[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 1, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1670-H1671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Spratt) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, President Bush will outline today his plan 
for national missile defense. I reserve judgment until I hear the 
speech, but I have been following SDI and NMD, National Missile 
Defense, for years; and I have a few thoughts of mine that I want to 
share with the House, for whatever they may be worth.
  I think National Missile Defense, NMD, is worth pursuing, and if it 
works, I think it is worth deploying. But we have not proved that it 
works, not yet. In fact, after spending more than $60 billion on 
missile defense, we have learned as much about its limits as about its 
potential. Every form of defense we have explored at great expense has 
been found to be an Achilles heel of one sort or another. Boost-phase 
interceptors can be thwarted by fast-burn boosters or ablative covers. 
Space-based systems, whether they are lasers or kinetic interceptors 
move in fixed orbits and can easily be targeted and taken out. Sea-
based systems are constrained by an obvious factor, the finite space 
availability on ships available.
  We for now settle on ground-based, mid-course interceptors, which I 
consider to be our clear first choice, the right way to go, but I will 
be first to tell you that the problem of discriminating warheads from 
decoys and chaff is a daunting problem that is a long way from being 
resolved.
  We have spent 18 years and $60 billion since Mr. Reagan made his 
speech; and if we have learned anything, it is that missile defense is 
not likely to render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. It may 
enhance deterrence, I believe it will; but it is not likely to replace 
deterrence.
  There is, however, a threat, a threat of an unauthorized or 
accidental attack, a threat of a rogue attack, existing and emerging, 
and I think it would be wise to have a missile defense system to meet 
that threat. But we have to recognize, we have to be realistic and 
recognize that a rogue or unauthorized attack can well come in an 
unconventional manner and probably will, rather than by missile with 
the sender's signature written all over it, and that threat, the threat 
of nuclear weapons in the hands of parties undeterred by our ability to 
strike back, is a very real threat best opted at its source.
  If we strike ahead to defiantly on our own abrogate the ABM treaty 
and deploy any defense systems that we want to deploy, we may very well 
jeopardize the arms control measures that make us secure and make 
ourself less secure rather than more.
  Now, I think that ground-based interceptors are the first right step. 
We

[[Page H1671]]

build the SBIRs-Low system anyway. We are working on a technology here 
with ground-based interceptors that are complementary to the technology 
we use for theater missile defense systems. Everybody agrees that is a 
need we need to develop; and it will be proved to be useful, I think, 
to have a system on the ground which can be tested continually and 
improved incrementally.
  But having said that, having said that, I want to say, I do not think 
we should be so zealous to deploy any system that we deploy a 
substandard system that has not been tested and tested rigorously or 
else we will find ourselves on a rush to failure.
  Finally, I think we need to be realistic. We are soon going to get a 
defense budget from the Pentagon. We are told it could be to $200 
billion to $300 billion to $400 billion more than the $2 trillion we 
have already provided in the FYDP for the next 6 years. We need to be 
realistic about not only the acquisition costs but the life cycle costs 
of a ballistic missile system.
  I do not think NMD deserves a trump card in our budget. It is time, I 
think, that we in the Congress and elsewhere in the government stopped 
treating BMD, ballistic missile defense, as a political totem. That is 
what it has become, a political totem like no other weapon system we 
have ever seen.
  It is time for us to start treating this just as any other weapon 
system. It does not need cheerleaders. It does not need pallbearers, 
what BMD, what NMD needs is candor. It needs to be held to the same 
standards of feasibility, cost effectiveness as every other weapon 
system we buy and deploy.
  If we are going to sell this system to others, our allies, our 
adversaries, our former adversaries, to Russia, we need to have unity 
or some cohesion among ourselves, bipartisan unity.
  I think if we stay within these bounds, we can build that kind of 
bipartisan consensus. We should never lose sight of this fundamental 
fact. We have got a rough, rocky relationship with the Russians right 
now, but we are making progress.
  While we can work with Russia, we should work with Russia to secure 
their missile systems, to secure their nuclear and fissile materials. 
And bear this in mind, a critical point, through programs like Nunn-
Lugar and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, we have helped to 
deactivate so far 5,288 Russian warheads, 419 long-range missiles, and 
367 silos. These numbers, what we have accomplished under these 
cooperative programs, dwarf the number of warheads that even the most 
robust NMD system could have handled or could have stopped.
  We have only begun in that effort. We do not want to diminish that 
effort and leave ourselves less secure rather than more secure, that is 
why I plead to the President not just for the statement of policy, but 
also for balance and also ask him to make a bipartisan effort founded 
on consensus and not just on the unilateral position that his 
administration is pursuing.

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