[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 73 (Friday, May 21, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E964-E965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    IN OPPOSITION TO INCREASED FUNDING FOR NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

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                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 20, 2004

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, last week, I joined several distinguished 
experts in the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to commend them for 
the public release of their very timely, and much-needed study on the 
oversold and misguided National Missile Defense. It is entitled 
``Technical Realities: An Analysis of the 2004 Deployment of a U.S. 
Missile Defense System''.
  Sadly, Congress keeps shoveling ever greater amounts of taxpayer 
funds into this wasteful, dead-end program that adds nothing to our 
real national defense. In FY 2003, President Bush requested $7.8 
billion, Congress authorized $7.78 billion and appropriated $7.62 
billion. In FY 2004, the President requested $9.1 billion, Congress 
authorized $9.08 billion and appropriated $8.9 billion. Now, in FY 
2005, the President has requested $10.2 billion. This bill authorizes 
that full amount, an increase of $1.1 billion or 13 percent more than 
the current level. It includes funding for the initial deployment of an 
untested national missile defense system based in Alaska and 
California.
  To put it bluntly, our country can't afford spending upwards of $10 
billion per year for a bogus missile defense program.
  First of all, many of our Nation's leading physicists view midcourse 
defenses as absurd. They have long believed mid-course defenses are 
easily defeated and won't work for fundamental physics reasons.
  Second, the truth is pure politics is driving this deployment. On 
December 11, 2002, the last intercept test of the missile defense 
system failed. No tests have taken place since then. Nevertheless, on 
December 17, 2002, President Bush announced his decision to deploy 
missile defenses in 2004.
  Sometime after the President's announcement, the Missile Defense 
Agency (MDA) cancelled or postponed every test scheduled since the 
speech. Nine tests have been cancelled.
  Despite these cancellations, the schedule for deployment has actually 
moved up. President Bush simply announced deployment ``in 2004.'' 
Pentagon official subsequently set a deadline of September 30, 2004. 
The MDA has stated ``as early as this summer'' for initial operations. 
Bush Administration officials still maintain that this is an 
``eventdriven'' program, where results of tests and simulations 
determine how the program progresses.
  Instead, it seems to be schedule-driven. a return to the ``rush to 
failure'' approach that Lt. Gen. Larry Welch warned about during the 
Clinton Administration.
  The current focus of the SDI Program is wrong. As we have witnessed 
in other national security matters, the Bush Administration appears 
hell-bent on deploying missile defense, regardless of whether it works. 
Before taking office, George W. Bush campaigned on the issue of missile 
defense. As has been highlighted in Richard Clarke's book and 
elsewhere, before the 9/11 attacks, the foreign and defense policy of 
the Bush Administration

[[Page E965]]

was focused not on terrorism, but on missile defense.
  Post-9/11, while it should be clear that the real threat is 
terrorism, the missile defense program has only sped up, and funding 
has steadily increased. Regrettably, this bill is now brought to the 
House under a restrictive and no amendments pertaining to the SDI have 
been made in order to allow debate and votes to cut funding for missile 
defense or calling for realistic, operational testing before deploying 
more interceptors. Apparently, no dissenting votes will be tolerated 
and this Congress will do nothing to stop the Bush Administration from 
declaring some system operational some time this year.
  Many SDI supporters argue that any missile defense is better than 
none. However, the current situation we face maybe worse than nothing. 
While the currently constituted SDI system will offer no real defense, 
Bush Administration officials often claim it will be highly effective 
and will give the President ``more options.'' But it will not work well 
enough to affect our military posture and will only make potential 
enemies nervous and lead them to take offensive steps to overcome it. 
It may push Russia and China to maintain, improve and expand their 
nuclear arsenals.
  When weighing the pros and cons of rushing to judgment on SDI 
deployment, we would do well to remember the advice and counsel of 
Richard Feynman, one of our Nation's greatest thinkers and most 
distinguished scientists: ``For a successful technology, reality must 
take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.''

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