television news report of a helicopter crash in 1998, which some attributed to over-deployment and stress, Bacon called the incident "a tragic loss of 12 well-trained people." He said that Cable Network News (CNN) summarized the report furnished them by DOD "very well," adding that Search and Rescue teams "are as well-trained as any in the military" as demonstrated when such teams "rescued two downed pilots in Yugoslavia last year. "In this particular case, the Combat Search and Rescue units are low density/high demand units," he said, noting that the Air Force has been working very hard to reduce stress for these particular groups. "The Air Force had started in late 1997 or early 1998 to reform its operations to reduce pressure on this type of group," he said, but the accident took place in 1998 before all the fixes had taken place. U.S. Is World Leader in Demining Training Asked about a call September 7 by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines for the United States to sign a treaty banning landmines, Bacon called attention to the U.S. position as a world leader "in demining training and technology," saying: "We've done more than any other country in the world to address the problem of embedded old landmines that can kill children and cattle and farmers...." These embedded mines "are not American mines," he said, adding that U.S. mines "are self-destructing mines," with one exception. "We do have mines along the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)in Korea that are not all self-destructing. But the mines that we deploy today for troop protection are self-destructing mines. We have made commitments to clean up the mines in Korea and replace them with others." He said that the United States believes that the treaty to ban landmines "would prevent us from defending our forces with even self-destructing landmines, and therefore I don't believe we're any closer to signing the treaty than we were before." The spokesman added that the United States will continue to address the problem "by not sowing the types of long-term killers that so many other countries have used," and by "working aggressively to clean up places where mines have been sowed in the past." (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) Return to the Washington File