On February 25, 2009, LT Gen. Patrick O’Reilly
addressed the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Committee On Armed Forces of
the House of Representatives. This address took place during the 111th
Congress and the subcommittee that LTG Patrick O’Reilly addressed was chaired
by Congresswoman Ellen O. Tauscher. General Patrick O’Reilly’s address was
widely acclaimed and received unanimous praise from both Congress and the
Department of Defense.
The
Ballistic Missile Defense System
The topic of Patrick O’Reilly’s address to
the Strategic Forces Subcommittee was the Department of Defense’s Ballistic
Missile Defense System testing program. At the time of LT Gen. Patrick
O’Reilly’s address, the Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency was
working together with the Army, Navy, and Air Force to review the status of the
Ballistic Missile Defense System. Together, these bodies devised a system for
assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of the Ballistic Missile Defense
System, explained LTG Patrick O’Reilly. In his own words, LTG Patrick O’Reilly
explained, “Our goal is to set test objectives that measure the performance of
critical functions necessary for robust missile defense operations and create
an event-oriented plan that extends out as many years as necessary to collect
sufficient data to determine the operational effectiveness, suitability,
survivability, and supportability of the system.”
Challenges
To Assessment
Central to General Patrick O’Reilly’s
address was the difficulty of creating a Ballistic Missile Defense System that
was equipped to intercept fundamentally different types of missiles traveling
at high speeds and across great distances. The dual sensor and interceptor
system of the Ballistic Missile defense System, said LTG Patrick O’Reilly,
layered as they are at different atmospheric levels, offer what seems to be the
best defense, although no single system promises complete protection from
missile attack. Acknowledging the challenging nature of the tests, Dr. McQueary
stated at the hearing, “I do applaud General O’Reilly’s personal commitment to
the initiative.”
According
to LT Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the Department of Defense’s work in assessing the
Ballistic Missile Defense System promised to be one of the most complex
undertakings in the department’s history. He explained to the press, “We're
working with the operational test communities – not just MDA, but the
independent reviewers – to put together a comprehensive testing program that
does convince everyone of (the) capabilities and limitations of these missile
defense systems.” It was no small undertaking. The Ballistic Missile Defense
System simply lacked many important characteristics for an effective test program
that needed to be assessed, including a clear sense of how the system should
work and the means to thoroughly and repeatedly test the system. As LTG Patrick O’Reilly made clear
in his address to the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, such evaluation was simply
not possible without significant modeling and simulation based on actual flight
test results.
Moving
Forward
In this 2009 address, Patrick O’Reilly discussed
the constantly shifting nature of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. As a
protective shield that is constantly being adapted to defend against evolving
technological threats, the system poses a distinct difficulty in the area of
effective assessment. LT Gen. Patrick
O’Reilly framed these difficulties in light of some major successes that
the Department of Defense has achieved in regards to assessing the Ballistic
Missile Defense System. With continued computerized modeling and rigorous
testing, suggested General Patrick O’Reilly, it was possible to gain clarity in
regards to the effectiveness of this system.
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