WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1991

When I retired from the Air Force and the SDI program I made it a point to isolate myself from any activity involving specifics of SDI, although I would continue to advocate the program.

The world has changed. The most dramatic proof of this was, first, Operation Desert Shield; second, Operation Desert Storm; and third, Desert Victory. That operation was a victory of and for the American people, the people of the coalition, and our men and women in uniform. It was also a victory of preparation, of investment, of training, of smart weapons, and of American technology. Everyone in this country followed the war itself -- it was a very public war -- and as a result, smart weapons are now familiar tools to all of us.

Stealth Fighter Example

I want to remind you of some aspects of that weaponry, and try to put some of the facts of the war in context. This is primarily an introduction, but it indicates that something is profoundly different from the time of the SDI debates of the mid-1980s.

Let me start with Secretary of the Air Force Donald Rice's recent testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. In that testimony he talked -- bragged, really (and he should) -- about some of the high-tech weapons and about the fine young men and women who operated those weapons. He picked out several to talk about, and I'd like to start with one which has also been controversial: the F-117A Stealth fighter, a fine product of the Lockheed Aircraft Company.

At the very beginning of Desert Storm when we started the aerial bombardment, we had a supply of aircraft, American aircraft as well as those belonging to members of our coalition forces. The F-117A Stealth fighters made up about 2.5 percent of the total number of aircraft, but in the first 24 hours, these fighters were assigned 31 percent of the targets. It was their success that paved the way and made it safe for the next waves of systems.

In his testimony before Congress, Donald Rice said that the F-l 17A was able to operate with virtual impunity in the face of a modern and sophisticated air defense -- and although the Iraqi air defense wasn't quite as modern as some of our weapons, it was a very impressive air defense system. The F-117As were also able to operate with a far smaller supporting force. To give an example of that effectiveness and the multiplier, Rice created a notional force for the subcommittee of six F-117A fighters supported by two aerial tankers, which would allow the fighters to go back, refuel, and then restrike into the target area. He said this was a more effective force than one 10 times its size.

Cost in Context

So when people look at the cost of an individual weapon, when they look at the numbers of those weapons that are required, it is imperative that they look at what they do, how they do it -- the larger context. I would like for you to think about SDI in the context of the larger issues, not merely in the context of the technical issue that has been so often debated.

There were other systems that we didn't hear about. Think about some of our aircraft that had impressive radars that allowed us search out the targets at a distance, so that the pilots and crews of those aircraft could go in quickly and easily, minimizing the time that they had to be in jeopardy. All of these things, because of the proper leadership and the proper use of these weapons, allowed us to be able to survive this terrible conflict with such a very low loss of life.

Some of the applications of smart weapons were incredible. There was a young F-15 pilot who saw an Iraqi helicopter and decided to guide his laser-guided bomb and hit this aircraft in flight. That takes incredible skill.

Stars of the Show

The guided weapons were the visible stars, outside of our people, of the show. The Maverick missile was used so accurately to destroy tanks that pilots described it as the weapon of choice. The TOW wire-guided missile saved lives, because it allowed our tanks and infantry to engage tanks at a distance far enough so that they were not in jeopardy. The infrared systems that were mounted on our helicopters, tanks, vehicles, and aircraft allowed us to use the phrase "we own the night." That meant that we could conduct this campaign in a relentless way, day and night, and through many conditions.

We rejoiced in our victory. That victory was brought to us through several important kinds of thought processes -- the determination of this country to support the concept of advanced technology and the men and women who operate advanced technical weapons. That combination, and that determination, is what gave the American people the victory we needed. The leadership that started from the president and went through every echelon of the military, down to the men and women on the front line, gave us this victory -- a victory with a minimum loss of lives.

We have to remember that even one life lost is a great tragedy, that even a dollar spent to deal with the insanity of this particular man is too much. But our cost was not what many of us feared it would be. The cost to Kuwait as a nation, and the cost to the Iraqi people, is truly incalculable. We have to consider that as we celebrate our military victory. These costs mean that we have to use great wisdom to try to do what the president indicated: change the world in a better way so we do not face this kind of situation again.

Another Lesson

This war, like every war, puts us face to face with what is both self-evident and undeniable: the character of these kinds of human conflicts and human tragedies.

These conflicts, which break out in actual war, result from an absolutely predictable series of human failures -- failures in communication, failures in logic, and failures in human understanding and values. If we look back at every war, we will find that problem. But somehow too many have failed to learn the lessons of history.

Look at the beginning of World War I. Would any group of logical people have said -- as tragic as it was to lose the archduke -- that the loss would start a war in which millions died? Was that the planned consequence? Was that what humankind really wanted from that particular war? No, obviously not.

Going a second step, we ask: How did that war get out of hand? How was it that mankind was not able to control these events?

There are several reasons, and the fault lies in many places; but from a military viewpoint the fundamental error was that the strongest force in all of Europe -- the French army commanded by Marshal Poch -- had a doctrine of offense only. They thought the best way to prevent war was to take the war to the territory of the enemy with such speed that no enemy would dare to strike. But when things got out of control, that doctrine caused the German side to have to marshal their forces within a very short period of time, so that hundreds of thousands of men were hurdled toward the front. Once that process had started, there was no way to stop it. It was an absolute human miscalculation -- and, by the way, it was based on the idea of deterrence in action. One of the theories of offensive deterrence failed in that condition.

Miscalculations

At the beginning of World War II, the Japanese had seen that we did not defend our islands, our outposts in the Pacific, and that our few men and women in uniform, despite the gathering clouds of war, were practicing with wooden sticks down in Louisiana.

They didn't think we had the will or the interest to defend the Pacific -- or even ourselves. Since there was a great debate going on about isolationism in this country, it shouldn't be surprising that they miscalculated, thinking that if they made a devastating attack and destroyed what few forces we did have in the Pacific, we would quickly sue for peace. It was a miscalculation that again, cost thousands and thousands of lives in many parts of the world.

Probably the closest example we have of the failure of nuclear deterrence is Anwar Sadat's attack on Israel.

Think about Egypt in the early 1970s. They had been defeated, and Anwar Sadat -- not yet the man of peace -- said: "We cannot live in this defeated situation; we have lost this part of the Negev to the Israelis. We must go back."

Every year for nearly three years, he said, "This is the year of retribution, this is the year of decision." He ran military exercises, and he brought those exercises -- which included thousands of troops --right to the edge of the Suez Canal and back.

The Israelis were confident -- smug. They sat back on their side with air power that had the relative destructive potential of a nuclear force. They could have destroyed military targets and cities in Egypt many times over. So they ignored the problem. They thought no logical man would attack this overwhelming deterrent force. But Anwar Sadat did. It was a failure in logic, a failure in perception on both sides, and another tragic war in the Middle East.

Failure in Logic

That is what SDI is really about. Those who have reduced it to a technical argument or a cost argument, have failed to understand that we now have the most terrible weapons in history.

It is a failure in logic and human understanding to surrender to the terrible game and paradox that says we are trapped in a situation in which we must hold a gun to somebody else's forehead, and that because of that gun at their forehead they will behave logically and not attack us. We must also avoid passively accepting the idea that we cannot at least discourage attack -- not by threatening to destroy a nation or even the world, but by saying we will defend ourselves.

I remain unwilling to entrust life on this planet to the rationality of potential enemies, particularly when so many potential enemies now have nuclear weapons, more are gaining them, and more are able to put chemical weapons on the front end of these rockets. After all, a nation with three rockets can be a superpower: one rocket that they test to demonstrate they can do it, one rocket that they keep visible to threaten everybody else, and one rocket that they hide. If such a rocket can reach very far, how would it change history?

I am urging that we not dwell on the technical difficulty of SDI. That's the easy pan. The real issue is a system that gets us away from a concept of survival that says we must be willing to destroy a large percentage of mankind and take the risk that it may be the end of the world.

Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:

Q. Isn't it strange that the Iraqi air force never took to the air to support Iraqi ground troops and never fired the Chinese-made Silkworm missiles?

A. It certainly is strange. But even had they done so, it would not have changed the outcome of the war.

Q. Noting that Iraq's armed forces were largely equipped with Soviet weapons. Defense Secretary Cheney said, "The Gulf war represents a significant defeat of Soviet military equipment." Do you agree?

A. Yes. What does it mean for the future? It's my hope that in this era of public warfare, when so many of us are learning the real horror of war, we are determined and wise enough to make this the last of the great wars. It's perhaps too optimistic, but we should hope and work for such a thing. Working doesn't mean just marching for peace -- although there's nothing wrong with that -- it means making wise choices about the way we conduct our diplomacy and build our forces. Applying that to SDI is what my lesson is about.

Q. We've heard a lot about the weapons that performed exceptionally well in Operation Desert Storm. Did any perform poorly?

A. There are always miscalculations. All of us celebrate the Patriot, and we should. But it did not do as effective a job as many of us had thought. In many cases even though there was an intercept, the Scuds broke up in such a way that the warheads -- or pans of the warhead -- got through to the ground. The Scud is a terror weapon. It doesn't have to hit what it's aimed at to be effective. So we need to improve the Patriot or develop a tactical version of SDI with the updated technology now available. The Patriot is a fine system, but an old one. When we think about what it did do -- and in some cases what it didn't do -- we should realize that this is the third war in the history of mankind that is a war of ballistic missiles. The first one was when the Germans rained slightly over a thousand V-2s on London. You can imagine the effect that it had on the citizens of London by thinking about what the Scuds did to the citizens of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The second war of ballistic missiles was between Iraq and Iran, in which about 300 shorter-range missiles went back and forth. This was the third one. Ballistic missile warfare isn't so unusual now.

Q. Will the success of the Patriot create adequate Congressional support for SDI? Are the technologies related?

A. Yes, the technologies are related. The Patriot was an air defense system that was upgraded to give it real capability. The upgrading was developed by the Army, separate from SDI, because at the time SDI was embroiled in such a political mess that Secretary Weinberger wanted some kind of anti-ballistic missile system to go ahead. Let me give you a feel for where SDI technology is today. There are now prototypes of space-based interceptors that are waiting to be tested. They can be tested within six to eight months if the tests are judged to be within the ABM treaty -- one of the major issues associated with SDI testing. These interceptors are very small, very effective. They are the cousins of the smart weapons that we saw used in Desert Storm. There are also ground-based systems which are also waiting to be tested. Some of these are not quite there, not completely optimized, but they represent the next step in anti-ballistic missile capability. The investment the nation has made in that portion of SDI technology is nearly ready.

Q. According to the press, the B-52 bombers played a key role in the war with Iraq. Does this show that we should significantly increase the size of our fleet of large bombers?

A. We do need a fleet of large bombers. The most important question is how are they employed, and are they employed right? I hope we will not have a situation in which we need masses and masses of aircraft to deal with these kinds of large conflicts. We should be looking for systems that allow us to decrease the numbers of weapons and weapon platforms, which will allow us to achieve much higher degrees of accuracy in those systems. I hope they will be constructed in such a way that we can use them for deterrence as opposed to having to use them in real war situations. As people understand that these systems can be used, we will have a more persuasive argument for deterrence.

Q. Isn't our national security one of the most important reasons for continuing our exploration of space and establishing a space station?

A. The kinds of components that are used to make reliable satellites for military applications or reliable satellites for civilian, scientific, or exploration kinds of applications have common roots. We moved ahead very effectively. I don't believe there are any plans to use the space station as a military platform of any kind. I would urge that it be kept separate. We should have a separate civil program and a separate military program, but recognize the common roots. By the way, part of my job at Hughes is to ensure that we apply that military technology to civil things, and that's ironic for an old general.

Q. Are the administration's proposed cuts in defense spending too deep?

A. The strength of the nation is partly military, partly economic, and partly in our people. There must be a balance. The greatest danger to our military security is not a planned reduced force, but that the plan is savaged as the debate in Congress goes back and forth. Under such circumstances you can't give continuity from year to year in those programs. Should the military budget be higher than what has been proposed? I'm sure some important programs have been left out. But our Congress includes many wise people capable of tak ing a long-term view, just as businesses are required to take long-term views at where we're trying to go. That's what we should expect and demand of our Congress.

Q. How would you compare our Air Force with that of the Soviet Union in terms of numbers and quality?

A. I can't be accurate. The Soviet air force had something like three times the number of our aircraft. I don't know where that is today. It's a fine air force with very good airplanes. They just don't have all the advanced things put together in the same way that ours is, and that made a difference in Iraq. However, fortunately, the Soviet Union is not the threat that it was. They cannot mount a reliable campaign through their former Eastern European allies; they would be afraid to do that. So they cannot project power. The USSR is becoming less and less stable. How can they project power? Their force of intercontinental ballistic missiles has not been reduced.

Q. Will we lose our airbases in the Philippines or is the talk just political bargaining by the Philippine government? What are our alternatives in that region?

A. We have alternatives which may not be as good. Some of those alternatives are floating airbases that are part of the U.S. Navy. Since we do have alternatives, we ought to bargain carefully and well as we deal with the Philippines. I hope that people the world over, who have been our allies, will realize that part of the best way to prevent war is to have the proper forces, and a relationship with us, as well as with others, so that we can discourage this insanity that we sometimes encounter.

Q. What is the status of the development of the particle beam?

A. I'm out of date, but let me go back two years to when I retired. The neutral particle beam was coming along as an effective system for the future, but a system must be affordable; it can't just be effective. A great deal of the research effort that I directed is to bring the cost of these systems down. The potential is there.

Q. What kinds of projects are you working on at Hughes?

A. When I left the SDI program I decided that to deal with the question of ethics I would stay out of SDI at Hughes for two years. That two-year anniversary passed this February. The most startling thing now is the space-based interceptor -- a prototype ready for demonstration -- which weighs about 12 pounds, and in high-rate production, might meet some of the affordability goals that we've talked about. Other marvelous things are being done there, but this is the one that people can appreciate and relate to because it will be tested. I can't say if it will be tested in space, but it will be tested in many ways in just a few weeks.

Q. What is the status of the MX missile?

A. The latest argument in Congress has been about the trade-off between a large, mobile MX and a small peacekeeper, one that has only a single warhead on the front. That debate is continuing in terms of what we might next do with the MX or changes to our deployment scheme.

Q. Are the media's complaints about the restrictions placed on them during Operation Desert Storm justified?

A. I'm not very objective on this. The press in this country, when looked at as a whole, offers us a very great service, a service that was intended by the guarantee of free press in the Constitution. I have found many professional people in the press and I admire them. By the same token there are people with personality quirks and human failures in the press, as there are anywhere else. In their frustration it became clear how unhappy and ineffective they were in reporting some aspects of the war. Many have blamed what was termed censorship on the part of the military. But I think the large percentage of the people of this country understood and accepted the fact that there should be a proper level of disclosure for the press. I'm not sure the press understood or accepted that there is a reasonable limit of what they should have access to. It is this argument that has created this huge problem. Had the press recognized that a reasonable level of operational security must be maintained, they would not have looked to the American people as silly as some of them did. At the same time we should all recognize that the press serves us well, and we should be thankful for that.