[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2275-S2276]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                The State of Foreign and Domestic Policy

  Mr. President, let me speak for a moment, while I have the floor, 
about a couple of other issues that are happening that I think are very 
important. I know others want to come and speak about the nomination. I 
want to talk for a moment about what has been happening in our country 
with respect to foreign policy and domestic policy.
  In recent days, we have had the following occur: We wake up in the 
morning and turn on the television programs. The lead story is, as it 
has always been in recent weeks, days, and months, the war with Iraq. 
When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? When is it going 
to start? Who is going to support it? Who is going to be involved? 
Every week, day, and month.
  As a result, this economy of ours, which desperately needs certainty, 
predictability about the future--and this economy, in my judgment, is 
in a stall, serious trouble--is not going to come out of its problems 
unless we stop every day the lead news story being about war. I am not 
suggesting Iraq is not a problem; it is. Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. 
North Korea is a problem--a bigger problem than Iraq, I might say. 
Terrorism is a bigger problem than both of them. We have a situation in 
which we have to deal with all three. I understand that. But the other 
day we get an orange alert in the country, the second highest alert for 
terrorist activity in our country, the terrorist threat. Today, I 
understand we have hardware stores that are out of duct tape. Why? 
Because yesterday they said we are on orange alert, under the threat of 
terrorist attack, and we need people to go out and buy gas masks and 
plastic sheeting and duct tape. So the hardware stores in our country 
are being cleared out of duct tape. Why? People are concerned about the 
potential of a terrorist attack in our country.
  North Korea. Apparently, we read in the news--I have not heard it in 
classified briefings because we have not had any--that trucks are 
leaving a facility in North Korea, potentially with spent fuel rods, 
which will, in the not-too-distant future, be turned into weapons-grade 
plutonium, probably sold to a terrorist; and it is not out of the 
question that 18 or 24 months from now a terrorist will have a nuclear 
weapon with which to hold hostage an American city.
  Is that a frightening thought? You bet your life it is. So what 
consumes our attention today? Iraq. Saddam Hussein. Oh, but today is a 
bit different in that Osama bin Laden also shows up. He is out there. 
The other day Osama ``been forgotten'' is what I called him, because 
you don't hear about him anymore from the administration. They cannot 
find him, don't know where he is. I have flown over those mountains; it 
was about a year ago. You can look down and see where the caves are, 
where Osama bin Laden and his band of murderers plotted the murder of 
innocent Americans, thousands of them. And so men and women wearing 
America's uniform went into Afghanistan, kicked the Taliban out, ran 
the al-Qaida up into the hills. But Osama bin Laden was not found. Al-
Qaida still lives. The head of the CIA said a couple of months ago that 
the terrorist threat against this country is as serious now as it has 
ever been since September 11. What of terrorism? What do we make of 
North Korea? What about Bin Laden? And, yes, what about Iraq?

  We have had a single track playing now for month after month about 
the country of Iraq. I want to see regime change in Iraq. I want to see 
Saddam Hussein displaced. My preference, by far, is that the free world 
in unison says to this man: You leave, you disarm, or you are going to 
be disarmed, and you are going to be replaced. I would hope very much 
the entire free world says that to Mr. Saddam Hussein, but I also hope 
that we understand in this country--the President and, yes, his key 
advisers understand--that there are more threats and, in my judgment, 
at this moment, more serious threats with respect to North Korea and 
the development of additional nuclear weapons that could possibly go 
into the hands of terrorists very quickly; more serious threats with 
respect to al-Qaida which still lives, and Osama bin Laden, who is 
still broadcasting to those who follow him, which is also a very 
serious threat to this country and to the free world.
  We need to understand that we face very serious problems, and it is 
not just Iraq. Inattention to some parts of our foreign policy, in my 
judgment, have contributed to this. I understand North Korea has lied 
to us. I understand that. But deciding not to talk to them? It is not 
an option.
  There are only two options dealing with a problem that serious. One 
is military. We are not going to do that. The second is diplomacy, and 
that means we talk. We talk and we talk and we talk, and we try to work 
through these issues.
  With respect to al-Qaida and terrorism, the fact we do not mention 
it, the fact no one will talk about it, the fact it is not something 
the Defense Department, the State Department, or others want to talk 
much about does not mean it has gone away. It is as serious today, 
perhaps more so, than ever, and we have a responsibility to deal with 
it. I worry a great deal about these terrorist issues and the terrorist 
threat against our country.
  My point is not to say somehow the attention to Iraq is misplaced. It 
is to say that the sole attention to Iraq at the expense of, in my 
judgment, a more serious threat from North Korea, the sole attention to 
Iraq at the expense of attention to al-Qaida and the growth and the 
continuation of a very serious threat of terrorist attacks is unwise, 
in my judgment. It makes no sense.
  We have a responsibility to protect the national interests of this 
country, and I will and always have supported our President as we 
proceed to do that, but I think it is important with respect to not 
only advice and consent on judgeships, but providing advice on issues 
as we perceive threats to this country, it is important for some of us 
to speak up to say: Mr. President, you are right, Saddam Hussein is a 
bad guy, but you are wrong to not pay attention to North Korea and the 
war on terrorism with equal vigor and equal strength.
  Frankly, no one can take a look at what has happened in the last 6, 
8, 10 months and judge there has been that kind of balance. My hope is 
that in the coming days we will see greater balance dealing with this 
terrorist threat and also the threat of North Korea producing more 
nuclear weapons and potentially moving those nuclear weapons into the 
hands of terrorists who the next time they threaten us will do so with 
a nuclear weapon.

  God forbid we will face a world in which a nuclear weapon is used as 
an act of terrorism, not killing 3,000 people but 300,000 people or 1 
million people.
  If ever we wonder about these issues, we have a world in which there 
is somewhere, we think, around 30,000 nuclear weapons. We do not know 
exactly. With theater weapons, strategic weapons, somewhere around 
25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons, one of which, just one, missing or in 
the hands of terrorists will cause chaos. The explosion of one will be 
devastating, and the genie will be out of the bottle.
  Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons, and the other day they were 
shooting at each other over Kashmir. Dangerous? You bet your life that 
is dangerous.
  We have a responsibility, especially in the shadow of the terrorist 
threat against this country, in the shadow of what is now happening in 
North Korea and the potential of the spread of nuclear weapons, we have 
a responsibility

[[Page S2276]]

to decide that job No. 1 is protecting ourselves against the terrorist 
threat and then trying to find ways to reduce the number of nuclear 
weapons in this world.
  I have kept in my desk for some long while a couple of items I have 
always used to remind us of what this job is about.
  This little piece of metal, if I may show by consent, Mr. President, 
this little piece of metal is from a backfire bomber. This bomber was a 
Soviet bomber. It used to be flown by Soviet aircrews hauling bombs 
that presumably would threaten the United States of America. It was at 
a Soviet airbase in Ukraine when it was destroyed.
  How was this bomber destroyed? Did we shoot it down? No, this bomber 
was destroyed with a saw, a large circular metal saw. We sawed the 
wings off a Soviet bomber, and we paid for it under Senate 
appropriations.
  We destroyed a bomber, not through hostile action but under what is 
called threat reduction. We destroyed missiles. We took off the nuclear 
warheads. In the Ukraine, where there was once a missile with a nuclear 
warhead aimed at the United States of America, there is now no missile, 
no nuclear warhead, and sunflowers are now planted on that ground. Is 
that progress? Boy, I think so.
  This is ground up copper from a Russian submarine that I assume at 
one point or another was lingering off the east coast of the United 
States with missiles in its tubes armed with nuclear warheads. But we 
did not sink that submarine. This is copper wire ground up from a 
submarine that was taken apart under the Threat Reduction Program.
  Senator Lugar, who is a real champion of this issue, and former 
Senator Nunn were the first to start the funding by which we actually 
paid to destroy weapons of our adversaries with whom we had agreements 
on nuclear weapons reductions and the reduction of delivery systems.
  We sawed the wings off a bomber; a submarine, we simply took it apart 
and ground up the copper wire. Is that progress? I think it is. If we 
do not in this country assume world leadership in stopping the spread 
of nuclear weapons and reducing the stockpiles of nuclear weapons, our 
children and grandchildren will almost certainly see a future in which 
nuclear weapons are used.
  It is our job, our responsibility to be a world leader in this area. 
There are some who seem not to understand or care about that 
responsibility. We have some right now in this town talking about 
designing new nuclear weapons. Let's design a nuclear weapon, a 
designer nuclear weapon, that will be a cave buster. Hard to get into 
caves? Let's design a little new nuclear weapon to drop on a cave 
someplace.
  Apparently, after the al-Qaida situation in which they hold up in 
caves, we have some people thinking they can create designer nuclear 
weapons. Once that thinking starts, the thinking that you can use 
nuclear weapons in circumstances such as that, others will say: We can 
use nuclear weapons. Once the thinking starts that you can use 
preemptive strikes against countries because you are worried what they 
might do later, other countries will say: We can do preemptive strikes.
  I worry a lot about where we are headed with the multiple policies 
with respect to weapons programs. I think we ought to be strong. I have 
supported many weapons programs, but I also believe, with respect to 
nuclear weapons, we must lead the world. We must stop the spread of 
nuclear weapons. We must reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons all 
around the world. It is our job. It is our responsibility. We are the 
world leader. We are the ones.