[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12070-H12071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION EXCELLENCE

  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 just wanted, as we wind down the defense 
authorization conference, and I think we are going to have a bill very 
shortly for the country, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what 
we have done with that bill.
  You know, our chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spence], who is the first Republican chairman of the Committee on 
National Security in 40 years, put together an excellent bill this 
year, and he worked hand in glove with the chairman of the defense 
appropriation, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], to see to it 
that we had side-by-side packages that addressed a number of concerns 
of both the people who were the uniform in the armed services, and of 
course all Americans who are concerned about national security, and I 
just wanted to go over a couple of the things that we did.
  One thing that we did, and very basically, was we plused up the 
budget. We added money for equipment in very basic areas that is 
important to all uniformed people. I call it readiness spending. We 
spent money on ammunition. In my estimation we have about half the ammo 
that we need if we are going to fight two regional conflicts, and that 
means that the Marines, or the Army, or other services who are engaged 
in land conflict might find themselves running out of ammo about 
halfway through that fight. So, one thing that we did with this budget 
under the leadership of the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] 
is to put in about $1 billion extra for ammunition, all the way from M-
16 rounds to those so-called precision guided munitions that we saw on 
television during Desert Storm where the world's luckiest Iraqi taxicab 
driver just made it across the bridge before that one precision guided 
bomb went in and hit that one strut on the bridge and blew it up. We 
added those extra dollars for ammo because that is the best service you 
can do for your uniformed people because that is what keeps them alive 
in a fight, in a conflict.

  Another thing we did was increase sealift and airlift. We do not have 
enough ships and enough airlift to get our people to the battle in 
time, and because of that in the last war we had to actually go out and 
rent a bunch of ships. It is kind of a well-kept secret, but if our 
allies had not agreed with our purpose in Desert Storm, we might have 
been very much hurting for sealift, but the gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Spence] saw to it that we plused up sealift, plused up 
airlift, and we are now on our way to developing an excellent C-17 
aircraft that will be able to take big cargo into very short airstrips 
in troubled spots around the world.
  Another area that we involved ourselves in was missile defense, and I 
think, if there is any hallmark to this chairman's position, his tenure 
as chairman of the Committee on National Security, his hallmark is that 
he recognizes that we live in an age of missiles and that this Nation, 
the people of this Nation, have a right to be defended against incoming 
ballistic missiles, and our troops in theater should also be defended 
against some of those slower moving missiles like the Scuds that hit 
our troops in Desert Storm. So we have undertaken an aggressive program 
to provide what we call theater missile defenses. Those are short-range 
defenses against a slower moving ballistic missile so, if our troops 
are in Saudi Arabia, or on the Korean Peninsula, or other places around 
the world, and they are shot at by slow-moving ballistic missiles, we 
will be able to destroy those missiles before they reach our troops. 
The Republican leadership and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spence] have been the architects of that program.
  We also initiated a national missile defense, and the interesting 
thing is most Americans think we have one already, but, as you know, 
Mr. Speaker, we do not. We have no defenses against incoming 
intercontinental ballistic missiles, but we directed this 
administration to develop and deploy a national missile defense, and I 
think it is a step we should have taken a long time ago. Under this 
chairman Floyd Spence, our Republican chairman of the Committee on 
National Security, for the first time in 40 years we have taken that 
very important step.
  So we have an excellent package, Mr. Speaker, and I wish I had time 
to tell you about all of the things and the provisions that we have in 
this particular bill, but I think we can say to the American people 
that they will be more secure because of the chairmanship of the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] of the Committee on National 
Security and because of the extra dollars that we are putting 

[[Page H 12071]]
in defense and that insurance policy for the American people.

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