[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           KEEPER OF THE FLAME AWARDED TO CONGRESSMAN JON KYL

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, on a recent occasion Representative Jon 
Kyl of Arizona received the Center on Security Policy's distinguished 
Keeper of the Flame Award.
  At the award dinner he made some very cogent remarks on the subject 
of ballistic missile defense, a matter of critical importance to the 
security of the United States, her allies, and forces deployed abroad.
  His timing was excellent. Currently the Clinton administration is 
entering negotiations which may preclude development and deployment of 
the Navy's Upper Tier Program and which may adversely affect the Army's 
Theater High Altitude Area Defense [THAAD].
  As Mr. Kyl was writing his remarks a number of candidates for the 
House of Representatives stood together, on the Capitol steps and 
pledged their support for such systems, calling them an ``immediate 
national priority.''
  At the same time various key Democrats including Representatives 
Murtha, Sisisky, and Montgomery signed a strongly worded, bipartisan 
letter to President Clinton urging him to ``use the upcoming summit to 
create new latitude to develop and field effective theater and global 
antimissile systems and to reject any initiative that would further 
impinge upon the early acquisition of such systems.''
  I am afraid, Mr. President, that the administration is moving in 
precisely the opposite direction. As Mr. Kyl expressed it, ``the 
administration has endorsed a deterrence policy based on mutual assured 
destruction. MAD assumes that governments won't use nuclear weapons in 
anger because they will be deterred from doing so by the certainty of 
their own annihilation. As I said, the alternative is mutual assured 
survival, based on strategic defenses.''
  Jon Kyl has long been a leader in an effort more and more people are 
recognizing as vital. I commend him on his speech. Mr. President, I 
request that the attached remarks of Representative Kyl be included at 
this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Remarks of Congressman Jon Kyl at the Keeper of the Flame Award Dinner

       I am deeply honored to receive the 1994 ``Keeper of the 
     Flame Award.'' To become a member of a group which includes 
     Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Senator Malcolm Wallop, Malcolm 
     Forbes, and Garry Kasparov is profoundly humbling to me.
       The name of the award states a commitment to protect 
     freedom. My role in helping to set national policy, including 
     defense policy, is limited--as a member of the minority party 
     in the House of Representatives. I have no illusions about my 
     contributions compared, for example, to the thousands of men 
     and women whose sole job is to protect that freedom--through 
     use of arms if required. They are the real honorees tonight.
       I have been given the honor of receiving this award 
     tonight, perhaps more as a symbol of our continuing struggle 
     than because of a great victory. It is true that the policies 
     we have supported have resulted in the collapse of the 
     biggest threat ever to freedom and even our very existence, 
     the threat of Communism. But we have failed to consolidate 
     our victory, and new threats loom at a time when the people 
     are less galvanized to confront them.
       So we continue to our efforts. As you might have inferred 
     from my name, I am of Dutch ancestry. So perhaps the symbol 
     of the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike is not 
     inappropriate for our struggle.
       There is a sign posted outside the Marine Air Corps Station 
     in New River, NC, that says ``Pardon our noise, that's the 
     sound of freedom.'' Some of those Marines are in Haiti right 
     now risking their lives for a policy they don't understand 
     and the American people don't support. These young marines 
     are being asked to mesh their well-honed, professional skills 
     with a very confused message coming from the White House, the 
     United Nations, and Jimmy Carter. It is a message born of the 
     same attitude that afflicted some British politicians before 
     World War II. Winston Churchill described the attitude and 
     policy vacillation as one in which those ``leaders'' could 
     only ``Decide to be undecided, resolve to be irresolute, 
     adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be 
     impotent.'' Britain risked its security for peace and got 
     neither. Under the Clinton administration, the United States 
     has charted the same course. In the name of multilateralism, 
     appeasement towards the Russians and endorsement of the 
     supremacy of the United Nations, this administration and 
     liberals in Congress are on the brink of risking American 
     security because of course, ``peace is at hand''--the cold 
     war is over. Reversing that policy is our challenge for the 
     future. I will discuss three specific manifestations of that 
     policy.
       One program which is absolutely critical for the security 
     of the United States is the strategic defense initiative, now 
     called ballistic missile defense, which liberals have nearly 
     succeeded in decimating. Russian leaders have acknowledged 
     its role in bringing down the Soviet Union. Conservatives 
     tried to maintain funding for SDI to develop and deploy a 
     missile defense system. Our goal seemed to us to be 
     fundamental and unquestionably right. How could anyone be 
     opposed to defending America from a ballistic missile attack? 
     Yet, the ultimate irony is that after using the prospect of 
     deploying SDI to convince the Soviets to hoist the white 
     flag, we are now shutting down the program. The symbolism of 
     Churchill's role in winning War World II and losing 
     reelection is a sad reminder that greatness in people or 
     ideas is not always recognized.
       A glance at the headlines reveals the urgent need for 
     defenses.
       Yesterday's Washington Times carried the headline ``Yeltsin 
     can't curtail arms spread.''
       A Clinton administration official says yesterday, ``The 
     out-of-control weapons of mass destruction industries in 
     Russia are the No. 1 national security issue facing the 
     United States.''
       North Korea could have as many as five nuclear weapons and 
     just announced again its unwillingness to allow inspection of 
     its key facilities.
       China has sold to Saudi Arabia the CSS-2, a medium range 
     missile capable of reaching any place in Europe.
       Iraq was merely 18 months away from reaching its goal of 
     developing a nuclear bomb.
       Iran is desperately shopping the blackmarket for the 
     technology to develop nuclear weapons, and Russia wants to 
     sell to Iran.
       The threat is real. As former Director of the CIA, Bob 
     Gates, said, ``History is not over. It was merely frozen and 
     is now thawing with a vengeance.''
       The CIA claims that 25 nations could acquire chemical, 
     biological and nuclear weapons by the end of the decade. 
     That's 20 more than we have today. And, potentially, 20 
     nations that are lead by despots that see it as their duty to 
     annihilate the United States. One of those leaders could be 
     Abul Abbas, head of the Palestinian Liberation Front, who 
     promised revenge on the United States for attacking Iraq. He 
     said, ``Revenge takes 40 years. If not my son then the son of 
     my son will kill you. Someday we will have missiles that can 
     reach New York.''
       In day-to-day terms, the proliferation of weapons of mass 
     destruction among the Third World and the lack of defenses 
     against those weapons could radically alter the manner in 
     which the United States carries out its foreign policy. Would 
     we have 15,000 troops in Haiti today if General Cedras had a 
     weapon of mass destruction and a missile that could reach 
     Florida? Probably not. Would America stand up for human 
     rights and democracy in a starving nation if warloads had 
     stolen nuclear weapons from Russia? Probably not. Would the 
     Persian Gulf war have been fought if Hussein had succeeded 
     in his quest and acquired a deliverable nuclear weapon? 
     Probably not.
       The world will be dramatically different in the 21st 
     century. We cannot predict the future. We don't know who will 
     do it or when it will happen. But, ladies and gentlemen, it 
     will happen. Some day, someone, somewhere will launch a 
     ballistic missile at the United States.
       When the warning comes, most Americans will believe that we 
     will be able to defend ourselves. We can't. When the codes to 
     launch a nuclear ballistic missile are entered and the keys 
     are turned, three is no way to prevent the missile from 
     reaching its target. We cannot intercept it. We cannot 
     interfere with its guidance system. We cannot make it self 
     destruct. There is nothing we can do to stop even one single 
     missile from reaching the United States of America. Nothing.
       Under the Clinton administration that situation won't 
     change. In fact, it's getting worse. The Clinton 
     administration and congressional liberals have destroyed any 
     future strategic capability to defend the United States, and 
     are on their way to destroying potential theater defenses as 
     well.
       This is being done by their decision to ``clarify'' the ABM 
     Treaty to define our next theater defense missile as an 
     illegal missile. The ABM Treaty, recall, was signed in 1972 
     by Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon. It shouldn't have been 
     endorsed in 1972, and it shouldn't be re-endorsed in 1994, 22 
     years later. It most certainly should not be redefined.
       The threat has changed. Technology has improved. And the 
     Soviet Union doesn't even exist. But, the Clinton team 
     insists on deliberately drawing a distinction between 
     strategic and theater ballistic missiles, something that was 
     left undefined in 1972.
       What Clinton's negotiators have accomplished is not only to 
     negotiate away strategic systems--which came as no surprise--
     but, also to negotiate away the only advanced theater systems 
     in research and development in the United States. The Clinton 
     administration has done this by arbitrarily placing speed 
     limits on interceptors. If an interceptor breaks 3km/sec, it 
     is defined as a strategic ABM interceptor and would not be 
     deployable as a theater missile under the new terms of the 
     ABM Treaty. Key theater defense systems including THAAD and 
     Navy Upper Tier have capabilities beyond 3km/sec. and, thus, 
     could not be further developed as designed.
       Over the last 2 years, the liberals have won significant 
     budget cuts in ballistic missile defenses and have succeeded 
     in canceling all space-based options. This is especially 
     disturbing because space based sensors and interceptors are 
     critical to the success of any global strategic defense 
     system. They provide worldwide, instanteous detection of and 
     protection against missiles launched from anywhere in the 
     world, and are both cheaper and more effective than their 
     ground based counterparts.
       Missiles launched--either by accident or in anger--against 
     the United States, its friends and allies, could be destroyed 
     in the early stages of flight, before the release of the 
     warheads, if, but only if, we have space based interceptors. 
     This is especially important with multiwarhead missiles or 
     missiles with chemical or biological weapons. With the 
     latter, the early intercept results in more danger for the 
     attacking nation because the chemical and biological agents 
     would be dispersed over the enemy territory.
       During Operation Desert Shield, it took the United States 6 
     months and 400 airlifts to put in place the Patriot 
     interceptors that were used to shoot down some of the Iraqi 
     Scuds. With space based interceptors, coverage would be 
     instanteous. Yet, all systems capable of accomplishing that 
     mission have been zeroed. Zeroed, because using space for 
     military purposes is politically unpopular.
       This narrow mindedness and refusal to view space for what 
     it is--the High Frontier--will have serious consequences for 
     our future military successes. Like earlier forays into the 
     air and the sea, the use of space will change the course of 
     warfare. It's already happening. The United States should not 
     deny itself that capability.
       The failure to consolidate support for SDI is just one of 
     our failures. Another is our lack of success in derailing 
     Clinton's defense cutbacks. We're on a path toward reducing 
     America's armed forces to the ``hollow force'' of the 
     1970's--a military that is understaffed, poorly equipped, and 
     demoralized.
       The Pentagon has attempted to correct some of the quality 
     of life issues by directing the Services to reduce $80 
     billion from major weapons programs over the next 5 years. 
     President Clinton has forced Secretary Perry to chose between 
     a well trained forced or advanced weaponry. They're busy 
     scuttling the programs that will be necessary to win the next 
     major conflict. The decisions Bill Perry makes today as 
     Secretary of Defense will be felt for the next 25 years. 
     That's how long it takes to train an officer to command a 
     modern armor division in combat. It takes 13 years to develop 
     a new type of Navy aircraft and 9 years, from authorization 
     to completion, to build a new aircraft carrier. The President 
     is gambling on our future defense capability in order to 
     maintain today's ill-advised and poorly conceived military 
     policy.
       A third area in which our security is steadily slipping is 
     our strategic nuclear force. Nuclear weapons have kept the 
     peace for 40 years. Since the nuclear genie is out of the 
     bottle, it is unfortunate, but true, that we always have to 
     retain a nuclear deterrent capability, either that or a fail 
     safe 100 percent effective defense system.
       Today, the reliability, security, and viability of the 
     nuclear weapons stockpile is in serious jeopardy under the 
     management of the Clinton administration. The production 
     complex is virtually dismantled; critical nuclear materials 
     are not replenished; core scientists capable of designing and 
     maintaining nuclear weapons are leaving our national labs or 
     are encouraged to pursue more ``politically correct'' fields; 
     and even the very existence of the national weapons labs is 
     threatened by goals to consolidate, reduce and diversify the 
     research conducted there. Testing is on hold regardless of 
     whether other nations test.
       The administration's new nuclear posture review is 
     astonishing. It is based purely on an assumption that the 
     Russians will comply with the START Treaties despite evidence 
     to the contrary.
       Start I has been agreed to, but only the United States is 
     complying. Start II is unratified. Implementation of either 
     treaty by Russia is far from assured, yet authors of the 
     review speak of the possibility of future cuts in a Start 
     III. A CIA analysis proposed for the Yeltsin-Clinton summit 
     this week confirms that Yeltsin ``will have difficulty 
     implementing'' existing Russian commitment. United States 
     forces have been cut in half since 1989 while Russian forces 
     have remained essentially static.
       Further, by recognizing the integrity of the ABM Treaty, 
     the administration has endorsed a deterrence policy based on 
     mutual assured destruction [MAD]. MAD assumes that 
     governments won't use nuclear weapons in anger because they 
     will be deterred from doing so by the certainty of their own 
     annihilation. As I said, the alternative is mutual assured 
     survival, based on strategic defenses, but the administration 
     has rejected that policy outright.
       The Nuclear Posture Review directly undercuts MAD by 
     refusing to support the need for a nuclear weapons production 
     complex to manufacture and maintain our capability. In 
     effect, what the administration has done is to select neither 
     MAD nor mutual assured survival and has left the security of 
     the United States to a highly deadly crap-shoot.
       Members of the Clinton administration give new meaning to 
     the immortal words of baseball great Yogi Berra: ``When you 
     come to a fork in the road, take it.''
       Of greatest concern is the short supply of tritium and our 
     lack of capability to produce it. Tritium is critical to the 
     successful functioning of a strategic weapon. It is a rare 
     gas that greatly enhances the explosive power of a warhead. 
     The problem is that tritium is an element with a half life of 
     only 12 years. That means that as soon as it is added to a 
     warhead it begins to deteriorate, losing its destructive 
     force. It must be replenished on a regularly scheduled basis. 
     We are running out of tritium. Because it deteriorates so 
     rapidly, it does no good to create a large stockpile of 
     tritium. It must be continually produced. The Clinton 
     administration, however, stopped all production, dismantled 
     our production facilities, and has made no plans for future 
     production.
       Since the beginning of the nuclear age, tritium has been 
     produced at the K reactor at the Savannah River site, South 
     Carolina. Not any more. The Clinton administration shut down 
     the K reactor and has begun to cannibalize its parts after 
     the Bush administration spent a lot of money to keep it 
     going. The United States, therefore, has no ability to 
     produce tritium. Russia does. Canada does too; neither will 
     sell us tritium.
       The United States will need new tritium no later than 2009. 
     If it starts tomorrow, it will take the Department of Energy 
     15 years to build a new production reactor to produce 
     tritium. The Department won't start tomorrow. DOE will not 
     even begin the process of selecting a production source or 
     begin preconstruction until 1996. And the Energy Secretary 
     has made it clear that environmental considerations will 
     dictate whether and when a new production facility will be 
     constructed.
       All of this means tritium won't be available until 2011, at 
     best. If anything goes wrong, one environmental license held 
     up or one construction date set back, it will be longer. 
     Meanwhile, during this period, the strategic forces will 
     continue to deteriorate. Questions will be raised about the 
     viability of our deterrent. The Russians, Chinese, and every 
     other Third World nuclear power will know this. Those with 
     disputes will test us.
       I've focused on just three challenges in our continuing 
     struggle. There are many more; but the opposition to an 
     effective missile defense system, the new ``hollow force,'' 
     and the deliberate destruction of our nuclear deterrent 
     require our immediate attention. To keep the flame alive we 
     will have to be more effective in galvanizing public opinion.
       To the extent we have succeeded it is because of entities 
     like the Center for Security Policy and previous recipients 
     of the Keeper of the Flame Award. I salute Frank Gaffney and 
     all who have worked so hard on behalf of our precious 
     freedom. We have much to do. But, we are sustained by the 
     knowledge that we are right. As we go forth tonight, let us 
     not forget what President Abraham Lincoln said in his address 
     at Coopers Union, New York: ``Let us have faith that right 
     makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do 
     our duty as we understand it.'' Good night.

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