VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHNO #0407/01 3051733
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 311733Z OCT 08
FM USMISSION USNATO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2431
INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

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. 
 
---------------------- 
BILATERAL DISCUSSIONS 
---------------------- 
 
¶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