[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 28 (Monday, February 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1681-H1682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        AMERICAN MISSILE DEFENSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Weldon] and then to my friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Cunningham], to ask first the gentleman from Pennsylvania about his 
feeling with respect to H.R. 7, the Contract With America, regarding 
missile defense of the Nation and missile defense of our theater 
forces.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  First of all, in response to the comments of my colleague, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] the Russians also, as we 
know, have been selling their submarines. They recently sold at least 
two submarines to Iran.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Two Kilo class.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. And Iran has been doing very well in the 
training of those submarines, which presents a whole new threat for us, 
with Iranians having capability in the seas.
  The question of our colleague and friend on missile defense is an 
important one. This President changed our policy from the Reagan and 
Bush era with absolutely no warning to this Congress, to say that we no 
longer need to have a defensive system to protect 
[[Page H1682]] the American people, in spite of the ABM treaty, which 
allows the Russians to have the only operational ABM system in the 
entire world right now, which surrounds Moscow and which is in fact 
operational.

                              {time}  2250

  What we are saying in the contract is we want the Secretary of 
Defense unlike what we heard from one of our colleagues on the other 
side today say that we want immediately a space-based system. That is 
not what the contract provision says. It says that we want the 
Secretary to come back and tell us what kind of national ballistic 
missile system we can deploy now.
  In conversation with General O'Neill who heads ballistic missile 
defense last week and a follow-up meeting I am having this week, he 
says that at the basic we can install a program within 2 years that 
would cost no more than $5 billion over 5 years. So the figures we are 
going to hear on Wednesday and Thursday are going to be way out of line 
and are going to be more rhetoric than they are substance.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for reminding us that the Secretary 
of Defense did say he could build a system for the type of attack that 
he expects in the context of expecting some type of an offense against 
the United States, what he calls a thin attack. He said he could do it 
for $5 billion in a couple in years, and I think that the gentlewoman 
who
 propounded that question, our friend Mrs. Schroeder from Colorado was 
a little bit shocked at his low number, because I think she came back 
and said, ``Wait a minute. What's it going to cost total?'' And he 
said, ``$5 billion total.''

  In the context of the 5-year defense plan, that is roughly .004 of 
the total defense numbers, .004 of the budget. So that is not a number 
that is going to crowd out readiness or modernizing our military. The 
only thing that is going to crowd those things out is the President's 
budget itself. And the President himself has cut $9 billion just 
between FY 1995 and FY 1996 in modernization. So the President is doing 
the cutting. One slap of the pen by the President cutting $9 billion in 
modernization had doubled the impact on the modernization budget of 
building what Secretary Perry himself described as doable, that is, a 
missile defense nationally that will defend against the thin attack.
  So if we are asked would you rather have a defense that will defend 
against a thin attack or nothing, but absolutely naked, I think the 
American people say, give us something, give us some missile defense 
against that accidental launch or that third-world terrorist attack.
  I would be happy to yield to the fine gentleman from San Diego, my 
seat mate, Mr. Cunningham.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman from California.
  I think another important factor, and gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Weldon] brought it up. When we brought this bill up in the 
committee, we had 41 Republicans and Democrats vote for it. Only 13 
voted against it. I want to tell you, those 13, their politics would go 
good only in a small island off Florida.
  I would also like to remind the Members, Mr. Speaker, that the 
contract talks about not having U.S. troops under U.N. control. Very, 
very important. We lost 22 Rangers and 77 wounded in Somalia. Because, 
for example, it took 7 hours for our troops to get to all those Rangers 
that lost their lives and were wounded because the U.N. control had 
never used night goggles, it was at night, many of them did not speak 
English, some of them could not even drive the equipment. We want to 
eliminate that, and that is another reason for bipartisan support.
  The part that I am upset, the liberals that have done everything in 
their power to cut national security, to cut defense of this country 
now stand up and object at the majority when it is a bipartisan bill 
that is coming out of the committee itself, what same minority. We are 
glad that that leadership exists. Let them talk.


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