[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 124 (Thursday, September 17, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H8021-H8022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE ARMS RACE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, we are in a race, and the participants in 
the race, along with the United States of America, are nations like 
North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Communist China, and to some degree, Pakistan 
and India. The other participants in this race seem to understand that 
it is a race because they are doing everything that they can to develop 
offensive missiles that have increasing capability and can go long 
distances, now almost to the point where this last shot that was fired 
over Japan by the North Koreans, the so-called Taepo Dong 1 missile, a 
3-stage missile, had enough range to reach portions of the United 
States of America. That is the North Koreans now, years before the CIA 
ever thought that they would be this far, have now developed a missile 
that has ICBM capability. That means the capability to reach parts of 
the United States.
  Now, on the other side of the race is the American effort to develop 
defenses against these missiles, and this American effort really 
started in 1983 when then President Ronald Reagan told the Nation that 
we were entering the age of missiles, and that we had to do something 
about it, and that rather than just have the ability to retaliate; that 
is, throw our missiles back at that enemy, whoever it might be, we 
needed to be able to develop the ability to shoot down incoming 
missiles.
  Now, that lesson that Ronald Reagan gave us in 1983 was driven home 
in the

[[Page H8022]]

early 1990s during the Gulf War when we saw ballistic missiles, Scuds 
at that time, for the first time in the history of warfare, being 
delivered on a battlefield. My colleagues may recall, Mr. Speaker, 
those Scud missiles destroyed a number of American barracks and killed 
a number of American soldiers.
  We shot some of them down with our Patriots. Our Patriots were the 
Model T of missile defenses. They are very slow. According to MIT, they 
did not hit any of the Scud missiles. According to the U.S. Army, our 
Patriots shooting at those Scuds had close to an 80 percent success 
rate. Probably the truth is somewhere in-between zero and 80 percent.
  But now, our potential adversaries, like the North Koreans, are 
racing to develop offensive missiles, and Mr. Speaker, we are stalled 
in the development of our ability to defend against those missiles.
  If we look at the so-called PAC-3 upgrade, that is just an upgraded 
Patriot. That is maybe, if not the Model T, that is maybe the 1965 
Chevy of our missile defenses. We are not going to even deploy that 
until the year 2000. And, Mr. Speaker, the so-called Navy Lower Tier, 
that is a system that cannot even shoot down the type of Dong I 
missile, 3-stage missile that the North Koreans just fired, that they 
now have and have the ability to fire right now. That Navy defensive 
system, so-called Navy Lower Tier, it is a fancy name for the Navy 
missile defense system, will not even be deployed until 2 years after 
the next century starts; that is, 2002.
  The so-called Airborne Laser that we are working on, we do not deploy 
that until 2006, and the THAAD system, which has a very difficult time 
hitting any of its test targets today, even if it is successful and is 
not terminated, will not be deployed until 2007. And of course, the 
Navy Upper Tier, and that is a system that barely has enough 
capability, if everything works out, to knock down this North Korean 
Taepo Dong I missile, that is not going to be deployed until 2008.
  So the North Koreans today have a missile that can out-perform the 
American defense, and that missile is capable today, and the American 
defense against that missile is not going to be on line until 10 years 
from now, in 2008.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we have to redouble our efforts. We have to reorder 
our priorities. We may have to spend some billions of dollars, but we 
must have a defense against incoming missiles, whether they are 
incoming missiles coming against our troops who are in theater like our 
troops in Desert Storm, or coming into American cities.
  The first question I ask the Secretary of Defense when he appears 
before our Committee on National Security is this: Can you stop today a 
single incoming ballistic missile coming into an American city? And his 
answer always, and this last year again was, no, we cannot stop a 
single incoming ballistic missile.
  We must change that situation, Mr. Speaker.

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