[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 17, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H4036-H4041]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMENDING MILITARY AND DEFENSE CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL RESPONSIBLE FOR
SUCCESSFUL BALLISTIC MISSILE TEST
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
resolution (H. Res. 195) commending the United States military and
defense contractor personnel responsible for a successful in-flight
ballistic missile defense interceptor test on July 14, 2001, and for
other purposes.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Res. 195
Whereas at 11:09 p.m., eastern daylight time on July 14,
2001, the United States successfully tested an interceptor
missile against a target Minuteman intercontinental ballistic
missile in flight;
Whereas the target missile was launched from Vandenburg Air
Force Base, California, and was traveling at approximately
140 miles above the Earth at a speed of greater than 11,000
feet per second, which is more than three times faster than a
high-powered rifle bullet, when struck by the interceptor
missile;
Whereas the interceptor missile was also traveling at a
speed greater than 11,000 feet per second at the time of
impact;
Whereas more than 35,000 Americans contributed to the
successful test, including the Air Force team which launched
the target missile from Vandenburg Air Force Base and the
Army team which developed the radar and kill vehicle, the
Navy and Coast Guard team which provided security for the
test, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization team which
supervised the testing program, and the contractor team
consisting of thousands of American scientists, engineers,
and blue collar workers employed by the prime contractors and
hundreds of small businesses; and
Whereas the House of Representatives understands that
testing of ballistic missile defenses will involve many
failures as well as successes in the future, the House of
Representatives nonetheless commends the effort and ingenuity
of those who worked so hard to make the test a success: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives thanks and
commends the thousands of United States military and
Government personnel, contractors, engineers, scientists, and
workers who worked diligently to make the July 14, 2001,
missile defense intercept test a success.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Spratt) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, Americans sometimes do great things. At 11:09 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time last Saturday, the work of some 35,000 Americans,
including service personnel from the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast
Guard, and the Army combined to produce a wondrous success in our
missile defense testing program.
{time} 1100
It was extraordinary, Mr. Speaker. We had an interceptor that was
launched from Vanderbilt Air Force Base in California, heading west,
achieving a speed of some 11,000 feet per second, or more than three
times faster than a high powered rifle bullet; and an interceptor was
launched from Kwajalein Island, also achieving a speed of close to
11,000 feet per second, also going much faster than a rifle bullet; and
at 11:09 eastern time that interceptor successfully hit the target
vehicle and destroyed it 148 miles above the Earth over the Western
Pacific.
Mr. Speaker, I think Americans need to draw a number of conclusions
from this very successful test. First, it is absolutely appropriate
that we in the House of Representatives commend all the great people
who worked on this program, and we intend to do that fully. Of course,
the Army developed the radar and the kill vehicle working from their
missile defense headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. The Air Force in
this case launched the Minuteman missile, which was the target missile,
from Vanderbilt Air Force Base. We had Navy and Coast Guard monitoring
and providing security in the Pacific. So we had thousands and
thousands of men and women in uniform supporting these tests, all the
way from folks who were doing basic security work to folks who were
doing some very high-level physics work.
Along with that, we had lots of Americans, scientists, engineers,
blue-collar workers, some working for major contractors and others
working for small business. One thing we have learned in this missile
defense business is that the innovators, sometimes the smartest guys,
are in the companies with 20, 30, 40, 50 people, and all of these
people combined to produce a success that was stupendous. It was
remarkable.
[[Page H4037]]
The idea that people, you could raise two high-powered rifles, so to
speak, farther apart than Los Angeles and New York, and shoot at a
point toward the center of the country, and those two high-powered
rifle bullets would hit precisely together at a point over the Midwest,
is an extraordinary thing. It is something that many people thought was
impossible.
So I think it is entirely appropriate for the full House, on both
sides of the aisle, regardless of what your position is on the ABM
treaty or missile defense, to commend the wondrous efforts of the men
and women of our uniformed services, and also all the folks working in
business to make this thing work, all the contractor personnel who made
it go.
Secondly, I think we have to acknowledge we have got a long road
ahead in this program. As our resolution states, we are going to have
lots of successes; we are going to have lots of failures. I am reminded
that with Polaris, the Polaris tests numbered over 120, and it failed
more than 50 percent of the time. The first time we put up surveillance
satellite capability, our first 11 launches failed before we succeeded.
Yet that was a very important capability to achieve.
So you have to have lots of failures. In fact, if you test
rigorously, if you make these tests as difficult as you possibly can,
while still learning a lot, you are going to have failures. I think we
will have failures in the future, just as we are going to have failures
with our other theater missile defense systems. But, nonetheless, Mr.
Speaker, we have proven that not only can you hit a bullet with a
bullet, but you can hit something going three times as fast as a bullet
with an interceptor going three times as fast as a bullet, and that is
truly extraordinary.
Mr. Speaker, this is a good day for America. It is a great milestone
in this missile defense program that we have. We have a lot of hard
work ahead. We have got lots of challenges, these tests will get
tougher and tougher; and in the future, of course, we will have
failures as well as successes.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join the gentleman from California (Mr.
Hunter) in support of this bill, as a cosponsor of the bill, as well as
the floor manager for the bill on our side of the aisle.
The road to Saturday's successful intercept has been long and
arduous; and we have miles to go before we can say we have gotten
there, even gotten to the point where we have what we call a limited
defense system capable of defending us against rogue missile attacks,
simple rogue missile attacks, or perhaps unauthorized or accidental
strike. We have a long way to go, and we should not let the euphoria of
this moment obscure that fundamental fact.
Indeed, if we have learned anything since March 23, 1983, when Mr.
Reagan made his speech and proposed what became the Strategic Defense
Initiative, it is that missile defense is not likely, unfortunately, to
make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. It may enhance deterrence,
but it is unlikely to replace deterrence. That is a fundamental point.
Nevertheless, I think enhancing deterrence is a worthy goal. I think
that if we can prove through testing, like the tests that we held
Saturday night, rigorous testing, that gets more and more demanding and
challenging with each test, that eventually takes on countermeasures as
well, if we can prove after this kind of rigorous testing that we have
a system worthy of deploying, that will give us limited protection
against the kind of threat I just described, it is worth deploying; and
I think it is worth observing what was accomplished Saturday night,
because it moves us in that direction.
Let me emphasize that testing is critical. I have been a long-time
supporter of that. We do not want to fool ourselves into thinking that
we have got a system that can take on this daunting challenge when, in
fact, it can easily be overcome or is not capable of what it is touted
to be. We do not want to fool ourselves by deploying some kind of
scarecrow system.
We associate ballistic missile defense with Mr. Reagan's speech on
March 23, 1983; but in truth both administrations, the Clinton
administration, the Reagan administration, the Bush administration,
going all the way back to Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1967, have supported
missile defense in one form or another.
Indeed, the safeguard system originated in 1967 with President
Johnson's administration. It was taken to the point that it was
deployed. The Spartan system failed a number of times. No one felt that
it was a complete and good defense system; and after spending what
would amount in today's money of about $20 billion, we abandoned the
system in North Dakota.
We kept spending money on ballistic missile defense in Democratic and
Republican administrations. There were systems that have long been
forgotten, like the BAMBI, which was a boost-phase interceptor, which
was abandoned because it could not be proven to be invulnerable to
counterattacks in fixed orbits in space.
Indeed, the path to Saturday night is littered with systems that
simply could not meet the mettle. We have spent a lot of money, $60
billion since 1983, to get where we have gotten; but we have had some
successes, and I think it is right to take some time aside to savor
those success.
I think the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) would agree we
should not forget that this was not the first intercept with this
system. Indeed, the first intercept occurred 2 years ago under the
Clinton administration. This was a Clinton administration system. They
in effect brought the technology to the point where it could be tested
Saturday night and proven to work at least in those circumstances.
Mr. Speaker, when the test was concluded, General Kadish, who is
doing a commendable job as the manager of this program, a very
practical, pragmatic man, told everybody there, all the press there,
when they asked him what should we deduce from the success we just had,
he said if you just lower the level a little bit and let us proceed in
a rigorous disinterested way, let us not get too excited about this
thing, let us do our work, we think we can prove to you that we have
got something worthy of deploying.
I think it is very, very fitting and very, very appropriate for us to
rise today to commend the thousands of people who have made this a
success.
While we are at it, I think we might commend a lot of other people in
the so-called military-industrial complex, which is what we call them
when we are usually disappointed, when we are usually confounded by the
bills they present us, when we are usually suspicious of what they are
up to.
When they succeed like Saturday night, we call them the arsenal of
America. There are a lot of people out there are working in the arsenal
of America making the F-22 meet its test every day. There are a lot of
them working in other programs, like the THAAD, which was almost
discarded. We gave it some extra money and another chance. They went
out and made it work. They have just brought to fruition the PAC-3.
So there are successes, and we should commend them for their enormous
technological capability, their perseverance and ability that brought
us this far. I hope that this sort of bipartisan occasion today is an
example of how we can treat ballistic missile defense in the future. It
has been a political totem, frankly. I would like to see it treated
like any other weapons system, the F-22, the C-17, you name it. If it
meets the mettle, we go forward with it; but it if it does not, it
should be held to the same standards, truly with the same sort of
rational examination and expectation we would any military system.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Traficant).
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, leaders of China and Russia have just
kissed, signed an agreement, and referred to Uncle Sam as an
imperialist. China got our secrets from spies and from buying, with the
help of Janet Reno. Russia got them from the FBI and Robert Hanssen.
All of our enemies know our technology.
I was not an original supporter of the Star Wars initiative, but I am
now. America cannot be defended by the neighborhood crime watch. When
they took our spy plane, I do not know what
[[Page H4038]]
the big crisis was; China made everything that was in it.
We have got a tremendous problem on our hands, and the only way to
protect the American people is to continue with our technology buildup
to provide a reasonable shield.
This test, and I commend all of those involved, gives us hope for the
beginning of an initiative started by former President Reagan, and I
commend him here today. He had the vision and the foresight to see that
America would be challenged by maybe even rogue nations with nuclear
capability that was illegally gained from America.
Beam me up here.
I want to join the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) in saluting
all of those involved, and recommend to the Congress of the United
States that we go forward and continue to fund this initiative. Our
number one priority is national security, and we should get that job
done.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina
for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, apparently I am the only person who is going to come out
here and raise a question. Everybody who has watched the military
industrial complex develop weapons systems must be amazed that the day
after something happens in the Pacific, we run out on the floor in this
virtual reality Congress to make a PR event, which will be in the
newspapers, as though we have succeeded. Now we must put out $60
billion or $100 billion.
If you listen carefully to the words of the gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spratt), this thing has failed over and over again. This
is only the second time out of four, in a system where you put the
problem out there and you have the answer, and you shoot at it, and two
out of four times you have missed.
Now, how can anybody be excited about a system like that? If I know
what the pitcher is going to throw and I stand here, I am going to hit
it. Everybody knows that. That is why they hide the pitcher's signals
between the catcher's legs. They do not want people to know at bat what
the pitcher is going to throw. But here we have this system, right here
and right here, and twice we missed it; and we are out here
congratulating.
I do not say anything about the employees. Boeing has worked on all
kinds of these programs, but we never came out and congratulated them
the first time they succeeded. This is simply to build up a momentum in
this society for a system which, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Traficant) says, is driving the Chinese and the Russians together.
To put this system up, we have to tear up the ABM treaty. The
Russians have said do not do it; it has kept peace for 50 years. The
Chinese have said do not do it.
{time} 1115
Why are we out here whipping up the public to believe this is a good
idea?
I am going to vote against the resolution; not against the people,
but against the purpose of it.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think one aspect of this resolution that the gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I have coauthored is that it does not speak
to the politics of missile defense or the ABM Treaty or the
relationship of the Soviet Union and the United States. What it does
speak to is a technological challenge that we gave lots of people, many
of whom make great sacrifices to work in the uniform of the United
States or who go to work everyday in various places around this
country, working either for the government or for private business,
whether they are physicists or engineers or blue collar workers,
working on a program that I would state again is monumental in its
success.
Once again, both of these systems were going three times faster than
a high-powered rifle bullet, and they collided 148 miles above the
earth, some 4,800 miles off into the Pacific, an extraordinary thing.
It is like having somebody stand in San Diego with a high-powered rifle
shooting to the center of the country and somebody standing in New York
doing the same thing, except the high-powered rifles really went three
times as fast as an ordinary high-powered rifle, and having those
little bullets collide in midair.
Now, I think that is an extraordinary thing. Indeed, it is something
that a lot of critics of this system said was impossible: hitting a
bullet with a bullet. But I think if we look at the resolution that the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I have cosponsored, it
does not say that this is the end of the line and that somehow we have
now achieved absolute defense against incoming ballistic missiles.
What it does say, and I quote: ``The House of Representatives
understands that testing of ballistic missile defenses will involve
many failures as well as successes in the future. The House of
Representatives, nonetheless, commends the effort and ingenuity of
those who worked so hard to make the test a success.''
Mr. Speaker, when Billy Mitchell came back to the Coolidge
administration in the 1920s, one of his messages was that we had
entered the age of air power, whether Americans liked it or not. He
recommended to a then Republican administration that they spend a lot
of money developing air power. Well, we had a number of budget hawks
who did not want to do that, and we did not do as much as we should
have. As a result of that, we were not as ready as we should have been
for World War II.
Well, today, Mr. Speaker, and particularly since the Gulf War when
Americans were killed for the first time with ballistic missiles fired
by Saddam Hussein, we realize that we live now not in the age of air
power but in the age of missiles. When we look at the array of military
systems across the board that we have, and the gentleman from South
Carolina and I work on a daily basis with lots of other great Democrat
and Republican members of the Committee on Armed Services, we know that
we build systems to stop ships. We build systems to detect submarines.
We build systems to handle tactical aircraft, fighter aircraft. We
build systems to take down bombers. We build systems to handle and that
can handle capably just about every type of offensive weapon that an
enemy could throw at us, except one.
So the one question I have always asked the Secretary of Defense when
he appears before myself and the other members of the Committee on
Armed Services is: Could you today, could you today stop a single
incoming ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, coming into an
American city? And the answer always is, whether it is a Democrat or
Republican administration: No; today we cannot do that.
Well, that is what we are working toward, Democrats and Republicans,
people in uniform and people out of uniform, is to achieve that
capability.
I think that it is very important for us to understand, and the
reason the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I put this
language in, acknowledging that there are going to be failures in this
testing program as well as successes and the difficulty of this
program. We are going to have decoys. That is, when the offensive
missile puts its warhead, projects its warhead off of the booster
system, it is going to have perhaps decoys that would attract the
interceptor missile; and the interceptor missile would end up hitting
decoys, not being able to discriminate between a decoy and a real
warhead. We have to work that problem. We have to be able to handle
that problem.
We are going to have, in some cases, perhaps evasive maneuvers. We
are going to have lots of problems. We are going to have in some cases
multiple shots; that is, a number of warheads coming in that we have to
handle at one time. We may have to handle the effects of a nuclear
burst at some point.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, the alternative is for us to do
nothing. The old saying is, ``You don't do anything until you can do
everything, so you do nothing;'' and I think that is an inappropriate
position for the United States to take. If we do not try to build a
defense and do not try to develop this interception capability, this
will be the first time in this century that the United States has
looked at a weapon, at an offensive weapon, and decided that they are
not going to try to learn how to defend against it. I think that would
be a mistake.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
[[Page H4039]]
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just take a minute to comment on the legislative history of
this resolution.
I first learned of this resolution when I got a call yesterday
afternoon from the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) on the golf
course. He had his staff busy at work on this, and he wanted to send me
a copy of it. Over the evening, we proposed a number of changes to the
preamble and to the resolving clause. The gentleman from California
(Mr. Hunter), to his credit, acknowledged our purpose, which was to
confine this resolution to the purpose at hand; that is, commending
those who have accomplished what is a daunting feat. It is done every
day, but this is a particularly daunting feat. It was a big challenge.
So we want to send them a message of commendation. We took out
references as to how much we should infer or read from this particular
success as to whether or not we would one day have a big missile field
over the country so that those who disagree could at least send a word
of commendation to the people who have so ably pulled off this test.
Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) for
working with me, but I want to say to my side that this is a much
pared-back resolution which we resolved through genuine compromise and
I agreed to cosponsor about 1 minute before this debate began.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, that was a good
decision, I might say to the gentleman.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Maine (Mr. Allen).
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Although I am proud of the men and women in our military service and
those working for defense contractors who were part of this success, I
have to rise in opposition to the resolution for several reasons,
first, in terms of process. As the gentleman from South Carolina said,
this resolution was never considered by the Committee on Armed
Services. It was just brought to the attention of the minority
yesterday at 5 o'clock. There was no consultation with the minority
until then. I think many Members really do not have a grip on the
implications of what it is we are voting on.
Second, precedent. This resolution commends the U.S. military
personnel and contractors for the apparently successful national
missile defense tests of last Saturday. BMDO says it will conduct 10
more tests in the next year. So do we pass a resolution each time it
hits? Should we pass a resolution each time it misses? Because there
are some Members who would want to do that, although I am not one of
them. Would the majority support their right to offer such a
resolution? What kind of precedent are we setting? Will we feel
compelled to vote every time a major weapons system passes a milestone?
The F-22, for example. Why not pass a resolution every time a community
gets a COPS grant or a housing grant?
My third objection is substance. General Kadish, in the post-test
briefing, cautioned that scientists could need months to finish
analyzing the test results: ``We do not know for certain that every
objective was met,'' he said. ``In all probability, some of them were
not.'' I believe it is irresponsible to put the House on record before
there has been a full analysis.
Now, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) on the Republican
side, who has worked on this issue for years, and I do not see eye to
eye on missile defense very much, but together we sent a ``Dear
Colleague'' last week urging Members not to rush to judgment on the
test results, positive or negative. We quoted General Kadish: ``I do
not believe it is helpful to overplay our successes or failures.'' This
resolution runs counter to the spirit of his plea. It is not
productive. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and I can
actually agree on something related to missile defense, we hope a few
other Members will listen.
Finally, politics. This resolution will not help solve NMD's
technological problems. It will not resolve the ABM Treaty issues. It
will not get us to deployment any faster. In my opinion, it serves no
purpose other than a political one. The best thing we could do for
national missile defense is to reduce the political and idealogical
motivation and focus on the technology, on the strategic and security
issues.
For those reasons, I believe this resolution is ill-advised and
should be withdrawn or defeated.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just remind my colleague who just spoke that there are a
couple of things that General Kadish did agree on with respect to the
test. First, the intercept was made. The interceptor missile, traveling
three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet, fired from
Kwajalein Island did intercept a target missile coming from Vandenburg
that also was going three times the speed of a high-powered rifle
bullet. Literally, a bullet hit a bullet 138 miles above the earth in
the mid-Pacific. That is a fact.
It is true that we monitored this test with a lot of technology, that
it is an in-depth test. There is a lot of analysis going on right now,
and we are going to see how much information we harvest from this. But
I would just tell my friend that I went on record before this test
happened saying that I was going to support the continued funding of
this program, whether it succeeded or failed, because I believe that
this is an important national priority. That is my position.
But, nonetheless, if the gentleman looks at the enormity of American
effort that went into this test, over 35,000 people in the uniformed
services and out participating; and if this was a space shot, if this
was an exploratory shot into space involving the Challenger or some
other aspect of what I would call domestic space exploration, this test
would have been given great publicity and great kudos by the media and
the United States. I would remind my colleagues, these folks in the
uniformed services who work on missile defense work just as hard, put
in just as many hours and are just as ingenious as the folks that work
on domestic space exploration.
I thought it was absolutely fitting, and I still do, to give them
recognition. We have made it very clear. We say that there are going to
be lots of failures as well as successes, and we understand that. This
is not an attempt to change the ABM Treaty. It is an attempt to
acknowledge the American genius that played itself out on Saturday
night.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina
(Mr. Hayes).
Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I thank my colleagues for bringing this very important
resolution to the floor.
I think about what I have heard this morning, and it occurs to me
that some things that we debate here are not very clear, but others are
quite clear. National security is spoken of in the Constitution as one
of our primary responsibilities.
I do not really see this as a political or as a public relations
issue. It is a philosophical issue. The gentleman from California (Mr.
Hunter) and others and myself believe that strong national security,
the protection of our families and our country against foreign
aggression with missiles is very important to our future. This was a
milestone. A technically very difficult assignment was met. It was
successful, and we are moving in the right direction.
In this day and age, when philosophies clash here, I think it is
important to set the record straight: This is about sound science; this
is not science fiction. We have the ability to produce this protective
system. It can be done only by continued effort to protect this country
and future generations. And I applaud the gentleman from California
(Mr. Hunter), I applaud our men and women in uniform, and I think it
behooves us to continue to support this resolution and to make sure
that this country, both space and space inside and outside, are
protected. I think this resolution is very timely.
{time} 1130
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Kucinich).
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, I sent a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld today which cites
reports that certain modifications were
[[Page H4040]]
made to the test vehicle and warhead to greatly increase the
likelihood of success.
In the letter, I state that Congress must know which modifications
were made, how they contributed to the success, and the likelihood that
such modifications could be used in a real engagement of the missile
defense system.
I asked if the kill vehicle or dummy warhead employed a GPS, global
positioning system, and if so, at what stages was the GPS system used.
I asked, did the kill vehicle or dummy warhead employ a C-band radar
system, and if so, at what stages was the C-band radar system used.
I asked, did either the GPS system or C-band radar system communicate
with or reveal any information to the Target Object Map.
I asked if the software modifications to the tracking computer or
infrared tracking system provided information to the kill vehicle not
normally available in a real-life scenario.
I think before Congress acts on such a resolution, it would be nice
to get an answer to some of these questions. Otherwise, what we have is
a situation here where we are into a dark fantasyland, where the threat
of a nuclear strike against the United States is being exaggerated or
it is nonexistent.
Our task as Nation and as a world should be to get rid of existing
nuclear arms, to stop nuclear proliferation to new countries, to deal
with arms control and arms elimination.
We have people who are actually predicting nuclear war in the future.
We are back to the days of the Cold War. We have a responsibility to
work for peace, not through nuclear proliferation, not through nuclear
rearmament, not through building bigger and better missile systems or
systems which defeat the ABM treaty or the nonproliferation treaty, but
through the painstaking work, the daily work of diplomacy, of human
relations, of seeking cooperation between nations.
It is fascinating that we have technology to restart the arms race,
that we have technology which violates the nonproliferation treaty,
that we have technology which violates the ABM treaty. But it would be
even more fascinating if we used this opportunity to start a new dawn
of peace where we get rid of nuclear weapons once and for all.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Lee).
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a resolution commending
defense contractors and the military for the ballistic missile defense
test of July 14, 2001. This test, not the personnel, mind you, but this
test, is really something to condemn, not to commend.
The defense industry and the Pentagon have now passed their half-
scaled-down, simplified test. This is really nothing to celebrate. When
our schools have that failure rate, the President wants to close them
down. The military-industrial complex is apparently held to a much
lower standard.
More fundamentally, this test moves us ever closer to violating the
antiballistic missile treaty. We signed and ratified the ABM because we
recognize that missile defense systems could destabilize more than they
could protect.
We cannot go back on our word and abandon this treaty. Peace is
really our national security. We cannot be a nation that approaches
nonproliferation while really practicing escalation, and that is what
this test has taken us down the road to. Instead of leading the way
towards responsible disarmament, we are unraveling arms control
agreements.
We must be a nation that decides where we really want to go. Do we
want to go down a path to a new arms race, or forward to a real post-
Cold War peace?
Attempts to build a national missile defense system are really not
enhancing our national security, they are destabilizing the world,
which I heard over and over again just 2 weeks ago from our European
allies. Violating treaties does not make the world a safer place.
Congress should not be celebrating spending billions and billions of
dollars on national missile defense. We should be standing by our
treaty agreements, we should be working to end nuclear proliferation,
and we should be spending that money on vital national needs, such as
health care, education, and housing.
Yes, there are dangers in the world, but missile defense systems will
spark new arms races, nuclear proliferation, violated treaties, and
destabilizations, and also billions in spending. These are the fruits
of missile defense. That is nothing to celebrate.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would say that all Americans remember the fact that
some 19 Americans were killed in Desert Storm by ballistic missiles.
Those Americans who were killed by those incoming Scuds were not killed
by tanks, they were not killed by machine gun fire, they were not
killed by fighter attack aircraft, they were killed by ballistic
missiles.
Those Scud missiles were going faster than a bullet, and we threw up
some Patriot missiles, defending against those incoming Scuds. We got
some, we missed some. There is a discrepancy as to how many we got and
how many we missed. But at the end, when the smoke cleared, 19
Americans were dead and some 500 were wounded.
We have troops around the world, and at some point, and I think we
have reached that point, we have to acknowledge that we are squarely in
the age of missiles. Missiles will kill Americans in the future, I
think we can predict that, unless we build defenses.
The idea that unless we build a perfect defense, we do not have any
defense, does not make any sense. Certainly some of those young people
who were in Saudi Arabia who were the targets of those Scud missile
attacks did come home alive because some of those Patriot missiles that
we had defending against the attacks did hit their targets, and some of
those Scuds were knocked out of the sky before they could kill
Americans.
We have slow missiles, the Scuds; we have medium-speed missiles, the
missiles like the SS-20s; and we have very high-speed missiles, like
the Minuteman missiles like the target we shot at over the Pacific.
It is very clear these tests are going to get tougher. They have to
get tougher to replicate what we think will be operational conditions.
We are going to have lots of misses in the future. But for us to not
pursue this capability to defend our troops and our people in American
cities would be disregarding our obligation as a Congress of the United
States to preserve national security.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, on Saturday night, in the euphoria after the test,
General Kadish warned against reading too much into this single test.
He warned specifically that we have a long way to go before we have a
system we can deploy.
I think, at this moment and in days ahead, we should bear his caution
in mind and take his prudence to heart. This test shows that the
technology for an operational system is within our reach, and that is
good news. This was a daunting feat. That is why I support this
commendation. But it is not yet within our grasp.
We should continue with this ground-based system, we should commend
the people who were developing it, testing it. They are working hard,
and they deserve our gratitude. But we should not fool ourselves.
Challenges remain. This system should be held to the same standards as
any other weapons system before we make the decision to deploy.
Mr. Speaker, I think it would probably be appropriate to quote
Churchill after North Africa at this point, who was asked, ``What does
this signify?'' He said ``It is not the end. It is not even the
beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning.''
Maybe we are a bit farther ahead than that, but that is where we
stand. We should not get too carried away or euphoric about one single
test. There are many more to come.
This resolution itself says we had better be prepared for failures,
because they are likely to happen, particularly if the program does
what we have asked it to do, and that is begin with the simple and move
to the complex; add with each test more rigor, more
[[Page H4041]]
difficulty, countermeasures, and other things. We are going to see
failures before we have a system that we can judge.
One further point, and it is a critical point. This system, the
ballistic missile system and all its components, is different from
other weapons systems in the sense that it is affected and controlled
by a treaty called the ABM treaty of 1972.
This treaty, some support it, some do not, but in any event, it is an
integral part of our arms control relationship with the Soviet Union
and today with Russia. It underlies START II, it makes possible START
III, and we must be careful not to create a rupture with Russia over
the provisions of the treaty. In anything we do, we should try to make
it treaty compliant, or at least make it possible by a mutual amendment
to the treaty.
If we deploy this system and create a rupture in our relationship
with Russia, if we abrogate the ABM treaty and simply walk away from it
defiantly, we can see the Russians, as they have threatened, pull out
of START II, forego START III, and call an end to cooperative threat
reduction, which has removed hundreds of warheads that were a menacing
threat to us.
If we did that, if that was the end result, then the net result for
our national security would be a greater threat and not a lesser threat
as a result of deploying ballistic missile defense. Those sober words
need to be borne in mind as we pass this celebratory resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Kucinich).
Mr. KUCINICH. I think we can all appreciate the work of all Federal
employees who work in defense-related matters, but that is not really
what this resolution's subtext is about. This is an attempt to approve
a process which violates the ABM treaty and which, in its essence, will
restart the arms race.
There is no reason for the United States and Russia and China to be
engaged in a showdown over nuclear arms. We need to get rid of nuclear
weapons, we need to enforce our arms treaties, and we need not to move
forward with this Star Wars program which wastes taxpayer dollars and
which diverts us from the necessary work of building a new peace in our
world.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Linder).
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
I think it is interesting, the debate over this system, as to whether
the science is there or not, because I recall a time 30 years ago when
President Kennedy, with great courage, said, ``We will put a man on the
moon by the end of this decade,'' and we did not have any of that
science, but we achieved it.
When this Nation can put itself behind a project, it will succeed.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, to conclude this debate, we are saying to the men and
women of the Armed Services, to the men and women of the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization, and all those folks in big and small
businesses, the 35,000 people that made this test a success, good work.
It was a job well done. Now let us roll up our sleeves and go on to the
next challenge.
General Leave
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to to revise and extend their remarks
on this legislation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) mentioned
a golf course. The Republicans did beat the Democrats in the annual
golf tournament yesterday, with the leadership of the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Oxley). I know he will be interested in that.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) that the House suspend the rules
and agree to the resolution, House Resolution 195.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
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