[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8554-H8555]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 THE B-2 BOMBER AND AMERICA'S READINESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Everett). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, today I want to address the House of 
Representatives in this special order on a very important issue that 
will come before the House tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, when 
we consider the defense appropriations bill. Since 1980, I have been a 
strong supporter of the policy of former President Carter and Secretary 
of Defense Harold Brown in initiating the stealth bomber, the B-2 
program.
  In the gulf war, we saw with vivid evidence the effectiveness of 
stealth technology when it was decided to use the F-117's against the 
most heavily defended targets inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The F-
117's, without the requirement for jammers and other support aircraft, 
were able to go in and attack the most heavily defended targets, using 
2,000 pound precision-guided munitions. They were able to knock out 
those radars and surface to air missiles almost instantly, and come 
back without out pilots being shot down.
  I believe that the B-2 bomber is just a bigger and better version of 
the F-117. It allows us to go five times as far and carry eight times 
as much conventional munitions and submunitions. With those same 2,000 
pounds, it could carry 16, each of which would be independently 
targetable.
  I think the most revolutionary thing about stealth technology is its 
capability against mobile targets. In a B-2 study that was done by Rand 
back in 1991, a simulation was used of Saddam Hussein's division, 
moving from Saudi Arabia into Kuwait. The B-2 was loaded up with 
sensor-fused weapons. Each B-2 could carry about 1,400 of these 
submunitions that looks like a puck with a parachute on top when 
dispensed. With Saddam's division coming into Kuwait, three B-2's 
interdicted it, dropped the sensor-fused weapons, and were able to 
knock out 46 percent of the mechanized vehicles including tanks in that 
division. That, Mr. Speaker, is a revolutionary conventional 
capability.
  The problem is that every study that has been done on the B-2 
indicates that having only 16 of them is simply not enough. The Rand 
study and the study that was done by Gen. Jasper Welch, stated that 
somewhere between 40 and 60 are needed. I in fact asked General Powell 
what he recommended to Dick Cheney, and he said, ``I recommended 50.''
  In my judgment, this is the most important defense decision we will 
be making in this decade. Seven former Secretaries of Defense wrote 
President Clinton urging him to procure additional B-2's. We have spent 
$44.4 billion to develop the technology for the B-2 bomber. We are now 
able to get an additional 20 B-2's for about $15.3 billion. In my mind, 
that is affordable. If we shut down the line, and if we come back to it 
in 5 or 10 years and say, ``My gosh, we do not have the bombers we need 
for the future,'' it will cost $10 billion just to open the line and we 
get nothing.
  My judgment is that there is another important issue that has been 
missed by the press. That is the cost of the munitions on these planes. 
If we have standoff weapons, which the administration supports, on the 
B-52's and the B-1-B's, first of all, they have no utility against 
mobile targets. No. 2, is that they cost $1.2 million per missile, 
because you have to have long-range missiles. They also cost about $15 
to $20 billion for a load of them.
  The cost of the weapons in the B-2 J-DAMS weapon is $320,000 for 16 
of them, and in my judgment, that is a major difference, one-fourth the 
cost of one cruise missile and a fraction of the cost of a load of 
missiles. In a few days of a major conflict, you could pay for the B-2 
simply by having these less expensive weapons, either the sensor-fused 
weapon or the J-DAMS. I think that is a major difference. I also 
believe, if we had enough B-2's, the potential someday for a 
conventional deterrent.
  What if we had been able to show Saddam that we had this capability 
and we could have avoided the gulf war? It cost us $10 billion to move 
all our forces out to the gulf. Then it cost $60 billion to prosecute 
the war, $70 billion was expended.
                              {time}  1330

  The cold war is over, yet we still have threats out there. People say 
there are no threats. Saddam still exists. We have problems with Iran, 
we have problems with North Korea. And in each of those scenarios, 
there could be military divisions coming across the borders into a 
neighboring country.
  In my judgment, having this long-range stealth bomber capability that 
can go in without any other support 

[[Page H 8555]]
aircraft with it, being able to attack mobile targets and also go after 
Scud launchers, that is a new capability that only the B-2 would have. 
To me this kind of revolutionary conventional capability is exactly 
what the country needs.
  So I hope my colleagues tomorrow will defeat the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] to take out the money for the B-2. 
I believe that this Stealth bomber is exactly what we need for the 
future, and I urge my colleagues to continue to support this important 
weapons system as we did on the defense authorization bill.

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