TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081390/0813108.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 117 lines

                z                                                              NATION, Page 34

Setback for Star Wars


Hawks and doves find themselves in rare agreement as Congress
takes a big whack at the Pentagon's wish list

By BRUCE VAN VOORST/WASHINGTON


    As a member of the House Armed Services Committee since
1972, antiwar Democrat Ron Dellums of California has voted
against nearly every new weapons system the Pentagon has
proposed. As chairman of that powerful body since 1984,
Democrat Les Aspin of Wisconsin has backed most of the Defense
Department's plans for costly missiles, airplanes and ships.
Now the staggering federal deficit and a diminishing Soviet
military threat have Dellums and Aspin seeing almost eye to eye
on cuts in military spending. Following their lead last week,
the committee slashed $24 billion from the Bush
Administration's $307 billion defense budget.

    In a flurry of budget whacking, the committee canceled
future production of the B-2 Stealth bomber (1991 cost cut:
$1.9 billion), put both  the MX and Midgetman mobile missiles
on hold (1991 saving: $2.5 billion) and ordered a cutback of
129,500 service personnel, three times what the Pentagon
proposed. The Senate completed floor action on its version of
a military-spending bill and agreed on an $18 billion cut,
including the Milstar satellite communications system (1991
price tag: $1.6 billion) and the C-17 transport (1991 saving:
$1.4 billion) but salvaging  a pair of the controversial B-2s.
Clearly distressed, President Bush called for an orderly
funding cutback, "not a fire sale."

    The Senate action left open the possibility that Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney could save the two B-2s in negotiations
between the two chambers. And despite Cheney's urgings,
re-election-minded House members reluctant to shut down
production lines in their districts have refused to pull the
plug on such high-priced weapons as the F-15 fighter, M-1 tank
and V-22 transport plane. But the overall impact of last week's
cuts was clear: some of the most cherished items on Cheney's
wish list have been slam-dunked.

    The most spectacular setback was a House reduction in
spending for the Strategic Defense Initiative to $3 billion,
almost $2 billion less than the Administration requested.
Furthermore, the Senate, on Saturday, passed historic
legislation making it all but impossible to decide on
space-based deployment by 1993. Over the past seven years,
Congress has appropriated $20.2 billion for the program. But
critics on both sides of the aisle have become disillusioned by
the Pentagon's relentless drive to put some version of Star
Wars into space before it is killed outright. In their haste,
the skeptics say, SDI's managers are skimping on tests that
could determine whether the system will actually work.

    Since February, Star Wars research has focused on an
innovation called Brilliant Pebbles -- thousands of small,
independently controlled satellites designed to home in on and
destroy enemy nuclear warheads. "The technology is at hand" to
deploy a Brilliant Pebbles system, General George Monahan, then
SDI director, assured Congress. The Pentagon contends that
4,614 Brilliant Pebbles could be put into orbit for $55
billion, vs. $69 billion for previous schemes.

    But critics point out that the plan was adopted despite the
reservations of the Pentagon's own Defense Science Board, which
last year questioned whether the orbiting warhead killers could
survive enemy countermeasures such as tiny attack rockets. An
even more telling blow came from the General Accounting Office,
which last month issued a report concluding that the entire SDI
program was in such "flux" that deployment of any system was
"premature and fraught with high risk." The GAO found that the
Pentagon "has not yet solidified the role of Brilliant Pebbles
or what elements will be in the final stage." Even worse, the
agency found that the entire Star Wars concept is in doubt
because the program's managers do not plan to test the system
as a whole before deploying it. Shades of the Hubble telescope.

    In hopes of giving SDI a fresh impetus and clearer voice,
President Bush has appointed Henry Cooper, the chief U.S.
negotiator on defense and space matters from 1987 to 1989, as
the new SDI director. In an interview, Cooper conceded that "it
is a critical period for SDI," but maintained, "SDI offers a
lot of promise to the world."

    But Cooper may not be able to overcome the growing doubts
about Star Wars. After seven years of research, it is clear
that no antimissile system can provide the impenetrable shield
against incoming missiles that Ronald Reagan envisioned in
1983. Despite some impressive technological breakthroughs,
especially in miniaturization, a warehouse full of Buck Rogers
technology, including nuclear-generated X-ray lasers, has been
tested and discarded after proving far more difficult to
convert into practical weapons than anyone imagined. A Senate
staffer likens the current infatuation with Brilliant Pebbles
to the "Hail Mary" play in football. "With time running out and
80 yards to go," he says, "you throw the long one and pray."
But with odd couples like Aspin and Dellums teaming up, the
prospects of completing such a pass are becoming increasingly
remote.