[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 56 (Monday, April 30, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4051-S4052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, tomorrow President Bush will make a speech 
on the subject of national missile defense. I want to comment briefly 
about that.
  A national missile defense sounds perfectly plausible to a good many 
people. In fact, we have colleagues in this Chamber who believe very 
strongly that we ought to begin deploying a national missile defense 
immediately, despite the fact, of course, that we don't have a national 
missile defense that works. The last time we did a test of the system 
was last summer. In that test, we sent up a missile with a target 
warhead. We knew what the target was, we knew where it was going to be, 
and we knew when it was going to be there. Despite that, we could not 
hit it with our interceptor.
  These are very simple, rudimentary tests, and we have not been able 
to demonstrate through those tests that we have a national missile 
defense system that works.
  Some say: Well, but shouldn't we have a national missile defense 
system in the event that someone launches missiles at this country?
  What they need to understand is that the national missile defense 
program that is being discussed by the administration, and that was 
discussed by past administrations, is not a national missile defense 
program that would safeguard this country against, for example, a 
nuclear missile attack by Russia or China. No. It is in fact a system 
that is very narrow, which, if it worked, would provide a kind of 
catcher's mitt against an attack by a rogue nation of one or two or 
three or four missiles.
  A rogue nation or a terrorist leader getting access to an ICBM, as 
improbable as that might be, and wanting to launch that ICBM would 
confront an American national missile defense program that would be 
able to go up and catch that missile as it came in and explode it. That 
is the theory. It has never been an approach that has been advertised 
to protect us against a more robust attack by just one submarine 
launching missiles from all of its tubes coming from Russia. It would 
not defend us against that.

  So people should understand what is being talked about here. Despite 
the fact that we don't have a system that works, we have people saying 
we ought to deploy it immediately. Deploy what? What kind of a system? 
The last test failed. Ought not we have a system that is demonstrated 
to have worked before we talk about deploying it?
  Second, there are other problems. In order to deploy a national 
missile defense program--some call it Star Wars, and others have other 
names for it--in order to deploy that with the time of deployment that 
is envisioned, we would have to violate the ABM Treaty.
  That ABM Treaty has been the centerpiece of our arms reduction 
efforts. Our arms reduction efforts with the old Soviet Union and now 
Russia have been quite successful. We have far fewer nuclear weapons 
than we used to--far too many, but far fewer than we used to have, and 
fewer delivery vehicles as well.
  The centerpiece of those reductions in nuclear arms has been the ABM 
Treaty. Some say this treaty is obsolete, let's get rid of it. If we do 
that, we will have, in my judgment, dealt a significant blow to the 
future of arms reductions.
  If we get rid of the ABM Treaty, as President Bush suggests and as 
some of my colleagues suggest, in my judgment, we will retreat back to 
a situation where Russia and China and other countries will build more 
offensive weapons even as we try to build this limited national missile 
defense system.
  In addition to the issue of the ABM Treaty and the violation of that 
treaty by building a national missile defense system, we also are 
encountering vigorous opposition from virtually all of our allies who 
are very concerned that if we build a new national missile defense 
program it will ignite a new arms race, especially with Russia and with 
the Chinese. That is a very real and valid concern.
  I would like to urge my colleagues and President Bush to try to 
develop a balanced view of all of this and understand that there are 
consequences to all of it. We have a range of threats. Yes, let's deal 
with that range of threats. I happen to support research and 
development for our national missile defense system. I do not support 
deployment of a system we have not yet demonstrated to be workable. The 
threat it is supposed to counter is one of the least likely threats 
this country faces.
  By far the most likely threat we face is for a terrorist or a rogue 
nation to get ahold of a suitcase-size nuclear bomb and put it in the 
trunk of an old rusty Desoto car and park it on a dock somewhere in New 
York or Chicago. That is by far a much more likely scenario of a 
terrorist act. Or instead of a suitcase bomb, perhaps someone will use 
a deadly vial of chemical or biological agents that can kill millions 
of people. That is a much more likely scenario--a much more likely 
weapon of mass destruction to be used by a rogue nation or a terrorist 
state.
  We ought to deal with all of those issues. We ought to be concerned 
about all of them.
  As a country that is as free and open as this country, we need to be 
very concerned about terrorism and about rogue nations. But we also 
need to be concerned about continuing the effort to reduce the number 
of nuclear weapons. I mentioned that we have done some of that. I would 
like to ask, by consent, to be able to show a couple of pieces that 
resulted from the efforts in the Senate.
  The Nunn-Lugar Program is the program that most people probably won't 
recognize. It is a program to spend money funding certain activities 
that reduce the threat to this country. One of those activities is to 
cut up Russian bombers.
  This piece in my hand is from a wing strut on a Backfire bomber. This 
bomber used to fly around carrying nuclear weapons that would have 
threatened this country. But now this is not a wing strut on a Russian 
bomber, it is a piece of metal that is in my desk here in the Senate. 
Do you know how I got this wing strut? No, we didn't shoot this bomber 
down. The wing was sawed off this bomber as a result of arms control 
reductions--arms reductions that were negotiated between the United 
States and the old Soviet Union, and which are continuing to be carried 
on by us and the Russians. We saw the wings off bombers, we dismantle 
nuclear submarines, and we take missiles out of their silos, separate 
them from their warheads. That way we reduce the number of nuclear 
weapons on their side and our side. It has happened, and it has worked. 
It is the reason I am able to hold up a piece of a Russian bomber that 
we didn't shoot down, but we paid money to destroy it.
  This is ground-up copper from a Russian submarine. We didn't sink 
that submarine. It was dismantled under terms of an arms control 
agreement with the Russians.
  Does it make sense for us to continue agreements by which we reduce 
the number of nuclear weapons on both sides? You bet it does. Does it 
make sense for us to say to the Russians: Look, the treaties under 
which we have reduced nuclear weapons are now no longer very important 
to us. We are going to violate the ABM Treaty. It doesn't matter what 
you think of it, we are going to produce a national missile defense 
system that has not yet been demonstrated to work--at the risk of 
backing away from the ABM Treaty, and having both Russia and China 
build more offensive weapons? That does not seem like much of a bargain 
to me.
  I hope, as President Bush discusses these issues tomorrow, he will 
understand that the Nunn-Lugar Program and the arms control agreements 
that we have had with Russia and the old Soviet Union have worked to 
reduce the number of nuclear weapons. His appreciation for those facts 
would be a step in the right direction, in my judgment.

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