Wayne Allard: “I support the Warner amendment to the Reed amendment because it adds flexibility with accountability. The second-degree…”

“I support the Warner amendment to the Reed amendment because it adds flexibility with accountability. The second-degree amendment will allow the Missile Defense Program to field capabilities expeditiously and to improve those capabilities rapidly and avoids the disadvantages I see in Senator Reed's approach, which requires realistic testing broken off into blocks. Specifically, Senator Warner's second-degree amendment will require the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of OT&E, to set forth formal criteria to define operationally realistic testing for the ballistic missile defense system as a spiral development program. It will require operationally realistic testing consistent with those criteria during the fiscal year 2005, and it will require operationally realistic testing of each block or spiral of the ballistic missile defense system. The Warner second-degree amendment provides the flexibility needed to incorporate both operational test goals and developmental test goals in missile defense tests--flexibility that is denied in the Reed amendment. Thus, it avoids the substantial replanning, delay, and additional costs that would result if the Reed amendment is adopted. But the second-degree amendment also helps ensure that the testing of the missile defense system is realistic and will result in a well-tested system that will be capable of defending our Nation.”