[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 46 (Thursday, April 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2304-H2305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SECURITY POSTURE IN AMERICA THREATENED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise as we complete 
legislative work this week, in anticipation of next week when we will 
begin the markup process for one of the largest bills we do each year, 
and that is the defense authorization bill. As my colleague just 
discussed, we are in a massive downsizing mode that I think is heading 
us right for a train wreck at the turn of the century in terms of our 
security posture.
  You are going to be hearing significant amounts of comments and 
speeches and activities over the next four weeks as members of our 
committee, all 57 members, get involved in educating Members of this 
body, and the American people about where we are in terms of our state 
of readiness. I want to call attention to my colleagues two events that 
will take place next week.
  First of all, Mr. Speaker, the largest loss of military life that we 
have had in this decade was back 7 years ago when 28 young Americans 
were killed by a scud missile, a low complexity scud missile shot from 
Iraq into a barracks in Saudi Arabia. That missile devastated the lives 
of 28 young Americans.
  On Wednesday, all day in the Rayburn courtyard off of New Jersey 
Avenue, we will display a 40-foot-long scud missile, a missile that, in 
fact, was produced by the Iraqis with assistance from North Korea; that 
is the same missile that, in fact, killed American troops, the only 
major loss of life of our troops in this decade.

                              {time}  2030

  That missile is now being sold around the world. Rogue nations are 
purchasing it. It is still a threat to this country that we cannot 
defend against.
  Along with a display of that Scud missile, which will be available 
for inspection by our colleagues in the House and the other body and by 
the American public at that courtyard off of the Rayburn Building on 
New Jersey Avenue and C Street, will be a demonstration of one of our 
responses. The Army will, in fact, have a full, active deployment of a 
THAAD battery. THAAD is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System 
that we are developing for our Army to deploy in theaters around the 
world to defeat missiles like the Iraqi Scud missile.
  The THAAD battery will allow Members to see firsthand the success we 
have had to date in building what will become a very capable system. 
The unfortunate part of this is that it is going to take several years 
before this system will be available. But I want to encourage Members 
to walk over to the Rayburn courtyard and see for themselves how far we 
have come in terms of building a comprehensive system.
  In fact, it has been this body, both Democrats and Republicans, over 
the past 3 years that have increased funding for these programs, at a 
time when the administration wanted to continually decimate and 
decrease funding for these very important programs.
  The second event will occur the second day, on Thursday of next week, 
when 2,000 of America's finest American fire and domestic defenders, 
our emergency services personnel, will travel to Washington for our 
tenth annual dinner, where on Thursday night at the Washington Hilton 
we will pay tribute to these brave heroes.
  These individuals will come from every State in the Union, they will 
represent every major community, large cities like New York, small 
towns across America, and they will come with one common purpose: that 
is, for us to be able to recognize their services.
  But something different will happen that day, Mr. Speaker. On 
Thursday, at noon, there will be a massive rally and demonstration at 
this Capitol building, where the fire and EMS providers in every 
congressional district in this country will gather for a massive rally 
at noon, after having surrounded this Capitol building with fire and 
emergency services apparatus, to make a statement.
  The statement is a simple one: As this Congress and this 
administration

[[Page H2305]]

has increased funding for response to terrorism acts, to the potential 
use of weapons of mass destruction, and for the disasters that would 
result from those, from increases in funding for the Defense budget, 
the Department of Justice budget, the Health and Human Services budget, 
the FEMA budget, and the Department of Energy budget, none of that 
money is in fact siphoning down to those people who are where the 
rubber meets the road, who are the Nation's first responders in each of 
these situations.
  The demonstration on Thursday, that will be loud and vocal, to which 
I invite all of our colleagues from both parties, will focus on the 
fact that this Congress and the administration need to understand that 
in working to prepare this Nation to deal with disasters, especially 
those involving weapons of mass destruction, we need to provide the 
support to the 1.2 million men and women in the 32,000 departments, 85 
percent of whom are volunteer, who protect this country every day.
  I am also asking our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to reach out and invite 
fire and EMS personnel from across the country, and especially in this 
region, to travel to Washington on Thursday to send a signal throughout 
this Capitol, with a massive rally at noon right outside the steps of 
this Chamber, that we will no longer tolerate the consideration of our 
fire and EMS personnel as second-class citizens, that they deserve the 
top priority in preparing this Nation to deal with disasters, both man-
made and the potential use of terrorist devices.

                          ____________________