[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              NORTH KOREA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address my 
colleagues.
  Tonight I would like to talk about a subject that we have seen a lot 
of media publicity about. The subject, frankly, is North Korea. I would 
like to lay out a little history, give a little geographical background 
on North Korea, a little history about North Korea, talk about the 
military of North Korea as compared to the military of South Korea and 
the United States forces and the commitments that we have over on the 
Korean Peninsula.
  Let me begin by talking a little of North Korea. First of all, let us 
look at North Korea from a geographic point of view.
  North Korea is a country that is about probably less than half the 
size of the State of Nevada. It has a population of approximately 22 
million people. North Korea is a very closed society. In North Korea, 
for example, if you buy a radio or are supplied a radio in North Korea, 
in the United States we are all able to tune across the spectrum to 
bring in a radio station of our choice. In North Korea, you only have 
one station, and it is the government station.
  The North Korean society and the country of North Korea is under a 
dictatorship. That dictatorship is under Mr. Kim Il-song. Mr. Kim Il-
song has been the dictator the longest. He is the longest ruling 
dictator in the world. In fact, I believe, if my information is 
correct, he is the longest ruler in the world now that is still alive.
  So under this dictatorship, the senior, and I am going to refer to 
him as the father, has a son who we will call junior, the son, who is 
about 55 years old.
  The son has been trained to succeed or has been brought up to succeed 
his father. But let us go back to the continent. I hope in the future, 
when we have an opportunity to once again address you here on the 
floor, that I can have a map. And we will have a little better well-
prepared map, I think, that will give you a little more perspective of 
where North Korea is in regard to South Korea and what those dangers 
are.
  As you can recall, the Korean War in 1950, the North Koreans, under 
the pretext of military exercises, launched an attack against South 
Korea.
  Now, the same dictator that was the dictator back then is still the 
dictator today. North Korea is a very, very aggressive nation. It is 
not only a very closed society, but it is also a very aggressive 
nation.
  One of the difficulties we have in assessing what is going on in 
North Korea is the limitation on our intelligence gathering 
capabilities because of the closedness of a society.
  Back to the geographics. On the geographics of North Korea, the DMZ, 
which is the so-called neutral zone designated by the United States to 
bring the Korean War to a conclusion, the DMZ is actually less than 35 
miles from the capital of South Korea. Seoul, South Korea is the name 
of that capital.
  Now, in Seoul, South Korea, to give you an idea, that has a 
population of about 10 million people. And it is one-half of the gross 
national product of South Korea is located in that large city of Seoul, 
South Korea.
  What concerns us, of course, about North Korea is not only its 
aggressive nature but also its renegade status, as we speak today, in 
regards to its compliance with the nonproliferation agreement.

  Many of you have read in the media lately that North Korea has 
refused compliance with inspections. In fact, the last inspection that 
North Korea allowed was several months ago. And when the inspectors 
went to North Korea to inspect one of the nuclear facilities, they were 
only allowed to inspect it late at night. They were given flashlights 
and led through several dark buildings with very dim flashlights and 
allowed a very limited access to the so-called inspections.
  This has led to a very high tension between North and South Korea. We 
have an idea of what the geographics are. Let us talk about the 
military capabilities of North Korea.
  First of all, understand that North Korea has about 1,200,000 troops.

                              {time}  1800

  These troops, we believe, are well trained. They have the protection 
of a very aggressive and very intense tunnel system on the North Korean 
side, and these 1,200,000 troops represent twice the number of troops 
that South Korea has. South Korea has approximately 650,000, and the 
United States has about 35,000 young men and women that are over in 
South Korea under the agreement in 1954 that we signed in protection of 
South Korea.
  The North Korean also has probably twice the amount of artillery that 
the South Korean has. The North Koreans have missile capability, 
ballistic missile capability, and are known to have Scud missiles. That 
is going to come back in later when I talk about the deployment of the 
Patriot missiles of the United States onto the South Korean peninsula.
  However, back to the military. In 1984 North Korea began to use the 
DMZ, instead of a defensive zone, they began to reconstitute their 
military forces in such a way that they could launch a very quick 
military attack on South Korea.
  In fact, the Defense Department and other experts, as I have read, 
are led to believe that North Korea could actually launch an attack and 
we would have less than 24 hours, less than hours' notice that an 
attack was imminent on South Korea.
  Their military forces, as I have said earlier, are twice the number 
of the American forces. They have twice the number of the American 
forces and the South Korean forces combined. They have twice the number 
of artillery. We believe they have chemical capabilities. We do believe 
they use those chemical capabilities.
  North Korea is not only a fierce and horrible fighting force, 
horrible in the way of terror, but they have also been guilty of 
several terrorist activities, including bombing, including, as many 
remember, the Korean jet airliner, where the North Korean secret agents 
went and blew up the South Korean passenger airliner, so their entire 
history shows a history of aggression.
  All of this is going to add up to my conclusion about the importance 
of why we have to have the Patriot missile. Where is the North Korean 
army short of military capability? Certainly with the air force. North 
Korea has a very, very limited amount of air force or air capability.

  We are far superior in the South, in the United States, and with our 
carrier that sits off the coast, our capabilities to deliver air power 
are far superior, but remember that the North Koreans have a great deal 
of artillery, and I believe they have a nuclear weapon.
  They have these in the tunnel systems. We believe they hid them in 
the tunnel systems. Our satellite intelligence cannot pick up tunnel 
systems. I guess we can pick up trucks going and coming from the 
tunnels if we are there at the right time, and if there are excellent 
weather conditions and things like that, but at the current time it is 
very difficult to get the kind of intelligence that we need to have 
over there. We do have superior air power.
  What would be a logical attack or a logical strategy for North Korea 
to follow if it were to launch an attack on South Korea? The most 
logical thing for them to do is to launch a missile attack on Seoul, 
South Korea.
  Remember, I mentioned that Seoul, which is the capital of South 
Korea, has at least half the population of the country, about 10 
million people. It is responsible for at least one-half the gross 
national product of the country. What would be a more logical target to 
hit than Seoul, South Korea?
  Seoul, South Korea, is located how far from the DMZ, how far from the 
North Korean troops? Less than 35 miles, less than 35 miles. Remember, 
earlier I mentioned North Korea's ability, their ballistic missile 
capability? It is fairly incredible.
  Let us go back to the North Korean military troops that are amassed 
on the DMZ. As I mentioned earlier, since 1984 they have reconstituted 
their force to be a quick strike force. Seventy percent, a full 70 
percent of the North Korean military forces are on the DMZ. They are 
not in a defensive posture, they are in an offensive posture. They are, 
as Newsweek reported, Newsweek of a couple months ago, they are war-
ready.
  That brings me up to the point that I want to discuss here. What are 
some of the responsibilities that we have in South Korea? First and 
foremost, as long as we have young American men and women who are 
deployed over in South Korea, we have an obligation, a very basic and 
fundamental obligation that was overlooked in Somalia, but a basic and 
fundamental obligation that shall not be overlooked in South Korea. 
That is to properly arm those personnel with defensive weapons; not 
offensive weapons, but defensive weapons.
  In the last few months, to lay out just a little more background, in 
the last few months, as Members have read in their papers and in any of 
the periodicals, or we have listened to the President discuss in the 
speeches, there has been a big issue as to what North Korea is doing, 
whether or not they have nuclear capability, or how far along they are 
to obtaining nuclear capability.
  There is some disagreement in the intelligence community, but I can 
tell the members personally, I believe North Korea possesses at least 
one nuclear weapon. Do they have the capabilities to deliver that 
particular weapon? The answer, I think, is yes. It is a sophisticated 
weapon? I think the answer is no.
  However, there is a reason that North Korea is refusing to allow the 
international inspectors to come in and look at those nuclear 
facilities. Is it because they have something to hide? Of course it is. 
Of course it is.
  We have to add all of these things up. First, they will not let us 
inspect their nuclear facilities. Second, they have 70 percent of their 
military troops on the DMZ in an offensive state. Third, they have 
twice the size, twice the number of troops that the United States and 
South Korea have, combined.

  Fourth, they have the artillery and the missile capability, the Scud 
missile capability, to deliver I think a very devastating attack within 
hours. In fact, recently Newsweek and then later Reuters News Service 
revealed that Defense Department documents showed that if North Korea 
launched an attack against South Korea, that within two weeks they 
could be well beyond Seoul, South Korea; in other words, in control of 
South Korea.
  What would the United States do? First of all, we know that if North 
Korea launches an attack against South Korea, the American young men 
and women over there, along with the South Korean soldiers, will suffer 
very immediate, very tragic, and horrible casualties. This will happen 
immediately. We need to properly defend those kinds of troops.
  Now, is there sufficient incentive for the current regime to launch 
an attack on South Korea? I think there is. First of all, remember 
recent history. Remember Kuwait. Remember Iraq. In the Iraqi war, it 
showed the Third World that a regime could go to war with the United 
States of America and the current ruling regime could survive the war. 
They can survive the war. That sends a message that you can take on the 
United States and survive it.
  Second, there is a reason they have that number of troops on the DMZ.
  Third, we are about to go through a transition period. Remember, I 
talked earlier about the father and the son. The son, Kim Jong-il, is 
about 55 years old. He does not carry the same kind of respect or 
credibility that his father does.
  I think recently they have seen a lot more activity from the son. The 
son may feel that he has to prove something of a macho capability.
  The next thing is, we know North Korea has a horrible, horrible 
economy. The dictatorship, the father, Kim Il-sung, and the son, Kim 
Jong-il, are going to have to divert the people of North Korea from 
their economy with some other diversion, I think, if their regime is to 
survive.
  With this transition taking place, where power transfers from the 
father down to the son, there has to be a diversion. The father has 
constantly committed, throughout his years as a dictator, that it is 
his goal to see that the Korean peninsula is reunited. Everything 
spells incentive for the North Koreans to take some kind of action 
against the South Koreans.
  Back to what it is that the United States should do. Should we, for 
example, launch a preemptive attack, like Israel did years ago, on a 
nuclear facility? I do not think that the logistics allow that. I do 
not think we would have support from the American people to do 
something like that. I do not think that that is a very logical 
approach to take.
  There are other things that we can do. The first thing that the 
United States needs to do, and that the administration needs to do, is 
that the administration needs to stand tough, stick with its previous 
comments made about 2 months ago, or excuse me, about 2 weeks ago, that 
they intend to deploy Patriot missiles on South Korean soil.
  What is the importance of Patriot missiles? What are Patriot 
missiles? Remember the Iraq war and the great success we had in 
stopping the Scud missiles? Remember earlier I mentioned that North 
Korea had Scud missiles. The missile that was able to stop those fierce 
attacks against Israel was the Patriot missile. It has since been 
advanced from a technological point of view and is even more effective. 
We need to immediately have the administration, which I think right 
now, unfortunately, is beginning to waiver on their commitment, I think 
that the administration needs to immediately deploy defensive intercept 
Patriot missiles to protect our troops in South Korea.

                              {time}  1810

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from the State 
of California [Mr. Hunter].
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I have 
been listening with fascination as he has laid out the situation in 
North Korea, which perhaps is of all of the situations in the world 
necessarily that of greatest concern to Americans because of the 
circumstances the gentleman has talked about, the instability of the 
regime, the immense military capability, the incentive and motivation 
to perhaps take aggressive action against their neighbors to the south 
and our American forces that are there with South Korea just below the 
line.
  The question I want to ask the gentleman is, he has talked about the 
Scud capability of the North Koreans. They do have an industrial base. 
They are making Scud missiles. They have obviously been recipients in 
the past of Scud technology from the Soviet Union. They are building or 
have built a nuclear system, a nuclear device. The question is, If Scud 
missiles were launched today, would there be any defense at all against 
those Scud missiles basically exploding either in the midst of the 
American forces there or in the middle of Seoul or other places?
  Mr. McINNIS. I would say to the gentleman from California only 
minimal capability of defending those troops. And it would be my guess 
that the majority of the attack would be launched against Seoul. If 
they could hit Seoul with a devastating missile attack it would throw 
the entire country in disarray. And then I think they would put a 
percentage of their troops against some of the South Korean or American 
bases.
  But at this point our young men and women over there in South Korea 
are not only outnumbered 2 to 1, but outnumbered 2 to 1 in artillery, 
and do not have the defensive weapons necessary to protect themselves.
  Mr. HUNTER. So they could not shoot down a single one of those Scud 
missiles without Patriot?
  Mr. McINNIS. That is right. They need the Patriot missiles.
  I wanted to bring to the attention of my colleagues tonight some 
history, but I also want to try and convince my colleagues here on the 
floor and the citizens of this country how important it is that the 
President not back down from the comments he made. First of all, he 
made comments, I think, back in November that we must never let North 
Korea possess a nuclear weapon. Well, Mr. President, I think they have 
a nuclear weapon. What are you going to do about it?
  No. 2, less than 2 weeks ago the President suggested that we needed 
to move these Patriot missiles over to South Korea. He is absolutely 
correct, and I am 100 percent in support of the President. But I would 
say to my colleague that I am very concerned that in the last few days, 
because North Korea has stood up and protested this and said that it is 
an act of aggression against them, which of course it is not, it is 
defensive missile capability, I am concerned that the President is 
beginning to waver and will not deploy those. And as the gentleman from 
California and all of my colleagues here on the floor know, we just 
went through a horrible disaster where we lost many soldiers, 18 
soldiers in Somalia as a result of that.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I came over for 
another special order which I am going to do hopefully at some point 
after the gentleman from Colorado finishes his. And if the gentleman 
from Colorado has a few extra minutes I would ask him at the end of 
this special order perhaps to yield to me so that I may perhaps give a 
few minutes to an entirely different subject.

  But I just want to say to the gentleman that he has provided us with 
quite a resource and an important point of discussion today, because 
what he is talking about is what every single Member of this Congress 
should be most concerned about with respect to national security in the 
next year. The gentleman has done a great service by really analyzing 
the problem and I stand foursquare with him, as I think a lot of 
Members of the House do, with respect to following through with putting 
the defensive measures in place. And the only defensive system we have 
against incoming ballistic missiles, which is what the Scud is, it is a 
Model T, it is a very slow ballistic missile, but the only defense we 
have against that is Patriot. And this is a little bit like Ronald 
Reagan when he was challenged by the Soviets in placing SS-20s in 
Europe, and the President at that point proceeded to move to put 
ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe, and received a great deal of 
criticism from the press. He did not back off, and ultimately the 
Soviets respected American strength and accommodated it, and ultimately 
removed their SS-20s. This could be such a moment of truth with the 
President, with President Clinton if he will stick to his guns and 
defend those troops. And his obligation is to defend our troops, and 
the only thing that will keep those Scuds from exploding in their midst 
is a system that will shoot them down before they hit the ground, and 
that is Patriot.
  Mr. McINNIS. The gentleman is correct, and it is my gentleman from 
California [Mr. Hunter] and I do intend to conclude here rather 
rapidly.
  But the points that are made are exactly correct. The Scud missile is 
not the greatest missile in the world. It is a very slow missile. But I 
will tell the gentleman, it becomes a very sophisticated and a very 
deadly missile if you have nothing to defend against. So the President 
needs to carry through with his commitment and deploy those Patriot 
missiles in South Korea.
  Furthermore, the President has discussed the deployment, or the 
administration has discussed the deployment of Apache attack 
helicopters over to South Korea. These ideas, the request for the 
Apache attack helicopters, the request for the Patriot defense 
interceptor system did not come from the administration, did not come 
from the U.S. Congress. It came from the commanding general of the 
American troops in South Korea.
  What is our hesitation? We have an American general who is in charge 
of the troops in a country where the opposing forces have a long 
history of aggression, have twice the number of troops that we have and 
are refusing to comply with international inspections of nuclear 
capabilities. And this general is asking us to send him some defensive 
missile capability, and we are over here in Washington, DC hesitating 
on it. Those missiles ought to be in an airplane on their way to South 
Korea now, not 2 weeks from now, but today.
  So my message here today to my colleagues is look, we are going to be 
talking about the budget, we are going to be talking about health care, 
we are going to be talking about other issues that come up, the 
Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act. But we better not fall 
asleep at the wheel of the Korean situation. If we do, we will pay a 
very, very heavy price. And the price to be paid will fall squarely on 
the shoulders of the administration and ourselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time 
to the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter].
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Strickland). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Colorado?
  There was no objection.


            Environmental Protection in Imperial Valley, CA

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman 
from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] for his very important special order about 
North Korea and then yielding the time to me. I am going to make this 
fairly brief, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is important to talk a little 
bit in these days when we are talking about big government doing 
everything for people, whether it is health care, or other areas, I 
think it is important to talk about people and what American people are 
doing for themselves. In particular, I want to talk about people who 
live in my congressional district in the Imperial Valley of California 
who are doing something for desert wildlife, for the environment, for 
conservation without simply going to Uncle Sam and saying we need 
another program and we need you to give us government money. That is 
what built this country.
  The Imperial Valley is a low area, it is a desert area. Some parts of 
it are below sea level. It is immediately to the east of San Diego, CA, 
south of Palm Springs, and just north of the Mexican border. This is a 
rugged, arid land, and it produces in some years maybe one inch of 
rainfall.
  We have a lot of wonderful people who live in Imperial County. A 
great deal of the country is watered with water from the Colorado 
River. We have a great farming area out there. We have a lot of folks 
who enjoy the out-of-doors, like my friend from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] 
does. They are sportsmen, sportswomen. They love to camp in the desert. 
They like to look at the wildlife. Some of them like to hunt and fish. 
And a group of them got together in 1979 because we had a big problem. 
And I want to show Members what that problem is with the pictures that 
I have on my board here.

                              {time}  1820

  If you can focus in, if I could ask our camera people to focus in on 
this top picture, this is a picture of the Cochella Canal. Our farming 
area is watered by these giant canals that come off the Colorado River 
and bring vast amounts of water to about 500,000 acres of farming land.
  Now, there has been some collateral effect caused by these canals. If 
you look closely, you can see there is a deer stranded in the bottom of 
this canal. That deer cannot get up the steep walls of the canal which 
are lined with cement. In the old days, the wildlife used to be able to 
come in and drink from the water sources that were available. When we 
had a dirt-lined canal, they could come down and climb back up and go 
back to where they lived during the daytime and come back later to get 
water at night.
  Water is very precious in the desert. In the desert, absolutely, for 
wildlife, it absolutely is the difference between life and death.
  Well, we have these cement-lined canals that were literally killing 
our wildlife.
  If you look at the second picture, you see the deer stranded in the 
canal in the first picture. In the second picture, you will see these 
depictions of the leg of a deer that has been stranded in the canal, 
and it has literally worn its hooves and legs out trying to climb back 
up that steep concrete incline, and being unable to do it, it 
ultimately succumbed in the canal.
  We had a lot of sportsmen who got together, and foremost among these 
sportsmen were Leon Lesicka, a great friend of mine, a great 
outdoorsman and conservationist, a very excellent tracker, who has a 
wonderful wife, Lavelle Lesicka, and also Bill Smith, who also is a 
great outdoorsman. They put together a group called Desert Wildlife, 
Unlimited, in 1979. They decided to go out and create water sources in 
the desert so that the wildlife would not come to these canals and 
would not ultimately die trying to climb out of the concrete lining of 
the steep inclines.
  They put together this group, Desert Wildlife, Unlimited, and it is a 
group of wonderful people. They started experimenting with ways to 
build desert drinkers. I am going to turn my little picture plaque over 
here, and if you look at the top picture you will see a number of 
volunteers installing three drinking tanks in a very rugged area of the 
desert bighorn sheep in the desert. They built these big tanks that 
could collect the rain from maybe a one-time-a-year 1-inch or half-inch 
rainfall, and at times they were able to fill up a 5,000-gallon tank 
with just one rainfall if they put the tank at the right place where a 
lot of the runoff would come into that tank. That tank might hold that 
water for as long as 2 or 3 years. That would allow the animals to 
drink out in the desert. They would not have to come in to the canals, 
and they would not thereby succumb and die because of these steep 
inclines.
  The second picture I want to show you is a tenaja, a deep watering 
hole that occurs naturally in the desert, and you can see there is a 
dead bighorn sheep floating in that water tank, and that is because the 
sides of the tenaja are very, very steep, and sometimes the animals 
were so thirsty they would get down and slip down into the watering 
tank and die.
  Finally, the bottom picture is desert bighorn sheep, one of our 
finest big-game animals, and whether you are just a naturalist who 
loves wild animals or you are a hunter who likes to pursue them, they 
are truly a national treasure.
  Well, Desert Wildlife, Unlimited, has had a big hand in preserving 
this species of desert bighorn sheep. They have done some wonderful 
things. They have developed some technologies that can be used around 
the world to give water not only to wild animals but also to people.
  One thing that Leon Lesicka and his friends figured out was that if 
you buried a 10,000-gallon tank in an area where you would have a lot 
of runoff from a big flat area of which you have many in the desert, 
one rain, one half-inch rain or 1-inch rain, if you put your tank at 
the right place in the right ravine, it would fill up one of these 
10,000-gallon tanks. They have done that successfully, and they now 
have installed 59 drinkers across the desert area in southern 
California. They brought back the bighorn sheep. They brought back our 
desert mule deer herds. They have done a great deal for conservation, 
all as private people who love this country.
  So I want to commend every member of Desert Wildlife, Unlimited, and 
to thank them for everything they have done for our country.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Colorado was so kind to let us have 
this time and, once again, I am going to do maybe a longer special 
order on Desert Wildlife, Unlimited, in the future, but I wanted to 
give them a commendation for what they have done.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from California 
if he would explain to me very briefly, now, this is not a government-
funded organization? Is that correct?
  Mr. HUNTER. That is right.
  Mr. McINNIS. It is funded privately, and that is part of the beauty 
of this type of, I do not know, kind of a creative financial setup to 
help preserve some of our natural wildlife? Is that not right?
  Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is absolutely right. This group has raised 
$400,000 to build these tanks and, of course, they work off and they 
work in conjunction with Fish and Wildlife. They might, for example, on 
a program, Fish and Wildlife might be capturing desert bighorns and 
transplanting them, and the group will come out and work with them and 
do a lot of the legwork. They raise their own money to put these water 
holes in. In fact, they just had a major barbecue in Imperial County 
and had about 250 people there. This is the best of America; it is 
individual American citizens, most of whom are sportsmen, raising money 
to preserve their wild heritage. That is America at its best.
  Mr. McINNIS. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from Colorado. I invite him to come 
out sometime and take a tour with our Desert Wildlife, Unlimited.
  Mr. McINNIS. I thank the gentleman.

                          ____________________