[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 74 (Thursday, May 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S5625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I take the floor to say that it appears to 
me we may be talking about National Missile Defense or the Defend 
America Act very soon. Perhaps it will even be laid down before we 
finish tonight so there is a cloture vote when we come back. I am not 
sure.
  I want to observe--and I have done this for years that I have been in 
Congress--that we just finished a budget in which there was a lot of 
talk about reducing the Federal deficit, the need to reduce Federal 
spending, and the Defend America Act, or the National Missile Defense 
Program, is a program, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 
that just to build--not to operate, just to build--will cost between 
$30 billion and $60 billion. Now, the operational costs will be much, 
much greater than that.

  It seems to me the funding question ought to be posed and ought to be 
answered by those who bring a spending program to the floor of the 
Senate that says let us spend up to an additional $60 billion more on a 
program that I do not think this country needs because the National 
Missile Defense Program, or the Defend America Act, will not truly be 
an astrodome over our country that will defend us against incoming 
missiles. It presumes that we should build a defense against ICBM's in 
the event a rogue nation would launch an ICBM with a nuclear tip 
against our country, or in the event there is an accidental nuclear 
launch against our country.
  Of course, a nuclear device might very likely come from a less 
sophisticated missile like a cruise missile. We have thousands and 
thousands and thousands of cruise missiles proliferating this world. 
They are much easier to get access to. A nuclear-tipped cruise missile 
is a much more likely threat to this country than the ICBM, or perhaps 
a suitcase and 20 pounds of plutonium and the opportunity to turn it 
into a nuclear device, or perhaps a glass vile no larger than this with 
the most deadly biological agents to mankind.
  Of course, we will spend $60 billion on a star wars program, at the 
end of which it will be obsolete and will not protect this country 
against that which we advertise we need protection.
  We had an ABM system built in North Dakota. Billions and billions of 
dollars in today's money went into that in northeastern North Dakota. 
It was declared mothballed the same month it was declared operational. 
In other words, the same month they declared operational a system which 
they said we desperately needed they decided would no longer be needed, 
and it sits up there as a concrete monument to bad planning. It was an 
expenditure of the taxpayers' money that, in my judgment, need not have 
been made.
  Now we are told that we have the need for a national defense program, 
or Defend America Act, of some type that will defend us only against a 
very narrow, limited threat, not a full-scale nuclear attack from an 
adversary, because it will not defend us against that, will not defend 
us against a nuclear attack of cruise missiles. It cannot do that. It 
will not defend us against a nuclear attack by a terrorist nation 
putting a nuclear bomb in a suitcase in the trunk of a Yugo car, a 
rusty old Yugo at a dock in New York City. But we are told $60 billion 
to build and how many tens of billions of dollars to operate is what is 
necessary.
  I say to those who will bring that to the floor, while you do that, 
please bring us a plan telling us who is going to pay the tax to build 
it. Where are you going to get the money? Who is going to pay the tax? 
And then describe why that is necessary and the fact when you get done 
you have not created the defense for America you say you are going to 
create.
  There are many needs that we have in this country in defense. Many 
remain unmet. This kind of proposal ranks well down, in my judgment, in 
the order of priorities. If it is technologically feasible to be built 
to protect this country, it ranks well down in the order of priorities. 
My hope is that we will have a full, aggressive, interesting debate on 
this because it is not a debate about pennies. It is a debate about a 
major, sizable spending program, new spending program at a time when we 
are trying to downsize and at a time when we are talking about the need 
to control Federal spending.

  Those who bring this to the floor of the Senate have an obligation to 
tell us how it is going to be paid for. The announcement of this so-
called Defend America Act was made at a press conference recently, and 
the question was asked: Where do you get the money for this? And the 
answer at the press conference by Members of the Senate was: Well, we 
will leave that to the experts.
  No, it will not be left to the experts. This Congress will have to 
decide who pays for a new Federal spending program that will cost $60 
billion plus and after being built will not in fact defend this country 
against a nuclear attack.
  There are many needs that we have in our defense system in this 
country. Some worry that we are in a circumstance where we will decide 
to downsize in defense too much: We will be unprepared to meet an 
adversary; we will be unprepared to meet a threat.
  I understand that. I understand this country has gone through this in 
previous periods, and I do not want us to be in that position. But I 
also understand that in every area of the armed services there are 
weapons programs that simply seem to have a life of their own and they 
tend to build and build, and they become not so much a justifiable 
program that is necessary to defend our country, but they become a 
program that is supported by a range of politicians and corporations 
and other interests that give it a life of its own, even when it 
becomes unnecessary or when the science and the technology demonstrate 
it is not needed.
  I hope we will have an aggressive discussion about this, about the 
threat and about the amount of proposed expenditure, and about who is 
going to come up with the money, and especially about whether, in fact, 
this is needed for this country's defense.
  Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence. I yield the floor, 
and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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