Congressional Record: May 16, 2001 (House)
Page H2253-H2255
NATIONAL SECURITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with
my colleagues two items of concern relative to our national security.
First of all, about this time last year, we heard a lot of ranting and
raving in this Chamber and on national TV, allegations of massive fraud
in our missile testing program. In fact, Mr. Speaker, 53 of our
colleagues signed a letter to the FBI demanding an investigation of a
fraud that was alleged by an MIT professor. The MIT professor said
there was abuse, there was waste, that the Defense Department
deliberately lied and so did TRW.
We said let us get to the bottom because the investigation of this
issue was done before. We have not heard anything from those 53 of our
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, but a front page story in Bloomberg Press by
Tony Capaccio cites the FBI in February throwing the whole thing out,
saying it was nothing but a bunch of hogwash.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the Bloomberg news story, ``FBI
Clears TRW of Fraud Charge in Missile Defense Test,'' and the actual
FBI document. The Department of Defense has been completely exonerated.
For those 53 colleagues and for Ted Postol, I think you owe the
Department of Defense an apology.
[[Page H2254]]
[From Bloomberg.com: Top Financial News, May 2001]
FBI Clears TRW Inc. of Fraud Charge in Missile Defense Test
(By Tony Capaccio)
Washington, May 4, (Bloomberg)--The Federal Bureau of
Investigation cleared TRW Inc., of allegations it manipulated
the test results in a program for the U.S. missile defense
system, according to a government document.
It's the second time the allegation has been dismissed. A
1999 review by the Justice and Defense departments in a
separate whistleblower lawsuit dealing with the same charge
also found no basis for fraud in TRW's testing.
Last June, 53 members of the U.S. Congress asked the FBI to
investigate charges by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
professor Theodore Postol that TRW and Pentagon officials
committed ``fraud and cover-up,'' by tampering with the
results of program's first test flight to conceal that
company's warhead can't distinguish between decoys and the
real thing.
Postol and another antimissile critic, Dr. Nira Schwartz,
alleged that TRW and the Pentagon manipulated the results of
a June 1997 flight test. Military and TRW officials said the
company's warhead succeeded.
Postol and Schwartz claimed the data was manipulated to
indicate success after the test failed. The test was
conducted in a competition between TRW and Raytheon Co.,
which TRW eventually lost. Their charges were aired in March
and June 2000 front page New York Times articles that became
the basis for the congressional request and fodder for arms
control critics.
The FBI closed the case in late February, saying Postol's
charges were ``a scientific dispute and Postol's attempts to
raise it to the level of criminal conduct had no basis in
fact.''
The FBI's action removes a cloud over the missile defense
program just as the Bush administration presses ahead with
plans to expand it.
A spokesman for TRW said the company hadn't been told of
the finding and is ``delighted'' if it's true. Both Postol
and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who organized the
congressional opposition, said they too were unaware.
trw's role
TRW is a top subcontractor on the National Missile Defense
program managed by Boeing Co. TRW provides the command and
control system, or electronic brains, that receive and
process target information to missile interceptors carrying
Raytheon Co. hit-to-kill warheads.
The TRW system has performed well in the three missile
intercept tests to date, though two of them ended in failure
after glitches in technology unrelated to the basic system.
Postol argues the Pentagon's system is fundamentally flawed
and is incapable of distinguishing decoys from real warheads.
He alleged the Pentagon watered down its decoy testing,
substituting simpler and fewer decoys that were easier for
the warhead to recognize. The Pentagon has acknowledged
shortcomings in its decoy testing and says it plans
improvements.
``The program needs to ensure the ability of the system to
deal with likely countermeasures,'' Pentagon program manager
Army Gen. Willie Nance wrote in an April 12 review.
`No Federal Violation'
``The investigation failed to disclose evidence that a
federal violation has been committed,'' the FBI said in a
February 26 memo to the Justice Department, ``Since all
logical investigation has been completed, this matter is
being closed.''
The allegation was first made by Schwartz in an April 1996
False Claims Act whistleblower suit. Schwartz was a senior
staff engineer who worked on the project for 40 hours,
according to TRW. The federal government declined to join her
lawsuit after determining there was no evidence to support
criminal charges. The case is pending. Schwartz would
received a monetary award if TRW was found guilty.
Schwartz alleged that TRW ``knowingly and falsely
certified'' as effective discrimination technology that was
``incapable of performing its intended purpose.''
``Dr. Schwartz's allegations were scientific in nature and
concerned false claims made by TRW regarding the data
obtained from the first test flight,'' said the FBI memo.
``Postol expanded Schwartz's allegations to include criminal
conduct. Investigation revealed that Postol's claim that data
had been altered was unfounded.''
GAO Review
Postol said in an interview he was surprised by the FBI's
decision because he was under the impression that the Bureau
would wait to wrap up its review until the General Accounting
Office completed a separate non-criminal technical review of
the charges.
The GAO review, which was requested by two Democrats,
Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Howard Berman
of California, won't be finished until later this year.
I am amazed the FBI would have done this without checking
with the GAO,'' Postol said. ``It looks to me that the FBI
was simply not interested in doing anything except covering
its back.''
Kucinich, who organized the June letter that prompted the
FBI inquiry, said he hadn't heard of the FBI's conclusion.
``It is interesting that the day after the president
announced plans to spend billions more dollars on a missile
defense system, it's revealed that the FBI had terminated its
fraud investigation of the missile defense program--despite
plain proof this technology doesn't work and substantial
evidence suggesting that the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization covered it up,'' he said in a statement.
Kucinich was referring to President George W. Bush's May 1
speech outlining his plans for a missile defense shield that
will likely include the ground-based system.
TRW spokesman Darryl Fraser in a statement said ``if this
report is accurate, we are delighted to hear that the FBI has
vindicated TRW for the years of hard work.''
____
[U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Feb. 26,
2001, Washington, DC]
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM FRAUD AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT--
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
In a June 15, 2000, letter to Director Freeh, Dennis J.
Kucinich, U.S. House of Representatives, and 52 other members
of Congress requested an FBI investigation into allegations
that the Department of Defense (DOD) covered up fraud
relevant to the experimental failure of testing involving the
National Missile Defense System. This anti-missile defense
system is designed to defeat nuclear warheads launched at the
United States by inexperienced nuclear powers such as Iran,
Iraq and North Korea by intercepting the warhead carrying
missiles in the air.
Specifically the Congressional letter detailed allegations
by anti-missile critic Dr. Theodore Postol, a respected
scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
that not only is the S50 billion National Missile Defense
System incapable of distinguishing between warheads of
incoming missiles and decoys, but the DOD and its contractors
have altered data to hide the failure. Dr. Postol also
contended that his letter to the White House, its
attachments, and all the information and data he used to draw
his conclusions of fraud and coverup, were derived from
unclassified material and were subsequently classified by the
DOD in an effort to conceal the fraud and wrongdoing.
The Washington Field Office (WFO) of the FBI opened a
preliminary inquiry into allegations of fraud in the National
Missile Defense System to specifically address the following
items: (1) coordinate with Defense Criminal Investigative
Service (DCIS) and obtain copies of material alleging fraud
and coverup prepared by Dr. Postol; (2) address DOD's
justification for classifying Dr. Postol's information
and; (3) obtain details of a DCIS Qui Tam inquiry that
precipitated Dr. Postol's criticism of the National
Missile Defense System.
WFO opened up a preliminary inquiry into allegations of
fraud in the National Missile Defense System on July 25,
2000. Contact was made with the DCIS who agreed to work
jointly with the FBI in conducting the preliminary inquiry.
WFO obtained a copy of Dr. Theodore Postol's letter to the
White House from Philip Coyle, Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation, at the Pentagon. Postol had sent Coyle a copy of
his letter to the White House.
The Director of Security for the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization (BMDO) requested a line by line review of
Postol's package when it was suggested that classified
material may be attached to Postol's letter. This line by
line review revealed that four pages of Attachment B to
Postol's letter contained previously classified data, and
Attachment D contained 12 previously classified figures and
one classified table. All this material had been previously
classified and was not newly classified. Postol had obtained
this information from other individuals involved in a Qui Tam
law suit against TRW. Those involved in the Qui Tam suit
believed that the information they had was unclassified. A
good faith effort had been made by a DCIS investigator to
declassify a report that had been previously classified. In
the process, certain classified information was inadvertently
left in the report. Postol used this information believing it
to be unclassified.
Postol's information was based on data he received from Dr.
Nira Schwartz, a scientist and former employee of TRW, a
defense contractor involved with BMDO. Schwartz had filed a
Qui Tam action in the Western District of California alleging
wrongful termination and false claims on the part of TRW. Dr.
Schwartz's allegations were scientific in nature and
concerned false claims made by TRW regarding the data
obtained from the first test flight, IFT-1A. Postol expanded
Schwartz's allegations to include criminal conduct.
Investigation revealed that Postol's claim that data had been
altered was unfounded. As to Postol's claim that the system
is incapable of distinguishing between warheads and decoys,
there is a dispute among scientists about the ability of the
system to discriminate based on scientific grounds. This is a
scientific dispute and Postol's attempt to raise it to the
level of criminal conduct had no basis in fact. A Department
of Justice civil attorney and an Assistant United States
Attorney in the Central District of California, both advised
that during the Qui Tam investigation, there was no
indication of fraud or criminal activity.
The joint FBI/DCIS investigation failed to disclose
evidence that a federal violation has
[[Page H2255]]
been committed. Since all logical investigation has been
completed, this matter is being closed.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to point my colleagues to a story that ran
just the last few days where we now have seen that Danny Stillman has
evidence and material he collected that shows that the Chinese were
aggressively trying to acquire supercomputers so that they could
miniaturize their nuclear weapons. Up until 1996, China had no
supercomputers. That was the year President Clinton lowered the
standard and within 2 years China acquired 700 supercomputers. The
information Danny Stillman allegedly has gives us the details as to how
China uses the supercomputers we gave them to build miniature weapons,
nuclear weapons to be used against us and our allies.
Right now, the Department of Defense and Department of Energy are
refusing to allow Danny Stillman's notes to be made public. I am today
writing Secretary Rumsfeld and the administration to demand that these
questions be answered. As a member of the Cox Committee that looked at
this issue in depth, we need to know for sure what impact the
President's decision in 1996 had to allow China to develop miniature
nuclear weapons which they could use against America today.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the letter to Secretary
Rumsfeld.
May 3, 2001.
Donald H. Rumsfeld,
Secretary of Defense, Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC.
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: I am writing with regard to
today's article in the Washington Post entitled, ``U.S.
Blocks Memoir of Scientist Who Gathered Trove of
Information.'' As a member of the Select Committee on U.S.
National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the
People's Republic of China, I am alarmed and concerned that
the Committee was never informed about Danny B. Stillman or
provided with the materials he collected over the years.
The article states:
Stillman said Chinese physicists told him that they had
begun research on miniaturization during the 1970s, but could
not complete it because they lacked the computing power to
carry out massive calculations. When the Chinese physicists
got access to supercomputers, they pulled out their old
research, ran the numbers and designed the new devices.
These supercomputers not only benefited the Chinese
advanced conventional weapons programs but also their weapons
of mass destruction programs. Now these weapons are targeted
at the United States and our friends and allies in the
region.
Please answer the following questions:
1. Where did the Chinese get the supercomputers?
2. What other weapons systems did they use the
supercomputers on?
3. Were export control officers made aware of the
importance of supercomputers to the Chinese weapons programs?
4. When did the previous Administration learn of this?
5. Why was Congress not informed?
The article also states:
In all, Stillman said he collected the names of more than
2,000 Chinese scientists working at nuclear weapons
facilities, recorded detailed histories of the Chinese
program from top scientists, inspected nuclear weapons labs
and bomb testing sites, interviewed Chinese weapons
designers, photographed nuclear facilities--and then, each
time he returned home, passed the information along to U.S.
intelligence debriefers.
Please provide to me Stillman's trip reports, notes,
photographs, videos, the list of Chinese scientists and a
draft of his book. Along with a list of all DOE employees who
have visited Chinese nuclear weapons facilities.
Sincerely.
____________________