Carl Levin

Commercial petroleum inventories are low, retail product prices are high, and economic growth is slow.

Gas prices are at a record high, and what that chart shows is that over the last 2 years, the DOE has added about 85 million barrels to the SPR.

The Government should avoid acquiring oil for the Reserve under these circumstances.

General Kadish, how will you prevent a interceptor that goes off course, or a spent stage, from threatening populated areas?

Secretary Wynne, current law says that initial operational test and evaluation needs to be completed prior to going beyond 'low rate initial production' (LRIP).

How do you plan to circumvent these safety restrictions in order to launch from Fort Greeley?

General Kadish, you said at the hearing that you had plans to fly interceptors out of the Fort Greeley site.

The big advantage of the mid-course, from a defensive point of view, is that we have relatively more time to react than during the other two phases.

Secretary Wynne and General Kadish, as part of President Bush's Government Accountability Initiative, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has graded a number of defense programs, including missile defense.

The OMB said the missile defense program has, 'major flaws that would limit the program's effectiveness.'

Admiral Ellis, you will be responsible for operating the NMD and protecting the U.S. from nuclear-armed missile attack, beginning in September 2004.

Mr. Christie, will the tests that are scheduled between now and the September 2004 deployment all have essentially the same highly scripted engagement geometry which has been used in prior flight tests?

Mr. Christie, if the North Koreans ever did launch a missile at the U.S., would the resulting engagement be 'highly scripted,' as the tests now are?

Mr. Christie, is this engagement geometry at all similar to what one would expect to see if North Korea launched a missile at the U.S. west coast, and the interceptors deployed at Ft. Greeley were used to try to hit it?

Is it fair to say it will be less than 30?

It would be a change if that is approved.

How many of the Fort Greeley ones would be launched?

So you do not know what part of the 30 would be launched as part of either developmental or operational testing, is that correct?

Well, the issue is whether or not those are going to be part of a test bed or not.

If there is, that would be for a third site?

All right. The ten in this year's budget.

It may or may not be part of a third site, is that correct?

For the follow on 10, I want to be real clear as to what we are talking about.

Where is that third site?

Therefore, we have not done operational testing.