[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 124 (Friday, September 21, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9674-S9675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DEFENSE BUDGETS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have for the most part today been 
dealing with the Defense authorization bill. As a member of the Armed 
Services Committee, it is something we wrestled with for some time. We 
realize how tight our budget is, and I thought it would be important 
for those Americans who care about those things, that remnant out 
there, that we give them some perspective as to where we are, what this 
authorization bill would mean, and how it would affect our Armed 
Forces.
  In the early 1990s, our defense budget was as high as $326 billion, 
as I recall, well over $300 billion. After the collapse of the Soviet 
Union, President Bush commenced a decline in that budget. He had 
projected it out over a certain number of years and then it began to 
flatten out at a fairly substantial rate over $300 billion.
  What happened was, in our glee over the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
we allowed that budget to continue downward. We reached as low as $286 
billion, I believe, in the mid-1990s, $20 billion more or less than 
former President Bush had proposed, and as a result we reduced our 
personnel very rapidly.
  We had problems in a number of areas funding our budget, and as a 
result, the military began to suffer. In particular, what suffered was 
our plans to recapitalize defense in America. I am talking about ships 
and planes and equipment that is pretty expensive. We paid the electric 
bills. We trained our men and women in uniform. We paid their salaries. 
We did the things we needed to do, but as one naval officer said, we 
created a bow wave out in front of the ship of increased capitalization 
needs. So we have been doing that for some years.
  Gradually, we made a few increases since I have been in the Senate in 
the last 3 years, an increase in our defense budget, but it has not 
been much.
  President Bush ran on the promise that he would do more for defense. 
He said, ``Help is on the way.'' We remember that phrase.
  We do indeed, this year, have a Defense appropriations bill that 
shows the largest increase in probably well over a decade. I know the 
President pro tempore is so familiar with these numbers, there is no 
need for me to recall them for him. We made some progress, and as I 
read this budget, this authorization bill, we will take defense 
spending from $296 billion last year to $328. If you count the 
supplemental of $6 billion, we have a $35 billion increase in defense, 
which amounts to a little over around 10 percent of the budget.
  I thought we would have more impact, but I have not seen it. It 
strikes me that presumably the money has gone to do the things we need 
to do. We promised and committed to higher pay and better medical care, 
as we promised our men and women in uniform. They received that, and 
they are pleased with it. Retention and recruitment and morale is up, 
for which we can certainly celebrate, but it has left us not nearly as 
much as we had hoped we would have to begin to do better about 
capitalization.
  For example, it was not too many years ago we were looking for a 600-
ship Navy. We are now down to around 315 ships. We have ships going out 
of service every year because of age and lack of serviceability, and 
the number of ships coming on are less. So at the present rate, we can 
expect our fleet to fall well below 300. Maybe that is wise. I doubt 
it. I think we are getting a bit thin. I say that simply to say the 
money is not there in this budget to build ships at the rate it needs 
to.

  I served as the ranking member on the Sea Power Subcommittee and 
dealt with those numbers, along with Senator Kennedy, and we did the 
best we

[[Page S9675]]

could with the moneys we had to allocate, but we are not where we need 
to be in shipbuilding.
  So now we find ourselves in a war against terrorism. I think it is 
causing us to reevaluate what we have done with defense. As a 
percentage of our total gross domestic product, our spending on defense 
is at a low level, certainly since the midpart of the last century. We 
are at a low level in spending as a percentage of the gross domestic 
product.
  I think we can do better. Right now, in short order, we will receive 
the QDR, the Quadrennial Defense Review, report. That should help us 
plan for the future. I hope it will be a bold and aggressive call for 
reform and change and innovation. I think it will have some of that in 
it, but I am not sure it will go as far as we would like it to go. We 
will be looking at that.
  Then the Secretary of Defense is also completing his review, and he 
will analyze the situation and will make a recommendation to us for a 
reformation of our military, a transformation of our military, so it is 
more capable of dealing with conflicts of the kind we are discussing 
this very night, the television commentators are discussing: Are we 
ready to fight that kind of war?
  I believe we need to be sure we are. I do not think it will cost us 
an amount of money that we cannot afford. I am not sure we are where we 
need to be with regard to transformation to go from a military that was 
capable and required to defend on the plains of Europe against massive 
attacks by tanks and infantry and troops from the Soviet Union to a 
world that is much more complex, much more diverse, requiring more 
speed, more maneuver, more mobility to transport troops around the 
country.
  I salute Senator Levin and Senator John Warner, the ranking 
Republican on the committee, for working together to reach an accord at 
this critical time in our country that I can support at this time, and 
that was not easy. We had some differences of opinion, and when the 
bill came out of committee on a partisan vote, 13-12, we were 
distressed about that. In the days that have gone by since and after 
this terrorist attack, I think we all realized it was necessary we 
should reach an agreement on how to proceed.
  I believe that was done. I can support this bill as I understand it 
today, and we will probably vote next Tuesday. We will have made a step 
in the right direction. Our challenge, of course, with $20 billion more 
in defense, is to confront terrorism around the world.
  Our distinguished President pro tempore is a student of Roman 
history, the best in this Senate, probably one of the best in the 
United States. I thought I would share tonight a little bit of Roman 
history, Appian's Roman history; as someone referred to me, what the 
Romans did about terrorists.
  This is the situation they faced: Pirates were developing throughout 
the Mediterranean. It became unsafe for Roman ships to sail. According 
to Appian, in a very short time these pirates increased in number to 
tens of thousands. They dominated now not only the eastern waters but 
the whole Mediterranean to the Pillars of Hercules. They now even 
vanquished some of the Roman generals in naval engagements, and among 
others the praetor of Sicily on the Sicilian coast itself.
  No sea could be navigated in safety, and land remained untilled for 
want of commercial intercourse. The city of Rome felt this evil most 
keenly, her subjects being distressed and herself suffering grievously 
from hunger by reason of her own populousness. But it appeared to her 
to be a great and difficult task to destroy so large a force of 
seafaring men scattered everywither on land and sea, with no fixed 
possession to encumber their flight, sallying out from no particular 
country or any known places, having no property or anything to call 
their own, but only what they might chance to light upon. Thus, the 
unexampled nature of this war, which was subject to no laws and had 
nothing tangible or visible about it, caused perplexity and fear.

       When the Romans could no longer endure the damage or the 
     disgrace they made Gnaeus Pompey, who was then their man of 
     greatest reputation, commander by law for 3 years, with 
     absolute power over the whole sea within the Pillars of 
     Hercules, and of the land of a distance of 400 stades from 
     the coast to coast. They sent letters to all kings, rulers, 
     peoples and cities, they should aid Pompey in all ways. They 
     gave him the power to raise troops and to collect money from 
     the provinces, and they furnished a large Army from their own 
     muster-roll, and all the ships they had, and money to the 
     amount of 6,000 Attic talents--

  Perhaps the President would know how much that was; apparently it was 
a lot--

       So great and difficult did they consider the task of 
     overcoming such great forces, dispersed over so wide a sea, 
     hiding easily in so many nooks, retreating quickly and 
     darting out again unexpectedly. Never did any man before 
     Pompey set forth with so great authority conferred upon him 
     by the Romans. He had an Army of 120,000 foot and 4,000 
     horse, and 270 ships.
       Pompey, like a king of kings, should move to and fro and 
     stationed his people where he thought best.

  He developed a brilliant scheme to deploy his forces. And he 
astonished all by the rapidity of his movement, the magnitude of his 
preparations, and his formidable reputation, so that the pirates, who 
had expected to attack him first, or at least to show that the task he 
had undertaken against him was no easy one, became straightway alarmed, 
abandoned their assaults upon the towns they were besieging, and fled 
to their accustomed peaks and inlets. Thus the sea was cleared by 
Pompey forthwith without a fight, and the pirates were everywhere 
subdued at their several locations.
  According to Appian's history, whereas it was expected to take 3 
years to win this war because they were so united, so determined, and 
so committed, within a matter of days the war was won, 10,000 of the 
pirates were killed and the rest surrendered.
  I don't know and don't expect we can accomplish this much in dealing 
with our modern-day terrorist pirates, but I like the way they set 
about to do it. They recognized their nation was threatened and 
jeopardized, and when the disgrace could be stood no more, they took 
action to defend their just interest, and did so with a commitment that 
was total and complete, and they set about it and were successful far 
more quickly than people thought possible.
  I don't know if this will occur more quickly than we think possible, 
but I know one thing: If we commit ourselves to it, just as the Romans, 
we can succeed. And even though these people move about and seem to 
have no place they call their own, and are difficult to locate, they 
can be located, they can be pressured, they can be attacked, and can be 
defeated. I hope and pray we will succeed in that.
  I am honored to be a Member of this Senate--not the Roman Senate but 
this Senate. It is a great Senate, as the Presiding Officer is wont to 
remind us--the greatest since the Roman Senate. I believe, united as we 
are today, we can succeed in eliminating these modern-day terrorists 
who threaten our world, our prosperity, and our liberty.
  I am honored to have the opportunity to speak tonight, and I yield 
the floor.

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