[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 150 (Tuesday, October 20, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H11690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          AMERICA'S VULNERABILITY TO BALLISTIC MISSILE ATTACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I have come before this body over 150 times 
to talk to my colleagues and the American public about what I see are 
some of the important issues that this country faces.
  Oftentimes my colleagues on the other side have repeatedly accused 
the Republicans of leading a ``do-nothing'' Congress. In one sense, I 
am very sorry to report that they are correct. This Congress has done 
nothing about our Nation's vulnerability to ballistic missile attack. 
Congress has failed to begin building a national missile defense 
system, a failure that is so inexcusable I will have to agree with my 
liberal Democratic colleagues, at least on this one point.
  The United States has a policy of deliberately remaining vulnerable 
to a missile attack. Instead of building a national missile defense 
system, we place our faith in a piece of paper called the ABM Treaty. 
Our national security depends, therefore, on tyrants, dictators, and 
international thugs to respect that piece of paper.
  Does anyone really believe that Saddam Hussein cares that we have 
signed an ABM treaty, a treaty with a country that no longer exists? 
Does anyone really believe that Mu'ammar Qadhafi will think twice about 
threatening the United States because we have signed the ABM treaty? 
Did Osama bin Laden reconsider his terrorist strikes against our 
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania because we are signatories to the ABM 
Treaty?
  What good will the ABM treaty be against the Islamic bombs, weapons 
which will soon be in the hands of rogue nations whose citizens 
demonstrate against the great Satan by burning the American flag? Did 
North Korea step back from launching missiles into Japanese territory 
because America has signed an arms control agreement with a country 
that no longer exists?
  Mr. Speaker, this policy of deliberate vulnerability is dangerous, it 
is foolish, and it is counterproductive. What is also strange is that 
we already have a technology to deploy a missile defense system. The 
U.S. Navy's Aegis cruisers are equipped with the technology that can be 
converted into a national missile defense system at a minimal expense. 
The Navy has already spent billions of dollars perfecting the state-of-
the-art system, and it defies logic to prevent that system from being 
developed to end our vulnerability to a missile strike.
  I do not understand why the other side refuses to take dangerous 
threats seriously. Must we always be surprised when the threat is upon 
us? How many times in history must we learn the hard way? How many more 
examples of rogue nations threatening the United States do we need to 
have before we wake up to the threats? Must the United States squander 
the technological edge that it has built up over the years with 
billions and billions of dollars for the sake of a meaningless arms 
control agreement?
  Mr. Speaker, although we have, in the recently passed budget, 
approximately $1 billion for some antiballistic missile research and 
development, the American people expect more. They deserve more, and 
failure to do so is a violation of the public trust.
  I might remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that the 
preamble to the Constitution declares to all the world that ``We, the 
people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and provide for the 
common defense.''
  Let us stop there, and provide for the common defense of this Nation, 
Mr. Speaker. Failure to build a national missile defense system 
immediately is a failure to provide for the common defense of America. 
Every single person in America will know it, but will they know it far 
too late to take advantage of it?

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