The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee demands that the Biden administration declassify all relevant information about the status of Russia’s anti-satellite nuclear programsaying it would allow for a full public debate on the threat posed by the Moscow project.
Representative Mike Turner of Ohio said in a speech that the Biden administration has failed to decisively confront the Russians over an anti-satellite weapon that could compromise the array of Earth-orbiting satellites on which modern society depends for communication and navigation.
“The Biden administration must immediately declassify all known information regarding the status of Russia’s anti-satellite nuclear weapons program,” Turner said at an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
“[Russian President] Vladimir Putin thrives on secrecy. Putin’s weapons plans and programs must be fully disclosed by the administration and understood by the world,” Turner said.
The GOP congressman pressured the administration in February to publicly reveal Russia’s effort to build a nuclear weapon capable of hitting satellites after issuing a cryptic statement about the need for the White House to declassify certain information. The administration eventually acknowledged that Russia was developing such a weapon, although it stated that it was not an imminent threat and did not publicly offer any other details.
Turner said the administration has been too slow to act and has avoided sharing information publicly about the Russian program, which he said has prevented a full discussion about how the U.S. and its allies should respond to what he called a potentially “catastrophic” threat. ” to all civil activities in space.
“Intelligence is gathered so you can impact the outcome. It’s not so we can be casual observers,” Turner said in comments after his speech.
The lawmaker said sharing more information publicly about the state of Russia’s anti-satellite work would not jeopardize intelligence-gathering “means, methods and techniques” but would help Washington and U.S. allies determine a course of action to prevent for Moscow to implement such a system. weapon.
Turner also said the US and its NATO allies should jointly pledge to enforce the UN Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons in space.
The Biden administration rejected Turner’s criticism and did not promise to release more information about the Russian weapons program.
“He is simply wrong. He is dead wrong,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“Look, we take this very seriously. We have been working on this specific problem from every possible angle, including through intense diplomacy with countries around the world and, of course, through direct conversations with Russia,” Kirby said.
Kirby and other administration officials noted that the U.S. proposed a resolution at the U.N. Security Council in April that sought to prevent an arms race in space. Russia vetoed the resolution.
“We have been working hard to get other countries to join us in making clear what the dangers are of an anti-satellite weapon designed to carry a nuclear weapon,” Kirby said.
He added that it would have been better to have kept intelligence about the Russian project secret to allow for private diplomacy, but Turner’s statement in February ultimately led to the release of information about the program.
“As we said at the time, in February, when this was made public, releasing this highly sensitive information was highly irresponsible and was something that the intelligence community itself had serious concerns about,” Kirby said. “And we assess that initiating private involvement, rather than immediately releasing intelligence, would have been a much more effective approach.”
He added: “We will continue our efforts to dissuade Russia from placing a nuclear weapon in orbit. We will do everything possible to avoid this outcome.”
In May, a senior Defense Department official confirmed to lawmakers that Russia is developing an “indiscriminate” anti-satellite nuclear device that would pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the world.
Before stepping down as assistant secretary of defense for space policy, John Plumb told a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing that the threat was “not imminent” but that the Pentagon and “entire” Biden administration were concerned about the program.
Asked about the potential effect of such a weapon, Plumb said low Earth orbit – the most common orbit for satellites – would be unusable for possibly up to a year due to radiation from a nuclear detonation.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
