Pentagon: Upgraded Minuteman Missiles ‘a Work in Progress’

A Pentagon spokesman acknowledged Thursday that problems with the recently upgraded Minuteman III missiles could, if not corrected, have serious implications for the viability of America’s nuclear arsenal.

The missiles, refurbished for $4.5 billion but consistently missing targets in tests, are “a work in progress” whose performance the Pentagon hopes will improve in the future, said the spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley.

“I don’t think anybody’s hair is on fire at this point . . . in the testing, because everyone agrees that we have an insufficient database of tests at this point to make any real long-term predictions,” Quigley said.

“But neither is it done to everyone’s satisfaction, by any means. So does this concern us? Yes. This is an important system. This is a key element of our strategic deterrent force. And we will keep working this, and if there are shortcomings, we will eliminate them.”

The Pentagon last year began installing new guidance and propulsion systems on about 500 of the missiles stored in Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, hoping to extend the life of a weapon that dates to the 1960s.

But internal Pentagon documents indicate problems with the upgraded missiles, including larger “miss distances” and a shorter range than their predecessors. Defense analysts say the problems are not severe enough to jeopardize the missile’s overall effectiveness. But fixing them could mean added costs for taxpayers.

The test results come as the Bush administration is proposing to disarm all Peacekeeper MX ICBMs, which would leave the Minuteman III missiles as the linchpin of the country’s land-based nuclear arsenal.

Quigley said it is too early in the testing of the missile to predict whether the problems will affect the plans to retire the Peacekeeper MX.

“I don’t think that we can predict at this point what impact, if any, it might have on the retirement of the Peacekeeper force until that testing program is complete,” he said.

Defense analysts from across the political spectrum echoed the Pentagon’s caution.

“A problem with any certain weapons system like the Minuteman III is not going to in any important way affect the overall effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent,” said Thomas Keaney, executive director of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It can be fixed, and other things can be relied on while it is fixed.”

The upgrade program was designed to make the Minuteman functional until 2020 and ensure that it adheres to environmental requirements that prohibit the use of the propulsion materials it was originally designed to rely on. Pentagon reports suggest the Air Force tried to do the upgrade inexpensively, without a full-bore overhaul.

As news of the test failures emerged Thursday, lawmakers expressed concern about the accuracy of the missiles, which, together with the Peacekeeper MXs, represent the land-based leg of a nuclear triad that includes the Air Force’s B-52 and B-2 bombers and the Navy’s Trident nuclear submarines.

“As we continue to reduce our strategic stockpile, upgrades to the Minuteman III are an important part of our strategic defenses,” said Rep. Martin T. Meehan of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the research and development subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services.

“Reports of reduced accuracy are disconcerting, considering the reports that this was not supposed to be a difficult upgrade,” Meehan said.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), who chairs the subcommittee, said that the problems with the Minuteman III do not appear to be “catastrophic” and that, in the meantime, the accuracy of the missile is “acceptable.”

Because the missile carries a nuclear warhead capable of annihilating a large target, it does not require the pinpoint accuracy demanded of modern-day conventional bombs.

Hunter said he will be following the tests closely.

“Obviously, whatever happens to the performance of the Minuteman is highly relevant to our posture in [arms control] negotiations,” Hunter said. “The Minuteman has to work, and it has to work well. Let’s see how complex this problem is and whether or not there’s been sloppy work on the part of the contractors and whether the problem is deeper than what we see right now.”

There have been five tests so far of the new guidance and propulsion systems for the missile, and Pentagon officials said that, in each, it failed to hit test targets with the same accuracy of its predecessor.