[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 85 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5942-S5945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MISSILE DEFENSE
Mr. KYL. Madam President, by way of introduction, my remarks will
primarily be in support of an amendment that will be offered by the
distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, the
Senator from Virginia, tomorrow to restore missile defense funding that
was cut in the Armed Services Committee.
I wanted to note that this afternoon the President advised both
Senator McCain and I that he would be traveling to our home State of
Arizona tomorrow--specifically to the town of Show Low which is under
threat of this raging wildfire we have all seen and read about--and he
graciously offered to allow us to accompany him on that trip. But,
obviously, the importance of this Defense authorization bill--
specifically, the votes we will have tomorrow, including an effort to
restore funding for the missile defense portion of the bill--requires
that we remain.
I am going to speak to the issue that will involve his visit to
Arizona tomorrow, why these raging wildfires don't need to continue to
devastate our country, what we can do about it, and what we need to do
about it as a country at the conclusion of my remarks on the Defense
bill. I will address my comments first to this bill which is before the
Senate, and which we will be considering this week.
It seems to me that there is a strange disconnect between recent
developments in the world and some of the contents of the bill that we
are considering.
For example, in early May, Iran--newly dubbed by the State Department
as the No. 1 terrorist nation in the world--conducted a successful test
of its 800-plus-mile-range Shahab III missile. There are some reports
that Iran is now set to begin domestic production of the Shahab III
which will be able to reach Israel, as well as U.S. troops deployed in
the Middle East and South Asia.
On May 7, the Associated Press, citing an administration official,
reported that Iran is continuing the development of a longer range
missile, the Shahab IV, with an estimated range of 1,200 to 1,800
miles. The Shahab IV will be able to reach deep into Europe.
That means that the fanatical mullahs in Tehran will be able to put a
multitude of U.S. allies and our troops within striking distance of
their missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
We have also just witnessed one of the scariest standoffs in recent
decades with India and Pakistan angrily pointing their nuclear-tipped
missiles at each other.
These developments represent a dramatic increase in the worldwide
missile threat.
You might think that the United States would therefore want to
accelerate its effort to build a defense against such weapons. But the
bill before us today would seriously hamper our ability to do exactly
that. This is not something that the American people will stand for.
This is why I believe that tomorrow it is incumbent upon the Members
of this body to listen to their constituents, to listen to the
President of the United States, to look at the events around the world,
and to reconnect our policy here in the Senate to the realities of the
world around us.
This bill makes very deep and damaging cuts to the President's
proposed budget for missile defense. Unless remedied, those cuts will
seriously limit our ability to end our current--and let me say our
unacceptable--vulnerabilities to ballistic missile attack.
As I noted, the threat from ballistic missiles continues to grow.
In addition to the two examples I mentioned, consider this: Today,
there are nearly three dozen countries that either have or are
developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication.
That includes Iran's fellow ``axis of evil'' partners--or members, I
should say--Iraq and North Korea, as well as the terrorist regimes of
Syria and Libya.
Let us take a look at some of these developments, which, unless
indicated otherwise, are taken straight from the December 2001 National
Intelligence Estimate on Foreign Ballistic Missiles. That is the
estimate of our intelligence community about this threat.
North Korea, despite the moratorium on flight testing that it is
supposedly adhering to, continues its development of long-range
missiles. According to press accounts and administration officials,
North Korea has recently conducted rocket motor tests of these
missiles.
In fact, North Korea's Taepo Dong 2 missile, which is capable of
reaching the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload, may now
be ready for flight testing.
As to Iraq, despite U.N. sanctions, Baghdad has been able to maintain
the infrastructure and expertise necessary to develop longer range
missiles.
Its Al-Samoud missile, with a 60 to 90-mile range, probably will be
deployed soon.
And Iraq retains a covert force of scud-variant missiles, launchers,
and conventional, chemical, and biological warheads.
Not to forget about China, the intelligence community assesses that
it could begin deploying its 5,000-mile-range DF-31 missile during the
first half of this decade. That means essentially any time now. China's
even longer range mobile missile, the DF-41, could be deployed in the
latter half of the decade.
China also maintains a robust force of medium-range CSS-5 missiles
which can reach our troops in Japan and Korea.
Of course, China continues to add to its arsenal of short-range
missiles which already number in the several hundreds and are deployed
opposite Taiwan.
According to the intelligence community--and I am quoting now--
China's leaders calculate that conventionally armed
ballistic missiles add a potent new dimension to Chinese
military capabilities, and they are committed to continue
fielding them at a rapid pace. Beijing's growing short-range
ballistic missile force provides China with a military
capability that avoids the political and practical
constraints associated with the use of nuclear-armed
missiles. The latest Chinese short-range ballistic missiles
provide a survivable and effective conventional strike force
and expand conventional ballistic missile coverage.
Even the terrorists are getting into the act. According to a variety
of news sources, some of which have quoted U.S. and Israeli officials,
Iran and Syria have supplied Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist organization
with Fajr-5 missiles, which, at 40 to 50 miles, can reach deeper into
Israel than any rockets Hezbollah has fired so far. One press account
stated further that Hezbollah is assembling chemical warheads for these
missiles.
These developments, among others, led to the following conclusions in
the December 2001 National Intelligence Estimate:
One, short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly if
armed with weapons of mass destruction, already pose a significant
threat overseas to U.S. interests, military forces, and allies.
Two, proliferation of ballistic-missile-related technologies,
materials, and expertise--especially by Russian, Chinese, and North
Korean entities--has enabled emerging missile states to accelerate
development timelines for their missile programs.
In other words, this is making the point that instead of having to
always indigenously develop a missile capability, a country can now buy
these literally readymade missiles from countries such as China, North
Korea, and Russia.
Three, most intelligence community agencies project that, before
2015, the United States most likely will face ICBM threats from North
Korea and Iran, and possibly from Iraq, as well as from the existing
ICBM forces of China and, of course, Russia.
Four, the probability that a missile with a weapon of mass
destruction will be used against U.S. forces or interests is higher
today than during most of the cold war, and will continue to grow as
the capabilities of potential adversaries mature.
After September 11, we dare not willfully remain vulnerable to these
threats. But that is essentially the impact of the partisan cuts that
were made to this bill when it was before the Armed Services Committee.
Of course, there are those who suggest that the September 11 attacks
demonstrated that the major threat to
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this country comes from relatively low-tech attacks: suitcase bombs and
the like. But what September 11 really demonstrated is that our enemies
have the will and the ruthlessness to exploit our weaknesses in any way
they can. In other words, if we are weak in a given area, that will be
an area attempted to be exploited. Therefore, if we have no missile
defense, is there any question that a potential adversary would see the
ability to strike us with ballistic missiles as a potential area for
their policy?
The new types of threats we face from terrorists and the rogue
regimes that support them cannot be dealt with solely through
traditional deterrence. President Bush was right when he recently
remarked at West Point:
Deterrence--the promise of massive retaliation against
nations--means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks
with no nation or citizens to defend.
In addition, I make this point. I do not think the majority of the
Iranian or Iraqi people or Syrian people detest the United States or
wish to attack us with nuclear weapons.
If tyrants like Saddam Hussein, who dictatorially rule some of those
countries, were to use a weapon of mass destruction against our ally
Israel, or even against U.S. troops abroad, I am not sure the President
of the United States, in those circumstances, would want to retaliate
with a nuclear weapon in the middle of Baghdad, let's say, or some
other Iraqi city.
Clearly, we would rain massive retaliation upon Saddam Hussein, but
we would have to think very carefully about a nuclear deterrent in a
situation such as that.
So traditional deterrence may or may not be an appropriate response
to a terrorist attack. The bottom line is, we are not always dealing
with rational actors. To depend on nuclear deterrence alone with a
dictator like Saddam Hussein, who, remember, used chemical weapons
against his own people, or a terrorist like Osama bin Laden would be to
place American lives in the hands of madmen. That, itself, is mad when
we have the ability to defend against such an attack.
That alternative, of course, is to develop and deploy missile
defenses. They will add to our options in terms of a crisis. Defenses
against missiles will help the United States avoid being frozen into
inaction by the threat of a missile attack.
This is the threat of blackmail: A country that acquires a nuclear
weapon and the ballistic missile capability to deliver it will be in a
much stronger position to dictate what it wants around the world--or to
prevent the United States from acting--than one that does not. It
reduces our options significantly.
Just imagine the impact on our decision to go to war against Saddam
Hussein in 1991 had he been able to threaten the United States or our
allies with nuclear missiles. Missile defense will also reduce the
incentives for proliferation by devaluing offensive missiles. If a
rogue actor views missiles as likely to be effective because of our
lack of defenses, they will be developed. If, on the other hand, we
have defenses, then they will obviously be less inclined to spend as
much time or money trying to acquire it.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, in the worst case
scenario, we will save American lives with missile defense.
So we should not be fooled by the fact that the bill still authorizes
several billion dollars for something called missile defense. Make no
mistake that the cuts in this bill are very carefully designed to gut
the administration's plans to protect the American people from
missiles.
If one had wanted to leave intact a program that looked very much
like missile defense, but very surgically gutted the key components of
it, one could not have done better than the language and the money that
comes out of the Armed Services Committee bill.
Allow me to describe some of the features of the President's new
approach. We are very much aware that the President has decided that we
need to transform our military. And the President has proposed an
aggressive overhaul of not only the missile defense program but other
programs from the previous administration.
Let me describe some of the features of this transformational
approach: First, a single, integrated architecture to command and
control all of the various components of a missile defense system. What
this does is to move us from the old concept of several unlinked
systems to one overarching system composed of several integrated
components or elements, as they are now called. This system removes the
need for each element to do everything and, instead, distributes the
basic tasks--such as launch detection, tracking, and battle
management--across the entire system.
So instead of having three or four specific components that do
everything, you have several ways of attacking the problem, all linked
together; therefore, they are much more effective in their overall
ability to detect, track, and destroy an enemy missile.
Secondly, multilayered defenses capable of intercepting missiles in
all phases of flight, including the boost, midcourse, and terminal
phases is an element of the President's transformation plan. The
obvious benefits of this feature is that it will give us several shots,
if necessary, to knock down a missile after it has been launched.
The point is, we do not have very much time, when a missile has been
launched against us, to make a decision to launch a counterattack. By
the time we do that, the missile could well be coming down on top of
us. We need the ability to have multilayered defenses which can be
effective in the boost phase, as the offending missile is going up,
which can try to attack it in midcourse, and, as a last resort, as it
is barreling down on us at something like 17,000 miles an hour.
But if you only rely on that last system, you are not going to get
multiple shots. You are going to get one shot. And it may not always do
the trick. In that case, you have lost.
Third, the ability to deploy defenses rapidly in the event of an
emergency is one of the critical components of the President's plan. To
accommodate these goals and others, the administration reformed the
Missile Defense Agency and gave it wide latitude to pursue innovative
approaches rather than the former approach which was to have a long-
term project of design and research and then development and then
deployment.
The problem is that the bill on the floor today takes dead aim at
each of these worthy efforts. The system's integration and command and
control accounts, the brains of the whole system, if you will, are
reduced in funding by two-thirds. That is gutting the program. To cut
the funding by two-thirds, literally, imagine the human body. It looks
just like it did after the operation except for one thing: You have
taken out the brain. It is not going to work very well. That is the
first damage that was done to the President's program as a result of
Armed Services Committee action.
Programs to intercept missiles in the boost phase, particularly those
employing new basing modes and technologies, are virtually wiped out.
Funding for 10 THAAD test missiles, which would be deployed in an
emergency, is eliminated, and the Missile Defense Agency staff is cut
by two-thirds. Essentially what the bill leaves us is the old piecemeal
approach, with many of the most promising technologies starved of
funding and a variety of impediments created to early deployment of the
President's proposed system.
It is quite interesting that just as these cuts were being made, cuts
that will wreck the Bush administration's approach to protecting the
American people from missiles, the ABM Treaty lapsed into history on
June 13. The bill is an attempt to revive the spirit of that treaty by
those who have never accepted President Bush's decision to opt out of
it. If this is the case, they are in dwindling company.
A year ago, the anti-missile defense, pro-ABM Treaty crowd created
much hubbub over how any decision to renounce the ABM Treaty would
supposedly alienate our allies, cause a major rift with Russia, and
spark an arms race. It was going to be a disaster. Well, as it turns
out, none of those dire predictions came true. Let's have a look.
Have we alienated our allies? As of last count, 12 of our 19 NATO
allies have contributed troops to our campaign in Afghanistan, 7
countries have sent their troops into combat alongside
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our own, and dozens of countries are contributing to our war on
terrorism.
Did it cause a rift with Russia? No. Russia has just entered into a
new partnership with NATO, and President Bush just signed a communique
with President Putin of Russia in May, committing both sides to
cooperation on a host of issues, including, of all things, missile
defense.
How about a new arms race? No, again. President Bush also signed a
treaty with Russia under which both sides intend to reduce strategic
nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200. So the doomsayers were
wrong. It is true that Russia and many European countries might have
preferred that President Bush not renounce the ABM Treaty, but it seems
these countries were not quite as wedded to this outmoded document as
some of its Americans supporters.
The ABM Treaty, as the cold war that gave birth to it, is gone.
Russia and the United States, despite a number of disagreements and
interests that don't always intersect, have moved beyond enmity toward
a new, more cooperative relationship, and at the same time we have
entered into a new area in international relations in which the threats
to this Nation are increasingly complex and difficult to predict.
So the President expended a great deal of energy and capital in
working with our allies and Russia to terminate the cold war and its
documentation in the form of the ABM Treaty, to enter into new
agreements with Russia, to demonstrate we are friends, not enemies. In
order to be able to pivot and address the new threats that face us, the
threats from these Third World rogue powers, he proposes a national
missile defense.
Having gone to all of that trouble--and I shouldn't characterize it
as trouble so much as devoting a great deal of America's prestige and
commitment to this effort--we now have opponents in the Senate who
would go right back to a missile defense of the kind that would be
authorized by the ABM Treaty, which is to say virtually none at all.
That is wrong, very wrong.
The traditional cold-war-style deterrence is not going to deal with
the threats we face today. It is time for ABM Treaty supporters who
have stood in the way of missile defense for nearly 30 years to
recognize this new reality. This reality was brought home with horrible
abruptness on September 11. Just imagine if that day were to repeat
itself but this time with a ballistic missile armed with a nuclear or
chemical or biological warhead. The only responsible course of action
to deal with that possibility is to proceed with the most robust
program of missile defense development we can muster. That is what the
President proposed.
The Pentagon's approach to missile defense is exactly that. It is an
aggressive, forward-looking plan to provide the American people with
protection against ballistic missiles at the earliest possible date.
Indeed, this body overwhelmingly voted to make such a plan U.S. policy
in the 1999 Missile Defense Act.
We have to fund the plan, and we can't allow those who oppose missile
defense to go in and surgically remove the key components of the
President's program in order to effectively defeat missile defense
while at the same time arguing that they have left the program intact.
It does no good to spend $5 or $6 billion on a program without a brain,
on a program that can't communicate among its independent parts, and on
a program that does not begin the transformational policy the President
has outlined.
I am hopeful that when we vote on the amendment of the Senator from
Virginia tomorrow, which restores the funding that was proposed by the
President, the Senate will overwhelmingly stand with the President and
with the American people, with common sense, to be able to defend the
American people against ballistic missile attack. The issue is
literally that stark.
If we support the committee action, while people can claim that they
still support missile defense, the reality will be that that program
cannot go forward because it has effectively been denuded by the cuts
that have been made. We have to support the amendment of the Senator
from Virginia.
I wanted to talk about that tonight because I am not sure that
tomorrow I will be able to engage in the debate prior to the vote. As I
said, it is a vote which we must be here to cast, notwithstanding a
devastating tragedy occurring in my home State.
Since I believe it is the desire of the majority to terminate my
remarks on the Defense authorization bill and the Warner amendment so
that we can go into morning business for a little bit and I can discuss
that subject separately, I ask unanimous consent that a Wall Street
Journal editorial of June 17, 2002, be printed in the Record on the
Defense authorization bill.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2002]
Don't Go Wobbly
(By Margaret Thatcher)
The crisis in the Indian subcontinent is currently engaging
the diplomatic activity of all the great powers. Rightly so.
The calamity a nuclear exchange could bring is truly dreadful
to contemplate.
We can expect that this somber fact alone will exercise an
effective restraint on both sides. But we cannot assume that
the nuclear deterrent effect is the same in the Cold War and
post-Cold War worlds. This reflection has implications far
beyond the subcontinent. It goes to the heart of our
priorities since the events of Sept. 11.
untold damage
During most of my political lifetime the two superpowers,
the U.S. and the Soviet Union, had massive nuclear arsenals,
even a small proportion of which would have inflicted untold
damage. But this knowledge imposed discipline on the
aggressive expansionism of the Soviets and made for a kind of
stability. There were, in fact, well-understood limits on the
extent to which either side would directly challenge the
other's interests. The exceptions--like the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962--only proved the rule.
The nuclear deterrent did not prevent all war; the
conflicts in South East Asia show that. But the West's
possession of a credible nuclear deterrent prevented nuclear
war. It also prevented conventional war in the Alliance's
most vulnerable sector--Europe. The calculation behind the
deterrent was not completely fail-safe. But the rules were
clear, the psychology understood and each side's sticking
points known.
One cannot say the same with India and Pakistan. The
conflicting claims on Kashmir are compounded by lack of
experience in coping with the temptations offered by their
own nuclear capabilities. President Clinton's attempt four
years ago to persuade the hostile neighbors to relinquish
their nuclear status was doomed to failure. The task of
President Bush and his envoys now is both more complex and
more realistic: to remind New Delhi and Islamabad that war,
even a victorious conventional war, would in the long run
damage their nations' interests more than a messy and
unsatisfactory peace. The dangers of a nuclear escalation
only make that more true.
But this crisis also holds wider lessons for us. The
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has
fundamentally changed the world in which we and our children
will live. India's and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals have given
them the power to inflict huge destruction. But neither is a
rogue state. India is a democracy. Pakistan is not, but it
has a ruler who has demonstrated his willingness to side with
democracies against terror. Both are basically friendly to
the West.
Proliferation of WMD offers far more menacing risks when
those weapons are in the hands of the West's sworn enemies.
We have to assume that if those who hate us are confident
that they can threaten us or our allies by this means they
will do so. The threat alone could transform the West's
ability to intervene in order to protect its interests or to
undertake humanitarian missions. In some cases we must expect
the rogue states to try to go beyond mere threat.
It is still true that any such action would be irrational.
There can be no doubt that response to the use of WMD against
us would be massive--probably nuclear. Yet even this awesome
prospect might not deter a fanatic who cared nothing for his
own country or safety. We already see such a mentality at
work in the suicide bombers. At the rate at which nuclear,
chemical and biological weaponry and missile technology have
been proliferating we must expect that at some point these
weapons will be used.
The is quite simply the greatest challenge of our times. We
must rise to it.
The right strategy has been clearly enunciated by President
Bush. America must speedily build a ballistic missile defense
system which will afford protection against missiles launched
from anywhere in the globe. The president has made progress
in winning the argument for this policy. He deserves the
fullest cooperation from all who stand to gain from it,
including Britain.
We also have to isolate rogue states that are seeking to
develop (or have developed) WMD, and eliminate the threat
they pose. Sometimes this will be possible by a mixture of
diplomatic sticks and carrots. Iran for example, was quite
rightly classed by the president as part of the ``axis of
evil.'' It has a missile program which poses a threat to
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Israel's security--a threat that Iran's support for terrorism
against Israel only magnifies. But this is part of a more
complex picture. Iran is a theocracy which is edging toward
democracy. At a certain point, the continuing growth of civil
society in Iran may require its rehabilitation.
North Korea, on the other hand, is beyond reform. Diplomacy
has little value. Indeed, North Korea has already been
appeased too much. It is in the grip of a psychotic Stalinist
regime whose rule is sustained by terror and bankrolled by
those who buy its missiles. It is one of the few states that
could launch an unprovoked nuclear strike. The regime must
go, and I fear that it may not go peacefully.
Between Iran on the one hand and North Korea on the other,
the list of rogue states will be the subject of continuing
revision and debate. And in each case there will be a mix of
policies appropriate to achieve our goal of removing the
threat which these states pose.
That is also true of Iraq. I have detected a certain amount
of wobbling about the need to remove Saddam Hussein--though
not from President Bush. It is not surprising, given the
hostility of many allies to this venture, that some in
Washington may be having second thoughts. It is, of course,
right that those who have the duty to weigh up the risks of
particular courses of action should give their advice--though
they would be better to direct their counsel to the president
not the press. But in any case, as somebody once said, this
is no time to go wobbly.
Saddam must go. His continued survival after
comprehensively losing the Gulf War had done untold damage to
the West's standing in a region where the only forgivable sin
is weakness. His flouting of the terms on which hostilities
ceased has made a laughingstock of the international
community. His appalling mistreatment of his own countrymen
continues unabated. It is clear to anyone willing to face
reality that the only reason Saddam took the risk of refusing
to submit his activities to U.N. inspectors was that he is
exerting every muscle to build WMD. We do not know exactly
what stage that has reached. But to allow this process to
continue because the risks of action to arrest it seem too
great would be foolish in the extreme.
coercive measures
I do not claim to know the precise balance of coercive
measures required now to remove Saddam: only those with
access to the best intelligence can assess that. A major
deployment of ground forces as well as sustained air strikes
will probably be required. And it will be essential that
internal groups opposed to Saddam be mobilized and assisted.
No one pretends that an equivalent of the Afghan Northern
Alliance is available. But I suspect that once the aura of
terror surrounding the Iraqi regime is dispelled we may be
astonished by the number of opponents who come forward to
help finish the job.
Finally, a warning: We should not try now to predetermine
the final outcome for a post-Saddam Iraq. One of the errors
in 1991 was an exaggerated fear of the possible breakup of
Iraq if the measures required to topple Saddam were taken.
The Kirds and Shiites have since endured years of murderous
repression as a result. In great strategic questions it is
possible to be too clever. We need to concentrate on what we
can achieve with the instruments at hand, and then press
ahead boldly with the task before us. That will be quite
taxing enough.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, that terminates my remarks on the bill. May
I inquire of the Chair, is it correct that at the conclusion of my
remarks the Chair was prepared to put the Senate into a period of
morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
The Senate is in morning business.
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