[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6386-S6404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
Amendment No. 4047
(Purpose: To freeze at the level programmed for fiscal year 1998 the
amount that may be expended for infrastructure programs of the
Department of Defense in order to increase funding for force
modernization)
Mr. GRASSLEY. My purpose for rising is to introduce an amendment. I
am not going to send the amendment to the desk quite yet. Also, I
inform the leadership on both sides of the aisle that I do not have any
intention of speaking for an extra long period of time. But before I
agree to a time limit, I want to make some opening remarks in regard to
my amendment. After that, I will have an opportunity to sit down and
probably work something out with the leadership on the time.
Mr. President, we are at a point in the defense authorization bill
where I want to bring up the point that we ought to be saving some
money in infrastructure costs, but we are not. We ought to be saving
some money in infrastructure costs because it is just natural that
infrastructure ought to be somewhat less as we downsize the military,
both from the standpoint of personnel and from the standpoint of the
number of bases we have, and a lot of other factors. The fact that we
really are not, the point of my amendment is to drive that point home,
but also to offer a plan that will allow us to guarantee that when we
are told that money should be saved, that it is in fact saved.
We are in a situation here, Mr. President, where from a political
standpoint we ought to have the votes to accomplish what I want to
accomplish. I do not anticipate that we do. I anticipate that we are in
a long process of educating the people of this country and the Members
of this body to the fact of what I have already stated, that if we are
going to close bases to save money, somewhere we ought to be able to
show the American people that here is X numbers of dollars we saved.
Because that is what we were told would happen; if we closed bases, we
would save money. But we have had even experts like the General
Accounting Office audit to identify the savings, and they have issued
reports that it is not saved.
But we are also in a political environment here where--in past years,
it has been very easy for us to make some points on saving money from
the standpoint of my being a conservative Republican. Leading the
efforts to cut the defense budget or to save money, I would almost have
the full support of Members on the Democratic side of the aisle because
they were generally of the opinion that Republican Presidents were
spending too much on defense, even wasting money on defense, so
fiscally minded Republicans, joining together with Democrats, would
have enough votes to actually win the battle and to save the taxpayers
money.
But now we have a political situation in the last 3 years where we
have a Democrat President and a Republican Congress, and we find people
on the Democratic side of the aisle, even though that President may be
spending money above and beyond the level he should be doing it as
Commander in Chief, they seem to be in a position where they want to
get behind their President even if they might disagree with him on the
amount of money he is spending. So we have a divided Democratic Party
more so than usual on the issue of saving defense money.
As is typical on this side of the aisle, my Republican side of the
aisle, it seems that there is a willingness just to give more money to
defense because somehow by giving more money you get more defense.
The point that I try to drive home so often to my colleagues and I
think it is legitimate; and I am speaking now just about people in this
body who consider
[[Page S6387]]
themselves conservative; and for the most part those are people who are
also registered as Republicans and elected to this body as
Republicans--is that we are constantly admonishing the other side of
the aisle, for decades, that you cannot solve in the typical way
liberals like to solve problems, throwing money at those problems, and
somehow just by spending more money on a lot of social problems, you
actually solve those problems; and we would always say, ``Well, you
know, it's not how much money you spend, but it's how you spend it, and
how you invest it, whether or not you're going to get your money's
worth.''
We do not seem to have the same caution on this side of the aisle
when it comes to money for defense. We seem to take the attitude that
if you just put more money in the defense budget, give more money to
the Pentagon, somehow you are just automatically going to have more
defense.
I raise this argument more so at the level of adopting the budget as
opposed to the defense authorization bill. I suppose that is really a
better place to make that generic argument about more money for defense
or less money for defense. But I think it is legitimate, when we are
dealing with a very specific item like infrastructure costs, and
particularly when we were told over the last several years that if we
close bases we ought to save money, and if we cut down on the number of
personnel in the Defense Department we ought to save money, that after
a few years of that argument, you ought to be able to look and say,
``Yes. We have saved X number of dollars. Here it is.'' I would have
believed it. The General Accounting Office expected to find it. But the
reports of the General Accounting Office do not confirm those savings.
The point is, savings are real things. You ought to be able to see
them. My amendment is geared toward the proposition that if there is
going to be savings, we ought to know where those savings are and what
they ought to be used for and that, if they are going to still be spent
in the defense budget and not reduce the deficit, at least we ought to
know what they buy. So that is the basis for my amendment.
But I will to get into more detail about my amendment, more specifics
in just a moment. I want to remind my colleagues of the debate we had
on April 15 in this body. It was a very excellent debate on what the
size of the defense budget should be. At that point, the budget
resolution we had before us had already added in an extra $12 billion
to the budget for defense. That is $12 billion over and above what the
President had recommended that we spend on defense. I opposed that
move. I opposed it by offering an amendment to cut back most of that
money. The vote was 57 to 42 against what I was trying to accomplish.
The majority rules in this body, and I am willing to accept it. But
all that extra money then is in the bill before us as a result of the
decision that we made on the budget resolution and also the decision of
the Senate Armed Services Committee to go to the maximum allowed under
the budget resolution.
Most of this money is for modernization of our military capabilities.
But, sadly, an analysis of the bill shows that $12 billion does not buy
much at the Pentagon. That should come as no surprise to people who
have been watching the defense budget and how the Defense Department
has operated over a long, long period of time. It does not come as any
surprise to me.
The money has been spread around in so many different areas that all
we end up with is a few bits and pieces. If you would take the key area
of combat aircraft as an example, this is what we get. We get six extra
F-18's, two extra AV-8B's, four extra F-16's. That is it, 12 more
fighters. The military needs to buy hundreds of fighters each year to
modernize the force. The other areas are not much better. We do get a
few extra missiles, a few extra transports, a few extra helicopters.
But I might say that we do not get one extra ship for the Navy, as an
example.
Now, all of this added together, I suppose somebody is going to make
a case that it is absolutely needed and it is going to improve and
modernize our military considerably. But it seems to me that when you
see exactly what we get, then it is not even a reasonable downpayment
on modernization. And $12 billion--of course, when you look at what
this bill has for a total expenditure for a year--happens to be peanuts
at the Pentagon, kind of a drop in the bucket.
So this brings me to a point that I have hammered on for years, as I
indicated, admonishing my colleagues, particularly on the Republican
side of the aisle, that throwing more money at the Department of
Defense is not going to solve the problem. We will never succeed in
modernizing the force structure at these prices without fundamental
reform.
Now, it happens that there are even outstanding members of the Armed
Services Committee that have been fighting a long time for fundamental
reform. I want to commend my colleagues for fighting for fundamental
reform. I think that fundamental reform is very, very important to make
sure that whatever extra money we spend--including the $250-some-
billion we are going to spend--is invested wisely and we get the most
bang for the buck. But it seems to me that the reform ought to go ahead
of the additional $12 billion.
We have had some types of reform over the last 15 years. But, again,
we think we make some dramatic changes--what we feel are dramatic
changes--in the way the Defense Department does business. After you
look back at it, you really do not see the changes come about that we
had hoped for when we passed the reforms or the reforms that go on
within the Defense Department that can be done without actually passing
the legislation.
We have had a host of defense reforms, one after the other. But there
tends to be a big gap between promises and reality. None of these
reforms have worked completely as advertised. We do not get all of the
desired impact that we want to have.
Some could even been classified as bureaucratic tricks to cover for
business as usual. It all leads up to the fact that what the Department
of Defense needs to do is to find a new way of doing business--a
completely new way of doing business, a new attitude, a new culture
there. But, in fact, we really never really get the complete changes
that ought to be made so that we get our money's worth when we put
additional money in for modernization, or anything else.
If we do not get this fundamental reform, I think we still have to
say, as good as our Armed Forces are, how much better they could be,
how much more we would get for our investment of money if these reforms
would really happen. We are talking about changing a basic culture. To
do that, you need new ideas and new strategies. Most importantly, you
need a disciplined management. You have to find ways to make reforms
work--and work now, not later--not in the year 2001.
So I am suggesting in the amendment, which I will deposit at the desk
shortly, a way of making sure that we get real modernization with the
savings that we are supposed to get from infrastructure savings. We
have already had four rounds of base closures. We have had a shrinking
force. This should mean savings in infrastructure accounts. The
Department of Defense has promised these savings, but the savings, as I
have indicated, are not there. So promises do not match the reality.
My amendment would, hopefully, make the savings real. So this is what
I propose to do would accomplish that goal. I will give you seven
specific objectives of my amendment.
The first is to seek to establish a better balance between force
structure and infrastructure costs. I will show you, eventually, how
there is an imbalance there--an imbalance that does not make sense to
me, but it is still an imbalance.
Second, this balance would be brought about and achieved by freezing
the infrastructure budget at the fiscal year 1998 level of $145
billion. The freeze would save $10 billion in fiscal year 1998 to the
year 2001.
Fourth, the Secretary of Defense would transfer the savings to the
procurement accounts to pay for modernization. This is the key, then,
to getting money from savings that we ought to be able to account for
and get it into modernization, not into overhead. That ought to be
going down; instead, it is going up.
The fifth point is that key readiness accounts would be protected.
That
[[Page S6388]]
would be like for spare parts, training, and a lot of other things like
that.
Sixth, the savings would be reflected in the future years' defense
program submitted to Congress next year so that we would be able to
know what it was and to see it and to have it accounted for.
Seventh, we would have the Comptroller General review and verify the
savings, so we have somebody outside of the Defense Department, with no
vested interest, verifying what Defense does, in the sense of just the
accounting, or being accountable for the money, and not micromanaging
anything that the Secretary of Defense might do.
Now, what is going to be strange to the managers of this bill--both
Republican and Democrat--is that I see my goals being 100 percent
consistent with the Department of Defense plans. So you take what they
say they want to do, which, as I have indicated, is not being done, and
make sure that it is done. It seems to me that if there is anyplace for
the Congress of the United States to be involved in some detail of the
Defense Department's work, it is nothing more than to make sure that
they do what they say they are going to do, what they report to us they
are going to do, to kind of make their performance in office
commensurate with their rhetoric. That's making them accountable. That
is perfectly consistent with constitutional oversight functions of the
Congress of the United States.
This DOD plan was presented to the Armed Services Committee as
recently as March 5, 1996. At that time, Secretary of Defense Perry
testified that $10 billion in savings from base closings would be used
to pay for modernization. A very distinguished member of the Armed
Services Committee who was just here--and I suppose he is going to
speak on my amendment. I am glad to have him engage in this debate. But
we know this very distinguished member as a person who is a real hero
for the defense of our country as well as being a very good Senator,
John McCain. I am going to say he also agrees. He may stand up here
shortly and say that he disagrees, but at least I want to give my
version of that.
He has said that there is a gross imbalance between our military
forces and the infrastructure. He says we need to eliminate excess
infrastructure, we need to save money. He has a white paper on our
national defense. That is the way I interpret it. There is just one
minor problem on what the Secretary of Defense said on March 5 of this
year when he was going to take this $10 billion in savings from the
base closings and use it for modernization. The savings promised by Mr.
Perry do not exist. The General Accounting Office just audited those
accounts. You cannot find any savings. The savings have evaporated into
thin air.
Mr. President, earlier this year, on April 25, I spoke about the
General Accounting Office report on this subject. What I said then I am
going to repeat now. Anybody can read that. It is entitled, ``Defense
Infrastructure: Budget Estimates for 1996-2001 Offer Little Savings for
Modernization.'' It was published on April 4, just 2 months ago.
Unfortunately, it was based on the fiscal year 1996 future year defense
program publication.
The fiscal year 1996 future year defense program was submitted to
Congress over a year ago. So I suppose to some extent, as things move
very rapidly, it is somewhat out of date. It is at least a year old. I
thought I should have more current data. I thought that the Pentagon
bureaucrats might have been able to get their act together since last
year. Maybe they succeeded in getting infrastructure costs on the right
track. I think we could legitimately surmise that they should have done
that.
So not being able to get this information, I wrote to Mr. Bowsher on
May 10 of this year asking him to provide me the updated information
drawn from the fiscal year 1997 future year defense plan. I thank Mr.
Bowsher and his expert staff, including Mr. Bill Crocker, for working
so hard and to turn around my request in less than 2 weeks. That is
pretty fast even for a responsible organization like the General
Accounting Office. It must be a record.
I have the General Accounting Office's brandnew report right here
with me. It is entitled, ``Defense Infrastructure: Cost Projected To
Increase Between 1997 and 2001.'' This is dated May 1996.
Before I get started, I think it is important to define
infrastructure cost. This is the money that DOD spends to house, train,
and support the Armed Forces and keep them ready to go. The General
Accounting Office has provided a brief description in this publication
of each category of infrastructure costs. The General Accounting Office
has also provided a table that shows how infrastructure costs are
spread across the various appropriations accounts.
I ask unanimous consent to have that material printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Categories of Defense Infrastructure
Installation support consists of activities that furnish
funding, equipment, and personnel to provide facilities from
which defense forces operate. Activities include construction
planning and design, real property maintenance, base
operating support, real estate management for active and
reserve bases, family housing and bachelor housing, supply
operations, base closure activities, and environmental
programs.
Acquisition infrastructure consists of all program elements
that support program management, program offices, and
production support, including acquisition headquarters,
science and technology, and test and evaluation resources.
This category includes earlier levels of research and
development, including basic research, exploratory
development, and advanced development.
Central logistics consists of programs that provide support
to centrally managed logistics organizations, including the
management of material, operation of supply systems,
maintenance activities, material transportation, base
operations and support, communications, and minor
construction. This category also includes program elements
that provide resources for commissaries and military exchange
operations.
Central training consists of program elements that provide
resources for virtually all non-unit training, including
training for new personnel, aviation and flight training,
military academies, officer training corps, other college
commissioning programs, and officer and enlisted training
schools.
Central medical consists of programs that furnish funding,
equipment, and personnel that provide medical care to active
military personnel, dependents, and retirees. Activities
provide for all patient care, except for that provided by
medical units that are part of direct support units.
Activities include medical training, management of the
medical system, and support of medical installations.
Central personnel consists of all programs that provide for
the recruiting of new personnel and the management and
support of dependent schools, community, youth, and family
centers, and child development activities. Other programs
supporting personnel include permanent change of station
costs, personnel in transit, civilian disability
compensation, veterans education assistance, and other
miscellaneous personnel support activities.
Command, control, and communications consists of programs
that manage all aspects of the command, control, and
communications infrastructure for DOD facilities, information
support services, mapping and charting products, and security
support. This category includes program elements that provide
nontactical telephone services, the General Defense
Intelligence Program and cryptological activities, the Global
Positioning System, and support of air traffic control
facilities.
Force management consists of all programs that provide
funding, equipment, and personnel for the management and
operation of all the major military command headquarters
activities. Force management also includes program elements
that provide resources for defense-wide departmental
headquarters, management of international programs, support
to other defense organizations and federal government
agencies, security investigate services, public affairs
activities, and criminal and judicial activities.
TABLE 2.--DIRECT INFRASTRUCTURE BY APPROPRIATION, FISCAL YEARS 1997-2001
[Dollars in billions]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year--
Appropriation -------------------------------------------------
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operation and maintenance..................................... $56.30 $56.17 $56.41 $57.57 $59.50
[[Page S6389]]
Military personnel............................................ 33.53 33.10 33.67 34.33 35.20
Research, development, test, and evaluation................... 10.47 10.89 11.20 11.43 11.89
Military construction......................................... 4.99 4.15 4.15 3.84 3.96
Family housing................................................ 3.98 3.84 4.08 4.08 4.12
Procurement................................................... 2.38 2.53 3.48 3.21 3.46
Revolving funds and other \1\................................. 0.93 1.11 1.06 1.13 1.17
-------------------------------------------------
Total direct infrastructure \2\......................... $112.58 $111.80 $114.05 $115.61 $119.30
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These include adjustments for foreign currency fluctuations and service and Defense Logistics Agency managed
stock fund cash requirements.
\2\ Totals may not add due to rounding.
Source: GAO analysis of DOS data.
agency comments
The data and analysis in this report were provided to DOD
for review and comment. In oral comments, DOD stated the data
were complete and accurate with the analysis.
scope and methodology
To define and evaluate DOD's infrastructure activities in
the 1997 FYDP, we interviewed the acting Director, Force and
Infrastructure Analysis Division in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, Program Analysis and Evaluation. Our
analyses are based on data contained in the fiscal year 1997
FYDP. In addition to the FYDP and associated annexes, we
reviewed DOD's Reference Manual for Defense Mission
Categories, Infrastructure Categories, and Program Elements,
prepared in conjunction with the Institute for Defense
Analysis. We also reviewed the President's fiscal year 1997
budget submission and our prior reports.
Our work was conducted during the month of May 1996 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I wish I could say, Mr. President, that the Department
of Defense has turned the corner. I wish I could report that
infrastructure costs were coming down. But the latest report of the
General Accounting Office tells me that nothing has changed since the
last future year defense plan, meaning 1996. The trends have to be the
same. The Pentagon still has infrastructure costs on the wrong track.
They are still on an up-ramp instead of on a down-ramp. This is what
the new data show. As the Department of Defense budget top line goes
up, infrastructure costs go up. Infrastructure costs should come down
even if the top line goes up. The infrastructure costs ought to be
decoupled from the top line. The infrastructure costs need to be
recoupled to the force structure because that is what Secretary Perry
says is his intent.
The infrastructure costs in the military force structures are not in
sync. They are out of whack. We need to bring them back into balance.
As I read what Senator McCain has written in his white paper, he says
that is what we must do as well. But that is not what has happened. The
Department of Defense seems to be creating new infrastructure faster
than the old stuff is made excess.
That is what this new data tells us. This is its new data that the
General Accounting Office has followed for 1 year that was not
available until the General Accounting Office updated it. It shows a
steady increase in the infrastructure costs for fiscal year 1997
through fiscal year 2001.
I want to repeat. There is a very steady increase from $146 billion
in fiscal year 1997. It dips by $1 billion to $145 billion in 1998, but
then it goes right back up to $148 billion in 1999; $2 billion more in
the year 2000. Then it leaps by $5 billion to $155 billion in the year
2001. That is a projected increase of $9 billion over the next 5 years.
If Congress keeps pumping up the defense budget, these numbers will
increase even more.
The data portrayed on table 1 of this new General Accounting Office
report is particularly troublesome.
I also ask unanimous consent at this point to have table 1 printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
TABLE 1.--PROJECTED FUNDING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE CATEGORIES, FISCAL YEARS 1997-2001
[In billions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infrastructure categories FY 1997 FY 1998 FY 1999 FY 2000 FY 2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation support............................................... 25.10 23.64 22.68 22.53 23.03
Central training................................................... 19.35 19.40 20.08 20.71 21.46
Central medical.................................................... 15.47 15.82 16.13 16.64 17.38
Central logistics.................................................. 13.33 13.30 14.18 14.15 14.70
Force management................................................... 12.91 12.38 13.05 13.12 13.35
Acquisition infrastructure......................................... 10.25 10.64 10.97 11.19 11.76
Central personnel.................................................. 10.33 10.24 10.41 10.60 10.83
Central command, control, and communications....................... 5.78 5.84 6.05 6.05 6.20
Resource adjustments \1\........................................... .05 .53 .50 .62 .58
Total direct infrastructure \2\.................................. 112.58 111.80 114.05 115.61 119.30
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These include adjustments for foreign currency fluctuations and service and Defense Logistics Agency managed
stock fund cash requirements.
\2\ Totals may not add due to rounding.
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data.
As shown in figure 3 and table 2, most direct
infrastructure activities are funded by operation and
maintenance and military personnel appropriations. Thus, if
DOD is to achieve significant infrastructure savings for
future force modernization, the savings must come from these
accounts. However, these appropriations have been closely
associated with the readiness and quality-of-life of the
force, the Secretary of Defense's priority areas for the last
few years.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this table breaks the infrastructure
costs into nine distinct categories. The new General Accounting Office
data shows major increases in every category, with one important
exception, and that would be installation support. Even installation
support shows increases in the outyears. The four BRAC commissions
proposed closing 97 bases. Yet, installation support costs are
projected to rise. I think it is legitimate to ask why. Is it because
few, if any, of those bases have really been closed?
The downstream savings promised by base closings and a shrinking
force structure should be reflected in these numbers, but they are not.
We should be able to identify where the savings are. I do not expect to
see any savings. We will not ever see those savings unless we hold the
Department's feet to the fire.
A comparison of the numbers in the fiscal year 1996 future year
defense plan with the numbers in the 1997 future year defense plan
suggests that installation support figures on table 1 are misleading.
That comparison reveals a shocking trend. That comparison suggests that
base support costs will actually increase by $1 billion per year
between the years 1997 and the year 2001.
Take fiscal year 1997 just for example. The fiscal year 1997 column
in the 1996 future year defense plan shows installation costs at $23.96
billion.
Then if you go over to the fiscal year 1997 column, in the the 1997
future year defense plan, the number goes up to $25.1 billion. That is
an increase of $1.14 billion in 1 year in projected installation
support. The next year it is the same thing. The number goes from
$22.76 billion up to $23.64 billion, and that is an increase of $900
million.
I need to clarify one point about the numbers. The numbers on the
table that I have submitted for the Record do not match up with the
totals for the infrastructure costs that I used a moment ago, and there
is a reason for that discrepancy. About $35 billion in infrastructure
costs get lost in what we refer to as DBOF--that stands for Defense
business operation fund--each year. We know the money is in there
someplace, but the General Accounting Office cannot track it because
dollars in the Defense business operation fund are not identified in
the future year defense program.
And so I think it is very ironic because DBOF was established to
improve cost accounting at the Pentagon. In fact, that was the whole
idea about DBOF. Here is $35 billion in annual DOD costs that cannot be
tracked because of the Defense business operation fund. We cannot audit
them because of the fund. The fund is an obstacle to accurate cost
accounting.
There is yet another problem. That problem is that the Department of
Defense had a $4 billion plug figure in last year's numbers, and they
pulled it out of the new future year defense plan,
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making it look as if some of the funding levels were coming down. The
Department of Defense said the $4 billion that was plugged in for last
year was miscoded. The miscoded dollars were pulled out of the
infrastructure costs and, in a sense, just heaved overboard. I suppose
somebody could say they were transferred to another part of the future
year defense plan, but if they cannot be tracked, no one knows.
That makes me think they are kind of phony numbers.
In a nutshell, Mr. President, that is what is in this latest report
of the General Accounting Office on defense infrastructure. I hope my
colleagues will take this as I have referred to it for several minutes
here, taking statistics from it, to make a case for my amendment that I
will offer.
This latest report, I think, states for another year that Mr. Perry's
promised savings are nowhere in sight. His $60 billion modernization
plan then is, if the savings are not available, hung out to dry. It is
dead in the water.
And so I come here pleading with my colleagues that Congress needs to
help Mr. Perry. Without a doubt, reason is on his side.
On March 5, he presented to the Congress of the United States through
the Armed Services Committee that there is going to be x amount of
savings, and this is the resource for modernization. That all makes
sense, right? But is it going to happen? With an increase in
infrastructure costs and overhead, it is going to be eaten up someplace
else. The modernization that we think we are planning on being there is
not going to materialize. In fact, at the beginning of my time today I
pointed out how little we actually get for modernization when you look
at the materiel that is purchased.
So I cannot come here and condemn Mr. Perry for not having good
intent and a plan that he thinks will accomplish what he wants to
accomplish. But it just is not going to happen. So my amendment would
make sure that money finds its way into modernization and not into this
overhead and infrastructure cost where it is going to inevitably end up
because four rounds of base closings and a shrinking force structure
should be producing substantial savings. Because it should be producing
substantial savings, we ought to identify those savings and reserve
them for the purpose that Mr. Perry suggested. He wants to recover
those savings to pay for modernization. And so unless we freeze these
accounts, the savings are going to be frittered away on new
infrastructure projects. My amendment will help Mr. Perry do what he
says must be done.
I send my amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley] proposes an amendment
numbered 4047.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of subtitle A of title X add the following:
SEC. . FORCE MODERNIZATION FUNDED BY REDUCTIONS IN SPENDING
FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAMS.
(a) Funding Freeze at Programmed Level for Fiscal Year
1998.--The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the total
amount expended for infrastructure programs for each of
fiscal years 1998 through 2001 does not exceed
$145,000,000,000.
(b) Use of Savings for Force Modernization.--The Secretary
of Defense shall take the actions necessary to program for
procurement for force modernization for the fiscal years
referred to in subsection (a) the amount of the savings in
expenditures for infrastructure programs that is derived from
actions taken to carry out that subsection.
(c) Protection of Program for Spare Parts and Training.--In
formulating the future-years defense programs to be submitted
to Congress in fiscal year 1997 (for fiscal year 1998 and
following fiscal years), fiscal year 1998 (for fiscal year
1999 and following fiscal years), fiscal year 1999 (for
fiscal year 2000 and following fiscal years), and fiscal year
2000 (for fiscal year 2001 and following fiscal years), the
Secretary shall preserve the growth in programmed funding for
spare parts and training for fiscal years 1998 through 2001
that is provided in the future-years defense program that was
submitted to Congress in fiscal year 1996.
(d) Reductions To Be Shown in Fiscal year 1998 Future-Years
Defense Program.--The future-years defense program submitted
to Congress in fiscal year 1997 shall reflect the programming
for the reduction in expenditures for infrastructure programs
that is necessary to carry out subsection (a) and the
programming for force modernization that is required by
subsection (b).
(e) GAO Review of Fiscal Year 1998 Future-Years Defense
Program.--The Comptroller General shall review the future-
years defense program referred to in subsection (c) and, not
later than May 1, 1997, submit to Congress a report regarding
compliance with that subsection. The report shall include a
discussion of the extent, if any, to which the compliance is
deficient or cannot be ascertained.
(f) Infrastructure Programs Defined.--For the purposes of
this section, infrastructure programs are programs of the
Department of Defense that are composed of activities that
provide support services for mission programs of the
Department of Defense and operate primarily from fixed
locations. Infrastructure programs include program elements
in the following categories:
(1) Acquisition infrastructure.
(2) Installation support.
(3) Central command, control, and communications.
(4) Force management.
(5) Central logistics.
(6) Central medical.
(7) Central personnel.
(8) Central training.
(9) Resource adjustments for foreign currency fluctuations
and Defense Logistics Agency managed stock fund cash
requirements.
(g) Future--Years Defense Program Defined.--As used in this
section, the term ``future-years defense program'' means the
future-years defense program submitted to Congress pursuant
to section 221 of title 10, United States Code.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I should like to inquire of the
distinguished Senator if he is willing to enter into a time agreement
on this amendment?
Mr. GRASSLEY. You propose one, and then I will respond after it is
proposed.
Mr. THURMOND. I would suggest maybe 20 minutes to a side.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes.
Mr. THURMOND. Is that agreeable?
Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes, that is agreeable.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time on
the Grassley amendment be limited to 40 minutes equally divided in the
usual form and that no amendments be in order, and that following the
use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on or in
relation to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I say to the manager of the bill, I would like to yield
the floor now and listen to the opposition to my amendment before I
speak again.
Mr. THURMOND. As I understand, the Senator is willing to agree to 40
minutes equally divided.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes. We have already agreed to that. So I have 20
minutes that I control and you have 20 minutes that you control.
Mr. THURMOND. That is correct.
Mr. GRASSLEY. If the Senator would be so kind, I would like to have
him use some of his 20 minutes so I can hear the opposition to my
amendment, and then I would like to respond to that.
Mr. THURMOND. I will be glad to speak at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to this
amendment. If the Senate votes to pass this provision and it is
eventually signed into law, it could have a serious negative impact on
the readiness of our military forces.
Like my good friend, the Senator from Iowa, I am concerned about the
amount of money that the Department of Defense annually expends for
infrastructure. In fact, the Defense authorization bill that we are
considering now and is before us, reduces such programs by
approximately $600 million and allocates these funds for higher
priority programs including force modernization.
Mr. President, I believe that we should carefully examine any
reduction that is proposed in order to ensure that we do not adversely
impact our military forces. I am sure that my fellow Senators will
agree with me when
[[Page S6391]]
I say that we do not want to jeopardize our national security or the
men and women in uniform who protect that security.
With this in mind, I must inform my colleagues that the proposed
amendment could force severe funding reductions to important programs
such as the medical care of military personnel, military housing, and
military intelligence activities. Are we sure we can reduce these
programs without negatively impacting upon military readiness?
Does the Senator from Iowa really believe that we should reduce such
programs? Does he want to deny health care to our men and women in
uniform? Does he want to force the families of military personnel to
live in substandard housing? Mr. President, I cannot speak for every
Member of this Chamber, but I know that I cannot support such
reductions.
Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Iowa that we must look
for new and innovative management practices in order to find ways to
shift funds from the infrastructure accounts to the modernization
accounts. However, we must be sure that the shifting of such funds does
not significantly impair military readiness. Reducing funds for
unnecessary infrastructure is a task which the Armed Services Committee
performs each year during its markup of the Defense Authorization Act
and, as I have already noted, this year we reduced such funds by $600
million. In addition, the bill before us today includes a provision
that would require the Department to examine new ways of maintaining
its forces in order to further reduce funding required for day-to-day
operations, and make these funds available for force modernization.
Mr. President, I cannot advocate, nor agree to support, an arbitrary
cut such as that advocated by this amendment. We must preserve the
flexibility of the President and the Secretary of Defense to request
what they believe is necessary to ensure our national security. If the
Congress disagrees with this request, it can authorize and appropriate
a different mix of funding.
Mr. President, I urge my fellow Senators to vote ``no'' on the
Grassley amendment.
Mr. President, I now yield to the able Senator from Arizona, Senator
McCain.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa who
continues to be a persistent, constructive critic of defense issues,
especially in the area of spending. I think this GAO report is a good
one and should have a sobering effect on our defense planners, who
somehow believe and support a precept that I have long questioned, and
that is that base closings and other savings are going to support the
modernization of the force.
The Senator from Iowa, I think, through his efforts, and also that of
this GAO report, points out clearly that there are not going to be
savings. In fact, according to this GAO study--which I must say needs
to be fleshed out, I am sure my colleague from Iowa would agree--it
shows there is going to be an increase in cost.
Just one example of that, one of the clear reasons for that, is the
base closing issue. We believed for a long time there would be enormous
savings associated with base closures. Those bases needed to be closed.
More need to be closed. But the fact is we are not realizing those
savings. In fact, the opposite has been the case. Rather than sell the
valuable land on which these bases reside, we give it away to the local
community. We are finding more and more toxic waste sites and areas of
pollution that need to be cleaned up, and anyone who has ever had any
contact with that issue knows that the costs rapidly spiral in a
dramatic fashion when you are talking about cleanups. In fact, as the
Senator from Iowa points out, these costs have been much higher, much,
much higher than we had originally estimated.
The Senator from Iowa was kind enough to make reference to the white
paper that I did concerning tiered readiness, and this GAO report and
his amendment highlight the absolute criticality of making the kind of
hard choices which we are not making today because there is no possible
way we are going to maintain the level of readiness, operations, and
training of our Armed Forces and at the same time modernize the force.
We have a Hobson's choice, because the money simply is not there and,
as the Senator from Iowa correctly points out, much less money is there
than even we had envisioned. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
has stated on numerous occasions that we need about $60 billion for the
purchase of modernization. We have, the last number I saw, was about
$30 billion.
Having said all those things, I still have to disagree with this
amendment. One reason is because of its scope. For example, the
amendment calls for reductions in spending for such programs as health
care, personnel, and training. I do not see how you can impose
arbitrary cuts on those programs. One of the aspects that we are most
proud of in the military today is the quality of life, that is, the
quality of young men and women that we have been able to attract and
keep in the military. I am not sure that we could maintain that if we
just, across the board, forced certain cuts without designating where
they should be.
I want to emphasize that I believe we are spending money in ways that
are really not appropriate. In this year's bill we added some $600
million in military construction that was not needed. We add two new
oceanographic ships for $99.4 million. We have added $13 million to
fund a new bureaucracy in the case of civilian research in
oceanography. We are going to add on $15 million for the High Frequency
Active Aural Research Program. This program has benefited from
congressional add-ons since 1990, costing a total of $76 million in
just 7 years, with another $115 million required. We continue to
purchase B-2 bombers. In this bill we included an additional $759
million in the National Guard and Reserve equipment account, plus as
much as $242 million in additional unrequested equipment earmarked for
the Guard and Reserve in the regular service procurement accounts.
Within this amount is $284 million for six unrequested C-140J aircraft
for the Guard and Reserve, a tactical airlift aircraft that the Air
Force has not yet been able to afford.
Mr. President, the list goes on and we are spending money that we
should not spend. We have lost sight of the fundamental reason why we
spend money on defense, and that is to defend the security of the
Nation.
I strongly suggest to my friend from Iowa that there are different
ways of doing this. I look forward to working with him on this. I will
have a couple of amendments that I hope will impose some savings. I am
told there will be some additional military construction projects which
will be attempted to be added to the bill here on the floor. I hope my
colleague from Iowa will help me in trying to defeat those, although I
am not totally optimistic about chances of success.
But, as I oppose the amendment, I thank my colleague from Iowa
because the fact is that the American people are losing confidence that
their tax dollars that are earmarked for defense are being spent
wisely. If that continued erosion reaches its logical conclusion,
sooner or later we are going to reach a point where the American people
will not support sufficient funding to meet our vital national security
interests.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Nine minutes twenty seconds.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
First of all, I accept Senator McCain's offer to work with him on
this issue, because I am very impressed with the intent of his white
paper and his first-hand knowledge of the military, being the military
hero that he is and serving our country so well and being on the Armed
Services Committee and his expertise in that area. So whether my
amendment is adopted or not, I accept the offer to work with Senator
McCain.
I would, first of all, like to respond to some specific points both
Senator Thurmond and Senator McCain raised, but also to give an example
from military persons themselves about what
[[Page S6392]]
needs to be done about infrastructure costs and his frustration that
infrastructure costs have not gone down.
First of all, on the legitimacy of questioning whether my amendment
is going to hurt funding for command and control and for medical
support, it will not, but it seems to me, without my saying it, common
sense ought to dictate that a shrinking force structure and fewer
military bases should reduce command and control and medical
requirements.
My amendment would, in fact, just freeze; it would not reduce. It
would reduce increases, yes, but there are no cuts that come as a
result of my amendment. Increasing infrastructure costs are
inconsistent with the philosophy behind the base closure process. My
amendment would hold the Department of Defense infrastructure costs at
$145 billion per year. Now, remember, this is, as we are, in a process
of closing bases and reducing the number of personnel connected with
defense.
It seems to me that the Department of Defense needs to address the
critical shortfalls and allocate money to meet the highest priorities
within the infrastructure accounts. At this point in the base closure
process and at this point in the reduction of personnel, infrastructure
should not be on the rise.
We need to make sure that we eliminate the excess infrastructure and
that we save the money that Secretary Perry promised, not just for the
sake of saving money, but Secretary Perry says that is money that we
are going to use for modernization. If it goes to infrastructure costs,
which are going up, it is not going to go for modernization.
It was also suggested that my amendment might harm training and
readiness, but very specifically I want to address that issue.
Subsection (C) of my amendment specifically protects key readiness
accounts, including training and spare parts.
I now want to refer to some remarks that were made by Marine Maj.
Gen. John Sheehan. He is the commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic
Command. I think he made some very pertinent remarks, a person in the
military, a person in command who views how the taxpayers' dollars are
being used every day. If you do not want to listen to a civilian's
point of view, like the Senator from Iowa has a civilian point of view,
it seems to me that we ought to pay some attention to those who are in
the military, because General Sheehan offers some very real insight.
His insights were given at a June 6 breakfast hosted by the
Association of the U.S. Army's Institute for Land Warfare. I have
excerpts of his comments from a trade journal called Inside the
Pentagon. It was in the June 13 issue, page 20.
In a nutshell, this is what General Sheehan said:
The overflow of staff organizations within the Department
of Defense consumes too many personnel and resources and puts
the force structure at risk.
That is a major general who said that.
Opponents of my amendment say it is going to put certain aspects,
like readiness and training and command and control and medical
treatment, in jeopardy. Here is a major general who says what we are
doing now, if we maintain the status quo, is putting our force
structure at risk. Of course, he is talking about the Department of
Defense infrastructure. This is what General Sheehan had to say:
There is a debate that's being formed right now, where the
only sides in the debate are modernization versus force
structure. . .
He says:
My argument says we ought to take a very serious top-down
look at the overhead costs of doing business.
He asked:
Why do we have so many headquarters? Of what value are
they?
The general has identified one of the big drivers in infrastructure
costs, and he has identified them as excess headquarters and excess
commands. General Sheehan says:
We have too many excess headquarters and too many commands.
So he has put his finger on one of the root causes of the problem.
He pinpoints the problem, and I want to quote from his report. He
says:
There are 199 DOD staff organizations of two-star level or
above, and the number has not changed since 1989.
I say, parenthetically, that is about the time the Berlin Wall came
down.
His 1989 benchmark is important because the force has shrunk 30 to 40
percent since that time. So, headquarters should shrink as the force
gets smaller, but headquarters are not shrinking.
As an example, he cited the U.S. Army in Europe with its 23 staff
echelons to command only 65,000 soldiers. He also cited the U.S.
Southern Command as another example of a top-heavy organization.
General Sheehan raised this provocative question:
Why is it, for example, that you have SOUTHCOM with 770
officers commanding less than 4,000 men?
Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, listen to what General Sheehan
says:
Why is it that you have SOUTHCOM with 770 officers
commanding less than 4,000 people?
He goes on to say:
There are still 65 NATO headquarters with over 21,000 staff
officers sitting around doing paperwork. That's more staff
officers than two NATO nations have in land forces.
We have more people doing paperwork than two NATO nations have in
their land forces.
So you have to ask yourself.
General Sheehan says--
. . . of $1.79 billion we invest in NATO on burdensharing,
why is $800 million of that just for infrastructure?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes have expired.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 more minutes. I know
that is all the time I have, but I think what General Sheehan says is
very important.
General Sheehan has hit the nail on the head, and this is his main
argument:
Bloated staff organizations have created a demand for
personnel that can starve warfighting units into hollowness.
A hollow fighting unit like we had in the late 1970's, in other
words.
Bloated command staffs and headquarters are an outgrowth of top-heavy
rank. In other words, General Sheehan is saying, we have excess
admirals and generals, and each one needs a home, and every senior
officer needs a command, a headquarters, a base, a staff, or a large
department of some kind, somewhere, someplace to look over.
Take the Navy, for example. At the height of World War II, the Navy
had 6,768 ships. Those 6,768 ships were commanded by 333 admirals. That
is one admiral for about 20 ships. Today's 363-ship Navy is commanded
by 218 admirals. That is almost one admiral for every ship. To be
precise, it is one and two-thirds ships per admiral.
General Sheehan is wrestling with this problem, and doing it from the
standpoint of a person serving his country, in uniform, on the line
where the money is being spent--or should we say, on the line where the
money is being wasted.
He told the audience that he is searching for technical solutions to
the problems of swollen staff organizations. This is what he had to
say:
What is needed are systems that can help reduce the
overhead costs for commanding large forces. With all this
technology and smarts running around, why aren't we more
efficient?
That is a question that every Senator ought to ask before he votes
for this bill.
In other words, General Sheehan has made an excellent case for
cutting infrastructure costs.
The military today is top-heavy with rank and staff organizations and
command headquarters left over from the cold war. That is the official
word from the commander of the United States Atlantic Command. That is
a pretty good authority.
General Sheehan has clearly identified the culprit. He obviously
understands the problem. And he is also frustrated by his inability to
get rid of his own excess command fat.
We know that the Department of Defense cannot do it, so we need to
help them. So if you vote for my amendment, you will help General
Sheehan do what he says he sees is necessary to get more bang for their
defense dollar.
He put it this way:
Nobody likes to cut their own staff.
He goes on to say:
I've never seen a butcher hand a pig a cleaver and say,
``Go make pork chops.''
[[Page S6393]]
So Congress needs to lend a helping hand to people like General
Sheehan.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this report about
General Sheehan's speech printed in the Record, the article from Inside
the Pentagon.
There being no objection, the report was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
[From Inside the Pentagon, June 13, 1996]
Atlantic Commander Criticizes Profusion of Staff Organizations
(By Douglas Berenson)
Marine Corps Gen. John Sheehan, commander-in-chief of the
U.S. Atlantic Command; last week decried the profusion of
staff organizations within the Department of Defense, arguing
they consume too many personnel and resources, and therefore
put at risk already strained force structure. Sheehan, who
has previously targeted the top-heavy command structure of
the NATO alliance (Inside the Pentagon, Sept. 21, 1995, pl),
offered his remarks at a June 6 breakfast hosted by the
Association of the U.S. Army's Institute for Land Warfare.
``There is a debate that's being formed right now, where
the only sides are in the debate [are] modernization versus
force structure. My argument says we ought to take a very
serious top-down look at the overhead costs of doing
business. Why do we have so many headquarters? Of what value
are they?'' Sheehan asked.
Sheehan noted that within the Department of Defense, there
are 199 staff organizations of two-star level of above, a
number that has not changed since 1989. As an example, he
cited the fact that the U.S. Army in Europe has 23 staff
echelons to command 65,000 soldiers. He said that U.S.
Southern Command offered another example of a top-heavy
organization. ``Why is it, for example, that you have
SOUTHCOM [with] 770 officers commanding less than 4,000
men?'' he wondered.
He argued that these bloated staff organizations have
created a demand for personnel that can starve warfighting
units into hollowness. ``Why is it that the Bradley fighting
vehicle spends so much time in gunnery when you go into the
field? Why is it you don't spend more time in the integration
of operations of the rifle unit coming out the back [of the
Bradley]? It's because of this process,'' Sheehan said,
noting that Bradley infantry squads are often fielded at
lower than their optimum strength.
Sheehan argued that the ``tooth-to-tail'' ratio has become
badly skewed against the warfighter, such that, ``we field in
the entire Army 125,000 killers.'' The rest of the force is
made up of support and staff personnel, he said. Sheehan
warned that the staff non-commissioned officer corps is being
decimated, and that as the services focus on freeing up money
to spend on force modernization, they are ``forcing great
people out of the system.''
Sheehan noted that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer
has been working to streamline the Army's structure in
response to these problems. ``Dennis Reimer has to be allowed
to go after the European staff structure. He has got to be
allowed to go after the SOUTHCOM staff structure and take
some of that staff structure out to keep combat capability.''
Sheehan warned that ``the next organization to go is the
2nd ACR [Armored Cavalry Regiment]. That would be a travesty.
We need light, mobile attack type forces with a protected gun
system for the battlefield of the future.''
``Nobody likes to cut their own staff,'' Sheehan observed,
quipping, ``I've never seen a butcher hand a pig a cleaver
and say, `Go make pork chops.'''
Sheehan appealed to the assembled audience to help find
technical solutions to the problem of swollen staff
organizations. What is needed, he said, are systems that can
help reduce the overhead costs for commanding large forces.
``With all this technology and smarts running around, why
aren't we more efficient?''
As he has in the past, Sheehan levelled similar criticism
against the NATO command structure. In addition to his
responsibilities as U.S. Atlantic Command chief, Sheehan
serves simultaneously as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO's
Atlantic Command. ``As a major NATO commander, my main
complaint against my NATO allies is that many of these
countries took their force structure out and took a peace
dividend without reinvesting in the future. [But] they didn't
take the overhead out . . .
``There are still 65 NATO headquarters, with over 21,000
staff officers sitting around doing paperwork,'' Sheehan
continued. ``That's more staff officers than two NATO nations
have land forces. And so you ask yourself, of $1.79 billion
we invest in NATO on a burdensharing basis, why is $800
million of that just in infrastructure?''
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the
balance of my time. I inquire of the amount of time I have left versus
the amount of time that the opposition has.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 6 minutes, 24 seconds. The
opposition has 9 minutes, 10 seconds.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dan
Ciechanowski, a fellow with Senator Kyl, be granted floor privileges
for the duration of the consideration of the DOD authorization bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote
occur on or in relation to the Grassley amendment No. 4047 at 5:30
p.m., and following the conclusion or yielding back of time the
amendment be laid aside until 5:30 p.m. this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield back the balance of my time on
my amendment.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is laid aside until 5:30.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Delila
Lacevic be accorded the privileges of the floor during the pendency of
the defense authorization bill. She is employed with the Center for
Democracy and is working as a staff fellow in my office.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment on my behalf
and on behalf of Senators Leahy, Harkin, and Bumpers.
Amendment No. 4048
(Purpose: To reduce to the level requested by the President the amount
authorized to be appropriated for research, development, test, and
evaluation for national missile defense)
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for himself,
Mr. Leahy, Mr. Harkin, and Mr. Bumpers, proposes an amendment
numbered 4048.
On Page 31, strike out line 2 and insert in lieu thereof
the following:
``$9,362,542,000, of which--
``(A) $508,437,000 is authorized for national missile
defense;''.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the
Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will come to order.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am offering an amendment that would
reduce, by $300 million, the amount of money authorized in this piece
of legislation for national missile defense.
For those who do not know much about this process and have not been
involved in the lexicon of Defense issues, the national missile
defense, or Defend America, or antiballistic missile system, or Star
Wars, all relates to a system that some say is needed to be built in
order to defend America against incoming attacks from missiles launched
by a potential adversary, ICBM's that would be launched by a rogue
nation, or ICBM's that are launched accidentally. All of these are
described as threats to our country, and it is proposed by a number of
Members of the Congress, and others, that we should build a defense
system against them.
Now, if I were to provide a chart to the Senate that showed an array
of the threats against our country, the threats would range all over
the board. The threats against our country would be, for example: A
terrorist who fills a rental truck with a fertilizer bomb and drives it
in front of a courthouse or Federal building in Oklahoma and murders
scores and scores of American citizens. A threat against our country
might be not a fertilizer bomb in a rental truck, but perhaps a small
glass vial of the deadliest biological agents
[[Page S6394]]
known to mankind, placed in a subway strategically, killing thousands
and thousands of people. A threat to our country perhaps would be a
suitcase bomb, or a nuclear device no bigger than the size of a
suitcase put in the trunk of a Yugo car and left at a dock in New York
City to hold hostage an entire city. Another threat might be a nuclear
device on the tip of an incoming cruise missile launched by air,
ground, or sea, by a potential adversary. Another threat might be a
full-scale nuclear attack by an adversary, with dozens or scores of
incoming missiles, ICBM's, or cruise missiles for that matter. Another
threat might be that some rogue nation, some international outlaw on
the scene, gets ahold of an ICBM and launches one intercontinental
ballistic missile at our country tipped with a nuclear warhead. Or
another might be simply an accidental launch of someone who possesses
an ICBM with a nuclear warhead.
All of these are potential threats to our country. They are not new
threats. These threats have existed for some long while. In fact, a
much greater threat existed some years ago than the ones I have just
described, and the greater threat was hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of missiles in the ground, in silos, armed with multiple
warheads, aimed at American cities, aimed at American military targets,
all poised and ready to be fired by a potential adversary called the
Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union does not exist any longer. The Soviet Union was
fractured into a series of independent states--the Ukraine, Russia, and
others--in which there were missiles with nuclear warheads targeted at
the United States. But a series of arms control agreements with the old
Soviet Union, and now with the independent states, has changed that
much larger threat. It has not erased the threat, but it has changed
the much larger threat. Arms control agreements now mean that Soviet
missiles that used to be aimed at our country in many cases no longer
exist.
Mr. President, I showed this piece of metal on a previous occasion. I
ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to show it to my colleagues
again.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a piece from a hinge on the
massive door that covered missile silo No. 110, in Pervomaysk, Ukraine.
This comes from a silo that housed an SS-19, which had half a dozen
warheads aimed at the United States of America. Each of those warheads
had a yield of 550 kilotons each, 20 times the power of the atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima.
I want to show my colleagues a chart that describes something that I
think is quite remarkable. This is that missile site, which housed
missile No. 110. On June 5 of this year, this photo shows the Ukrainian
Defense Minister Shmarov on the left and his U.S. counterpart,
Secretary Perry, watering sunflowers planted in the ground where there
use to be a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile. In other words,
it is where there previously existed a missile with nuclear warheads
aimed at America, and there now are sunflowers growing. The silo is
gone, the missile is gone, and there are sunflowers.
How did this happen? Was this a magic act? Was Harry Houdini
involved? No. This happened through a great deal of diligent, hard
work. Some of it was here in the Senate, which approved the arms
control agreements that were negotiated between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Substantial credit, in my judgment, should go to
Senators Lugar and Nunn, who worked to create the Cooperative Threat
Reduction program, which funds the dismantling of nuclear weapons in
the former Soviet states. The Soviets, the Russians and Ukrainians now,
began destroying nuclear weapons.
That destruction of nuclear weapons means that one way to protect
America is to destroy a foreign missile before it leaves the silo;
destroy the missile before it leaves the silo. This chart shows what
happened. There used to be a missile. Now there are sunflowers. What a
wonderful thing for humankind--that a missile that used to be aimed at
us is now gone. This bit of hinge does not exist as a functional piece
of some kind of nuclear threat against the United States. It is not
just missiles that Senator Lugar and Senator Nunn have through their
initiative in the U.S. Senate helped to destroy. Here is a picture of
Soviet workers sawing off the wings of Soviet long-range bombers. This
is success. Arms control agreements have worked. They have
substantially reduced the nuclear threat. We are today every day seeing
in the old Soviet Union--now Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan--missiles
being destroyed, bombers being destroyed, and the world is a safer
place as a result.
Some would come to the floor of the Senate and say, ``None of this
matters very much.'' The hundreds of ICBM's that are now gone do not
matter much. The fact that the President of Ukraine announced that his
country, which had previously housed thousands of nuclear warheads, is
now nuclear free; no nuclear warheads in the Ukraine is quite a
remarkable thing. Some would come to the floor of the Senate, and say,
``That does not mean much. What we need to do is begin a new arms race.
We need an America to begin building on an expedited basis with
expedited deployment a National Missile Defense Program. And we insist
on doing it in a way that would make it a multiple-site system, in a
way that would provide that it has a space-based component,'' both of
which would jeopardize the arms control agreements we currently have.
And they say, ``Well, if we jeopardize those arms control agreements,
so be it. We will force the other parties to renegotiate.''
I am not coming to the floor of the Senate saying that research and
development on missile defense programs are not relevant or unworthy. I
have supported them in the past. I support them today. The
administration requested $508 million in this bill for research and
development on national missile defense systems and programs.
In fact, if taxpayers are interested we have spent $98 billion on
strategic and theater missile defense programs; $98 billion. The most
recent proposal that was brought to the Senate for its consideration,
the Congressional Budget Office says, will cost anywhere between $30
billion and $60 billion to construct without regard to the cost of its
operation. That is what it will cost simply to build on an expedited
basis the kind of national missile defense that was called the Defend
America Program that the sponsors envision.
I support the recommendation of the Pentagon to spend $508 million
for research and development of a national missile defense system. What
I do not support is the Congress saying, ``Pentagon, you do not know
what you are talking about. We insist on adding $300 million more.''
Let me read a comment from the Vice Chiefs of Staff in the Joint
Requirements Oversight Council. It says:
The Joint Requirements Oversight Council believes that with
the current projected ballistic missile threat, which shows
Russia and China as the only countries able to field a threat
against the U.S. homeland, the funding level for national
missile defense should be no more than $500 million a year
through the Future Years Defense Plan.
That is what the Joint Requirements Oversight Council says. One might
argue they are not experts. I do not know how one could credibly argue
that. They are the Vice Chiefs of Staff of our Armed Services. But one
could make that case and try to make that point. These are the people
who ought to know, in my judgment.
General Shalikashvili in a letter to Senator Nunn says the following:
Efforts which suggest changes to or withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty may jeopardize Russia's ratification of START II,
and could prompt Russia to withdraw from START I.
These are the arms control agreements that resulted in taking these
missiles and warheads out of the ground and reducing the threat posed
to the United States of America.
General Shalikashvili says the following. He says:
I am concerned that failure of either START initiative will
result in Russian retention of hundreds or even thousands
more nuclear weapons thereby increasing both the cost and the
risks that we face.
We will hear no doubt, especially when the Defend America Act comes
back to the Senate, if it does--and I cast a vote on that recently.
This was a bill to potentially require $30 to $60 billion of
expenditure on the part of the taxpayers--just to build, not to
operate. It is not the right way in my
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judgment to do it. But that was the vote we had. Of course, I voted
against cloture because, if we are going to have a debate on this,
there ought to be a debate. There ought to be a thorough and lengthy
debate. It is of substantial importance for this country, its foreign
policy, its defense policy, and certainly for the taxpayers.
We will no doubt have comments made here--I do not intend to address
these at the moment, although I would be happy to come back and do so--
that reflect the comments we heard last year during the same debate. We
will have maps put up talking about the threat that North Korea could
pose to Alaska, or the threat that some other rogue nation would pose
to Hawaii. Those statements are not justified by the facts. Those are
not threats that are currently justified by information given by this
country's intelligence community.
It seems to me that we ought to worry a bit about how we are spending
money, for what purpose we are spending money, and where we are going
to get the money. This $300 million is the first incremental first step
on a long staircase. And we had a quote from Senator Dole at a press
conference. The question was asked where the money was going to come
from. ``Senator, how much do you think this is going to cost, and where
is that money going to come from?''
The answer: ``Well, I'll leave that up to the experts.''
The experts are not going to pay the bill. The taxpayer will pay this
bill--$300 million this year, a long step on a long staircase leading
up to the Congressional Budget Office suggesting as much as $60
billion.
In the main, this is a security issue. I accept that and agree to
debate it on that premise. But it is also an issue that combines the
question of security with the question of, ``What is it going to
cost?'' Well, it is reasonable to ask: How much did we spend, and how
much are we going to spend to get a system? What kind of protection
will it provide us?
In North Dakota, we have some experience with this. We have in my
State the only antiballistic missile system that was ever built in the
free world. In today's dollars, they have spent about $26 billion. It
looks a little like this. It is a big concrete pyramid. It was
incidentally mothballed in the same year that it was declared
operational. That was built in the early 1970's with billions of
taxpayers' money spent.
I mentioned that somewhere between $96 and $98 billion was spent in
the aggregate in pursuit of missile defense technology. I also said I
am not opposed to spending all of the money but that I am opposed to
this rush to add extra money to this defense authorization bill. And I
will be opposed to adding the money to the appropriations bill as
well--to demand that we have accelerated deployment in a system that we
are told will cost up to $60 billion, and the accelerated deployment
must be combined with a multisite system, and a space-based system
that, in my judgment, will jeopardize most of our arms control
agreements, agreements that I think are critically important to this
country.
I would say this to my friends who support this--and I have great
respect for many who will stand up and support this aggressively:
Senator Kyl has in the past, Senator Inhofe and others. I suspect the
Senator from Virginia will weigh in on this subject. I have great
respect for their views, but I do believe this. You have to make the
case that spending this extra money is critically necessary for our
defense. I do not think that case can be made, No. 1. And, No. 2, you
also ought to make the case, given what we have talked about--the
danger of the Federal deficits and who is for more spending and who is
for less spending--you also ought to make the case, who is going to pay
for this? Where is the $60 billion going to come from?
This bill contains the first small increment of $300 million, which
may not seem like a lot of money to some but I think is a whole lot of
money for the American taxpayers to shell out when they do not need to
shell it out. This is a proposal that we do not need, a proposal that
we cannot afford, a proposal the Pentagon says it does not want, and a
proposal this country should not adopt. It defies common sense for this
Congress to say to General Shalikashvili: It does not matter what you
think; it does not matter what you say about arms control agreements;
it does not matter how much you want to spend. We demand you spend more
on this because we believe this ought to be built on an accelerated
basis.
I say you have to make the case that that be done first, and I do not
think the case can be made. And second, as you make that case, if you
think you can make the case, tell us, who are you going to get to pay
for this? Which taxes are you going to raise to get $60 billion?
Mr. President, I indicated previously we will no doubt have comments
from those who say there is a direct threat to some States in our
country from this, that, or the other approach. I began speaking about
the array of threats to our country and let me end with the same
notion. If we are concerned about the principal threats to our country,
it seems to me somewhere back on the far side of the range of threats
that are likely would be that a Mu'ammar Qadhafi acquires through some
magic an intercontinental ballistic missile that he is able to launch
complete with a nuclear warhead destined for some American city. That
is one of the least likely threats.
Far more likely a threat is an international rogue, some
international bandit on the scene who is more likely to acquire a dozen
other devices, including, if you are talking missiles, a much more
easily acquired missile such as a cruise missile, easier to acquire and
easier perhaps to operate. It is much more likely that we will find a
threat other than that which they are going to build the national
missile defense system to protect our country against. Should our
country be unprotected? No. We have always had protection with this
understanding: every missile launched against our country has a return
address. Every missile launched against America has a return address
because we know who launches it. We see all launches in this world
through our satellites. Should any country, any rogue nation, any
adversary be foolish enough to launch a missile with a warhead against
this country, that country will cease to exist quickly. Our defense and
our deterrent has always been our ability to let everyone in this world
understand you launch a nuclear weapon against our country, and our
nuclear arsenal, the most capable in the world, will erase from the
face of the Earth those with that kind of judgment.
That nuclear arsenal still exists, and I hope that we will support
the amendment to reduce the $300 million. We will still be left with
$508 million, which is a substantial amount of money, for research and
development, but we will have sent a signal that we do not want to
begin climbing the first step on a stairway to a $60 billion
expenditure, the justification for which has not and in my judgment
cannot be made at this point in this Chamber.
(Mr. ABRAHAM assumed the chair.)
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DORGAN. I would be pleased to yield.
Mr. WARNER. I have followed very carefully his points here. As a
matter of fact, it is basically a recitation--and I say this most
respectfully--of the points the Senator made last year. The Senator has
been consistent in his message. But I was taken by his closing remarks
of the history of the relationship between those nations possessing
intercontinental systems and how our planet has thus far avoided any
confrontation.
This is a subject that I have been dealing with since 1969 when I
went to the Department of the Navy, I do not want to calculate how many
years ago. But the Senator is absolutely right; it was the deterrence
that prevented any confrontation between the former Soviet Union and
the United States of America. It was the doctrine of mass destruction,
mutual massive destruction. But we were dealing in those days, despite
our antipathy toward communism, with governments, with military
organizations that were able to grasp the reality of mutual assured
destruction and had a very tight command and control over every single
one of those sites.
I should say that in the many years I followed this, having served on
the Intelligence Committee, there were isolated incidents where there
was alcohol involved on a site here and there.
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We saw the occasional reports. But, fortunately, the command and
control was exercised so as to eliminate what I personally regard as
the prime reason for this expenditure, the accidental or unintentional
firing.
In the former Soviet Union, the rocket forces were the elite. Only
the finest men and, I suppose in some instances, women were put into
those units. We did not have in those days the risk that I think is
present today of the accidental or unintentional firing.
Quite apart from the dollars and cents--and we could debate on into
the night as to what the estimates are to build the system and the time
in which it is to be done, but I cannot look into the faces of my
fellow Americans and say that there is any budget or any calculation
which would induce me not to support this given the horrific damage
from a single accidental firing of an ICBM against a major city. Take
whatever you want as the budget to build this system. If you hit on
57th and 5th Avenue in New York City, it would be billions and billions
of dollars in property damage and incalculable lives.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator is warming up to a
question.
Mr. WARNER. I am sort of on a roll here, and I rather enjoy it, but
my point is, what is your concept of a single accidental firing, a risk
present today that was not present during the height of the cold war?
That is essentially the purpose of this system.
Mr. DORGAN. The Senator asks a good question, and I understand it
well because he set it up quite well. I say to the Senator, you
describe this in the context of a rogue nation or an international
terrorist who gets hold of one missile and launches one missile against
the United States. I contend that it is far more likely that an
international terrorist would get hold of a suitcase and put it in a
rusty Yugo on the dock in New York City than be able to find an ICBM
and launch an ICBM at the United States. The point I made at the start
of my discussion is you have an array of threats against our country.
The one you describe is a threat, there is no question about that.
Let me give you another one. How about----
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if the Senator will----
Mr. DORGAN. Let me give you a threat.
Mr. WARNER. I am ready to concede that you are correct. It may well
be the suitcase----
Mr. DORGAN. Let me continue before you concede. You are conceding a
small part. Let us assume a captain of a Typhoon submarine goes half
wacko somewhere out in the ocean and launches the entire supply of
warheads on that submarine, which is 200 warheads, ICBM's, sea-launched
ICBM's against this country. That is a rogue threat. There is nothing
proposed by anyone, that I am aware of, nothing under any condition or
any system or any bizarre scheme I am aware of that is going to protect
this country against that large a threat, is that correct?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. We do not have
anything and that is in the realm of risk. I think farther down the
scale than the single isolated incident is either in Russia or, indeed,
North Korea--they are rapidly approaching the potential, with their
Taepo Dong missile, which could reach Hawaii or Alaska.
My point is the Senator is correct. There is a risk from the
suitcase. There is a risk from a berserk crew on a Typhoon submarine.
And there is a risk associated with the accidental firing of a single,
or perhaps two missiles against the United States.
But the fact that we have a number of risks does not eliminate the
responsibility of every Member of this Chamber to apply, diligently,
every resource we have in this country to stop these risks.
Mr. DORGAN. I would say this to the Senator, I fully accept the
responsibility of doing the research and development on a missile
program, a national missile defense program of some type for which
there is, in this bill, $508 million--plus $300 million added by the
committee, saying $508 million is not enough, we want to add $300
million more. I respect the obligation to be doing the research and
development to be available and to be ready to deploy a system if it
becomes certain that we need this system and conceivable we can build
it in a cost-effective way. I am ready to do that.
But what I am saying to the Senator is this. If you come to us with
proposals that the Defense Department says threaten to undermine the
arms control treaties that now exist that result in destroying the
missiles in the ground--all the missiles are out of the Ukraine at this
point.
The fact is today--I know the Senator knows this because we have
people on both sides of the aisle who have engineered this, and I would
say the Senator has been instrumental in a number of these areas in
helping this along--we are seeing adversaries' missiles now being
destroyed, sawed in half, cut up. It seems to me you would agree that
the very best way to destroy a potential adversary's missile is to
destroy it before it leaves the ground. If you propose a national
missile defense system that threatens the underpinnings of our arms
control agreements, it seems to me what you have done is add to the
arsenal of weapons that are potentially going to be weapons against us.
So I am willing to walk down the road, to talk about threats and how
one responds to them. I am not willing, under any circumstances, not
any, to do anything that I think starts to take apart the arms control
agreements. It is not just me that says that. It is the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and others who say this threatens to destroy the
foundation of these arms control agreements.
Once you start to do that you are not dealing with little rogue
threats out there. You are not dealing with some international nut case
who manages to find some ICBM and then manages to find a nuclear tip to
put on the top of it. Then you are dealing with the questions of
hundreds, perhaps thousands of additional weapons and launchers that
will be retained when they should in fact have been destroyed, because
we were trying to enter into arms control agreements that really do
accomplish a reduction in the threat.
So, I hope--I have taken some time, but I hope the Senator
understands. I am not opposed to research and development. I am opposed
to adding, on top of that, money that means we will run off and buy and
build and damn the consequences. I would listen to some very thoughtful
people who say you are going to injure the opportunities we have had in
the past and will have in the future, as a result of the arms control
agreements. That is my major concern.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to reply. Let us say that the
Senator and I have a disagreement on the arms control issue. I firmly
believe that we can resolve with Russia any apprehension that they may
have with respect to the development of this system in a manner that
will pose a threat to them. As a matter of fact, I would argue it is in
their interests that we have such a system because, should a missile be
fired we could have some errors on our side, thinking a strike had been
launched against us and suddenly trigger something against Russia.
But let us say we have a disagreement on arms control. But how does
the Senator from North Dakota answer the question: We have no arms
control with China, yet they have the capability of an accidental
firing. We have no arms control with North Korea, yet they are within 3
or 4 years of having a missile that could hit two of our States. What
does the Senator say to those arguments?
Mr. DORGAN. The entire philosophy of arms control is to reduce the
stock of nuclear arms and launchers and devices to deliver arms that
now exists and to try very hard to work on the issue of
nonproliferation of nuclear arms. We must do a better job of that.
Do you know why? Because I think people are all too interested in
going off and building things. The efforts at nonproliferation are not
very sexy. It is not an area that produces the same kind of thing that
a building project does. A building project, you pour concrete and get
something that you can see and everybody can say, ``Look what we
have.'' We ought to, in our country, it seems to me, take seriously
this issue of who has and who is going to have nuclear weapons and pose
a threat in the future.
If the Senator says it matters with respect to China, yes, it does.
Sure it matters. It matters with respect to North Korea, yes. It also
matters with
[[Page S6397]]
respect to what our intelligence community tells us about the
capabilities of these countries, No. 1. I will be happy to put that in
the Record, because we are at odds on that issue.
But, second, it matters very much, it seems to me--it matters very
much that this country behave in a way that recognizes it is in our
interests to have fewer nuclear weapons in the world. And our arms
control agreements, as deficient as they might be--some would want them
much more aggressive--have started the process of doing what you and I
might have thought unthinkable not too long ago.
The Senator was in the Chamber when I showed this chart. I want to
show it again, because I suspect 8, 10 years ago, no one would have
believed this. Ten years ago would anyone have believed that the
Secretary of Defense and the Defense Minister of the Ukraine would be
planting sunflowers on ground where there was planted an SS-19 aimed at
the United States of America?
Mr. WARNER. I say to my good friend, Secretary Perry came and met
with members of the Armed Services Committee at a breakfast hosted by
the distinguished chairman, Chairman Thurmond, this morning, and
recounted the very incident portrayed by this picture. We concede all
that.
But I would like to come back to this issue. You stress arms control.
We have a disagreement on that. Come back to China. We have no arms
control--do you not agree they have the capability today of a missile
system that could hit Alaska and could hit Hawaii, and that there could
be an accidental or rogue firing in that nation? Just witness what
happened in connection with the Straits of Taiwan here just several
months ago, when we saw what in my judgment were actions by China,
presumably under tight command and control, where those actions were in
defiance of what I call responsible conduct by major nations in this
hemisphere.
Let us go back. Let us see if we can narrow debate. They have the
system, am I not correct?
Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask the Senator, since he has raised the question
of China, does the Senator know approximately the estimate of how many
ICBM's the Chinese possess?
Mr. WARNER. I do, but I am not sure it is a matter we should bring
out in public at this time.
Mr. DORGAN. Does anyone know whether that is classified information?
Mr. WARNER. Let us just concede that we know they have them. I do not
know the number--I do know it but I am not sure--let us just assume
that they have a system. I think you and I can agree on that.
Mr. DORGAN. Does the Senator also agree that, should any nation----
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator will just let us
take a voice vote on the Grassley amendment?
Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, notwithstanding the previous unanimous-
consent request, I ask unanimous consent that we resume consideration
of the Grassley amendment. I understand Senator Grassley has agreed to
have the amendment voted on by a voice vote. I understand there is no
further debate on this question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Vote on Amendment No. 4047
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will vote on amendment No. 4047 of
the Senator from Iowa. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 4047) was rejected.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the
amendment was rejected.
Mr. EXON. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I want to make certain the Record shows
the Senator from Virginia voted in the negative by voice vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Record will so reflect.
Amendment No. 4048
Mr. WARNER. Parliamentary inquiry, are we now returning to the
colloquy?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has the floor.
Mr. WARNER. And the distinguished Senator was about to pose a
question.
Mr. DORGAN. I was about to ask the question, if the Senator agreed
with me, if a rogue nation--China, I suppose, would not be in the
definition of ``rogue nation'' here; China is a trading partner of
ours.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it depends on the day of the week. They do
have some actions----
Mr. DORGAN. Normally, those who refer to rogue nations or
international outlaw leaders have three or four in mind. Now, the
Senator raises----
Mr. WARNER. You are correct, China should not be put in the same
category as the generic term ``rogue nation.'' I am talking about the
accidental, unintentional firing.
Mr. DORGAN. I understand. The Chinese have, as you know, without
discussing it, very few intercontinental ballistic missiles. The
Senator raises the question of the potential of a country with
intercontinental ballistic missiles launching an attack against the
United States.
The question I want to ask is, does the Senator agree with me that
there cannot be an intercontinental ballistic missile launched without
a return address; we will know instantly where it is launched from?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator is correct in that.
Mr. DORGAN. If the launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile
means this country immediately knows where that launching took place,
is it reasonable to expect, if they attack the United States, they
would expect a response that would annihilate the country sending the
missile? The point is, that has been a deterrence that has been around
for sometime. I thought the Senator was really talking about a real
outlaw, nut leader someplace out there in space, and now he has raised
the question of China.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, for the purpose of this debate, there are
really only two nations which possess intercontinental systems that can
strike the United States, and that is Russia and China. China has a
system which can reach not only two States, Alaska and Hawaii, but,
indeed, we have reason to believe that it could reach the central parts
of the mainland United States. For the record, I am not talking about
an organized command and control attack on the United States by China.
I am talking about the accidental firing, the unintentional--perhaps in
a training mission--firing of a live missile, either from Russia or
China. Should not we have the bare minimum capability in this country
to defend against a single or perhaps two or three missiles being
fired?
I say yes. Our difference is the schedule on which it is to be built.
You have reasons to believe that $500 million is enough. I feel
strongly, as does the committee, that $800 million is the required
amount to keep the research and development at the most expeditious
pace, such as a President can make the decision with regard to
deployment.
Mr. DORGAN. The Senator has narrowed this interestingly. So let me
ask this question. The Air Force has proposed a system that they say is
a minimal cost system to respond to exactly what you are talking about:
one isolated case of one intercontinental ballistic missile, perhaps
with one warhead, being launched accidentally or deliberately at
someplace in this country.
There is a plan floating around that they say will cost $2 billion,
$2.5 billion to defend against that, not to give us a defense that is
not impenetrable, but one that gives a reasonable certainty of stopping
that limited threat.
I ask the Senator, is that what the Senator would support and would
that be sufficient?
Mr. WARNER. This Senator is in favor of supporting a system that
could perhaps interdict up to 10, 12, 15, maybe as many as 20,
certainly not an exchange as was practical, that potentially could have
occurred between the former Soviet Union and the United States. China's
total arsenal we have agreed we should not discuss here, but it has
numbers that could approximate those amounts of exchange. That is not
an accidental firing in reality or unintentional to send 10 or 20
missiles. Nevertheless, the system should be built to cope with it.
Mr. DORGAN. If I understand your response, you are not proposing then
a
[[Page S6398]]
system that would in any way protect this country against a lunatic
Typhoon submarine captain who launches 200 warheads from a Typhoon
submarine against this country? You are not proposing a system that
protects us against that?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the system that I have in mind could limit
the damage. Now, whether it could deal with all 20 missiles fired----
Mr. DORGAN. Two hundred warheads.
Mr. WARNER. I am not prepared to give you an answer.
Mr. DORGAN. Two hundred warheads.
Mr. WARNER. If you interdict the missile, you get 10 warheads.
Mr. DORGAN. It depends on when you interdict the launcher. But my
point was, I guess most people would say you are not proposing a system
that could respond to that threat. So, again, on the scale of threats,
you have some you respond to, some you do not. Look, I would not
support a penny for research and development if I did not think it is
reasonable for us to be trying to figure out what are the threats and
what is a reasonable approach to begin thinking about them and planning
to meet them when they become sufficiently real that the intelligence
community says this country needs to do something about those threats.
The Senator knows, and we have said before in this debate, that the
intelligence community in this country does not concur that this is the
time to do what is being proposed we do. The Defense Department tells
us that it will undercut the arms control agreements and launch us into
an orbit to spend an enormous amount of money against a system that the
Senator now concedes will not respond to the more aggressive or robust
threats.
Mr. WARNER. Well, Mr. President, all I can say is that what we
envision is a limited system to deal with the accidental or
unintentional firing. I am not prepared, nor any of us are really
prepared, to give you precise numbers, whether it could interdict the
entire load of a Typhoon. It depends on when interdiction takes place,
whether there is warhead separation. There are a lot of factors that
deal with it.
I want to also put in the Record, I respect your arguments about the
suitcase. Fortunately, I think technology is not quite at the point
where that is the highest risk now, but we have in place a number of
systems to deter and, indeed, interdict the suitcase. It is just my
concern we have nothing--nothing--in place to interdict the stray two
or three missiles that could be accidentally fired or a terrorist
firing against our Nation.
That is the direction in which this Senator wants to move as
expeditiously as possible. And we have O'Neill, who was the prior
head--he just resigned--of the BMD office, who said $800 million is the
figure. I happen to agree with him. You happen to disagree. Therein, I
think, we framed the argument.
Mr. DORGAN. You say $800 million. Let me make just a couple
additional points. Again, I respect very much the Senator from
Virginia. I have admired his work for a long while. We disagree from
time to time on things. We disagree on this. I, nonetheless, think he
contributes a great deal to defense policy.
This little pager that I use is about the size, I am told, of the
device that brought down the Pan Am flight by a terrorist planting a
device this size on the Pan Am 747 which crashed in Lockerbie,
Scotland. That was a terrible attack. We know what the terrorist attack
was with a rental truck in Oklahoma City. We know of many terrorist
accidents. We know of the deadly chemical agent attack in Japan on the
subway. We know of the bombing of the World Trade Center by terrorists.
The Senator raises the question, what about the ultimate terrorist
act of a terrorist getting ahold of, not a suitcase, not a Yugo, but an
ICBM, not a cruise, an ICBM missile, and tipping it with a nuclear
warhead and launching it against our country?
Again, I will say to the Senator, there is a prospect advanced by one
of the services that they say would cost $2 billion that would use
existing technology to provide a defense against a very limited,
isolated, single missile kind of rogue nation or accidental launch.
That proposal does exist.
The Senator and I may not have much disagreement if he said, let us
take the limited option at minimum dollars and provide the protection
against that threat that he has just described in some detail. I am not
sure we would have much disagreement about that.
That is not what is being proposed, as the Senator knows. What is
being proposed is a robust system, multiple sites, space-based
components, accelerated deployment. That is a much, much different,
much more expensive and much more extensive proposal than what we are
discussing.
So again I say, if the isolated circumstances that the Senator
describes were met by a $2 billion system, which one branch of the
service has given me a detailed briefing on, I do not know that we
would have a big disagreement. But what we are talking about here--and
I believe the Senator in his heart knows we are talking about--is the
potential of $60 billion over the years to build a much more capable
system, at the end of which we will not have addressed the threat of a
robust attack against this country.
I worry that if we spend that money, we may develop the circumstance
of saying to the American people, we now have a missile defense system
we have spent $60 billion for, just to build, not to operate, and then
someone says, ``What if somebody launches 50 missiles against us?'' We
say, ``Well, we're sorry about that. We're not going to be able to deal
with that.''
If we are talking threat, let us respond to the most aggressive
threats first. Let us do the things that are necessary to do research
and development on national missile defense.
I notice my friend from Oklahoma is now on the floor. I mentioned
earlier he is someone who has an interest on this subject. I mentioned
him in a kindly way.
But I just believe that to rush off and commit $300 million above
what General Shalikashvili recommends, Secretary Perry and others
recommend as is prudent and wise, given our circumstances and arms
control, and other needs, I think that is not in this country's
interests. So I appreciate the colloquy the Senator and I have had.
Mr. WARNER. I shall yield the floor momentarily. I have enjoyed the
colloquy. But let us make it clear, this additional $300 million by the
Armed Services Committee was for the purpose of the ground system. And
it is our collective judgment that that amount of money is needed to
keep an aggressive R&D going.
I strongly support it. And $300 million is not specifically earmarked
for any system. It in fact is the BMD's program that they have at the
moment. We have disagreements as to the total cost. That is clear. But
I think we isolated this to be a debate between two individuals who
feel equally strongly from their various perspectives.
I think we owe it to the American public to do everything we can to
put in place such systems to deter against a suitcase, to deter against
the Typhoon suddenly coming up and firing its whole load. But I see
this as a risk, which I think is far greater, the accidental firing of
a single or a double, by either a terrorist or someone who comes in and
seizes an installation in China or Russia, some group, band, who goes
in and seizes it and fires it somehow. That is what I want to stop.
Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator would yield on that point.
Mr. WARNER. Yes.
Mr. DORGAN. I encourage the Senator to receive the briefing, if he
has not yet, on the planning that has been done by the Air Force for a
minimal system at minimum cost to address exactly that circumstance.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have gotten that briefing. I am just not
sure that that is a sufficiently robust system to meet the requirements
as I see them.
Mr. President, there are other Senators anxious to speak. I thank the
Senator. I yield the floor.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I will make some remarks with regard to the
matter at hand, and the general feeling that I have with regard to the
bill.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska has the floor.
Mr. EXON. Did my colleague from South Carolina wish to make some
[[Page S6399]]
kind of a point? I have been recognized. I would be glad to yield to
him.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we have been debating this amendment now
for over an hour. I just wanted the Senator from North Dakota to
consider entering into a time agreement on his amendment at this time.
Mr. EXON. The Senator from South Carolina had a question for the
Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. THURMOND. I wonder if the Senator would agree to a time agreement
on this amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. I have no intention of delaying the vote. There are a
number of Senators who do want to speak briefly.
Mr. THURMOND. What is a time the Senator would wish to suggest?
Mr. DORGAN. Senator Conrad from North Dakota wants to speak and
Senator Exon wishes to speak.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. EXON. All the Senator from Nebraska is attempting to do is move
things along. If an agreement is reached with regard to a time
agreement, I will certainly yield to the managers of the bill and the
Senator from North Dakota to make that statement. In the meantime, I
would like to proceed with the statement I have regarding the bill.
Mr. President, the Senator from South Carolina, the distinguished
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is a very, very dear friend
of mine. He does an excellent job and has as long as this Senator has
been in the U.S. Senate. He works very well with Senator Nunn, the
ranking member of the committee. They have worked very hard on this
defense authorization bill that this Senator supported when it came out
of the Armed Services Committee. But at that time I sent a first signal
that I would be attempting to make some changes to improve the bill in
several areas that I thought needed attention.
I will simply say to my good friend from South Carolina, that he has
made noble efforts in the committee. We had thorough discussion on a
lot of these issues that we are going to be taking up in the form of
amendments now that the bill is on the floor, which I think is entirely
proper.
What this Senator has been attempting to do since this bill came out
of the authorization committee, and as late as this morning--as
referenced by my distinguished friend and colleague from Virginia, we
met with the Secretary of Defense--what I am trying to do is, as much
as possible, make this defense authorization bill vetoproof.
In other words, if we can accommodate some of the wishes of the
President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense and others,
that have key roles to play in what happens to the authorization bill
that we will eventually pass here, it is to make it as acceptable as
possible to reach some compromises on several things where I think
there should be compromises, make it somewhat more acceptable to the
Clinton administration, and then we will have accomplished something
rather than passing a defense authorization bill that will end up dead
in the water in the form of a veto.
So the comments that I am now about to make are designed, as best I
can design them, to try to reach a compromise, a compromise, if you
will, up front in the process of the Senate working its will on the
defense authorization bill, and hopefully have a bill that will mean
something.
Mr. President, the defense authorization bill before the Senate is a
rather rare piece of legislation, one might say. It is one of the few
spending or authorization bills for the next year receiving a sizable
increase--I repeat, a sizable increase--above the administration's
request.
To be specific, at $267 billion, the 1997 defense authorization bill
dwarfs--dwarfs--Mr. President, any other discretionary spending program
in the Federal budget. Like an out of shape prizefighter, it enters the
ring $13 billion overweight from the position of the President of the
United States.
Having been overfed by the majority of the Senate Armed Services
Committee--and I hope we can at least partially correct that--the
quarter of a trillion-dollar defense bill before the Senate is not just
$13 billion above the Pentagon's proposed budget, it is $1.7 billion in
excess of the originally passed budget resolution, and $4.1 billion
more than the 1996 defense spending bill. At a quarter of a trillion
dollars, the 1997 defense authorization bill is flush, with $13 billion
in unrequested spending authority, much of which adds unnecessarily to
our national debt, while adding, in the opinion of this Senator, little
or nothing to our national defense.
The 1997 defense authorization bill should be termed the ``wish
list'' bill. It is so much so that every service official and regional
military commander that appeared before the Senate Armed Services
Committee on the bill was asked by the members of the majority a
question, and certainly Federal managers of domestic programs have
frequently heard that recently, and it is going to be driven home again
during this debate. This was the question that was asked of these
various military officials: ``If you were given additional funds above
the budget request, how would you spend it?''
Let me repeat that. Can you imagine a military person sitting before
the Armed Service Committee and they are asked a question, ``If you
were given additional funds above the budget request, how would you
spend it?'' What kind of a reply would you expect? To no one's
surprise, when blank checks were enticingly dangled before the witness,
the replies were as prompt as they were lengthy. No military leader
worth his salt, under such a scenario, could not find something that he
could use.
Of the $13 billion added to the President's defense budget request,
$11.4 billion, or nearly $9 out of every $10 added, went toward
procurement and research and development programs. But approximately $2
billion of the add-on dollars proposed in the Pentagon's wish list is
not even part of the Pentagon's own budget plan for the next 5 years,
and certainly it is not, nor has it been previously, projected.
What is more, a similar portion of the $13 billion committee add-on
is neither part of the long-range budget, nor any armed services wish
list, including the wish lists that are included in this proposal.
In other words, the Armed Services Committee did not even get enough
requests, after dangling that enticing proposition before the
witnesses, to add up to the billions that we are spending. In other
words, nearly $4.6 billion of the $13 billion-plus-up to the Pentagon's
outyear budget plan, or a part of the services' wish list. It is
something that came through the fat-feeding program in the Armed
Services Committee.
In my opinion, it is vital that the American public understand this
important distinction between several options:
One, what the President proposed in his budget for defense spending.
Two, what the Pentagon says it needs to provide for our national
defense. Three, what the military witnesses wish they could have after
having the proposition dangled in front of them. Four, what level of
funding the committee ultimately approved.
Such a wish-list approach to defense budgeting is not responsible, in
this Senator's opinion, and stands out as a glaring exception to the
manner in which painful cuts have been levied against domestic budget
accounts. Nor is the end product of $13 million in additional defense
spending justified and, certainly not, Mr. President, in order to do
what we are trying to do in these times, when we are supposedly being
prudently fiscal, to reach a balanced budget by the year 2002.
A cursory look at the defense authorization bill before the Senate
indicates that a rising budget tide floats all boats. Among the largest
beneficiaries of the committee's blank check wish list in the budget
includes these items: An $856 million increase in the proposed
ballistic missile defense spending, which has just been debated to some
extent on the floor of the Senate preceding my remarks; a $760 million
increase in the National Guard and Reserve equipment; a $750 million
increase in DDG-51 destroyer funding; a
[[Page S6400]]
$701 million increase in new attack submarine funding; a $700 million
increase in military construction and housing funding; a $351 million
increase in V-22 aircraft funding; and a $341 million increase in F-16
and F-18 funding for 10 unrequested aircraft.
These increased spending levels are only a downpayment--I emphasize
once again, Mr. President, the funding levels I have just cited are
only a downpayment for future spending that will confound budget-making
in the years to come.
Mr. President, at a minimum, the spending level included in the
defense authorization bill should be reduced by $1.7 billion to be
brought into conformance with the budget resolution so as to eliminate
hollow budget authority in the bill. But the Senate should not stop
there. We should question the need for the remaining $11 billion
increase and whether this extraordinary increase is needed to properly
defend the national security interest of the United States.
Perhaps the starting point for reduction in spending authority
contained in this bill should begin at $4.6 billion, the sum total of
weapon add-ons and program increases not requested in the service wish
lists, or contained in the Pentagon's long-range budget plan.
At a later point during the consideration of this bill, I will
propose an amendment along with Senators Bingaman, Kohl, Levin, and
Wellstone, to reduce the top-line defense spending figure by a modest
$4 billion. This represents a full $600 million less, Mr. President,
than the $4.6 billion in unsupported, unjustified, and unwise spending
authority.
In essence, the Exon amendment would retain $9 billion in defense
spending authority over and above the President's request. Now, let me
repeat that. The Exon amendment would retain $9 billion in defense
spending authority above and added on top of what the President has
suggested. If the Exon amendment is agreed to by the Senate, our Nation
would still be spending $155 million more in 1997 than in 1996. I would
have more to say about this amendment when it is offered.
One of the most questionable of the committee add-ons, in the opinion
of this Senator, is $856 million for missile defense programs--most
notably, the $300 million add-on for a national missile defense system.
The Senator for North Dakota has an amendment before the Senate at
this time, which has been debated for the last hour and a half. I also
intend to support that, and I have included that in the numbers that I
have presented and will be presenting later in the form of an Exon
amendment, with several important cosponsors.
Earlier this month, the Senate debated the wisdom of the Dole star
wars proposal to pursue a crash program to field a continental missile
defense system by the year 2003. It was pointed out then that the
threat does not and will not exist in the near term to justify such a
proposition. In the longer term, all of us are continuing to look at
various types of missile defenses that we may need in the long term.
Furthermore, the Dole star wars bill as presently drafted would cost,
according to the Congressional Budget Office, anywhere from between $31
and $60 billion. So the $300 million plus that we are talking about now
would grow to $31 billion to $60 billion just to deploy, and perhaps
another $10 billion on top of that to operate. The committee's $350
million increase is an initial downpayment; $350 million may not sound
like a whole lot of money. But that is a downpayment, if you will, on a
multibillion dollar program most likely, at a minimum, in the range of
$50 billion between now and the year 2002.
Downpayments are easy, as the average American family knows. But in
this case this is a system that I urge the Senate to delete as wasteful
expenditures even though there may be some arguments and some people
sincerely feel that we should move faster than the Pentagon and the
experts in the field tell us we should in this area. As was the case in
last year's authorization bill, there are language provisions in the
1997 defense authorization bill which are unwise and may prove to be a
problem down the road in getting this bill signed by the White House.
This is something that I opened my remarks on by saying that I was
trying to steer this bill into something that is workable and not
another knockdown, dragout between the Congress and the President.
Mr. President, two provisions in particular stand out as being
questionable forays by the majority of the Senate Armed Services
Committee into the area of foreign policy, and each could possibly
jeopardize bilateral efforts between the United States and Russia to
lower our nuclear inventories in a balanced and accountable fashion.
One provision ultimately interprets the ABM Treaty demarcation
between long-range and short-range missile defenses at a time when our
nations are negotiating this very issue right now.
The second language provision that I have concerns about is with
regard to changing the bilateral Antiballistic Missile Treaty to a
multilateral treaty that includes several of the independent states of
the former Soviet Union. This is a major concern of the President of
the United States. And, unless this language is corrected, I think we
stand a high chance of a veto. The majority's insistence that such
multilateralization of the treaty would constitute a substantive change
in requiring reratification by the Senate is equally meddlesome on the
part of the committee.
As President Clinton stated in his April 8 letter to the Armed
Services Committee chairman, Strom Thurmond, he has strong objections
to this matter for very valid reasons, in the opinion of this Senator.
He said in that letter: ``Refusing to recognize Ukraine, Belarus, and
Kazakhstan as coequal successors to the Soviet Union with regard to the
ABM Treaty would undermine our own interests in seeing that these
countries carry out their obligations as successors to the Soviet Union
under other arms control treaties, such as START I--and START II
and others--and the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty,'' which
is very important.
Mr. President, to summarize, this year's defense authorization bill
is a marked improvement over last year's bill. I have saluted the
committee for its action on that in the opening of these remarks. Yet,
changes must be made, in the opinion of this Senator, to reduce
unjustified spending increases and delete intrusive foreign policy
language before I can enthusiastically support this bill. However, I
would say, Mr. President, that overall I congratulate Senator Thurmond,
my friend, colleague, and chairman of the committee, for other than
some of the shortcomings that I see. I salute him for a very well-
balanced bill in several other areas.
I appreciate the consideration, the cooperation, and the
understanding. For those of us who tried to make some changes in the
committee, the chairman of the committee did not agree with us, but as
usual he gave us every opportunity to make our point. We in turn
supported the bill as it came out of committee with the clear
understanding to the chairman that we would be making some changes on
the floor of the U.S. Senate.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Unanimous-Consent Agreement
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now
be 60 minutes equally divided for debate on the pending Dorgan
amendment with no amendment in order to the amendment; that at the
conclusion or yielding back of time the amendment be set aside; and,
further, that at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 19, the Senate resume
consideration of the Dorgan amendment and there be 15 minutes equally
divided for debate with a vote on or in relation to the Dorgan
amendment at the expiration of that debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there will
be no more votes this evening. The next rollcall vote will occur at
approximately 9:15 tomorrow morning.
Amendment No. 4048
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous agreement, there are 60
minutes equally divided on the Dorgan amendment.
Who yields time?
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I now yield myself such time as may be
required under the Dorgan amendment.
[[Page S6401]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that the Senator from
North Dakota does not think that the American people deserve to be
defended against the only military threat that faces them in their
homes every day, a threat that is growing more severe every year.
Simply stated, what the Dorgan amendment seeks to do is perpetuate
American vulnerability.
We have heard quite a bit about how there is no threat and how
investment in national missile defense is a waste of money. Let's
remember that more Americans died in the Persian Gulf war as a result
of a single missile attack than any other cause. I don't imagine that
their families would view missile defense investments as a waste.
It has been argued that there is no threat to justify deployment of a
national missile defense system to defend the United States. This view
is strategically shortsighted and technically incorrect. Even if we get
started today, by the time we develop and deploy an NMD system we will
almost certainly face new ballistic missile threats to the United
States. Unfortunately, it will take almost 10 years to develop and
deploy even a limited system.
Much has been made of the intelligence community's estimate that no
new threat to the United States will develop for 10 years or more. This
estimate, however, only has to do with new indigenously developed
missile threats to the continental United States. It treats Alaska and
Hawaii as if they were not part of the United States. Moreover, the
intelligence community has confirmed that there are numerous ways for
hostile countries to acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles in
much less than 10 years by means other than indigenous development.
North Korea has also demonstrated to the world that an ICBM
capability can be developed with relatively little notice. The Taepo-
Dong II missile, which could become operational within 5 years, is an
ICBM. Each new development of this missile seems to catch the
intelligence community by surprise. It certainly undermines the
argument of those who downplay the threat and the intelligence
community's own 10-year estimate.
Even if we knew with certainty that no new threat would materialize
for 10 years there would still be a strong case for developing and
deploying a national missile defense system. Deploying an NMD system
would serve to deter countries that would otherwise seek to acquire an
ICBM capability. A vulnerable United States merely invites
proliferation, blackmail, and even aggression.
It has also been argued that the administration's NMD program is
adequate to hedge against an emerging threat. Unfortunately, the budget
request does not adequately support the administration's own plan.
Since the administration's NMD program is supposed to preserve the
option of deploying an NMD system by 2003 it is appropriate for
Congress to add sufficient funds to ensure that such an option is truly
viable. The director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization has
testified repeatedly to Congress that about $800 million per year is
needed for NMD in order to preserve such an option. This is precisely
what the Armed Services Committee has recommended.
For those who argue that the Senate Armed Services Committee is
throwing money at ballistic missile defense, I would point out that the
amount in this bill for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is
only slightly higher than the Clinton administration's own bottom-up
review recommended for fiscal year 1997.
The bottom line is simple. If you think that the American people
should not be defended against ballistic missiles, then you should
support the Dorgan amendment. If you think that the United States
should preserve the option of deploying an NMD system by 2003, then
vote against this amendment. I strongly urge my colleagues to put
themselves on the side of defending the American people.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and acknowledge the able Senator
from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe.
(Mr. BURNS assumed the chair.)
Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator and I certainly concur in the
comments that he is making. It is a very frustrating thing to have
knowledge of the threat that exists out there and merely because the
American people are not aware of it, we are ignoring the defense of our
country which I have always understood when I was growing up should
have been the primary concern or function of Government, to protect its
citizens.
In a few of the things that have been said by a number of those who
are on the opposite side of defending America was the discussion about
the threat of suitcases, of carrying around bombs, of terrorist
activities. Being from Oklahoma, nobody needs to tell me about
terrorist activities. I understand. It is almost as if to say that
because there are crazy people out there that burn churches and carry
around suitcases, we need to address that and not address the potential
of an attack on the United States of America by an ICBM, armed with a
warhead that can be a weapon of mass destruction, chemical, biological
or nuclear. It is like saying you do not want to have car insurance
because you want to have insurance on your home. You want to have a
comprehensive policy that insures you against everything. There is a
threat out there and I think we need to talk about that, and certainly
now is the appropriate time because we have heard Senator after Senator
stand up and allege there is no threat out there; the cold war is over.
It was 2 years ago that James Woolsey, who was the CIA Director under
President Clinton, made a statement, and his statement 2 years ago was
we know of between 20 and 25 nations that either have or are in the
final stages of completing weapons of mass destruction, biological,
chemical or nuclear, and are working on the missile means to deliver
those weapons.
That was 2 years ago. He updated that statement and said there are
somewhere closer to 30 nations now. Let us look at who those nations
are, the type of people, the mentality of those individuals who are
potentially armed with this type of destruction, countries like Iraq
and Iran and Libya and Syria, North Korea, China, Russia, countries
where just not too long ago, for example, Saddam Hussein, a guy who
murdered his own grandchildren, made the statement back during the
Persian Gulf war that if we had waited 5 more years to invade Kuwait,
we would have had the capability of sending a weapon of mass
destruction to the United States.
Well, here it is. It is now 5 years later. So let us assume that some
of these guys might be right. They come up and they say, well, we do
not want to do it because it might in some way affect adversely the ABM
Treaty. The ABM Treaty was put together back in 1972, and we cannot say
this was done in a Democrat administration. It was not. I am a
Republican. Richard Nixon was a Republican. Henry Kissinger, I assume,
was a Republican. At least he worked for a Republican. And he put
together a plan. The ABM Treaty at that time was designed to address
the problem of two superpowers in the world environment. Those
superpowers were the U.S.S.R. and the United States, and so they put
together a plan that said we will restrict our nuclear capability
bilaterally.
So let us assume that they would do it. I never believed they would.
Let us assume they would. If you bring that up to today, there is no
longer a U.S.S.R. It is now Russia. Let us assume that Russia would
agree to stepping into this issue as the former U.S.S.R. And live up to
the expectation of the ABM Treaty. What about these other 25 or 30
nations out there?
Let us assume that the United States and Russia are downgrading their
nuclear capability. At the same time what is Iraq doing? What is China
doing? What are the other countries doing? They are certainly not a
part of this treaty.
It was brought out by one of the Senators in the Chamber a few
minutes ago that these people are not part and parcel to the treaty so
they could continue to increase their nuclear capability, the weapons
of mass destruction, and their capability to develop a missile means of
delivering them.
If we do not want to take the word of somebody who is not here as to
how significant and how applicable today is the policy of a mutually
assured destruction, listen to what Henry Kissinger said just the other
day. I had lunch
[[Page S6402]]
with him. I asked him if I could quote him. He said yes. His statement
was, ``It is nuts to make a virtue out of our vulnerability.'' And that
is exactly what we are doing. Let us for a minute talk about the cost.
I have never heard anyone throw around figures like I have heard in the
Chamber of the Senate--talking about another $30 billion to $60
billion. The CBO estimate of $30 to $60 billion over 14 years was
taking every system that is out there right now and saying we want to
deploy all of these systems by a date in the future.
No one has ever suggested that. Right now, we are talking about in
this bill looking at what options are there. Let us take the Aegis
system. We have a $40 to $50 billion investment in 22 ships that are
floating out there right now. They have missile launching capability.
They are there. They are already bought and paid for. We need to spend
about $4 billion more to give that system capability of reaching up
into the upper tier and giving us a defense from an attack of a missile
that might be coming from North Korea or from someplace else. In that,
we already have an investment. Mr. President, 90 percent of it is
already paid for. We have some estimates here that were made by the
team B of the Heritage Foundation. That is made up of people like Hank
Cooper, the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and
several others. All of them are acknowledged experts. No one has ever
questioned their credibility. They say that a Navy-wide area defense
system on Aegis cruisers would cost between $2 and $3 billion over the
next 6 years, plus $5 billion for a sensor satellite.
We are talking about, now, not $70 billion, we are talking about
somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 to $8 billion over the next 6
years. So let us get this in perspective. Let us assume there could be
some truth to the statements that these experts like James Woolsey are
making, and, in fact, the threat is out there. Let us assume the
Russians already have one.
This morning in a speech on the floor I used several articles, four
or five of them. I wish I had them with me now. I did not think this
subject would come up again. But we talked about how China is now
selling technology to Pakistan, how Syria and Libya have a new, cozy
arrangement with each other.
Here is an article right here that I did not use. The headline of
this article, found in the Washington Times, dated May 20, ``China's
arsenal gets a Russian boost. Deal for ICBM technology a threat to
U.S., classified Pentagon report says.''
Then it says:
China, under the guise of buying space launchers, is
enhancing its strategic arsenal with technology and parts
from Russia's most lethal intercontinental ballistic missile,
the SS-18, [that is the MIRV'd missile with 10 warheads] says
a classified Pentagon intelligence report.
Further quoting,
Incorporating the SS-18-related military guidance or
warhead technologies into China's strategic missile forces
would greatly improve Beijing's ability to threaten targets
in the United States. . .
Now, that is in a confidential report that so far no one has refuted.
Let us keep in mind that was about the time that a high Chinese
official said--during the time they were experimenting with missiles in
the Strait of Taiwan, the Chinese were conducting experiments--they
said, ``We don't have to worry about the United States coming to their
aid because they,'' the United States, ``would rather protect Los
Angeles than they would Taipei.''
I would characterize that at the very least as an indirect threat at
the United States. It is like the Senator from South Carolina said, the
honorable chairman of this committee, he said, ``We are being held
hostage.'' Threats like this: ``They are not going to do that, because
if they do that we will go after them.'' Do they have the capability?
According to the reports, yes, they have the capability.
So I just think we need to look at this in terms of the costs that
have been grossly, dramatically inflated into something that is totally
unrealistic--the constant use of terms like ``star wars'' and other
things to put this into some kind of fiction environment so people will
think this thing is not real.
Keep in mind what was started in 1983 and was right on target all the
way up through about last year, when the President vetoed the DOD
authorization bill from last year, and in his veto message said he did
not want to spend any more money on a national missile defense system.
In light of that, since that has happened, we have probably had more
threats that have come to the United States than we have at any other
time.
We have talked about the cost. I am from Oklahoma. The cost of the
damage that was done to the building itself in Oklahoma City was $500
million, half a billion dollars. That is just a drop in the bucket as
to the total cost. The bomb that caused so much damage in Oklahoma had
the power of 1 ton of TNT. The smallest nuclear warhead known at the
present time is 1 kiloton, 1,000 times bigger than that bomb.
So I would like to have anyone, any of these Senators who seem to be
so passive in their interest in protecting ourselves from a missile
attack, to stop and look and remember, recall what happened in Oklahoma
City on April 19 of last year and multiply that by 1,000. It does not
have to be just in New York City. It does not have to be in Los
Angeles. It could happen in North Dakota, it could happen in Nebraska,
or anywhere.
I will conclude by saying if all these experts say the threat is out
there, if all of them say the Taepo Dong 2 missile will have the
capability of reaching the United States by the year 2000, and there
are missiles in existence today that can already reach us, and this
missile technology is permeating all the way through the various
countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Pakistan and other nations, if
this is out there, just ask the question--we are talking about $300
million right now. We are talking about $300 million, far less than
just the damage to the building in Oklahoma City. Ask yourself the
question: What if we are wrong?
I challenge any of those on the other side of the aisle who want to
take this money and put it into social programs, to ask themselves:
What good are these social programs if we were wrong on this, on our
estimate as to the extent of the capability of these countries to reach
the United States?
I see this as a very difficult time for us. It is difficult because
it is very difficult for us to convey to the American people the truth,
and the truth is, we have threats from many, many nations now. It is
something that we should have as our single highest priority in this
body, and that is to protect the lives of Americans. That is what we
are attempting to do.
I said this morning I am supporting this bill. I think we got the
very most we could out of a defense authorization bill. It is still not
adequate. We should be moving forward in a more rapid pace to put
ourselves in a position to spend this other 10 percent of the
investment we have already spent and give ourselves some type of
defense for a missile that comes over, outside the atmosphere, to the
United States. The technology is there. We saw it during the Persian
Gulf war. We know you can knock down missiles with missiles. This is
our opportunity to go forward with this program in a very minimum that
we must do to fulfill our obligation to the American people.
Last, let us look at this in terms of a nonpartisan or bipartisan
priority. Back during the years that John Kennedy was President of the
United States, regarding our budget to run the entire Government of the
United States, 60 percent of that was on defense, 17 percent on human
services. Today, approximately 17 percent is on defense and 60 percent
on human services. I think we have this completely turned around. This
is our opportunity to try to get back on track to making America strong
again, defending ourselves against a very serious threat.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S6403]]
Amendment No. 4049
(Purpose: To authorize underground nuclear testing under limited
conditions.)
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to send to
the desk. I ask unanimous consent we lay aside the pending amendment,
and I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], for himself and Mr.
Reid, proposes an amendment numbered 4049.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of subtitle F of title X add the following:
SEC. . UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR TESTING CONSTRAINTS.
(a) Authority.--Subject to subsection (b), effective on
October 1, 1996, the United States may conduct tests of
nuclear weapons involving underground nuclear detonations in
a fiscal year if--
(1) the Senate has not provided advice and consent to the
ratification of a multilateral comprehensive nuclear test ban
treaty;
(2) the President has submitted under subsection (b) an
annual report covering that fiscal year (as the first of the
fiscal years covered by that report);
(3) 90 days have elapsed after the submittal of that
report; and
(4) Congress has not agreed to a joint resolution described
in subsection (d) within that 90-day period.
(b) Report.--Not later than March 1 of each year, the
President shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services
and on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committees on
National Security and on Appropriations of the House of
Representatives, in classified and unclassified forms, a
report containing the following matters:
(1) The status on achieving a multilateral comprehensive
nuclear test ban treaty, unless the Senate has already
provided its advice and consent to the ratification of such a
treaty.
(2) An assessment of the then current and projected safety
and reliability of each type of nuclear warhead that is to be
maintained in the active and inactive nuclear stockpiles of
the United States during the four successive fiscal years
following the fiscal year in which the report is submitted.
(3) A description of the number and types of nuclear
warheads that are to be removed from the active and inactive
stockpiles during those four fiscal years, together with a
discussion of the dismantlement of nuclear weapons that is
planned or projected to be carried out during such fiscal
years.
(4) A description of the number and type of tests involving
underground nuclear detonations that are planned to be
carried out during those four fiscal years, if any, and a
discussion of the justifications for such tests.
(c) Testing by United Kingdom.--Subject to the same
conditions as are set forth in paragraphs (1) through (4) of
subsection (a) for testing by the United States, the
President may authorize the United Kingdom to conduct in the
United States one or more tests of a nuclear weapon within a
period covered by an annual report if the President
determines that is in the national interest of the United
States to do so.
(d) Joint Resolution of Disapproval.--For the purposes of
subsection (a)(4), ``joint resolution'' means only a joint
resolution introduced after the date on which the committees
referred to in subsection (b) receive the report required by
that subsection the matter after the resolving clause of
which is as follows: ``Congress disapproves the report of the
President on nuclear weapons testing, transmitted on
______________ pursuant to section ______ of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997.'' (the first
blank being filled in with the date of the report).
(e) Implementation of Test Ban Treaty.--If, with the advice
and consent of the Senate to ratification of a comprehensive
nuclear test ban treaty, the United States enters into such a
treaty, the United States may not conduct tests of nuclear
weapons involving underground nuclear detonations that exceed
yield limits imposed by the treaty unless the President, in
consultation with Congress, withdraws the United States from
the treaty in the supreme national interest.
(f) Report of Superseded Law.--Section 507 of Public Law
102-377 (106 Stat. 1343; 42 U.S.C. 2121 note) is repealed.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will describe this very briefly. It is
actually a simple amendment. I will only discuss it here for about 3 or
4 minutes, then we can have further discussion tomorrow when there are
more Members present, when they desire to do so.
This is an amendment dealing with nuclear testing, and the effect of
it is to simply extend the time for the President to decide to test a
nuclear weapon to the point that the United States ratifies a
comprehensive test ban treaty and it goes into effect.
Today, the law is, as of September 30, the President could not order
a nuclear test unless another country were to test a weapon.
What this amendment would do is to allow the President to order a
test for safety and reliability purposes; in other words, not dependent
upon whether another country happened to engage in testing, and that
right would exist until such time as this country ratified and a CTBT
went into effect. This chart describes very simply what we are doing.
The current law is that as of September 30 of this year, the
President's ability to order a test would no longer exist, unless
another country engaged in a test. And then once a CTBT is entered into
force, there is no test except for extreme national emergency.
What our amendment would do is to continue the status quo until such
time as there is a CTBT, and the rationale is very simple. The fact
that another country tests does not necessarily mean that the United
States should test. Our ally France has conducted nuclear tests. China
has conducted nuclear tests and plans to conduct some more. And in
neither of those events is it necessarily the case that as a result the
United States should test.
We have no reason to test just because some other country does. But
there is always the possibility that the President would want to order
a test in order to assure stockpile safety and reliability. If we had
some reason to believe, for example, that one of our weapons was no
longer safe and we wanted to test that it was safe or to find out why
it was not safe, in that event, today the President has such a right to
order such a test, and he would continue to have that right until such
time as the CTBT is adopted.
That is it. That is as simple as the amendment is.
I further state, the Congress would have the right under this
amendment to ratify the President's decision or to reject it, based
upon reports that the President would continue to send to us. Today,
the President is required to send us a report, and we would continue to
require that report be sent to us on the status of the stockpile and
whether any testing is required.
Under this amendment, if the President said he wanted to conduct a
test, the Congress would have the ability to tell him he could not do
so. This is not something that we are suggesting that the President do
or suggesting that he would do it. It is simply a safety valve, if you
will, in the event of some untoward event with our stockpile that the
President should conclude that a test is necessary that he would have
the ability to do that.
It does not affect the CTBT negotiations in any way. As I said, our
amendment simply goes up to the time that a CTBT is entered into. It is
that simple, Mr. President.
If Members wish to further discuss it tomorrow, I will be happy to
try to answer any questions about it or discuss it. I cannot imagine it
would be particularly controversial.
Mr. President, if there is no one seeking to speak, I suggest the
absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further
proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, the subject matter of this amendment
will probably be quite contentious. I hope not. I hope that other
Members will see that the amendment does not advocate opposition to
concluding a comprehensive test ban and that it does not promote
testing. With that in mind, I rise in support of the amendment offered
by the distinguished Senator from Arizona.
As I understand the amendment, it would authorize the President to
conduct underground nuclear weapons tests after October 1, 1996, if a
comprehensive test ban treaty has not been ratified by the United
States. In order to conduct an underground nuclear test, the President
would have to submit a report to Congress detailing justification for
the test. In order to stop the test from being conducted, the Congress
would have to pass a joint resolution within 90 days.
[[Page S6404]]
During the debate on the Exon-Hatfield legislation which prohibits
nuclear testing, I voiced my concerns for the safety and reliability of
the nuclear stockpile without the ability to test. So long as our
defense relies on nuclear weapons, we must ensure the safety and
reliability of the stockpile. That requires the authority to conduct
underground nuclear tests. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment.
Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
____________________