Rumsfeld Gives Air Force Lead Role in Space Defense

08 May 2001

Rumsfeld Gives Air Force Lead Role in Space Defense

Says effort will help U.S. focus on 21st century space needs

By SUSAN ELLIS
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced a sweeping effort to transform the Department of Defense (DOD) and reform its structure, processes and organization to "help the United States to focus on meeting the national security space needs of the 21st century."

Rumsfeld said May 8 at a Pentagon briefing that he and the director of central intelligence, who have primary responsibility for the national security space program, have been meeting regularly to address space and intelligence matters.

Rumsfeld also said the Defense Department is merging space activities and adjusting responsibilities that will involve key facets of the department.

The majority of the changes involve "realigning Air Force headquarters and field commands to more effectively organize, train, and equip for space operations, ensuring that the Air Force will become the lead for space activities," he said.

The changes were spurred by the congressionally-mandated report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization.

Rumsfeld praised the commission's work and singled out for recognition Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican, for initiating the legislation that created the commission, and Representative Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican, for his support in the effort.

Asked how these plans will play with critics of militarizing space, Rumsfeld responded that his proposals "have nothing to do with that. They have to do with organizational arrangements within the department of defense that put a focus on the important issues relating to space" -- functions that had been spread around the department, he said, making it difficult to put "the right kind of focus and the right kind of emphasis" on space.

"A big change here is making the Air Force the executive agent for space," Rumsfeld said. "It does not deny the other services their proper roles. They will have them; but it does allow some responsibility and accountability to be focused."

Asked repeatedly about weapons in space, a proposed missile defense system, and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, Rumsfeld echoed President Bush's words spoken at the National Defense University May 1.

"The President said it all," Rumsfeld said. "He said the ABM Treaty is designed to prevent countries from creating missile defense capabilities and he has indicated he believes that the world situation has changed sufficiently that he wants to begin discussions with Russia."

Asked when something substantive would be said about plans for space-based testing of anti-satellite systems, Rumsfeld complained good humouredly that on the one hand people urge him to "consult," and on the other "why don't you quit dancing around and just announce it."

The fact is "what we're doing is exactly what we ought to be doing," he said. "We're taking an enormously significant issue that deserves debate (and) discussion, and we are talking to the people in the world that are important with that subject, people in the Congress ... our allies around the world," and those particularly interested "like Russia, and eventually China, and we're going to be discussing what we have in mind."

And that, he said, is exactly what President Bush said. "There is a threat out there from rogue states.... Because of proliferation in the post-Cold War world, countries are gaining access to ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. We think the only responsible thing to do is to develop the capability to deal with that."

However, the current plans for reorganization have "nothing to do with that," Rumsfeld insisted.