[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 2, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1831-H1832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           IN SUPPORT OF A MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States has 
stated to the world that he is going to embark on a program to defend 
the American people from incoming ballistic missiles.
  This position, this statement, has started the machinery of dissent

[[Page H1832]]

throughout the United States, and indeed, in some of the forums of 
government in adversarial states and in some of our allied states, with 
some of our friends around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, today it is against the law for the United States of 
America to defend itself from incoming ballistic missiles. It is 
against the treaty known as the ABM treaty. That treaty has the force 
of law in this country.
  That means that if Russia, for example, should launch a ballistic 
missile to the United States, we have agreed, we have promised in a 
treaty, not to try to destroy that missile but to let it land in the 
United States and destroy millions of Americans, presumably, if it hits 
in a major city, or if it hits in a military installation, destroy 
thousands of American uniformed service personnel.
  Now, we made this agreement with Russia, which seems like a stupid 
agreement, I think, to most people looking at it intuitively for the 
first time, we made this agreement with Russia when they had an 
extremely large nuclear arsenal and we had an extremely large nuclear 
arsenal. We thought that the best way to prevent a war from starting 
was to say that neither one of us would protect ourselves. So if they 
threw the first the first rock, we could not stop that rock, but we 
could respond with an overwhelming fusillade of rocks ourselves, that 
is, nuclear weapons, and both nations would be totally destroyed by 
these nuclear explosions.
  This doctrine was called the doctrine of MAD, mutually assured 
destruction. Because of that, we adhered to our treaty not to ever 
build a defense against an incoming nuclear weapon.
  Now, President Reagan did not like that. He said the best way to 
defend this country is to truly defend it, not simply to wreak 
vengeance on someone who throws that first nuclear weapon. The way to 
be most humane and not to destroy cities and not to kill millions of 
people is to have a shield, to have a shield or a protection against 
that incoming ballistic missile.
  That was some 17 years ago, Mr. Speaker. Today President Bush renewed 
that idea and that philosophy, and said it will soon be manifested in 
an American missile defense program.
  Now, even for those people who thought that MAD, mutually assured 
destruction, was a good treaty to have between the United States and 
Russia, then the Soviet Union, it does not apply anymore. The reason it 
does not apply anymore is because there are now lots of countries that 
never signed any treaty with the United States who now are developing 
missiles with the capability of carrying nuclear, biological, or 
chemical warheads into the United States.
  For example, China never signed that treaty. They are building 
ballistic missiles right now and aiming them at American cities and 
telling us, it is your obligation not to defend yourselves. North Korea 
now has recently tested a missile which, if we extrapolated its flight, 
would have enough stretch, enough distance to get to the United States, 
or at least parts of the United States.
  Iraq and Iran are now testing missiles with increasing capabilities. 
They never signed any ABM treaty or agreement not to defend themselves, 
or for the United States not to defend itself against incoming 
missiles. They never signed the ABM treaty. North Korea did not sign 
the treaty. China did not sign the treaty.
  As time goes on, we are going to see that this is the age of 
missiles. More and more nations are building those missiles. To some 
degree, we are like this country was in the 1920s when General Billy 
Mitchell came back to the Coolidge administration and said, ``You know 
something, we live in an age of air power. We had better start building 
airplanes, because lots of other people, including potential 
adversaries, are building airplanes. If we do not build airplanes, if 
we do not get into the aerospace age, we are going to lose a lot of 
Americans dead on the battlefield of the next war.''
  We did not pay too much attention to Billy Mitchell. In fact, we 
court-martialed him for saying the Nation was unready for war. In fact, 
we were moving into the aerospace age. Although we lagged with our 
industrial base, we were able to catch up. It was because of American 
aerospace dominance in World War II that we were able to prevail in 
that war. Ever since then, our country has dominated the skies with 
respect to aircraft.
  By the same token, Mr. Speaker, we live today in an age of missiles. 
In fact, it was in the Desert Storm operation that we saw for the first 
time Americans killed by ballistic missiles; slow missiles, but 
ballistic missiles.
  For that reason, President Bush, in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, is 
absolutely right on to launch this program that will defend uniformed 
American servicemen and our citizens against incoming ballistic 
missiles. The American people should get behind it.

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