[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 138 (Tuesday, October 6, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9664-H9669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNDERFUNDING OF OUR NATIONAL MILITARY AND OUR NATIONAL SECURITY
APPARATUS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I will not take the full
hour but I do want to take some time to discuss what I think is the
real scandal in
[[Page H9665]]
this city that we had better start to focus on a little more
aggressively and coherently than we have done in the past.
It seems as though all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle,
the national media and the administration, has focused on the process
currently unfolding in the Committee on the Judiciary. While I am not
going to diminish the seriousness of that issue and the challenges it
presents to us, I want to focus on a lesser publicized issue that I
think presents for us a scandal that is going to last well into the
next century. That scandal involves the underfunding of our national
military and our national security apparatus.
Today, Speaker Gingrich, along with the leadership of the defense
committees in the House, held a press conference and signed the
legislation that we are now sending up to the President to both
authorize and appropriate our defense funds for the next fiscal year.
We have completed our part of the process in laying out our defense
funding strategy for the year 1999.
The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that this legislation was very tightly
controlled by the budget numbers that we were given and does not really
reflect the threats that we see emerging around the world and the
commitments that we are involving our troops in around the world. In
fact, Mr. Speaker, both bills, while the best that we could develop,
were woefully inadequate in terms of funding our national security
needs.
This year, Mr. Speaker, we are into our 14th consecutive year of real
defense cuts. Now when our colleagues talk about cutting the size of
the Federal Government, they talk to their constituents and they talk
to each other about what a great job we have done; we really have
controlled spending. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that the
only real cuts that have occurred in a significant way in terms of
workforce and in terms of budget size is in the area of national
defense.
In fact, if one compares what we are spending today versus what we
spent, say, in the time of John Kennedy, it gives one a realistic view
of where we are today. In the 1960s, when John Kennedy was president,
it was a time of relative peace. It was after Korea and before Vietnam.
We were spending 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar on the military,
9 percent of our country's gross national product. In this fiscal year,
we are spending 2.8 percent of our country's gross national product and
just 15 cents of the Federal tax dollar on the military. So we have
gone, in this short period of time, from 52 cents of every dollar sent
to Washington to 15 cents of every dollar sent to Washington to pay for
national security.
We have to understand the context in which that cut has occurred,
because back when John Kennedy was the President, there was the draft.
We took young people out of high school, we paid them next to nothing,
they served their country for 2 years, some stayed on for a longer
tenure but the pay and the quality of life costs for our troops were
much different than they are today.
Today we have an all-volunteer force. Our young people are well
educated. Many are married. We have housing costs, health care costs.
We have the cost of travel and transportation to move people around. So
a much larger portion of that smaller defense spending goes for the
quality of life of our troops, and we in the Congress are always going
to meet their needs. In fact, in today's bill, we increased the pay
raise for the military personnel by a half a percent above what the
President requested in his budget.
Even beyond the quality of life differential between the sixties and
today, some other things have changed. While we have cut our defense
budget for the 14th consecutive year and while we are now at an all
time low, very close to what we were pre-World War II, some other
things have happened.
In the last 6 years, Mr. Speaker, our commander in chief, the
President, has deployed our troops 26 times around the world.
Currently, he is talking about another deployment over in the Balkans
and in the region that is so unsettled today. Twenty-six deployments
and none of these deployments were budgeted for or paid for.
If one compares that to the previous 40 years, Mr. Speaker, our
troops were only committed to 10 deployments. So 10 deployments in a
40-year time period; 26 in the last 6 years, since this President has
been in office. None of those 26 deployments were paid for.
Now, some might criticize my statement and say what about George
Bush? He committed our troops to a very large operation in Desert
Storm, which he did, to remove Saddam Hussein from the illegal
occupation of Kuwait. But they must also remember that George Bush went
out and convinced the allied nations of the world to help offset the
costs of that deployment. In fact, we generated $53 billion in revenue
to this country for an operation that cost us $52 billion.
So Operation Desert Storm, in terms of dollars, did not cost the
taxpayers any additional money. The 26 deployments in the last 6 years
have cost us in excess of $15 billion. None of that was budgeted for
prior to that deployment, and except for the actions of the Republican
Congress the costs associated with those deployments were not paid for.
So all of that money to pay for those deployments had to come out of
an already decreasing defense budget. So to pay for those 26
deployments we in the Congress had to take money out of modernization,
out of research, out of quality of life, so that our defense budget and
our priorities were that much further hurt by the actions that this
Congress was forced to take.
On top of all of that, we have to look at what has been the most
rapidly increasing part of our defense funding. Back in the 1960s when
John Kennedy was president we did not spend any significant amount of
money on what we today call environmental mitigation. In this year's
defense budget, we will spend $11 billion on environmental mitigation.
Mr. Speaker, when one takes the changes that have occurred over the
past 30 years, the deployment rate that has escalated dramatically, we
see that we are forced into an impossible situation of trying to meet
additional threats with decreased and continuing diminishment of our
resources available for national security.
The President has made the case that there are no longer the same
threats that we faced when we were in the Cold War. I would argue that
is not totally correct, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I would make the case
that Russia is more destabilized today than at any point in time under
Communism, when there was the tight control of a central government,
when there was the rule of law, where there was a Soviet Army that was
well paid and well cared for. Today we have economic chaos in Russia.
We have generals and admirals being forced out of the military without
being given their back pay, without being given housing, without being
given the pensions that they have earned for all of these years; and in
some cases, as General Alexander Lebed testified before my committee,
are now involved in clandestine operations, selling off technology,
chemical, biological, and perhaps even nuclear technology, to those
rogue nations and states that will pay the right fee to get those
secrets that Russia has within its control.
So I would make the case, Mr. Speaker, that while the threat may be
different today, it is actually in some cases much worse than what it
was during the Cold War, because we all to realize, Mr. Speaker, that
while we have seen some reduction in Russia's strategic offensive
nuclear forces, Russia still has tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.
They still have thousands of long-range ICBMs that can be launched from
submarines or from mobile launchers inside of Russia. Those long-term,
long range ICBMs may, in fact, be subjected to the concerns relative to
the instability in the Russian military.
It was just 3 years ago, in January of 1995, because of the
degradation of Russia's internal intelligence monitoring capability,
that even though Russia had been forewarned of a rocket launch by the
Norwegians right next door to Russia, when that rocket launch occurred
Russia mistook that for an attack by a U.S. submarine against Russia
itself. As has been documented time and again, in the public media, in
this country and around the world, Russia then for the first time ever,
that we know of, activated its nuclear response which was aimed against
the U.S., which meant that they had approximately 20 to 25 minutes to
respond to a
[[Page H9666]]
weather rocket being launched by Norway that they had been warned of
earlier.
With a matter of minutes left, Boris Yeltsin overruled the two
commanding officers who, along with him, control the system that
controls the response of the ICBMs from Russia, at that time Defense
Minister Grachev of Russia and General Klesnikov. He called off that
nuclear response, which would have been an attack on our country, of a
multistage rocket that was launched by Norway for weather sampling
purposes.
{time} 1900
These are the kinds of risks that we now face, Mr. Speaker, that were
not a concern back in the days of the Cold War. We face the concerns
brought to us by General Alexander Lebed last year when he told me in a
face-to-face meeting that as Yeltsin's chief defense advisor several
years prior, when he was asked to account for 132 suitcase-sized
nuclear weapons, small atomic demolition munitions, he could only
account for 48. He had no idea where the other 70 or 80 devices were,
whether they were safe, whether they were secure, or, in fact, whether
or not these devices had been sold or maybe, in fact, were on the world
market available to be sold internationally.
The point is that the instability in Russia today is cause for us in
this country to be alarmed. Look at some of the evidence of what has
occurred over this past year. We said last year that we thought the
Russians, some of the Russian institutes that were so desperate for
hard cash may, in fact, be cooperating with nations like Iran and Iraq
to build next generation weapons systems. We were told by the
Intelligence Community not to worry, that is not happening. That Iran,
Iraq, Libya, Syria and North Korea would not have these kinds of
technologies that threaten this country for decades, for years, so for
us not to worry. We have time to prepare.
It was last August when the leader of Israel Mr. Netanyahu challenged
the U.S. by saying publicly that Israel had evidence that Russia had
entered into secret arrangements and deals with their space agency and
the Iranians to help Iran build a medium-range missile.
We in the Congress responded to that. In fact, I introduced
legislation which eventually passed, in spite of the administration's
opposition, to give us short-term capability to protect our troops in
the Middle East, to protect our allies like Israel and Kuwait, Bahrain,
and the other Gulf countries, Egypt and Jordan and so forth.
As late as February of this year, the Assistant Secretary of Defense
wrote me a three-page letter and said, Congressman Weldon, your fears
are unfounded. We will not see the Iranians deploy a medium-range
missile for at least 2 years, and probably even longer.
July 22 came, Mr. Speaker, and the world saw Iran launch a medium-
range missile, the Shahab-3. This missile, which appeared years earlier
than what we were told by this administration, this capability would,
in fact, be within the range and capability of Iran, was tested. We now
assume it is deployed, which means that today, tomorrow, and for the
next 12 to 18 months, the 25,000 troops that we have stationed in the
Middle East, all of Israel, and all of our allies in the Middle East
are at risk because we do not have the capability to defend those
individuals against that system that Iran now has which they acquired
with the help of Russian agencies and entities.
That is why this Congress voted overwhelmingly in the House with 400
votes, in the Senate with 96 votes, to force the administration to
impose sanctions on the Russians for cooperating with the Iranians in
terms of that technology.
This was a threat that we did not see, that we did not feel, and did
not realize just 1 and 2, 3 short years ago. Today it is reality.
Then we saw North Korea, Mr. Speaker, at the end of August, on August
31, take a step that none of us thought would occur, certainly not in
this decade, in this century. And that action was to fire a three-stage
rocket, which we were not even sure that North Korea had the technical
capability to deploy, to fire a three-stage rocket across the mainland
of Japan.
Now, the trouble with that three-stage rocket, known as a Taepodong 1
system, is that this capability, when one does the mathematical
calculations to show the potential range of that system, now shows that
North Korea has a system that can hit the outer fringes of Alaska and
Hawaii.
Mr. Speaker, this is unheard of. We always knew that Russia had long-
range ICBMs. We even knew that China had long-range ICBMs. Now we face
the very difficult prospect that North Korea has tested a system which
begins to touch the outer reaches of the 50 United States. Again, Mr.
Speaker, we have no systems or capability today to defend this Nation
against that threat.
We heard the statements by General Lebed about small atomic
demolition munitions. We know the increasing threat being posed by
weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, nuclear
weapons. We have seen, as I reported 2 months ago on the floor of this
House, 37 violations of international arms control agreements by Russia
and China in the last 6 years alone.
Now, this administration claims that we can cut the Fed spending
because they can rely on our arms control agreements to control
proliferation. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, this administration has the
most abysmal record on arms control of any administration in this
century. Of those 37 violations that I put in the record 2 months ago,
this administration only imposed sanctions three times. In each of
those three cases, they waived the sanctions.
We saw the Chinese sending M-11 missiles to Pakistan. We saw the
Chinese sending ring magnets for Pakistan's nuclear program. We saw the
Chinese sending special furnaces for Pakistan's nuclear program, and we
did not take the appropriate steps to stop it. We saw the Russians
transferring accelerometers and gyroscopes to Iraq. In fact, we saw it
happen three times.
We saw the Russians transferring technology to Iran for their medium-
range missile. In fact, we saw it numerous times. And we have seen
evidence, Mr. Speaker, of the transfer of chemical and biological
technology to rogue nations and rogue states that now threatens our
security and the security of our allies around the world.
So the problem we have, Mr. Speaker, is that while this
administration has cut defense spending dramatically to the point now
where we are facing a situation much like the 1970s, they have also not
enforced the very arms control agreements that they maintain are the
heart of their ability to guarantee stability around the world. So we
have been hit, in effect, by a double whammy. We have been hit by a
lack of arms control enforcement, by a policy of proliferation that we
have not controlled, that this Congress has acknowledged with its
votes, coupled with a dramatic series of cuts in our defense spending.
Now, how serious are these cuts, Mr. Speaker? Well, we have some
wings of our Air Force capability where we have up to one-third of our
fighter aircraft that cannot fly. We have to use one-third of the
airplanes to cannibalize the parts to keep the other two-thirds flying.
A few short months ago we had to ground our nationwide fleet of Huey
helicopters because of lack of resources. We are asking our marines and
our Navy personnel to fly the CH-46 helicopter until it is 55 years
old. This helicopter was built during the Vietnam war, but because we
had to pay for all of these deployments that this President got us
into, we had to shift the money away from buying new helicopters to pay
for those deployments, and more and more of our soldiers and sailors
and marines are being subjected to increased threats because of the age
of these aircraft, because of the age of these systems.
The Joint Chiefs now, after 4 years of telling the Republican
Congress we do not need this extra funding, have finally awakened, and
just last week in the Senate the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the
service chiefs each came in and said, we were wrong, we need more
money. Our backs are against the wall. The troops are hurting. Morale
is down.
We have got the lowest retention rate in the last 20 years in terms
of Navy pilots and Air Force pilots. We cannot pay them enough money to
stay in to man these missions that this President wants to put our
troops into harm's way with.
[[Page H9667]]
Mr. Speaker, this is the real scandal in Washington, and this is
where the American people need to focus their attention. The world is
not all that safe. There are attempts to move weapons of mass
destruction around the world. There are nations building medium- and
long-range missile systems today. In fact, we have intelligence
evidence not just showing North Korea, not just Iran and Iraq, but
Syria and Libya and other nations that are desperately trying to get a
capability to ultimately harm the U.S. and our allies.
How could we be surprised in May of this year when India and Pakistan
started to sabre rattle? One set off a nuclear detonation, and the
other did. We saw that technology flowing there, and we did not stop
it. But when it occurred, we raised our voices and said, how can these
two nations be threatening each other in such a civilized world?
Because of the insecurity that is now occurring around the world by the
continual decline in our defense capability, coupled with the lack of
enforcement of arms control regimes.
Now, Mr. Speaker, most of my colleagues know that I am not advocating
massive increases in defense spending. In fact, I was one of the only
Members on my side that continuously opposed the B-2 bomber, not
because I do not like the stealth technology, but because I felt we
could not afford it. I have opposed weapons systems. I have criticized
this administration for trying to do too much.
But, Mr. Speaker, we are now between a rock and a hard place. As we
approach the end of this century, we are facing a colossal train wreck.
We have a ton of new weapons systems that need to be built to replace
older systems that we cannot fund. The Navy wants a new aircraft
carrier. That is a $6 billion price tag. They want new attack
submarines. They want new surface ships.
The Marine Corps wants the V-22 Osprey to replace the CH-46
helicopter. The Army wants the Comanche helicopter. The Army wants to
digitize its battlefield. They want the Crusader, and all four services
want new tactical aviation, want new fighter planes, the F-22, the
Joint Strike Fighter and the FA-18E/F.
If we take that one area alone of tactical aviation, and if we
proceed, as this administration wants us to do, to buy all three
systems, the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget
Office has estimated in congressional hearings to us that it would cost
us between $14 billion and $16 billion a year to fund those three
programs.
Mr. Speaker, this year we are spending about $2.5 to $3 billion on
tactical aviation. How in the world are we going to fund $14 billion to
$16 billion 5 years down the road? The answer is we cannot.
Mr. Speaker, my prediction is that in the next century, in the first
decade, we will look back on this 8-year period as the worst period of
time in undermining our national security.
Mr. Speaker, we do not have a strong military to necessarily fight
wars, but rather to deter aggression. No Nation in the world has ever
fallen because it was too strong. When a Nation is strong, despots and
tyrants do not think about challenging them. People like Saddam Hussein
and the Ayatollah Khomeini, Muammar Gadhafi think twice when they know
a Nation is strong and there is a price to pay for actions they take.
When a nation begins to weaken itself militarily, when we cannot
handle the level of our commitments around the world, when we do not
enforce arms control regimes that control proliferation, that is when
security becomes a major problem. That is what we are approaching
today, Mr. Speaker. We are approaching a situation today where we
cannot meet the demands that are being placed on our troops.
When I traveled to Somalia a few years ago and talked to our troops,
the one thing that those young Marines said to us was, you know,
Congressman, we will go any place any time we are asked by our country,
but we cannot keep having these back-to-back deployments. You send us
from Haiti to Somalia, from Somalia to Bosnia. When do we get home to
see our families? When do we get home to see our loved ones?
Mr. Speaker, morale in our services is taking a nose-dive. That is
not a front page story in the Washington Post. It is not the lead
editorial in The New York Times. It is not even the lead story in the
L.A. Times. But, Mr. Speaker, it is real.
We are facing a situation today that we are going to pay the price
for. Increasing deployments, decreasing dollars, increasing costs for
quality of life, lack of commitment for the resources necessary, and a
world that is increasingly more troublesome in terms of threats.
{time} 1915
Now, we do not just need to restrengthen our military, but that is,
in fact, a top priority. We need to reinforce our commitment to enforce
arms control regimes; to make sure that nations do not send their
technology to rogue operatives.
Now, I am not saying we have to embarrass the Russians or embarrass
the Chinese. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have been to Russia 16 times, and
last year I led two delegations to China. I formed and chair the
interparliamentary relationship with the Russian Duma. I do not want to
recreate the Cold War. But in dealing with Russia and China, it is not
just the engagement espoused by this administration, rather it is what
I call the need for us to have disciplined engagement.
When we deal with the Russians, they must understand we want to help
stabilize their country economically, socially and politically, but we
also want them to understand that, as a civilized nation in the 21st
Century, they cannot allow technology to be sold to rogue nations, to
rogue operatives. When we deal with China and engage them economically,
they must understand that we are going to call into question their lack
of control of sensitive technologies that they sell abroad. That is
what this administration has not been doing well.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this administration when
they come and ask this body, as they have, to replenish the IMF with
money to help Russia stabilize itself. But, Mr. Speaker, I am going to
make some clear differences between what this administration wants to
do and what I think is necessary.
Many of my colleagues in this body oppose helping Russia during this
time of economic turmoil. I would say we have no choice. Because if we
do not help Russia stabilize itself, I can tell my colleagues where
they are going to turn, they are going to turn to those middle eastern
countries, those Islamic nations who have the dollars, who have the
hard currency to buy the kinds of technology that Russia has to offer,
whether it is chemical, biological or nuclear; to buy the weapon
systems that Russia has to sell.
We need to have Russia understand that we want to constructively
engage in a disciplined way our Russian friends. In fact, that is why,
Mr. Speaker, I went to Moscow the first week of September. I met with
the factions in the State Duma. In fact, I negotiated, with some of my
friends, a series of eight principles that I think should be the
conditions upon which we approve additional funding for Russia through
the IMF. Those principles deal with simple facts, Mr. Speaker, and the
irony is I came back to Washington with agreement on the part of the
Russian Duma.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this administration has complained that the Duma in
Russia has been the reason why the economic reforms have not gone
forward, and that is because this administration has totally relied on
a one-on-one relationship between our President and President Yeltsin.
In fact, we have not established the kind of outreach to those other
power centers in Russia that need to be addressed and need to be
consulted. Well, that is what I did, working with my colleagues in the
interparliamentary dialogue. We negotiated a series of principles that
I think lay the foundation for a new relationship with Russia.
The interesting point, Mr. Speaker, is that today, while many of my
colleagues in the Congress oppose IMF funding, interestingly enough, so
does the Russian Duma oppose IMF funding. Now, why does the Russian
Duma oppose additional American money and western money going into
Russia? Because their perception is that we are reinforcing corrupt
institutions, that
[[Page H9668]]
are basically Boris Yeltsin's institutions in Moscow, that have wasted
hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, as has been documented by
both the IMF, by our own auditing entities in this country, and even by
the internal Russian auditing agencies.
So the Duma says, why should we support more money coming into our
country in the form of loans when we are going to be stuck with the
bill, and when those loans are going to simply bail out corrupt
institutions that have not helped create a middle class in Russia. So
the Duma is not stupid. They do not want more money coming into Russia,
because they have seen where the money has gone up until now. It has
gone down a hole. In fact, much of it has ended up in Swiss bank
accounts, in U.S. real estate investments, by corrupt Moscow-based
institutions that have not been thinking about the welfare and the
needs of the Russian people and the Russian middle class.
Now, there are some things the Duma has to do. They need to implement
reforms. But they will not do it with Boris Yeltsin and they will not
do it for President Clinton, because they see their policies as having
failed. What, then, did we agree to?
Mr. Speaker, first of all, we agree, this was on the part of the
Russian Duma and the U.S. Congress representatives, that any additional
IMF funding, any additional World Bank funding, any additional funds
from the U.S. Government must first of all be preceded by the reforms
necessary and called for by the IMF and by President Clinton. That
means stable tax systems, that means aggressive tax collection, that
means privatization of land, that means structural reform of Russia's
economy. And the Duma agrees with that principle.
The second principle, Mr. Speaker, was that the regions that have
taken steps to implement reforms should be given proper recognition by
the Moscow-based institutions where they, in fact, are taking steps to
privatize the land, to stabilize the economy, and to make programs
available for middle income people in Russia. In fact, this is one of
the top priorities in Russia.
And coupled with this is their initiative to begin the first housing
mortgage financing system in Russia, a program I have been working on
for the last 14 months, set up by my colleague, the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Charles Taylor), one of our successful bankers in
the Congress.
The third principle is that there should be a new commission
established, made up of Members of the U.S. Congress and the Russian
Duma. This commission would monitor every dollar of money going into
Russia to make sure the money is going for the intended purpose for
which the money was allocated. There currently does not exist that kind
of oversight, where we can have access to see where these dollars are
ending up. And if we had had that, perhaps we would not have seen the
hundreds of millions and billions of dollars from the IMF go into
corrupt hands in Russia.
Another principle, Mr. Speaker, is to force the IMF to reform itself;
to suggest to the IMF board that it should convene an international
blue ribbon task force to make specific recommendations to the IMF
board about structural reforms that are necessary to deal with world
economic problems like Russia is experiencing today, something that
everyone agrees with. The IMF needs to reform itself and the way it
doles out its dollars and its credits.
Another principle agreed to by the Duma, Mr. Speaker, was to have a
full accounting of the IMF and World Bank dollars and U.S. dollars that
have already gone into Russia; to establish an appropriate auditing
mechanism to see where those dollars went. And once that auditing was
done, to make sure that no additional dollars from the IMF, the World
Bank, or the U.S. Government went back to those corrupt institutions
that took that money previously and wasted it.
Now, that seems like it is common sense, Mr. Speaker, and that is why
the Russian Duma felt this was so significant and such a high priority;
that no additional dollars would go into corrupt institutions, in
Moscow or anyplace else in Russia.
Another initiative, Mr. Speaker, would have American business leaders
making themselves available voluntarily to work with large corporate
industries in Russia to assist them with their own corporate problems,
whether they be management, fiscal discipline, marketing, whatever the
problems would be, as a kind of mentoring relationship between American
corporate leaders and Russian corporate leaders; to give them the kind
of experiences that our corporate leaders have had such success with in
this country and to be able to apply them in Russia.
And, finally, Mr. Speaker, we agreed that we should establish the
parameters for a new one-shot initiative to bring up to 15,000 college
Russian students, undergraduate and graduate, into America to attend
American business economic and finance schools; to get undergraduate
and graduate degrees in the principles of our free market system so
they can become the next generation of business leaders in Russia's
free markets.
The stipulation that would be required of each of these students is
that they would come to America, but, when completing their degree,
must go back to Russia to live and to work and not be able to stay in
this country; to create a new generation of business leaders to help
Russia move into the 21st Century in terms of a free capitalist system.
So, Mr. Speaker, our point is a simple one. We want to stabilize
Russia, just as we want to help China stabilize itself, but we must do
it with no blinders on our eyes. When Russia violates agreements, we
must call them on those violations. And when China does the same, we
must call them. But in the end, Mr. Speaker, we must also be prepared.
We must have a military capable of handling any situation.
Listening to the chiefs testify before the Senate last week troubled
me greatly, because the chairman of the joint chiefs and the service
chiefs, who are now beginning to write to us about their shortfalls,
are saying they are desperately close to not being able to meet the
needs that they may be asked to respond to by the Commander-in-Chief of
this country, whoever it might be.
Mr. Speaker, that is the real scandal in America, a scandal that
needs to be addressed, a scandal that needs to be looked at. It is not
screaming from the front pages of our newspapers, but when we talk to
those military personnel serving our country, they tell us of the
seriousness of this issue.
I encourage, I implore my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to focus on the
real scandal in America, not just today but as we approach the end of
this session and into a new election cycle, and as we move into the
next new session of Congress; that we look at national security in the
context of what is occurring today around the world.
The threats in the 21st Century are going to be different from the
Cold War. Missile proliferation and missiles are the weapons of choice,
followed closely by weapons of mass destruction, be they chemical,
biological or nuclear, that could be brought into our homeland or into
our allies' territories and set off as we saw in the World Trade
Center, the Murrah bombing in Oklahoma City, or the Atlanta bombing at
the Olympics.
And the threats of the 21st Century are going to involve asymmetric
warfare, the use of computers, and capabilities beyond our imagination
to compromise our smart systems. If I am an adversary and want to take
out America in the 21st Century, I am not just going to think about
missiles and weapons of mass destruction, I am going to try to find
ways to compromise our smart systems. Not just our missiles, that are
all controlled by computers; not just our battlefield, which will be
digitized in the 21st Century; but our quality of life systems, our
electric grid system for our cities, our air traffic control system for
our airplanes, our subway systems for our large metro transit
authorities. These are the areas that we expect to be challenged in the
21st Century. And without the resources and the commitment, Mr.
Speaker, this becomes the vulnerability of America in the 21st Century.
I encourage and, again, I implore our colleagues on both sides of the
aisle, because this is a bipartisan issue. And in the past our
successes in plussing up defense spending have all been bipartisan. It
has been Democrats and Republicans working together in fighting a
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White House that has decimated our military's capability.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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