READOUT: GENERAL OBERING'S 28 OCTOBER MISSILE

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000407

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/31/2018
TAGS: NATO PREL PARM MARR CZ PL MNUC
SUBJECT: READOUT: GENERAL OBERING'S 28 OCTOBER MISSILE
DEFENSE BRIEFING TO NATO PERM REPS

Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Kate Byrnes for reasons 1
.4 (b) and (d).


1. (SBU) Summary: Lieutenant General (Lt Gen) Obering, the
director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA),stopped in
Brussels October 28 to address NATO Perm Reps on his way to
Warsaw and Prague. He updated Allies regarding missile
defense (MD) and introduced his successor, Major General
(soon to be LTG) O'Reilly. Lt Gen Obering's briefing to Perm
Reps consisted of updates on the following issues: U.S. MD
testing, the Iranian missile program, the integration of U.S.
and NATO command and control systems, the MD budget, U.S. MD
negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic, and MD
international cooperation. Overall, the briefing was well
received by Allies. Questions from Perm Reps focused on the
threat, cooperation with Russia, and command and control. Lt
Gen Obering also met with Secretary General Jaap De Hoop
Scheffer, the Polish delegation, and the Czech delegation.
End Summary.



MD BRIEFING TO PERM REPS



2. (SBU) Ambassador Volker opened Lt Gen Obering's briefing
to Perm Reps by making two points. First, that there is
strong bipartisan commitment to MD in the United States.
This was demonstrated by strong support in Congress for the
2009 MD budget. In this year's budget, DoD requested $9.3
billion for MD and was granted $9.0 billion. Secondly, that
the U.S. is committed to MD cooperation with Russia.
Ambassador Volker noted that the U.S. recently proposed a
date for a MD meeting with Russia; however, Russia did not
accept the date. The Ambassador stressed that the U.S. will
continue to work with Russia on this issue.



3. (C) Lt Gen Obering began his briefing by updating Allies
on recent MD tests. He stated that MDA recently had several
successful tests, including a THAAD test in June 2008, an
Aegis test in November 2007, and a ground based midcourse
defense test in September 2007. He stressed that the success
of these tests only increases confidence in U.S. MD systems.
Next, Lt Gen Obering gave a brief update on the Iranian
threat stating that Iran had developed a variant of the
Shahab-3 missile which could reach up to 2,000 km. He also
stated that Iran has a second missile, the Ashura, which can
reach up to 2,000 km. In addition to acquiring/developing
missiles of increasing distances, Iran's space launch vehicle
test in August 2008 was significant because it tested a
multi-stage vehicle. The overall test was a failure;
however, it shows that Iran continues to develop longer-range
ballistic missiles. Lt Gen Obering noted that NATO should be
concerned that Iran is pursuing missiles with ranges at and
greater than 2,000 km when Iran only needs missiles of 1,300
km in order to reach Israel and U.S. bases in the region.



4. (SBU) On command and control, Lt Gen Obering highlighted
that the U.S. and NATO are making good progress on
integration of their command and control systems. The U.S.
has been successfully transferring radar data to NATO
systems. The U.S. has conducted several command and control
exercises, the most recent exercise being Joint Project Optic
Windmill in the Netherlands. Lt Gen Obering reiterated
Ambassador Volker's point that the U.S.
(Democratic-controlled) Congress had been very supportive of
MD and had practically fully funded the Defense Department's
budget request in both 2008 and 2009. He also noted that MDA
had enough funding to move forward with the MD sites in
Poland and the Czech Republic. Lt Gen Obering summarized
U.S. progress over the summer with Poland and the Czech
Republic stating that the U.S. had completed BMD agreements
with both countries and that we are currently working on a
SOFA supplemental with Poland, which we hope to complete as
soon as possible. Finally, Lt Gen Obering pointed out that
MDA cooperates with over 20 nations, representing a growing
recognition of the threat from the proliferation of missiles.
He added that the Gulf States, especially Bahrain and Saudi
Arabia, have recently become interested in MD.



DISCUSSION WITH PERM REPS



5. (C) Belgium and Spain asked for further information on
MDA's cooperation with non-NATO countries. Lt Gen Obering
answered that MDA has different levels of engagement with
NATO and non-NATO countries including agreements on research

and development, cooperation on technologies for new
capabilities, and co-development of systems. He specifically
mentioned that the U.S. and Japan are working together to
co-develop the next generation of sea based SM-3 interceptors
and that the U.S. has contracts with Ukrainian companies on
research, development, technology, and evaluation (RDT-E).
Lt Gen Obering elaborated on U.S. cooperation with the Gulf
States by saying that the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are
interested in procuring missile defense systems because of
the threat from Iran. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have
requested a MD analysis to determine which MD systems they
should procure, and Kuwait has asked for radar information.
Lastly, that the U.S. is working with Israel on a
co-development project to address short-range threats.


6. (C) Belgium and France asked for details regarding the
meeting the U.S. proposed to Russia, and Denmark asked if the
U.S. had given any more thought to using the Russian radar in
Azerbaijan (Gabala). Lt Gen Obering commented that the
Russians passed the U.S. a list of 40 questions regarding the
U.S. proposed Transparency and Confidence Building Measures
(TCBMs) and that the U.S. recently completed a briefing with
the answers to these questions. Ambassador Volker added that
the U.S. offered the Russians November 6 as the next MD
meeting date to discuss all of the TCBMs, but that the
Russians had refused the date. He noted that the Russians
continue to pose questions, the U.S. answers the questions,
and then the Russians come back with more questions. The
Ambassador added that Russia made a miscalculation by
offering to cooperate with the U.S. on MD; that Russia was
never interested in cooperation and had calculated that the
U.S. would not accept, but they are now on the record as
having offered to cooperate and that is why there has been no
progress. On Gabala, Lt Gen Obering said that the U.S. would
welcome information from the Russian radar and that the
information could be valuable to the European site, but the
radar cannot replace the precision tracking radar in the
Czech Republic. He noted that Russia has a radar inside its
territory that could do precision tracking, but that Russia
has not offered it.


7. (C) Latvia asked for more detail on the Iranian threat,
Romania asked about the threat from Syria, and France asked
for an assessment on worldwide threats. On Iran, Lt Gen
Obering stressed that it is hard to determine when Iran will
develop long-range missiles because we do not know how much
foreign assistance it is receiving although we know Iran
receives assistance from North Korea. Lt Gen Obering also
noted that Syria has made advances on missile technology,
particularly with the ability to maneuver warheads so they
are not ballistic. Lt Gen Obering added that MDA is looking
at systems to address this. In terms of the worldwide
threat, Lt Gen Obering said that North Korea is willing to
sell to about anyone and this kind of access to missiles is a
major problem. This also leads to the problem of non-state
actors having access to missiles, for example Iran and Syria
selling missiles to Hamas. Lt Gen Obering pointed out that
Allies should be thinking about future threats (beyond Iran)
and that a MD system should be able to address future
threats.


8. (C) The Netherlands and Canada inquired about how U.S. and
NATO command and control would work together. Turkey asked
about U.S. policy regarding the protection of territory vs.
protection of high value assets. Lt Gen Obering said that
the U.S. wants to take data from the radar to be placed in
the Czech Republic, as well as data from other radars (Aegis,
etc),and feed this data to NATO command and control systems.
He added that it is also important to share mission planning
data. Additionally, he mentioned that the U.S. could
coordinate the long-range interceptor execution plans with
Allies. On U.S. protection strategy, Lt Gen Obering answered
that the U.S.'s policy is to protect all U.S. territory;
however, the U.S. does not have enough short-range systems to
protect all of its territory. He added that he believes that
the U.S. would follow its post 9/11 strategy, which was to
protect major population centers.


9. (U) The Secretary General (SYG) closed the discussion on
MD by thanking Lt Gen Obering for all of his work on MD and
inviting MG(P) O'Reilly to continue close cooperation with
NATO.

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BILATERAL DISCUSSIONS
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10. (C) Lt Gen Obering's bilateral discussion with the SYG
focused on the way forward on NATO MD. The SYG began the
discussion by asking about MD's importance in a new U.S.
administration. Lt Gen Obering responded that he believed

even an Obama administration would support MD; that Obama had
previously made negative remarks on MD, but had since backed
away from such remarks. Then the discussion moved to NATO MD
when Lt Gen Obering said that NATO should move away from the
concept of "full coverage". He stressed that NATO should
focus on the most imminent threats (Iran-Syria) to minimize
cost. He added that NATO can expand the system later if
needed. Lt Gen Obering suggested land based SM 3 systems as
a cost effective solution for NATO. Lt Gen Obering also
offered to host a command and control exercise for NATO; the
SYG agreed this would be a good idea.


11. (C) The Polish Ambassador was on his way to Afghanistan
so Lt Gen Obering met with the Polish Defense Advisor Piotr
Wlodarski. The discussion focused on Obering's trip to
Poland (10/29-10/30). Wlodarski thanked Lt Gen Obering for
all his support in facilitating the BMD agreement with
Poland. Lt Gen Obering asked what MDA could do, while in
Poland, to help with ratification. Wlodarski replied that he
did not believe ratification in Poland would be problematic,
but that additional types of U.S.-Poland cooperation, like
defense modernization, was good for political support of MD.
He also stated that Poland would continue its bilateral
dialog with Russia on MD.


12. (C) Lt Gen Obering's discussion with Czech Ambassador
Fule centered on Czech domestic politics and the chances of
the BMD agreement's ratification. Ambassador Stefan Fule
stated that if the Czech Parliament remains strong, the BMD
agreement has a chance of passing. The Ambassador also
mentioned that opposition leader Jiri Paroubek was
problematic; that Paroubek did not believe in the Iranian
missile threat and had said that Iran would have to do
something more "visible" to change his mind about missile
defense. Ambassador Fule concluded the conversation by
saying that we need to keep up momentum on NATO MD, that this
was important for Czech ratification, and that he hoped MG(P)
O'Reilly would help with this.

END
VOLKER