[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 1, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1669-H1670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         SUPPORTING THE PRESIDENT'S MISSILE DEFENSE INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the 
President's announced speech to

[[Page H1670]]

move forward with missile defense for this country.
  It is outrageous to me, and it should be to our colleagues, Madam 
Speaker, that 10 years after 28 young Americans came home in body bags 
from Desert Storm, that we still do not have a highly effective theater 
missile defense system to protect our troops.

                              {time}  1300

  We have made some progress. We have pushed the PAC3 system, to the 
extent now where it is about to be deployed. We have made progress on 
the THAAD program, having had successful intercepts three times. We 
have had success in our Navy areawide program.
  The Israelis have had success with the Arrow program. We are now 
moving together with them on the theater high energy laser program, 
which offers promising potential for us. We are working with the 
Europeans, particularly the Germans and Italians on the Medium Extended 
Area Defense System, or MEADs.
  We are making progress, but we still have not had the success that we 
need. I am convinced that part of that is because for the past 8 years 
we had no consensus and leadership from the White House pushing this 
country on military defense as John Kennedy challenged America to land 
on the moon in 1960, and 9 years later we did it.
  Madam Speaker, all of that is changing today, as the highest elected 
official in our country comes out solidly in favor of missile defense 
as a resource for defending our people.
  Now, some would say, well, why do we worry about missiles when a 
terrorist can take a truck bomb and do the same thing? Well, we are 
concerned about terrorists activities. In fact, that is why in our 
committee we have plussed up funding for work-related to chemical and 
biological terrorism significantly over the past several years; but the 
fact is the weapon of choice by Saddam Hussein to kill 28 young 
Americans was not a truck bomb. It was, in fact, a low-complexity SCUD 
missile that sent those young Americans, half of them from my State, 
back home in body bags to be buried by their families.
  Some say we cannot rush to judgment on national missile defense, and 
I can tell my colleagues what the President is going to offer is a 
layers approach, much like we have advocated, where we deploy those 
quickest possible technologies that are proven and tested to give us 
some short-term capability.
  I say it is about time that we begin deploying technologies that can 
assist us. Some of our colleagues will say, wait a minute, the Russians 
will be backed into a corner. I say that is hogwash. Yes, the Russians 
do not trust us today.
  Madam Speaker, I would say if I were a Russian today, I would not 
trust America either on missile defense, because three times in the 
last 10 years, we have publicly rebuked Russia on cooperation of 
missile defense. The first was after Boris Yeltsin in 1992 accepted 
George Bush's challenge to work together, and we began the Ross-Mamedov 
between our State Department and the Russian Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs.
  In 1993, when Bill Clinton came into office, he abruptly canceled 
those talks. That sent a signal to Russia, we do not want you involved. 
The second time was in 1996, when the only cooperative missile defense 
program between this country and Russia, the Ramos project, was 
canceled by the Clinton administration.
  It was only because Carl Levin, people like the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), 
and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) went to war with the 
White House that we were able to reinvigorate the Ramos program and 
keep it alive, but the signal was sent to Russia we do not want to work 
with you.
  The third example was in 1997, at a time where almost everyone says 
the ABM treaty needed to be flexible. The administration sent its 
negotiators to Geneva to negotiate two outrageous protocols that would 
actually tighten up the ABM treaty. One would create demarcation 
between theater and national missile defense artificial 
differentiation, the other would be multilateralization of the treaty.
  The administration knew that neither the House or the Senate, 
especially the Senate would ratify those protocols, but they convinced 
the Russians that that was our position. Even though the Constitution 
requires the administration to submit those kinds of changes to the 
Senate for their advice and the consent for 3 years, the administration 
never did that, because they knew the Senate would not ratify them.
  The Russians for the third time were tricked in their mind, tricked 
into believing that America really was serious about cooperating with 
them.
  When the Duma included those two protocols, the part of START II 
ratification last spring, all of a sudden our Senate said no way are we 
now going to pass START II, because the Duma did what the 
administration did not do. They attached the protocols to the ABM 
treaty, as additions to the START II treaty, something that we would 
never accept in this country.
  It is no wonder the Russians do not trust us. If I were in Russia 
today, I would not trust America's intentions in missile defense 
either. It is time to get beyond that. We can, in fact, rebuild a trust 
that we have lost and let the Russians know that missile defense is not 
about backing them into a corner.
  Missile defense is for Americans, for Europeans, for Russians, and 
for all peaceloving people on the face of the Earth.

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