[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-156]
THREAT POSED BY ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 10, 2008
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Tenth Congress
IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina DUNCAN HUNTER, California
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON,
ADAM SMITH, Washington California
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California JEFF MILLER, Florida
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia TOM COLE, Oklahoma
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam ROB BISHOP, Utah
MARK E. UDALL, Colorado MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
NANCY BOYDA, Kansas MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire THELMA DRAKE, Virginia
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona ROB WITTMAN, Virginia
NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
KATHY CASTOR, Florida
Erin C. Conaton, Staff Director
Rudy Barnes, Professional Staff Member
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Caterina Dutto, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2008
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, July 10, 2008, Threat Posed by Electromagnetic Pulse
(EMP) Attack................................................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, July 10, 2008.......................................... 31
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2008
THREAT POSED BY ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Graham, Dr. William R., Chair, Commission to Assess the Threat to
the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack...... 2
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Graham, Dr. William R........................................ 35
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
THREAT POSED BY ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Thursday, July 10, 2008.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. Good morning. Our committee meets today to
receive testimony on the threat of an electromagnetic pulse,
EMP, attack.
I want to welcome our distinguished witness, Dr. William
Graham--Dr. Graham, if you would assume the witness chair, we
would appreciate it--the chairman of this commission that has
been assessing this threat.
We look forward to your testimony.
The potential damage that could be caused by an EMP attack
on our country is significant, and our committee has long
treated this matter seriously. It was this committee that
pushed for the authorization of the Commission to Assess the
Threat to the United States from EMP Attack as part of the
National Defense Authorization Act for 2001. And the committee
was pivotal in the re-establishment of the commission in the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006.
My colleague, Mr. Bartlett, ranking member of the Seapower
and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, deserves special credit
for his dogged and determined attention to this issue.
Our committee held a hearing on this issue in July of 2004,
following the release of the commission's executive report,
with the commission expected to submit a final report on
November the 30th of this year. We thought it was timely to go
ahead and have a hearing at this time.
I want the record to note that we invited the Department of
Defense (DOD) to testify today. That offer was declined. The
Department indicated that an assessment of the EMP threat will
be provided to the commission by the Department of Defense
later this month. And the Department of Defense prefers to
discuss the threat following the release of that threat
assessment. I am disappointed we couldn't have them here today,
but I understand their reservations. Our committee will work to
arrange a forum for the Department of Defense to present its
views.
With that, I am certainly interested to hear your
testimony, Dr. Graham.
And before we begin, Mr. Hunter, ranking member of
California.
STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks for having
this hearing.
And I want to commend, also, Roscoe Bartlett for being the
father of EMP on this committee and focusing us on this
committee. And I think the statement that the committee heard
from the EMP Commission some four years ago in its first report
was descriptive of the difficulty and the challenge that EMP
poses. And the report concluded that, and I quote, ``EMP is one
of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk
of catastrophic consequences''--obviously, the ability to
impose a great deal of paralysis, both in the economic and
security sectors.
So, Mr. Chairman, like you, I am very interested in hearing
from the panel. And I want to congratulate Roscoe Bartlett for
his enormous dedication to this very important issue. And I
look forward to the panel's testimony and our questions after.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hunter.
We will proceed, Dr. Graham. And we, again, appreciate your
hard work on this commission, and we look forward to your
testimony today.
It has been suggested--Dr. Graham, excuse me just a
minute--that, as Duncan mentioned, the father of this
commission and this issue have a word.
Roscoe Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Oh, thank you very much. I will take just a
moment, because I have a series of questions which I hope will
put on the record the real threat that we face here.
Electromagnetic pulse is kind of a spooky kind of thing.
And, obviously, there is not very much interest in it, that the
seats are largely vacant here, and there are a number of seats
down there vacant. The level of interest does not reflect, in
any way, the seriousness of this threat, and I hope that that
will be apparent by the time this hearing is over.
Thank you.
The Chairman. With that, Dr. Graham, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, CHAIR, COMMISSION TO ASSESS
THE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES FROM ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE
(EMP) ATTACK
Dr. Graham. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank
you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the
Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, a commission established through
the initiative of this committee and strongly supported by your
members.
In accord with the commission's mandate, we are nine
members, seven of whom were appointed by the Secretary of
Defense and two of whom were appointed by the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency. In selecting individuals
for appointment to the commission, the appointing officials
were directed to consult with the chairman and ranking minority
members of the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and
the House of Representatives. So we have your personal
scrutiny, as well.
Let me introduce the other members of the commission, who
are here today.
The Chairman. Can you get a little bit closer to the
microphone, please?
Dr. Graham. Sure.
The Chairman. That would help.
Dr. Graham. There.
The Chairman. Thanks, Doctor.
Dr. Graham. Let me introduce the other members of the
commission who are here today.
On my left, starting with General Richard Lawson, a four-
star general, retired, from the United States Air Force.
Next to him is Dr. Gordon Soper, a former member of the
Defense Nuclear Agency and other nuclear-related functions in
the government.
After him is Dr. John Foster, former director of the
Livermore National Laboratory and former director of defense
research and engineering in the Pentagon, among other
distinguished jobs he has held.
And next to him is Dr. Robert Hermann, a former director of
the National Reconnaissance Office and long-time associate of
the intelligence community.
With your permission, I would like to summarize my prepared
statement and submit the full written statement for the record.
An executive report produced by the EMP Commission and
delivered to Congress in 2004 provided an overview of the EMP
threat to the U.S., our friends and allies, and our deployed
forces. Part of the purpose of my testimony today is to
introduce a new report produced by the EMP Commission.
This report presents the results of the commission's
assessment of an EMP attack to our critical national
infrastructures, sometimes referred to as ``civilian
infrastructures,'' but since they are as important to our
military capabilities and our national security as they are to
our civilian economy and citizenship, we chose to call it
``critical national infrastructures.''
And our report provides recommendations for preparations,
monitoring, protection and recovery from such an EMP attack.
The assessment is informed by analytic and test activities
executed under the commission's sponsorship, which are
discussed in the report.
[The information referred to is retained in the committee
files and can be viewed upon request.]
Dr. Graham. Several potential adversaries have, and more
can, acquire the capability to attack the United States with a
high-altitude, nuclear-weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse.
A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability
without having a high level of sophistication.
EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our
society at risk of catastrophic consequences. A well-
coordinated and widespread cyber attack is another potential
example.
EMP will cover a wide geographic region within line of
sight of a high-altitude nuclear detonation. The EMP has the
capability to produce significant damage to our critical
infrastructures and, thus, to the very fabric of U.S. society,
as well the ability of the United States, our friends and our
allies to project and influence, with military power and other
means.
The common element that can produce such an impact from EMP
is primarily electronics in the infrastructure, so pervasive in
all aspects of our society and military. Our vulnerability is
increasing daily, as our use and dependence on electronics and
automated systems continues to grow. The impact of EMP is
asymmetric, in relation to potential adversaries, who are not
as dependent on modern electronics as we are. Much of the
efficiency of our society is generated through our use of
electronics and automated systems, and that is also a potential
vulnerability.
The current vulnerability of our critical infrastructures
can both invite and reward attack, if not corrected. Correction
is feasible and well within the national means and resources to
accomplish over the next few years. As detailed in the
commission report provided today to the Congress, the Nation's
vulnerability to EMP can be reasonably reduced by coordinated
and focused efforts between the private and public sectors of
our country.
The appropriate response to the EMP threat is a balance of
prevention, planning, training, maintaining situational
awareness, protection and preparations for recovery, and doing
those in coordination with other potential large-scale threats,
such as the cyber threat, and even large-scale man-made
threats, such as geomagnetic storms.
In so doing, the U.S. will reduce the incentives for
adversaries to conduct such an attack on our homeland, our
friends and allies, and our forces deployed abroad. The cost of
such improved security in the next three to five years is
modest by any standard and extremely so, in relation to both
the war on terror and the value of the national infrastructures
at risk today.
Although EMP was first considered during the Cold War as a
means of paralyzing U.S. retaliatory forces and thereby
eliminating our strategic deterrent, the risk of an EMP attack
today may be even greater, since several potential adversaries
seek nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and asymmetric ways
to overcome U.S. conventional superiority, using one or a small
number of nuclear weapons.
A high-altitude electromagnetic pulse results from the
detonation of a nuclear warhead at altitudes above about 25
miles over the country or over our forces. The immediate effect
of EMP would be the disruption of and damage to the electronic
systems and electrical infrastructure. This, in turn, can
seriously impact important aspects of our whole national life,
including telecommunications, the financial system, government
services, the means of getting food, water, medical care, trade
and production, as well as electrical power itself.
Given our Armed Forces' reliance on critical national
infrastructures, the cascading failures could seriously
jeopardize our military's ability to execute its mission in
support of national security. Projection of military power from
air bases and seaports requires electricity, fuel, food and
water. And the coordination of military operations depends on
telecommunications and information systems that are so
indispensable to society as a whole. Within the U.S., these
assets are, in most cases, obtained by the military from our
critical national infrastructures and from civilian providers.
Several potential adversaries have the capability to attack
the United States with high-altitude, nuclear-weapon-generated
EMP, and others appear to be pursuing efforts to obtain that
capability. Long-range ballistic missiles and a high level of
technical sophistication are not prerequisites.
For example, such an attack could be launched from a
freighter off the U.S. coast, using a short- or medium-range
ballistic missile to loft a nuclear warhead to a high altitude,
and would not require accuracy in the placement of that
warhead. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could attempt to
execute such an attack, potentially without revealing the
identity of their sponsors and even themselves.
Iran has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile
from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-
altitude explosions of its Shahab-III ballistic missile, a test
mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the test as
successful. And, just recently, Iran has tested a series of
ballistic missiles, including what it described as a new
longer-range variant of the Shahab-III.
Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP
attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the
commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting
these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that
emerges when we connect all of these dots. In fact, I don't
have another explanation for the high-altitude detonation of
the Shahab-III and some of the Iranian tests or the launch off
the Caspian Sea, other than to deploy an EMP type of attack.
Relatively low-yield, unsophisticated nuclear weapons can
be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects
over wide geographic areas. And designs for variances of such
weapons, as well as more sophisticated weapons, appear to have
been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century at least.
Recently, it has been reported in the press that United
Nations investigators found that the design for an advanced
nuclear weapon able to fit on ballistic missiles currently in
the inventory of Iran, North Korea, and other potentially
hostile states was in the possession of Swiss nationals
affiliated with the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network. This
suggested nuclear weapons designs may already be in the
possession of hostile states that sponsor terrorism. It also
suggests that it would be a mistake to judge the status and
sophistication of nuclear weapon programs based solely on the
indigenous national capabilities, since outside assistance from
proliferators is probably the norm.
EMP effects from nuclear bursts are not new threats to our
Nation. What is different now is that some potential sources of
EMP threats are difficult to deter. They may be may rogue
regimes or terrorist groups that have no state identity. They
may have only one or a few nuclear weapons and be motivated to
attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety.
China and Russia have considered limited nuclear attack
option that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the
primary or sole means of attack. Indeed, in May 1999, during
the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, high-ranking members
of the Russian Duma, meeting with the U.S. congressional
delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, raised the specter
of a Russian EMP attack that would paralyze the United States.
As recently as two weeks ago, Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs James J. Shinn
testified before this committee that China's military is
working on exotic electromagnetic pulse weapons that can
devastate electronic systems by using a burst of energy similar
to that produced by a nuclear blast.
Another key difference from the past is that the U.S. has
developed, more than most nations, as a modern society heavily
dependent on electrical power, electronics, telecommunications,
information networks, and an extensive set of financial and
transportation systems that leverage modern technology. This
asymmetry is a source of substantial economic, industrial,
societal, and military advantage for the U.S., but the critical
interdependencies and normally reliable operation of the
infrastructures creates potential vulnerabilities, if multiple
simultaneous disruptions and failures can be made to occur,
since they almost never occur under normal operations of these
infrastructures.
Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess one or a
few relatively unsophisticated nuclear-armed missiles may well
calculate that instead of, or in addition to, destroying a city
or a military base, they could obtain the greatest economic-
political-military utility from conducting an EMP attack, while
experiencing the lowest risk of being intercepted or otherwise
stopped before they are able to detonate the weapon.
The commission has offered a series of recommendations
intended to reduce the risk and consequences of an EMP attack.
These include pursuing intelligence, interdiction, and
deterrence, to discourage an EMP attack; protecting critical
components of the infrastructure, especially those requiring
long periods of time to replace. In particular, the U.S.
military needs to determine what elements of the national
infrastructure are critical to its continued operations and how
to either protect or circumvent failures of that
infrastructure.
Next would be maintaining the capability to monitor and
evaluate the condition of the critical infrastructures; then,
recognizing how an EMP attack differs from other forms of
infrastructure disruption and damage, since its effects would
not occur under normal operation of our generally reliable
infrastructure systems.
Planning to carry out a systematic recovery of critical
infrastructures would be very important; and that is a planning
function. That is not a hugely expensive undertaking, but it is
one that requires thought and effort and time; then, training,
evaluating, red-teaming, and periodically reporting to you and
other Members of Congress of the status of the country in being
able to respond to an EMP attack.
Defining the government's responsibility to act, because,
surely, the defense of the country is a shared responsibility
between the government and the private sector; but defending
the country is primarily a government responsibility, and
providing a normally reliable infrastructure is largely a
private sector responsibility.
Recognizing the opportunity for shared benefits in dealing
with other forms of widespread attack, such as I had mentioned,
cyber attack or naturally occurring events. Probably something
about the size of Katrina would be the smallest size that we
are considering here.
And, finally, conducting research to better understand the
infrastructure systems' vulnerability to EMP and other threats
and developing cost-effective solutions for mitigating them.
Finally, allow me to give you a preview of the EMP
Commission's findings, to date, for its next report, which you
have directed us to provide and due to the Congress in
November, which will assess the progress being made to protect
the Nation and, particularly, our military capabilities from
EMP attack. The commission is receiving cooperation from a
number of federal agencies and working closely with them to
derive that information.
While measures to establish a balance of prevention,
planning, training, situational awareness, protection, and
preparations will require a sustained effort, the commission
wishes to note an increased focus within the Defense Department
since it received the commission's earlier reports and with
your continued interest. Our report to the Congress, due in
November, will address this in more detail, as part of our
required assessment of the DOD's progress in implementing the
steps necessary to mitigate the attack.
The United States faces a long-term challenge to maintain
technical competence for understanding and managing the effects
of nuclear weapons, including EMP. The Department of Energy and
the National Nuclear Security Administration have developed and
implemented an extensive nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship
program over the last decade. However, no such comparable
effort was initiated to understand the effects that nuclear
weapons produce on modern systems.
The commission reviewed current national capabilities to
understand and to manage the effects of EMP and concluded that
the Federal Government does not today have sufficient human and
physical resources and assets for reliably assessing and
managing EMP threats. And the U.S. is rapidly losing the
remaining technical competence and facilities that it needs in
government, in the national laboratories, and in the industrial
community.
EMP attack on the critical infrastructures is a serious
problem, but one that can be managed at reasonable cost. A
serious national commitment to address the threat of an EMP
attack can lead to an integrated national posture that would
significantly reduce the payoff for such an attack and allow
the United States to recover from EMP and from other threats,
man-made and natural, to the critical national infrastructures.
A failure to do so will not only leave the critical
national infrastructures that are necessary for our society to
function at risk, but will also place our ability to conduct
military operations in severe jeopardy.
This concludes my prepared statement, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you again. And I look forward to an opportunity for myself and
my colleagues and fellow commissioners to respond to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Graham can be found in the
Appendix on page 35.]
Mr. Spratt [presiding]. Dr. Graham, thank you very much
indeed.
You have a distinguished panel of colleagues sitting behind
you, and I will take the liberty of presiding at this point and
invite any one of them who would like to add to your comments
to take this opportunity to do so.
Dr. Foster.
Mr. Foster. No, thank you, sir.
Mr. Spratt. I didn't want to get this distinguished panel
here and not at least give you the opportunity to say something
further, if you wish.
Dr. Graham. Mr. Henry Kluepfel has joined us, too, as
another commissioner sitting there. I didn't introduce him
initially, but I would like do that now. Extensive background
in telecommunications.
Mr. Spratt. I want to turn now to Mr. Bartlett, because he
is the person who requested this hearing and the reason that we
are meeting here today.
And, Roscoe, the floor is yours to ask questions as you see
fit.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
I was sitting in that hotel room in Vienna, Austria, with a
number of other Members of Congress and three members of the
Russian government--Vladimir Lukin, who was the ambassador here
at the end of Bush I and the beginning of the Clinton
Administration; Alexander Shabanov, who I think was the third-
ranking communist; and Vladimir Rushkov, a young, aspiring
Russian.
Vladimir Lukin was very angry, and he sat with his arms
folded, looking at the ceiling, for a couple of days during
these discussions. We developed a framework agreement, which,
about a half a dozen days later, was adopted by the G-8 and
ended the Kosovo controversy.
At one point, Vladimir Lukin looked up. He said, ``If we
really wanted to hurt you, with no fear of retaliation, we
would launch an SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile]
from the ocean, detonate a nuclear weapon high above your
country, and shut down your power grid and your communications
for six months or so.'' And Alexander Shabanov, the handsome,
blond communist, smiled and said, ``And if one weapon wouldn't
do it, we have some spares, like about 10,000, I think.'' This
kind of puts in context the threat that we face.
I read a prepublication copy of a book called One Second
After. I hope it does get published; I think the American
people need to read it. It was the story of a ballistic missile
EMP attack on our country. The weapon was launched from a ship
off our shore, and then the ship was sunk so that there were no
fingerprints. The weapon was launched about 300 miles high over
Nebraska, and it shut down our infrastructure countrywide.
The story runs for a year. It is set in the hills of North
Carolina. At the end of the year, 90 percent of our population
is dead; there are 25,000 people only still alive in New York
City. The communities in the hills of North Carolina are more
lucky: only 80 percent of their population is dead at the end
of a year.
I understand that this is a realistic assessment of what a
really robust EMP laydown could do to our country?
Dr. Graham. We think that is in the correct range. We don't
have experience with losing the infrastructure in a country
with 300 million people, most of whom don't live in a way that
provides for their own food and other needs. We can go back to
an era when people did live like that. That would be--10
percent would be 30 million people, and that is probably the
range where we could survive as a basically rural economy.
Mr. Bartlett. It is my understanding that, in interviewing
some Russian generals, that they told you that the Soviets had
developed a ``super-EMP'' enhanced weapon that could produce
200 kilovolts per meter at the center?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Mr. Bartlett. We engaged two senior
Russian generals--who were also lecturers and authors from
their general staff academy, who had written about advanced
weapons--and actually brought them over to the U.S. and spent a
day meeting with them and questioning them about EMP-type
weapons; and they said a number of interesting things. One was
that, in fact, the Russians had developed what they called the
``super-EMP'' weapon that could generate fields in the range of
200 kilovolts per meter. And we had seen in other open
literature that the Russians appeared to be using that figure
as an upper bound for the kind of EMP that could be produced by
nuclear weapons. So, we weren't surprised, too surprised, to
see it.
They also told us that both there were Russian and other
technologists, engineers and scientists, who were working with
North Korea and receiving Western wages, they emphasized,
helping North Korea with the design of its nuclear weapons.
So, we found it extremely interesting in talking to them.
Mr. Bartlett. This is about, what, four times higher than
anything that we ever built or tested to, in terms of EMP
hardening?
Dr. Graham. Yes.
Mr. Bartlett. Which means that, even if you were some
hundreds of miles away from that, that it would be somewhere in
the range of 50 to 100 kilovolts per meter at the margins of
our country, for instance?
Dr. Graham. Yes. Over much of the margin, yes.
Mr. Bartlett. So, we aren't sure that much of our military
would still be operable after that robust laydown. Is that
correct?
Dr. Graham. We just don't have test data to tell us one way
or the other.
Mr. Bartlett. I also understand that we aren't certain that
we could launch, through a series of robust EMP laydowns, that
we could launch our intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Dr. Graham. We designed both the missiles and their bases
and the strategic communication systems during the Cold War to
be able to survive and operate through EMP fields on the order
of 50 kilovolts per meter, which was our concern at the time,
before we realized that weapons could be designed that had
larger EMP fields.
We added margin to the protection of those systems. And to
the extent that they have maintained that hardness, they would
survive greater than 50 kilovolts per meter, but I don't think
we have any data telling us how much greater.
Mr. Bartlett. I would just like to spend a moment looking
at the national infrastructure of our country. It is my
understanding that a robust laydown, likely to be produced by a
single weapon of 200 kilovolts per meter that made it 300 miles
high over Iowa or Nebraska, would probably shut down all of our
national infrastructure. There would be no electricity. That
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) units in our
sub-stations and so forth would all be gone. The large
transformers would be destroyed. And we don't make those; it
would take a year and a half or so to buy them from somebody
overseas who makes them.
We would then be in a world, it is my understanding, where
the only person you could talk to is the person next to you,
unless you happen to be a ham operator with a vacuum tube set,
which is a million times less susceptible. And the only way you
could go anywhere is to walk, unless you happened to have a car
that had coil-end distributor and you could get some gasoline
to put in it.
Is that a pretty accurate description of the world we would
be in?
Dr. Graham. We did conduct tests of SCADAs, automobiles,
and other systems. And while, as a commission, we don't have
either the funds or the staff that would be needed to do a
comprehensive test of those, all of the data we did obtain
indicate that your description is accurate.
Mr. Bartlett. Your initial report came out about four years
ago. We have had four years in which we could have been doing
something to protect--I am very concerned that we don't have
the equivalent of an insurance policy. It is unlikely my home
will burn, but I would not sleep well tonight if it did not
have an insurance policy. I don't hire somebody to stand there
watching for a fire, to yell, ``Fire, fire,'' but I do have an
insurance policy. That is what I would like my Nation to have
for an EMP protection.
We don't have anything near that, do we?
Dr. Graham. No, we don't.
The commission has been trying for over a year, through
working with the Department of Homeland Security and the
Homeland Security Council staff in the White House, to look at
the 15 canonical scenarios they have defined as potential
terrorist threats to the U.S., which included a nuclear weapon;
but it is a nuclear weapon going off at ground level in a city,
to either add to that as another category of nuclear weapon
attack or add a 16th scenario of a high-altitude EMP attack.
But as yet, we have been unable to obtain their cooperation in
adding that threat to the homeland security threat list.
Mr. Bartlett. I would just like to end by re-emphasizing
what you emphasized in your testimony. A terrorist group, not
even a nation group, but a terrorist group with a tramp steamer
and a Scud launcher and a crude nuclear weapon, and if they
miss by 100 miles, it doesn't matter, does it?
Dr. Graham. No.
Mr. Bartlett. And they could launch that weapon and shut
down, what, all of New England?
Dr. Graham. Yes, probably with a Scud-B they could cover
essentially all of the East Coast or all of the West Coast. And
the coasts tend to be where most of the population is.
Mr. Bartlett. Which would be Katrina how many times over?
Dr. Graham. Oh, several times over.
Mr. Bartlett. At least an order of magnitude.
Dr. Graham. Something on that size, yes.
Mr. Bartlett. The average city has a three-day supply of
food?
Dr. Graham. I think that is about what we estimated.
Mr. Bartlett. Okay.
Well, I want to thank you very much.
I am very appreciative, Mr. Chairman, that you set up this
hearing.
I think that, as the testimony indicated, I think this is
the most asymmetric attack that could occur in our country. Am
I wrong in that? Can you think of any more asymmetric attack on
our country?
Dr. Graham. I think there are very few that go with this.
One, as I mentioned, was a cyber attack, possibly a very
widespread and contagious biological attack. But this is one of
a very small set and very asymmetric.
Mr. Bartlett. Doesn't our very vulnerability invite this
kind of an attack?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Mr. Bartlett. That is our primary concern,
that if the country does nothing about it, we are essentially
advertising to a world which already has a good understanding
of the implications of EMP and has written about it
extensively. Not just from the U.S., but in our survey of
potentially hostile countries, they talk about this extensively
in the open literature, and did before the commission was even
established. And it is a very asymmetric situation that we
could face.
Mr. Bartlett. I have been told that I shouldn't be talking
about this because it gives our adversaries ideas. They already
know about this, correct?
Dr. Graham. They knew about it before the commission was
ever established. And that was the first thing we checked. We
said, ``How much can we say without giving away information
that isn't available to our adversaries''? And when we reviewed
the literature, why, we found there was an extensive knowledge
of EMP and its effects widespread.
Mr. Bartlett. Why is there so little interest on the part
of our leadership to do something about this? Is it just too
hard? They just don't want to face it?
Dr. Graham. That is a good question. It might be better to
ask a sociologist than an engineer and physicist that question.
But it falls into the category of a problem which hasn't
happened yet. Certainly, our ability to predict very unusual
and significant events, whether it is Pearl Harbor, the start
of the Korean War, 9/11 and whatever--we have, to paraphrase
Winston Churchill, much to be humble about in our ability to
predict these events before they happen. Of course, once they
happen, then there tends to be a massive response. But somehow
it is just not within our character and our society to look for
these events before they occur.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
setting up this hearing--and I look forward to the additional
questions and responses. Thank you.
The Chairman [presiding]. Mr. Solomon Ortiz, please.
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you so much for your testimony.
This is really--it is scary. Sometimes we think that this
is something that might never happen, but I agree with what my
good friend, Mr. Roscoe Bartlett, asked. We would feel a lot
better if we had some type of insurance or some type of shield
that would protect us from dismantling all the equipment that
we have.
But based on increasing dependence on advanced electronic
systems, have you, has the Department of Defense and Department
of Homeland Security adequately addressed or implemented any of
the EMP Commission's, the previous recommendations to protect
the United States from attack?
Dr. Graham. Mr. Ortiz, the Department of Defense has begun
a process to address that.
About two years ago, in response to the mandate of the
first legislation establishing the commission, the Secretary of
Defense issued a directive to the Department with a series of
actions he wanted to see carried out to address EMP. And the
Department of Defense has started working down that list.
I would characterize them today as in the planning stage,
trying to identify what their requirements are, what the issues
they have to address are, and trying to set up some kind of an
organizational structure to address them.
So, the DOD is early in the process, and I would say that
the other parts of the government have not yet begun any
process.
Mr. Ortiz. And I know we are looking at what might happen
to us if they detonate a missile over the United States. But on
the other side, what can we do to defend ourselves? From what I
hear, I don't think we have anything to defend ourselves. Am I
correct when I say that?
Dr. Graham. No, I think there are several things we can do.
Mr. Ortiz. That is what I would like to hear.
Dr. Graham. I think the first thing is to recognize the
problem and let other countries know that we understand what
might happen and we are taking steps to mitigate that.
Another step early on would be to identify those parts of
the infrastructure that are most likely to be damaged and,
particularly, the ones that are hardest to replace and focus on
those, to protect them.
Let me give you an example of that. August 13, 2003, a
power transmission line got hot enough that it sagged down and
touched a tree and shorted the ground, and that dropped that
power transmission line. And for the next hour, 2,000 megawatts
of generating capacity kept looking for a route to get to the
north-central part of the United States. And as that power
switched from one transmission system to another, it kept
overloading them and dropping them, as well, until finally the
whole Northeast, with very few exceptions, was blacked out.
Because the protection circuitry in the power system was
properly arranged, nothing was damaged in our power system
during that outage, and within the next two days, the country
was able to bring back the power to that area.
The problem with EMP is that protection circuitry itself
and the protection systems, many of which are based on these
SCADA computers, would be damaged. They would be damaged
immediately, and therefore they could not provide proper
protection immediately and could lead to the damage of other
parts of the system, including things such as large power
transformers and switches.
So, building these small, relatively inexpensive control
devices, SCADAs, which are changed out every few years, anyway,
in a way so they won't fail from EMP, and, particularly, won't
be damaged by EMP, is, in our view, an important step and one
that we would like to encourage the government and the private
sector to work together on. And, in fact, the commission has a
plan to build a demonstration model of a protected SCADA, so
that we can show people it is not either terribly expensive or
terribly difficult to do that.
But recognizing what has happened, since this would be very
unusual, is a key to our response. It is quite possible that
the system operators will do more damage to the system after an
EMP event in trying to recover the system, if they don't know
what has happened; and it is not expensive to recognize this,
but we don't have the means to do that today.
So, there are a whole number of steps that we could carry
out that would be very effective and not hugely expensive.
Let me ask my colleagues on the commission if any of them
have further comments on that.
Okay.
Mr. Ortiz. My time is up, so thank you so much for your
testimony and answering our questions. Thank you, sir.
Dr. Graham. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. McHugh from New York.
Mr. McHugh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sixteen years on this committee, as I was chatting with Mr.
Bartlett before--we have been honored by many distinguished
panelists, and I am being totally serious when I say rarely
have we been so honored as we are here, this morning, to have
gathered such a body of distinguished individuals with such a
great record of service.
And thank you for taking up such an important issue that no
one seems to be concerned about. And we certainly are in debt
to Mr. Bartlett, as others have mentioned, for his leadership
on this, but you really have really put a fine point to it.
My friend from Texas, Mr. Ortiz, said it is scary. As you
read through these pages, you talk about people stuck for long
periods on elevators, airplanes crashing, no water, no food.
The difference between this and Stephen King is that Stephen
King in Borders is in the fiction section; this report is not.
And I hope, if nothing else comes of it, this helps to focus
our Nation's attention on the unknown.
I was very distressed to hear that one of the reasons,
perhaps, the Department of Homeland Security has not yet
responded--and I realize it is speculation--but that it is a
threat unknown to this point. That is the purpose of the
Department of Homeland Security, it seems to me, to contemplate
and ultimately to take steps to guard against the
unexperienced, the unknown, such as 9/11 was to that point. So,
if that is their mindset, I trust they will begin to rethink it
very, very quickly.
As I was reading through, on page 156, you use the phrase
``graceful degradation.'' I like the term. Can you tell me a
little bit about what it would mean in its application, with
respect to protection from EMP?
Dr. Graham. Yes. We don't envision the country having the
resources to try to protect everything in the civilian
infrastructure. It is a massive infrastructure, and, in fact,
elements of it do fail from time to time. But normally, when
they fail, it starts at a single-point failure, and the failure
is contained, and the system is left in a configuration where
the infrastructure can be re-established, such as it was in
that August 2003 Northeast blackout or other blackouts we have
had.
We think we could properly protect and contain and design
the infrastructure protection in such a way that, while the
infrastructure might go down for a limited period of time, it
wouldn't be so damaged that it couldn't be brought back into
functionality within the period of time that people can get
along without it.
And that is our view of graceful degradation: failing in
such a way that it is not suffering large, permanent damage
that can't be replaced within a short period of time, but
rather, basically, make it so this can be reset and re-
established and brought up in a systematic way.
Mr. McHugh. I realize the scope of this challenge is, to
say the least, multifaceted, and there is no one prescriptive
response. But the concept of graceful degradation, as I was
reading through, seemed to be both technologically achievable
and, in a relative sense, pretty affordable. Am I being overly
optimistic, or would that be a fair judgment?
Dr. Graham. Well, affordability is like beauty; it tends to
be in the eye of the beholder. But it seems to us that,
compared to the cost of the infrastructure or the cost of the
failure of the infrastructure from EMP, if it were to occur,
the cost of the analysis, then the planning, then the
protection of key elements and the testing and exercise and
maintaining situational awareness, all of those are very modest
costs.
Mr. McHugh. Just one final question; I just have a few
seconds left here. You mentioned you are charged with doing an
assessment of DOD's steps in this regard. Do you have a time
frame, a calendar on when that will be achieved?
Dr. Graham. Yes. Our legislative mandate specifies that we
deliver to you a report by the end of November of this year.
And we are well under way working on it now.
Mr. McHugh. Well, again, gentlemen, thank you so much for
your service and to Mr. Bartlett for his insight, and look
forward to your continued efforts.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt.
Mr. Spratt. Dr. Graham, thank you very much and your entire
panel for the excellent presentation you have made and for the
work you have done.
This is truly the all-time asymmetric threat, but it is
also the all-time esoteric threat. It is not widely understood,
although it is not beyond the apprehension and the
comprehension of our most insidious enemies.
In your work thus far, what can you say about the
sufficiency of the level of attention amongst our commanders
and leaders at the national level to this particular threat and
to what can be done to counter the threat? Is there a
sufficient level of national awareness?
Dr. Graham. I would say there are shining points in our
national leadership's interest, but only a few.
The Secretary of Defense has directed the Defense
Department to carry out an orderly program. General Chilton, in
particular, the commander of the Strategic Command, has taken a
great deal of interest in this and is working hard on the
systems under his command and operation to assure that our
strategic forces will be survivable and effective under EMP.
I think it is at the bottom of the list, in many areas,
certainly in the Defense Department, but it is also in the
Department of Homeland Security, where this has not yet
received much attention or much thought.
Mr. Spratt. You have given us a message first of the bad
news, which is a wake-up call, and then the good news, and that
is there are remedial steps we can take and, for the most part,
they are affordable.
But as you describe the scope and potential of this kind of
attack, recognizing that it could affect even the
telecommunications network and the electric power grid in this
country, the cost, just off the back of an envelope, would seem
to be enormous to protect all of these devices.
You can understand how hardening satellites, and in
particular future-launch satellites, is within our capability
to afford, but the entire electric grid, the entire
telecommunications system, all of these things nationwide,
aren't we talking about some substantial financial commitment?
Dr. Graham. Well, it would be a large order. There is no
doubt of that. The work would have the effect of increasing the
reliability of that infrastructure in the first instance, which
is a reasonable activity for the providers of the
infrastructure and something they could ask to put in their
rate basis.
To the extent that we are dealing just with the national
security aspects, that is a government function. But we found
the cooperation and interest in the cooperation between the
private sector and with the government to be very good. For
example, we have worked with the North American Energy
Reliability Corporation, which tries to increase the
reliability of the power grid under a number of different
scenarios, and they are certainly willing to cooperate on this
with the government. So, if we can arrange for the government
to contribute to the national security part and the private
sector infrastructure to contribute to the overall reliability
part, we think there is a union of effort that can make this
happen in a less than extremely costly fashion and do it in
such a way that we actually ramp up the effort based on
knowledge, rather than try to swamp the problem with funds.
Mr. Spratt. One last question. From where we sit as Members
of Congress, as the Armed Services Committee, what can we best
do to extract this kind of commitment and to see that it is
followed through in a programmatic way?
Dr. Graham. I think requesting from the Defense Department
and the military forces their appraisal of potentially
vulnerable systems and a description of efforts they are
undertaking to deal with that, along with their programmatic
requests for the resources necessary to address and manage
that, would be a very effective first step.
I think a continued interest on your part, that you have
shown in establishing this commission, has had a large effect,
already, on the activities in the Defense Department. And a
continued interest either through this commission or some other
function will continue to keep the pressure on the
Administration to work this problem.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you again. And thank you to the entire
panel for the work you have done. Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Franks, please.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Dr. Graham.
You know, I am reminded, historically, that people such as
yourselves have been profoundly important to the success of
this country. I know that Dr. Otto Hahn was playing with the
atomic bomb scenario in Germany a long time ago. And it turns
out that one Albert Einstein kind of beat him to the draw, and
he happened to be on our side, and we can all be very grateful
for that. So, I appreciate you and all your colleagues. You are
the invisible frontline of freedom here, and we are very
grateful to you.
I happen to have been here on the committee when you
addressed us some two or three years ago and have been very
concerned about the EMP situation since then, and appreciate
Roscoe Bartlett, or Congressman Bartlett, for his leadership in
this area.
I wanted to ask you a question related to our national
security space systems. I am sure General Shelton has had many
conversations with you about that. Are there things that we can
do or should do to protect that vital national security asset
against the EMP capability?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Mr. Franks. There are things we can do. In
the first instance, we need to assess the status of the ground
links of the space systems we have. That is, on the one hand,
satellites that are at very high orbits--geosynchronous orbits
or even semisynchronous orbits--are high enough that the
pumping of the Van Allen Belts by the exoatmospheric nuclear
explosions won't cause much degradation for those satellites.
Low-altitude satellites that fly into intense parts of Van
Allen Belts would probably fail after an exoatmospheric
explosion within a few days to a week or two, and, in fact,
that happened after the STARFISH test that we conducted in the
Pacific in the early 1960's. But all of these satellite
systems--geosync, semisync, low-altitude--use ground links to
get their information to the users on the surface, and all of
those ground facilities would be exposed if they are
underneath, within line of sight of a high-altitude nuclear
event.
And, of course, then we have to trace back from the ground
site itself to where it gets its power, where it provides its
telecommunications, what personnel it needs to be operated, and
so on. So, an assessment can be made of that, and that can lead
to some useful steps taken to provide for those after high-
altitude nuclear bursts--an EMP event, for example.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you.
I know you mentioned--I think Dr. Bartlett mentioned some
discussions with Duma representatives, and they said, you know,
if we had wanted to--the intent here is a very, very important
consideration for those who have the EMP capability. And my
concern is--and I don't want to get into anything classified
here, and you will have to help me to make sure I don't, even
though I know that you have said that most people already know
so much more about this than we have already been aware of for
a long time--but intent is everything. My concern is a nation
like Iran, with some of their advanced missile capabilities
that are developing more and more all the time--well, what size
of a warhead and what heights would be necessary for, say,
someone like Iran? Are they approaching that capability in
terms of their missile capability? And would a crude warhead--
or what kind of, you know, a kiloton warhead is necessary? And
discuss the enhanced warhead terminology, so that we can
understand what needs--you know, is this regular atomic
warheads? Does this have to be something on the size of a W88?
Or give us a picture here of what we are really facing and what
Iran's potential capability might be against us.
Dr. Graham. Since one of the members of the commission, Dr.
Foster, was the director of the Livermore National Laboratory
and, as far as I know, still has the most advanced nuclear
weapon design that we use for one of the types of--one of the
aspects of the nuclear weapon, and that is after probably
approaching 30 or more years, I would like to ask him to
address the nuclear weapon question. Oh, he left? He had
another meeting to go to, unfortunately. Okay. I will try to
fill in, but not as well as Dr. Foster.
I will tell you what I have learned from him in this
process, that you can--you will get potentially catastrophic
EMP from even a first-generation nuclear weapon. It doesn't
have to be optimized for this purpose. So, any nuclear weapon
that can be obtained and put on a missile, which means that the
weight in the one-ton or less range for most of the missiles we
have talked about, would produce the EMP effects we described.
There are nuclear weapon designs that we know about and that
the Russians clearly know about, and possibly others know
about, which produce stronger and stronger EMP fields. And in
all these cases, the weapon yield itself doesn't have to be
more than 10 kilotons or so. It doesn't take a very large
nuclear weapon or a very large yield to produce these effects.
They are produced by the gamma rays that come out. They come
out very quickly, and it is the first part of the nuclear
detonation process.
So, any nuclear weapon in the hands of potential
adversaries would be bad news for us, in this regard.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, sir.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am hoping that the committee
recognizes that the coincidence of terrorism and technologies,
such as we are discussing today, represents a grave threat to
the human family.
Mr. Spratt [presiding]. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Dr. Graham. A couple of things--and
I very much appreciate what your committee is doing--a couple
of quick questions, and I know they won't be quick answers.
I am a proponent of a nuclear Navy to protect--particularly
more nuclear-powered ships. I would be curious if your
commission has looked at our surface fleet and determined
whether or not a nuclear-powered ship was any more or less
susceptible to an EMP than a conventionally powered ship.
The second thing I would like you to comment on is there
have been recent articles that strongly suggest that part of
the traumatic brain injuries that are coming out of the
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan might have been caused by the
effects of EMP on the brain, in addition to the shock waves. I
was wondering--and I have only read this article this week, and
so I don't know if your commission had the time to even look at
that and if there has been any talk amongst your commission,
since you are the experts, of how we might counter that for the
individual soldier.
Last, without talking out of school, I think it is fair to
say that several contractors are looking at ways of having a
handheld-directed EMP for the purpose of disabling fast boats
that are running drugs or, possibly, a vehicle-borne IED that
is coming at you. So, if there are contractors out there
looking at them for good purposes to protect Americans, it is a
pretty safe bet that somewhere in the world, someone is also
looking at the same thing, which could, for example, fry the
electricity going to Wall Street and, certainly, cause a great
deal of disruption, or you can think of any number of
scenarios. I was wondering if you could touch on those
subjects, then, that I just posed to you.
Dr. Graham. Let me take them in reverse order. As a
commission, we focused on the nuclear EMP problem, which is a
very wide-area problem. We did note that devices can be made,
and don't require huge power supplies to operate, which can
produce intense electromagnetic fields over very small regions;
but they are regions of the order of tens of feet to maybe
hundreds of feet, but not miles and hundreds and thousands of
miles, like the EMP. So, for local effects, it is a possible
course to pursue, certainly.
As far as the brain injuries goes----
Mr. Taylor. Sir, if I may, on a one-by-one basis, are you
proposing safeguards against something like that, a handheld-
directed EMP going after America's economic infrastructure on
Wall Street? Are you proposing safeguards? And if you are,
which agency of our Nation should be taking the lead on that?
Dr. Graham. We have not addressed that directly, because,
in part, we focused on the high-altitude nuclear problem, and,
in part, it seems to us that that was an issue related to
physical security, but one which is in addition to the normal
threat of truck bombs or bombs or rocket-propelled grenades or
things of that sort. While the range of the EMP would be--of
the conventionally generated EMP would be comparable to these
other threats, the effects and the protection against it would
be different.
And so, for example, electromagnetic shielding would be an
important aspect of that, but we have not gone down that path
in our own studies. We think it is a good issue for high-
priority facilities to follow. But we did note that in terms of
critical infrastructures, even the best of them fail. The
trouble is they fail at single-point failures, and the
operators are good at circumventing single-point failures. What
they don't practice and don't know how to address is when they
have multiple failures over a wide area nearly simultaneously,
and that is the problem that the nuclear EMP brings to bear.
Mr. Taylor. For traumatic brain injuries, did you look into
that?
Dr. Graham. On that, we did not look into that, and I have
no information on that, so I am afraid I can't be of any help.
Mr. Taylor. Are nuclear-powered surface ships being any
more or less protected?
Dr. Graham. I have looked at the hardening and protection
of ships at various times over the last several decades, and my
impression is that protecting nuclear-powered ships is
certainly no more difficult than protecting conventionally
powered ships.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Saxton.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Dr. Graham, your description of the threat is certainly
sobering and, I am sure, accurate. And I am just curious to
know whether you have--I am sure you have given thought to what
our defenses against an EMP laydown might be from--back to the
nuclear device. I would think we would want to look at a robust
missile defense system, and I would also think that the
midcourse or boost phase would be the place that you would want
to be capable, relative to this EMP threat, rather than the
phase that we are in now that we can accurately use PATRIOT and
the aero-type defenses. Would you comment for us on that?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Mr. Saxton. First, there is no magic
bullet to solving the EMP problem, so I believe we need to look
at a large number of steps we can take and look for the most
cost-effective approach with each of them and try to combine
them in a useful manner.
Certainly, one of the things we can do is look to the
ballistic missile defense capabilities that we have developed
and deployed. For very long-range missiles that might come over
the U.S., the ground-based missile defense could have an
effective role in intercepting the carrier missile before the
bomb goes off and as early as possible. And second, even for
shorter-range missiles such as the Scuds or the Shahab-3s or
other short-range missiles to medium-range missiles that could
be fired off our shores, we have a large fleet of Aegis ships,
and several of those have the Standard Missile-3, which is an
interceptor missile designed to destroy offensive missiles. And
by being able to move those ships around and turn on the radars
from time to time and see what is going on offshore, we could
at least increase the uncertainty that any potential attacker
would have in being able to successfully launch an offshore,
ship-based attack.
That system has proven to be extremely reliable and
effective. I think the last interceptor did shoot down a
satellite, in fact, but it can shoot down things at
considerably lower altitudes than that.
So, using our missile defense assets both to deter,
dissuade, and, if necessary, intercept missiles going over the
U.S. and over our forces overseas--Taiwan Strait, for example,
Persian Gulf, other places--could be an extremely useful
approach.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Johnson, from Georgia.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Graham, I would ask you to give us your opinion on what
would be the level of knowledge generally of state and local
law enforcement agencies about the EMP phenomenon.
Dr. Graham. It varies over a wide range of knowledge, from
no familiarity at all to a few states that have taken this very
seriously and are making plans of their own. In particular, the
State of Maryland and the State of Alaska have worked with
their National Guard units, their adjutants general in their
states, their legislatures, and their government to begin
implementing plans to understand the effects of an EMP attack
and to integrate it in the state's emergency planning
functions, and we are trying to work with other states, with
the adjutants general and others, to expand the state
knowledge.
And let me ask General Lawson, who is here, if he has any
other comments on the state-related activities.
Mr. Johnson. And if you could perhaps speak into the
microphone.
General Lawson. I think we have discussed, in front of the
adjutant generals and the other state emergency action
officers, in some detail, the kinds of activities that should
be included in the emergency actions training programs for
state police, for state firemen, for other emergency
participants. We have presented, three times, to Homeland
Security our thoughts on some of these preparation activities,
and, quite candidly, I would hope that they get as much
publicity as possible, because that is a part of what many of
the commissioners think is a vital portion of our response to
this threat, and that being a clear understanding that we, as a
Nation, are attempting to develop responses that will minimize
the capability itself. We haven't been as successful in getting
that prioritized as highly as it should be amongst not only all
of the states, but even at the national level.
I think one other action--and it is not a part of the
question--but one other action that is appropriate to mention:
we have had a continuing dialogue with the utilities and with
the Federal Emergency Regulatory Commission on developing a set
of procedures that would begin to look at the phase-out of
certain portions of the electrical grid--in their timely phase-
out--to bring in new equipment at those scheduled phase-outs
that are more protected to this emergency.
I think, from your standpoint, the one thing that I would
mention that is important for the Armed Services Committee is
to understand that all of your bases and all of your military
forces, all of them have a great amount of their power that
comes through the national grid. All of them have emergency
backups, but those backups are very short-lived. And so, what
happens to that national grid vitally influences all of our
Armed Forces. And that overlap between Homeland Security and
the Defense Department needs to be examined very carefully in
this particular area, and that is an area where the committee
could put a little pressure on both sides of that coin, to
improve that emergency capability for the Armed Forces.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I will yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Dr. Graham, General Lawson, for your
participation in the entire commission. And I greatly
appreciate Dr. Roscoe Bartlett bringing this issue to our
attention in a very thoughtful way, raising this issue with the
American people.
As we have discussed the effect, possibly, on the United
States, what would be the effect, or how can we reduce the
effect, if there was an EMP attack over the theater of Iraq or
Afghanistan?
Dr. Graham. We have worried about that and tried to address
it, to some extent. It seems to us the first thing we need to
do is review the status of our military forces--not just the
strategic forces, but in the theaters you describe. We also get
into the general purpose forces. They are a much more diverse
set of systems. And we think that rather than try to harden
everything in that set of systems, having a few key elements to
maintain command, control, communications, and having a plan to
replace items which are failed by the EMP and bring in
additional forces and additional systems rapidly, would
probably make more sense. That is one of the items being
addressed in the Defense Department's analysis, and the final
go at this, we would defer to them. But we think it is
important that the general purpose forces and the theater
forces not be ignored in this process.
Mr. Wilson. And as we think of protection for the American
people, recovery in the event of an EMP attack--I appreciate
Congressman Spratt raised the issue--what can we do on this
committee? What can DOD do? I appreciate Congressman Johnson
raising the issue of the first responders and the National
Guard.
As we look ahead, what can individual families do, in a
prudent way, to protect themselves?
Dr. Graham. I have worked on EMP for an embarrassingly long
time, Mr. Wilson--over 45 years. About a decade ago, my house
in Virginia was hit by lightning, and I lost several pieces of
electronics. This is almost as bad as an electrical engineer
being electrocuted. It is considered bad form in the
profession, and I shouldn't have let that happen.
You can provide local terminal protection for electronics
devices. The problem is if there is no electric power, most of
those devices aren't going to work anyway. More than that--and
myself, I have my own electric generator that I keep
disconnected from everything, so it doesn't look like it is
attached to antennas. Any conductor would be an antenna. I try
to keep enough food and water around to go for several weeks
for myself and my family. And those are at least starting steps
that can be taken. But to tell you the truth, we have not
focused on the individual response to this as much as we have
to the government and industry response. But I think it is a
good question, and we will go back and reflect on that.
Mr. Wilson. And indeed, I represent coastal areas like
Hilton Head Island, where a number of people would have
generators. And so, inadvertently, we have significant
communities across the United States that have had power
interruptions or threats of power interruption due to natural
disturbances.
It was brought up about vehicles, cars, and trucks. Will
they operate, or are they permanently inoperable?
Dr. Graham. There is some experience with both those things
happening. We tested about 50 vehicles. About 10 of them--and
we only tested them to 25 kilovolts per meter, which is the
kind of threat you would get from more ordinary designs of
nuclear weapons--about 10 percent of them stopped running when
we tested them at that level. All but one or two of them could
be restarted by just switching off the power and then switching
on the key again. The computer basically stops the car, but it
can be reset by turning off the power. There were one or two of
them that actually had computer chip failures in the vehicle
and had to be towed back to the dealership to have the chips
replaced.
It may not sound too bad, but if you think about what
happens to the traffic, say, in the D.C. area on a given
morning, when there are 3 or 4 accidents, you can imagine 10
percent of the vehicles on the road suddenly not running
anymore. I suspect that would lead to a large number of further
accidents and incidents. And so it would be a while before
those vehicles would have good transportation access again.
But leaving vehicles turned off, parked, is about the best
you can do with cars you already have, and encouraging Detroit
to continue to make cars so they are not vulnerable to the
transients is another good step.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Mr. Kline.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Dr. Graham. And to all of the team, great work.
Very distinguished panel.
I want to pick up where Mr. Wilson just left off, and that
is with vehicles. I am reading in your report, quote, ``Police
services will be stretched extremely thin because of a
combination of factors. Police will be called on to assist
rescue workers removing people from immediate dangers.''
Failures of automobiles and traffic control systems with the
intended massive traffic jams was what you were describing
there. If you had a 10 percent failure in Washington, D.C., or
1 percent failure in Washington, D.C., you would have a mess.
But it seems also that you can have your ambulances and the
fire trucks and the response vehicles themselves would not
function. And in your example of the cases where you had the
computer chip--which is everywhere now in every modern
vehicle--no longer working, you towed it back to the dealer and
had a new one put in. But in the scenario we are talking about,
I am trying to envision how that would work--that you tow it
back to the dealer, and all the chips in the dealership are
destroyed.
So, if we had an EMP event of the magnitude that Mr.
Bartlett was talking about and you were talking about earlier,
significant explosion over Kansas or something like that, isn't
it possible that you would have not just stuck elevators, but
you would have your ability to respond at all, not just because
you couldn't talk, but because you couldn't drive?
Dr. Graham. Yes. I think that is the bottom line, Mr.
Kline. On the one hand, the chips that are still in the part
bins, if they are not connected to anything else, would
probably survive. Wires, circuits, pipes--anything conducting
connected to an electrical or electronic device looks like an
antenna to an EMP. It conducts the power into the device. That
is why I keep the portable generator I have disconnected from
everything else at my home.
But there are many things that are connected to wires, et
cetera, that have to be--we did test traffic control device--
traffic signals, and what we found is those little buttons you
push to get the signal to walk across the street are wonderful
antennas for EMP and take a destructive level of signal right
into the traffic control unit and burn it out.
During the 2003 blackout, the traffic in Manhattan became a
gridlock because of traffic signals basically failing from lack
of power. There was a telecommunications--it is called a
telecommunications hotel, a big telecommunications telephone
switching station that had four hours worth of battery power on
hand. The phone company had a plan to take a portable generator
and connect it to that telephone switching center to keep it
going. It had to get that generator halfway across Manhattan,
and it was not able to do so in four hours, and the telephone
switching system went down. So, that is the kind of problem you
are going to see.
Mr. Kline. It is a pretty tough scenario.
Let me follow up again with Mr. Wilson's thought about the
general purpose forces. I know it is used in Afghanistan and
Iraq, but they ride around in vehicles with chips, as well. So,
presumably, it is not just their command and control, but you
could have the vehicles stop. This is the Armed Services
Committee. Are there things that we should be pressing? Is
there a way to harden that in the vehicle? Or should the
Pentagon be making sure there are plenty of chips unconnected,
you know, back in the warehouse, so they can be replaced
relatively quickly? I can see entire battalions, brigades
literally coming to a halt.
Dr. Graham. I think having adequate spares in the area
would be very valuable and not hugely expensive, but, also, the
vehicles are often designed to be able to withstand a fairly
high level of EMP--the military vehicles, the Humvees, the
Bradleys, M-1 tanks, and so on. However, normally, they are
designed to be protected when they are all closed up or
``buttoned up,'' as the Army says. We have noticed they are
generally operated not buttoned up, with things open on them.
And so we would encourage the service to do the test. And when
they retrofit these vehicles, which they are doing a lot now on
the reset programs--refurbishing them, to put enough protection
in the vehicles, shielding on the wire harnesses, for example--
that they can continue to operate even when they are not
buttoned up.
Mr. Kline. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Before I call on Mr. Taylor, let me ask you,
Dr. Graham, have you thought about--should the unthinkable
happen--communications? What would be left communication-wise?
Who could communicate with whom and over what distance and in
what manner?
Dr. Graham. We have looked at the commercial
telecommunications system, and we think a lot of the calls in
progress or being made at the time of the event would stop.
Some of the telecommunications equipment would continue, at
least as long as its power is available. But we can't predict
where the nodes would be still functional and where they
wouldn't.
To get around this problem several decades ago, the idea of
diverse routing of packet switch networks was invented as a
concept. It was actually invented as a Cold War concept, to
deal with communications nodes being destroyed by direct
attack, in fact. And so, at least, my estimate is that the
packet switching network that provides the carrier for the
Internet would be the most likely way to sustain some kind of
connectivity. But the individual nodes themselves are not, in
large part, not designed to be hardened to EMP. So, it would
only be a chance that there was a route through the system that
would go from you to point B to carry the message.
There is, also, for the military forces, the Milstar
satellite system. And perhaps I could ask Dr. Soper, who worked
on that and saved it from cancellation at least twice, to talk
about that as a continuing military communications capability.
Take my seat.
Mr. Soper. Thank you, Dr. Graham.
I am Gordon Soper. I spent most of my life and career in
the Department of Defense. And the question relates to its
command and control of our military forces and perhaps, in
particular, our nuclear forces.
We have paid a great deal of attention to that. After all,
our nuclear weapons are a linchpin of our national security,
and it has been uppermost in the Nation's mind to make sure
that those weapons are command and controlled through all
levels of conflict. And to that end, the Department of Defense
has developed a set of standards--in particular the MIL-STD-
188, 125 series, the MIL-STD-1269(b)--don't want to get into
the details--to direct those people that are responsible for
our command and control of nuclear weapons know-how to protect
against this threat. And in its basic form, it is really very
simple. It tends to be a shielded volume with a minimum number
of penetrations, and those penetrations that you can't avoid,
you protect. And you test it over and over again. And the most
boring part, but, perhaps, the most important, is that you
maintain that protection over the life cycle of the system, and
that just requires attention to detail, not poking holes in the
shield, not disconnecting things.
Fiber optics has been a help in this process. I hope that
that has helped address the problem. The Milstar system, the
Milstar satellite system, was designed to be hardened or
survivable against direct radiation--the X-rays and gamma rays
that come out of the weapons and proceed unabated through the
vacuum of space. And as Dr. Graham correctly pointed out, one
of the more important issues, from an EMP perspective, is not
necessarily the satellites, but, rather, the ground systems
that collect the information from the satellites and distribute
them to the places they need to go.
Hope that addressed your question.
The Chairman. Thank you so much.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
committee, and I want to thank again my colleague, Mr.
Bartlett, for making everyone on this committee aware of a very
real threat. I want to thank the panel.
Dr. Graham, a couple of things. I was very much aware that
when it came to body armor, up-armored Humvees, improvised
explosive device (IED) jammers, and, most recently, Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, it really wasn't the DOD
coming to Congress, saying, ``We need these things.'' It was
because of different circumstances Congress telling the DOD,
``You are not doing enough.'' And I don't say that happily, but
it is a fact.
In this instance, even though you are going to make a
report to the DOD, based on those four scenarios, I don't have
a high degree of confidence that, for whatever reasons, they
are going to come to us and say, ``This is what we need.'' So,
what I would ask of you as a part of your final report is I
would hope that a part of your final report is a memo to
Congress: ``This is what you, members of the Appropriations
Committee, members of the Armed Services Committee, need to be
doing.''
The second thing, I thought you touched on something very
appropriate. I happen to have lived down where Katrina hit, saw
what life without electricity was like for a few weeks. It
wasn't pleasant. I was very much interested in your tip to
leave your generator unattached to the home. I would think, for
the average citizen who is trying to be prudent and is trying
to protect themselves from something like this, which is a very
real threat--although a horrible threat, but a very real
threat--that you would do this Nation a great service if a
similar publication was made available or a checklist of what
you can do, as an individual, to try to protect yourself,
should something like this happen. I think that would be doing
a great service, and then get that into the hands of either the
Department of Homeland Security or the Northern Command or
someone, at least, for those folks who would choose to do so,
at least be made aware of what an individual can do to try to
take some steps to protect themselves.
And again, I would welcome your thoughts on this. This is a
request that I am making to you. I would hope that the
committee would back that up, as far as when it comes to what
should this committee be doing, as far as authorizing funds,
and what should the appropriators be doing, as far as
appropriating funds to address the threat to our Nation.
Dr. Graham. Well, thank you, Mr. Taylor. I think that is an
excellent suggestion, and I think we could put out something
which could be of use both to individuals, homeowners, but also
to state and local authorities and their emergency facilities
and so on; and we will look to see what is already available
and proceed from there.
As far as what Congress can do going forward, this
commission is a creature of the Congress. In fact, we follow
the same rules other congressional agencies do, and we owe our
existence to you. I am struggling with this, because it pains
me a little bit to say it, but as a matter of fact, there is a
provision in the current defense authorization bill that this
committee has put forward which would extend this commission
into the future for some few years. I would say that, in my
view, Congress and--through the Congress, the creation of this
committee has been the principal forcing function on the
Administration to take this issue seriously, and so, the fact
that you are proposing to move this forward could have a good
effect, in that regard.
We all serve pro bono. I live on the West Coast. I like to
say this is fun, but it isn't. Nonetheless, I am sure there
are, among the commissioners, other members, people who would
be willing to continue to serve if, in the judgment of the
Congress, that is a useful function.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you very much, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. It is always nice to be
reminded that you are our creature, and the champion, of
course, on this issue is Roscoe Bartlett, on whom I now call.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much. I really want to express
my appreciation to the chairman, for calling this hearing, and
to the commission. As my colleague Mr. McHugh noted, a lot of
commissions have sat before us. None of them, I think, have
been as high of quality as this commission. I am really
impressed.
I just would like a few quick questions, so that we can get
some things on the record. When you were talking about the
selective survivability of automobiles, that was at 25
kilovolts per meter. At 100 kilovolts per meter, they are
probably all gone.
Dr. Graham. We don't know that for a fact. But the people
from whom we got the automobiles wanted them back and in
working order, so we didn't go higher than that, because we
didn't have the budget to buy that many automobiles, in case
they all failed.
I think, in the future, it would be worth Department of
Homeland Security carrying out a more thorough set of tests
and, perhaps, using some of their own fleet to see what would
happen at higher levels. If I had to guess, I would say by the
time you got to--certainly to 100 and possibly to 50 kilovolts
per meter, you would have quite a few more failures.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
Our commercial aircraft are not hardened. So the
presumption would be all of those that are line of sight would
fall out of the sky?
Dr. Graham. They are not specifically hardened to EMP. They
are tested against lightning strikes, and, in fact, they
experience lightning strikes, as I recall, an average of
something like once a year. So, they do have a reasonably good
level of EMP protection, as far as flight safety is concerned,
and that means, basically, land at the nearest airport after
you are hit.
Now, EMP contains some electromagnetic frequencies that are
not in lightning strikes, so it is no guarantee that the
airplanes will keep working, and as you know, the airplanes are
largely software-controlled today--both the engines and the
flight controls themselves--so we would probably lose some
aircraft. But we would have some that would continue to fly as
well.
Mr. Bartlett. It is my understanding that the usual surge
protector does not protect against EMP, because the rise time
is in nanoseconds, and it is through the surge protector before
it sees it and responds.
Dr. Graham. It depends on the specific surge protector. For
example, those designed for lightning only don't have to
respond fast enough to protect against EMP. Some others are
fast enough to do that.
Mr. Bartlett. The usual surge protector that protects
against lightning probably won't protect you against EMP.
Dr. Graham. Used by whom?
Mr. Bartlett. The usual surge protector to protect you
against lightning probably will not protect you against EMP?
Dr. Graham. It will not necessarily protect you against
EMP. When I buy these little surge protection strips for my
computers and things of that sort, they claim to work to down
to a nanosecond, but I have not seen them tested to that range
yet against an EMP-like threat.
Mr. Bartlett. Satellite vulnerability, because it is so
expensive to put weight in orbit--my understanding is that our
satellites are usually lower--but satellites are the softest
part of this chain--that we probably would lose all of those
that were line of sight, close in, from prompt effects, and the
others, as you noted, would decay quickly because of pumped-up
Van Allen Belts?
Dr. Graham. Yes. Unless the satellite had been specifically
designed to be hardened against radiation, including the
trapped radiation that would be pumped into the Van Allen
Belts, they would all fail within a week or so.
However, many of the ground stations would fail essentially
instantaneously, and so we would be out of communication with
the satellite even more quickly than the failure of the
satellite suggests.
Mr. Bartlett. Some 90-odd percent of all of our military
communications moves over commercial links, satellite links, is
my understanding.
Dr. Graham. Let me consult my colleagues here.
Soper, does that sound about right?
Mr. Soper. Certainly, the military communications that are
not critical--I mean, laundry lists and things like that--I
don't mean to make light of it--but many noncritical circuits
do go over commercial assets.
Dr. Graham. The most critical piece, which we view as
strategic command and control, tend to have their own circuits
and tend to, in the final analysis, use Milstar as a protected
system. But that is--you are getting down to a very small-sized
communication channel by the time you get down to that.
Mr. Bartlett. You mentioned the asymmetric nature of this
threat and how we were more vulnerable because we are more
sophisticated. If North Korea were to launch a nuclear weapon
straight up and detonate it, and that would have an EMP effect
on them and on us, without that, our 30-odd thousand people
there are probably a match for their million on the other side;
is that not correct? We think so.
Dr. Graham. Let us see. I think--several things come to
mind. One is that the worst EMP in the northern hemisphere
tends to the south of the explosion point, and that is where
South Korea is, with respect to North Korea. So, you have
picked a particularly damaging scenario for the assets in South
Korea. Of course, to meet the North Koreans, we have assets in
Korea. The Koreans, South Koreans, have a larger military than
we do there. And then, we have assets in Japan, Guam, and other
places that we might bring to bear. Of course, the North
Koreans know about all those assets.
But it would certainly cause a serious disruption if they
launched the attack you described, and they could extend that
further if they wished.
Mr. Bartlett. They are not very sophisticated. They would
be much less affected by this attack than our soldiers. They
would be relatively all the same size after this attack, or
relatively close to it.
Dr. Graham. I don't have detailed information on their
communication systems, but certainly, their military systems
tend to be much more primitive than ours and, therefore, would
be less affected by this.
Mr. Bartlett. Your generator that is not plugged in would
probably not survive a 50 to 100 kilowatt----
Dr. Graham. Fifty to 100 kilovolt per meter.
Probably, it would be okay, as long as I didn't attach any
wire to it. It is the need for something that looks, to EMP,
like an antenna to get in. That would be the most formidable
effect. But somewhere around 100 kilovolts per meter, it has
enough wires inside it that it would start being affected.
Mr. Bartlett. Yeah. In closing, I would just like to
reemphasize the discussion that you previously had, relative to
individual and family response. I had been concerned that we
are paying a little or no attention to the old civil defense. I
am a child of the Depression, and I remember the Cold War very
well, and I remember everywhere there was a fallout shelter.
You couldn't go to any public building without having little
brochures there to tell you what to do, and every family knew
what they ought to be stockpiling and how they ought to behave
in an event like this.
I am very concerned that if we as individuals and families
do not know what to do and are not prepared, that every one of
us then becomes a ward of the state. And are we not enormously
stronger if we are individually and family-wise self-sufficient
during an emergency like that?
Dr. Graham. Yes, Mr. Bartlett. I think there are several
reasons--several possible threats, both man-made and natural,
that could affect us. And having an ability to function in a
self-reliant manner for some period of time would benefit us
all.
Mr. Bartlett. Do you think that you could be effective in
encouraging our Homeland Security people to become more
aggressive in this civil defense role?
Dr. Graham. I met with Senator Lieberman yesterday, as the
chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the other House
of Congress, and he was very interested in this subject and
agreed to consider it as part of his purview for Homeland
Security. So, we will try to continue to work with the Homeland
Security functions both in the Congress and the Administration
and encourage them to take useful steps.
Mr. Bartlett. I would just like to note, Mr. Chairman, that
if you are preparing for something like this in advance, say,
years ahead, you are now a patriot, you are stimulating the
economy, but if you do it hours before it happens, now you are
a hoarder, and you are doing exactly the same thing; and timing
is very critical there now, isn't it?
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Mr. Bartlett, thank you.
And, Dr. Graham, thank you, as well as members of your
commission.
Oh, excuse me. Mr. Saxton has another question.
Mr. Saxton. I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for
being here and to ask you if--Mr. Taylor mentioned something--
actually, Mr. Taylor and I were talking about this earlier this
morning. I have an article here, which Mr. Taylor made
reference to, and it brings up a subject which I think is
extremely interesting and important.
It talks about brain injuries that result from IEDs that
Mr. Taylor also mentioned. And this article suggests that brain
injuries that have occurred in Iraq seem to be different than
brain injuries that have occurred over the years in automobile
accidents and other types of happenings.
And EMP is one of the areas that the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently looking at in
terms of its potential effect, with regard to brain injuries. I
will just read this one paragraph to you. I found it very
interesting.
``Ling's team''--that is the scientist--``will soon begin
studying other potential causes of brain injury, such as
electromagnetic pulses. If EMP from a blast is powerful enough,
it can interfere with nearby electronic devices. `The brain is
an electronic organ,' says Ling. `If an EMP pulse can take out
a radio, why not short-circuit a brain?' ''
So, I guess what I would like to just ask or suggest is
that, maybe, inasmuch as our authorization bill extends your
commission, maybe it would be a good idea for DARPA and your
commission to work together on this, as much as you have got
all this experience with studying this subject. And I am sure
you would be of great benefit to Dr. Ling and his team. I just
mention this to you, and I will certainly see you get a copy of
this article as a starting point.
Dr. Graham. Thank you.
While it is not in our mandate today, it sounds very
interesting. I would note that I also serve on a National
Academy Board called a Board on Army Science and Technology,
which--and the National Academy has the resources of the
National Institute of Medicine as well as the National Academy
of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, so it can
bring a very diverse set of talents together. And this sounds
like the kind of question that might be directed to the
National Academies and to the Board on Army Science and
Technology, to work with the scientists and the government.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
The Chairman. Again, Dr. Graham, thank you and your
commission for your excellent work, not just today, for
appearing, but for the work that you have done through the
months on the commission. And we are most appreciative, and we
will be in touch with you and the commission again.
If there are no further questions, the meeting is
adjourned. Thank you.
Dr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Whereupon, at 11:58 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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