[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 86 (Thursday, June 30, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE--WILL WE EVER LEARN THE LESSONS OF HISTORY?

                                 ______


                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 29, 1994

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago on June 13, 1944, six civilians 
were killed in London when they were hit by the first German V-1, the 
``Buzz Bomb.'' Hitler's vengeance weapon was the forefather of today's 
cruise missiles, just as his V-2 1,000 lb. warhead missile was the 
forerunner of all ballistic missiles.
  Today, fifty years later, another ruthless dictator, Kim II-sung, 
threatens peace throughout the Pacific with new, more terrible 
vengeance weapons including--in the very near future--nuclear armed 
ballistic missiles. Despite threats of embargo and diplomatic peace 
offerings, North Korea continues to develop missiles capable of hitting 
all of South Korea, much of Japan, and eventually even the west coast 
of the United States.
  But, as a June 10, 1994, Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out, 
there is a better way to deal with such threats. We can, and we must, 
continue the vision of President Ronald Reagan and immediately develop 
ballistic missile defense systems. For a modest investment today in 
existing Aegis cruisers and destroyers, we can provide our allies and 
our forward deployed forces with a near-term, low-cost defense against 
such attacks. The time for U.S. ballistic missile defense is now. Mr. 
Speaker, I include in the Record my Dear Colleague from June 14 with 
its excellent Wall Street Journal article.


                                     House of Representatives,

                                    Washington, DC, June 14, 1994.
       Dear Colleague: I highly recommend the following Wall 
     Street Journal editorial from June 10, 1994, about the real 
     issue in North Korea, proliferation of ballistic missiles.
       We continue to ignore this worldwide threat and underfund 
     even the most modest missile defense proposals such as sea-
     based systems using existing missiles and ships.
       As the editorial clearly points out, the time for missile 
     defense is now.
           Best regards,
                                                 Robert K. Dornan,
                                                 U.S. Congressman.

 North Korea, the Time for U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Is Now--The 
                             Korean Seminar

       The Clinton foreign policy has turned into a continuing 
     seminar in What Not to Do.
       You don't enact a free-trade agreement such as Nafta, then 
     expect the world to understand why you're following on with 
     threats of a trade war against Japan. If, as with MFN and 
     China, you culminate a loudly wrong policy with the right 
     decision, you'll only get credit for a flip-flop. Haiti shows 
     the dangers of signing up for a pass-fail foreign policy that 
     you'd rather not attend at all. And in Bosnia, the Clinton 
     dons have taught us what happens when you feed a Serbian an 
     endless supply of carrots; in reaction, a bipartisan House 
     vote yesterday of 244-178 resoundingly rejected the Clinton 
     policy of temporizing on letting Bosnia's Muslims defend 
     themselves a related article appears nearby).
       Finally, we have the administration's fascinating Lirean 
     Seminar. The administration is now threatening economic 
     sanctions against nuclear blackmailer Kin Il Sung if he 
     doesn't open North Korea to inspection by the International 
     Atomic Energy Agency. Yesterday, Japan's U.N. ambassador had 
     to knock down stories that some in his government lacked 
     enthusiasm for sanctions.
       Some in Japan have professed concern at trouble from their 
     own Korean population, which remits some $1 billion annually 
     to relatives in the North via bank accounts in Hong Kong, 
     Switzerland and other unstoppable pipelines. We suspect, 
     though, that Japan (itself the recent object of Clinton trade 
     threats) notices that U.S. foreign policy already has 
     sanctions programs up and running against Haiti, Serbia and 
     Iraq. All leak badly. Now the U.S. wants to juggle a fourth 
     such project against North Korea.
       A common problem with the administration's policies is that 
     they see designed to escape facing the core realities of the 
     problems in front of them. It as at least refreshing to see 
     Secretary of Defense William Perry getting the import of 
     the Korean issue squarely on the table when he asserted: 
     ``What is at stake here is the whole proliferation 
     issue.''
       In other words, the real long-term issue is not merely 
     whether we'll have to bomb North Korea or its Yongbyon 
     reactor; most likely Kim has one or more such facilities 
     underground, elaborate tunneling being one of his few real 
     skills. No, the larger issue is: How do we live and survive 
     in a world in which controls over weapons-grade plutonium in 
     places like Russia is eroding, while the market of potential 
     buyers inexorably expands?
       Our answer when we last addressed the subject (``North 
     Korea's Threat,'' March 22) was: Build Ronald Reagan's 
     Strategic Defense Initiative. Pursue the technologies that 
     were being developed to track and destroy incoming missiles 
     from an unfriendly party. Instead, we noted, the Clinton 
     budget eviscerated the SDI program, as Democrats long had 
     demanded.
       The Clinton policy around the North Korean nuclear issue 
     essentially represents the Democratic establishment's 
     longstanding theology on this subject: Negotiate 
     indefinitely, with the ultimate goal of bringing the other 
     party inside some sort of arms control framework. Under 
     Ronald Reagan, the Republicans broke out of this negotiate-
     to-agree strategy. It proposed building missile defenses.
       That was during the Cold War, and liberal Democrats mocked 
     the notion of trying to thwart a Soviet ICBM barrage. Today 
     we've agreed that such a numerical threat is essentially 
     gone. The Kim-like nuclear threat now is from a relative 
     handful of incoming missiles, a technological challenge of 
     greatly reduced magnitude. But we also seem to have agreed 
     that a North Korea-sized threat is serious.
       So: Do we negotiate, or do we start building missile 
     defenses?
       Wednesday, North Korea said it would let in the inspectors 
     if the U.S. resumes negotiations. The Clinton teams' endless 
     offering of carrots to Kim to gain access for the IAEA's 
     inspectors has been derided, but it deserves some attention. 
     Let's assume the IAEA went into Yongbyon and elsewhere and 
     announced that North Korea clearly can make bombs, and may 
     have them. Then what?
       While Secretary Perry worries that the whole proliferation 
     issue is at stake, Democratic arms-controllers have never 
     offered a persuasive answer to what they'd do after verifying 
     the existence of a threat. Presumably they'd negotiate 
     harder. But the Clinton foreign policy, here and elsewhere, 
     forces one toward a conclusion about Democratic strategy: 
     It's a bluff. And if a Kim Il Sung calls our bluff, bombing 
     Seoul or Tokyo, then what? Massive war? Our own bomb? Or 
     nothing?
       Ronald Reagan's missile-defense proposal was an attempt to 
     escape from choosing merely between the negotiator's bluff 
     and war. In power, President Reagan and his representatives 
     bore a heavy burden to prove his case. Now the burden--and 
     responsibility--is on the Democrats to defend negotiation and 
     disprove missile defense. Under the circumstances, building a 
     defense against missiles is looking better and better to us.

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