Dong, Israel for the Jericho, Iraq for the Scud-D and Iraq for the Shahab 3. Is that about your understanding; fairly robust production around the world? When we look at the RNEP and what capability it can provide, let me be very practical. In 1986 we went after Libya's Rabta facility. Anybody in STRATCOM has seen lots of pictures of it, sort of a chemical and biological high command for the Libyans. After the strike there, the Libyans significantly hardened the site. Would there be a way for you to report to us in classified fashion whether conventional munitions could take out Rabta at this point? Admiral BYRD. I could get back to you. Yes, sir. Mr. KIRK. That would be very important that we look at some of the hard-target hit parade, and see whether we have the capability to deny Libyans, et cetera, the ability to move their weapons of mass destruction out of those storage facilities with the current inventory that we have got. Admiral BYRD. Congressman, if you would allow me to comment, you have hit on a very important point. The adversaries that we may be facing in the coming years have gotten the word that they need to go deep and they need to go hard. That is happening more and more every day. We cannot know how many are out there today. The Defense Science Board (DOB) recently estimated about 10,000 hardened deep facilities. We probably know about 40 percent of those. Of those, not all are that important to us. We would probably measure the number of strategic targets in the thousands. And of those, our conventional weapons systems can handle most of them, the large majority of them. But there are probably hundreds in the world, now, where nothing we have can hold those facilities at risk. And so that is a significant concern from the standpoint of deterrence if the enemy thinks that he can put his most valuable resources somewhere and hold them safe. Mr. KIRK. I wonder if we can look at maybe axis-of-evil countries and have STRATCOM tell us the hard targets that we think we would not be able to address, because I would think that that list would be growing. And in classified form, that would be enormously helpful to us. Also helpful if there are any of these targets which we think with special munitions we also cannot address, because I think over time that list will grow. [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 120.] Mr. KIRK. Our allies face the same problem on stockpile reliabilities, et cetera. I notice in your statement, prepared testimony, no talk about the UK-French experience. Can you give us a summary of how they are addressing those issues? General GORDON. I would like to do most of that in a different session. I can tell you that both countries aggressively watch these problems. Their programs in many ways mirror ours in trying to do the science of materials aging, in terms of looking at new machines and new tools to understand the programs. But all three countries come at it slightly differently. I would be glad to talk about that but maybe in a different session. Mr. KIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. WELDON. I thank my colleague. Just one final question before this panel can leave, unless other members have questions. In the Foster report in the area regarding test readiness, he states that the lead time, the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) II resolution of ratification had an objective of test readiness for 12 months. DOE now states the current lead time to be 24 to 36 months, and the panel's view was that those lead times are excessive. And the point that was the made by the Foster Commission was that we could not have what occurred back in the 1950s occur again, when Eisenhower made a decision to unilaterally stop testing, based on the Soviet Union agreeing to the same procedure in 19-I believe that was in 1958. And in 1961, with no advance warning, the Soviet Union did test again. And so America was basically caught and embarrassed; not just embarrassed, but there was much discussion about the impact of that in terms of threats to our security. So the Foster panel comes out and says the test readiness and the time period is extremely important. I think they recommended 3 to 12 months. I believe that our language in our bill has a 1-year or 12-month time period. What is your assessment, General Gordon, on what should be the time period to give what the Foster Commission says every President must have: the option to resume testing expeditiously, if necessarily. What is your opinion? General GORDON. I have been in the middle of that, literally in the middle. I have been advocating a time frame on the order of 18 months. So I believe that we need to move that capability up. It is hard for me to argue with great conviction about a few months either side of that. But I do believe in fact with our capabilities approaching twice that time frame, that that is not good stewardship from my perspective. Historically, it looks like most of our test work was done on about an 18-month schedule. That sort of was the standard time. Moving up to and we have a report coming to us. I tasked a review of this some months ago to determine really what is sort of the 18- to 12-month time frame to cost? And we don't have the exact dollars coming, but coming to 18 months will kind of be straightforward. Coming up to a year, that will be a fairly steep part of the curve for significant-we will have that information in better time, I think. But just to summarize, two years, certainly three years and we are closer to three years now than two years, in reality, for a standard test with full diagnostics. I don't think that is adequate. 12 months, 18 months, I don't have a strong view in that area, but it is too long now. Mr. WELDON. We want to thank you both for your appearance and for your statements and again for your service to the country. We will excuse you both and now ask for Panel two to assemble at the table. Panel two consists of Dr. Michael Anastasio, Deputy Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Dr. John Browne, Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Dr. Paul Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratory. For the record, Dr. Anastasio, as of July 1st you are the director, I understand; so you are deputy now, but you will be director very shortly. And we will go by seniority, if it doesn't meet with objection. So, Dr. Robinson, you would be the first witness, Dr. Browne second, Dr. Anastasio third. It is great to have you here again and the floor is yours. We will accept your statement as a part of the record, all three of you. STATEMENT OF DR. C. PAUL ROBINSON, Dr. ROBINSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Weldon. Definitely a milestone to see Bruce Tarter, who was senior to me by a few months, depart as our senior lab director. We will miss him. I would like to say that I believe the nuclear weapons program today is healthier than it has been for some time. In my submitted testimony, I provided details of some of the areas where progress has been made, and facing up to what is still a challenge to do without nuclear testing. Among the most significant parts of that is a new neutron generator for the Trident 1 warhead that has been produced and certified, again without a nuclear test. This is a triumph of the calculational modeling to examine the neutron generator's effect under extreme conditions of a hostile environment that it would see coming into a defended target. We used to test every such warhead underground, though-every neutron generator design underground, though the underground laboratory was not ideal for doing that. The ratio of the various gamma rays, x-rays, and neutrons were never in the right proportion. So we always had to make judgments as to what was adequate. The other part of the triumph of bringing and certifying a new neutron generator is the nonnuclear simulators that we built under the Stockpile Stewardship Program. In particular, we used the Sandia Z machine which produces now more than a 100 trillion watts of x-rays in a single pulse. The two capabilities, computing and local testing in combination, allowed us to certify the performance of the new neutron generator, and we are now manufacturing and delivering those to the military. I also discussed in the testimony the greatest concern I had over the last decade, and that is the capability for systems engineering and integration of something as complex as a nuclear warhead electrical system. Here we have thousands of parts, and if you have not had a team for 10 years actually designing from scratch, working through all of the problems and guaranteeing that it would work, how do you know they can still do it? Well, the answer is in this year, because of the stockpile life extension program and the first system in which we have taken the electrical, the used control systems, through a complete redesign, the Trident warhead, I know the answer is yes, we are capable. And we are doing it. It has been one of the best things in our program for a decade. I cautioned in the testimony that there is a difference between the role and the challenge Sandia has versus that of my colleagues on either side. We test essentially everything we design. Each year we do thousands of components, subsystem and system tests. With the science based stockpile stewardship moneys we have been able to strengthen the local test capability and tie it together always with our modeling and simulation to get a better fidelity and a better overall understanding. The next highlight I would mention to you is a new arming, fusing and firing system. The way we are organized, the Navy pays Sandia separately to design that and integrate it with the NNSA functions within the warhead. It is the most streamlined system and the highest performance system as a result. With that we are putting in improvements, not only getting rid of 20-year-old electronics-which I always say no one would go out and buy a 20-year-old television and expect to rely on it-we are also incorporating some better diagnostics that will tell us the state of health and tell us when things are aging and what the state of health of the system is as we look forward, something we never quite planned for in previous designs. We have just completed the conceptual design of the similar systems for a second warhead. That is the W-80 cruise missile warhead. Some other highlights: I certified the Sandia portion of the stockpile to the two Secretaries that it is both safe, reliable and secure. After years of my certification letter expressing concern over the W-62, which is by far our oldest warhead, designed before the concept of modern electrical safety was even invented, I suggested each year we ought to fix it or retire it. I am pleased to say that the Nuclear Posture Review this year elected to retire it. We have begun the process, and they will all be out within the decade. Two years ago our stockpile surveillance did discover some serious problems in weapons which are based off of the Continental United States (CONUS). They see a greater stress and have greater capability. We designed, expeditiously, some fixes and we have implemented them. At the same time we turned up our surveillance effort to try and make sure there were not other problems lurking there. I am happy to report not only have we now completely fixed the problems, but we have not seen new comparable problems. That is probably a good benchmark for you of the state of the health of that portion of the stockpile. Also, without fanfare, until the job was done, we addressed what we saw as a major vulnerability in security and use control also for systems based off the Continental United States, where we have now developed and deployed a completely encrypted recode system so no one could possibly see what was going on and possibly interfere and take control of a warhead. This was taken, particularly on the heels of September 11th, by the President's statement at the closing of the last summit that our highest priority must be to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the hands of the most dangerous people in the world. And I believe that this latest step takes a significant increase of our security for U.S. Weapons. Thus, let me conclude that science-based stockpile stewardship is successful to date. I am not a fortune teller. I can't tell you where we are going. As you know, this is a journey. Doubtless there will be some challenges to come. With the strong leadership of General Gordon and his team, your continuing strong support for our work from the Congress, I think we are succeeding in preserving America's greatest strength against global war; that is, the strength of our nuclear weapons arsenal. Thank you very much. Mr. WELDON. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Dr. Robinson can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] Mr. WELDON. Dr. Browne. STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN C. BROWNE, Dr. BROWNE. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much for this opportunity. I also am more encouraged today about my ability to certify the safety and reliability of the stockpile than I was a few years ago. I think the creation of the NNSA has helped us all focus on what we are all about. I think the new Nuclear Posture Review has helped us also understand what the mission is beyond tomorrow.And I think that helps not only the lab directors but it helps our people understand what the expectations are. Some of the reasons that I am more encouraged are we are have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years. You have been hearing for probably five years or more about how good it is going to be when we get these tools. Well, we are starting to get the tools on line. And more then getting them on line, we are actually using them on stockpile issues. And I will give you a few examples. The W-76 life extension program-Los Alamos has done work on our Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DAHRT) radiographic facility directly related to the W-76. Our advanced computing codes have been used to model the entire W-76 system. So that gives me a lot more confidence in the fact that our people are not only developing tools, they are actually using them on stockpile issues. So I think we are on the right path. And I think the important thing right now is to stay the course. It is a difficult challenge. We can't guarantee that it will be successful, but I think we are more encouraged. Let me give you a couple of other examples of the progress we have made. General Gordon referred to the W-88 pit production program. Los Alamos was given that responsibility in 1996, seven years after Rocky Flats was shut down. And we were asked to recreate the ability to manufacture plutonium pits. That turned out to be a bigger challenge than I think anybody understood. We brought a lot of the equipment down from Rocky Flats. We brought about 70 people down from Rocky Flats. We hired a lot of people. We used a lot of our best scientists on the problem. We are now on schedule for less than a year from now to have what we call a certifiable pit. And what that means is that it has passed through all of the engineering tests that say it meets the requirements or expectations for performance. We have produced 13 pits to date. That is six more than was originally planned. So that gives me a lot of encouragement. The |