[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 82 (Tuesday, June 15, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6797-S6798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              EMPTY WORDS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the column 
``Empty Words'' by Frank Gaffney, which appears in today's Washington 
Times, be printed in the Record. I believe that this piece 
appropriately emphasizes the crucial role continued research plays in 
maintaining the credible nuclear deterrrent of the United States. As 
more information becomes available regarding covert nuclear programs in 
North Korea and Iran, the sustainability and credibility of America's 
nuclear arsenal is of paramount concern.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, June 15, 2004]

                              Empty words

                       (By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.)

       The U.S. Senate gets back to work today after a week of 
     bipartisan mourning of Ronald Reagan and tributes to his 
     security policy legacy. It is fitting that the first orders

[[Page S6798]]

     of business will be votes on amendments to repudiate two of 
     the initiatives most central to the Gipper's foreign and 
     defense policy success: the maintenance of a credible and 
     safe nuclear deterrent, and protection of Americans against 
     missile attack.
       The first effort to reduce last week's Reagan endorsements 
     to empty words will be led by some of the Senate's most 
     liberal Democrats, notably Sens. Edward Kennedy of 
     Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein of California. They seek 
     to preclude the United States from even researching new 
     nuclear weapons, let alone testing or deploying them.
       Ronald Reagan hated nuclear weapons as much as anybody. 
     What is more, he seriously worked to rid the world of them. 
     Yet, unlike these legislators, President Reagan understood--
     until that day--this country must have effective nuclear 
     forces. He was convinced there was no better way to 
     discourage the hostile use of nuclear weapons against us than 
     by ensuring a ready and credible deterrent.
       Toward that end, Mr. Reagan comprehensively modernized 
     America's strategic forces, involving both new weapons and an 
     array of delivery systems He built two types of intermediate-
     range nuclear missiles and deployed them to five Western 
     European countries. And, not least, he recognized our 
     deterrent posture depended critically upon a human and 
     physical infrastructure that could design, test, build and 
     maintain the nation's nuclear arsenal. Without such support, 
     America would inexorably be disarmed.
       In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that, but for Mr. 
     Reagan's nuclear modernization efforts--most of them over the 
     strenuous objections of senators like Mr. Kennedy and John 
     Kerry--we may well not have a viable nuclear deterrent today. 
     Even with his legacy, 15 years of policies more in keeping 
     with the anti-nuclear ``freeze'' movement's nostrums than Mr. 
     Reagan's philosophy of ``peace through strength'' have 
     undermined the deterrent by creeping obsolescence, growing 
     uncertainty about its reliability and safety and loss of 
     infrastructure to ensure its future effectiveness.
       This is especially worrisome since some of the research in 
     question would explore whether a Robust Nuclear Earth 
     Penetrator (RNEP) could be developed to penetrate deep 
     underground before detonating. Such a capability would allow 
     us to hold at risk some of the 10,000 concealed and hardened 
     command-and-control bunkers, weapons of mass destruction 
     (WMD) production and storage facilities and other buried 
     high-value targets built by potential adversaries.
       If anything, the absence of a credible American capability 
     to attack such targets may have contributed to rogue states' 
     massive investment in these facilities over the past 15 
     years. One thing is clear: Our restraint in taking even 
     modest steps to modernize our nuclear deterrent--for example, 
     by designing an RNEP or new, low-yield weapons--has certainly 
     not prevented others from trying to ``get the Bomb.''
       There is no more reason--Sens. Kennedy, Kerry and 
     Feinstein's arguments to the contrary notwithstanding--to 
     believe continuing our unilateral restraint will discourage 
     our prospective enemies' proliferation in the future.
       Last September, the Senate recognized this reality, 
     rejecting an earlier Feinstein-Kennedy amendment by a vote of 
     53-41. Five Democrats--Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Fritz 
     Hollings of South Carolina, Zell Miller of Georgia, Ben 
     Nelson of Nebraska and Bill Nelson of Florida--joined 
     virtually every Republican in permitting nuclear weapons 
     research, with the proviso further congressional approval 
     would be required prior to development and production. The 
     prudence of this is even more evident today in light of 
     revelations of covert Iranian and North Korean nuclear 
     activity since last fall.
       The other assault on the Reagan legacy will be led by 
     Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of 
     Rhode Island. They hope to strip more than $500 million from 
     defense authorization legislation that would buy anti-missile 
     interceptors, the direct descendant of Ronald Reagan's 
     Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
       Just last week, former Gorbachev spokesman Gennadi 
     Gerasimov, reminded the world how mistaken those like Sen. 
     Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, were when they ridiculed and 
     tried to undermine the Reagan missile defense program: ``I 
     see President Reagan as a gravedigger of the Soviet Union and 
     the spade that he used to prepare this grave was SDI.''
       Today, there are published reports the U.N. Security 
     Council has been briefed by its inspectors that ballistic 
     missiles and WMD components were slipped out of Iraq before 
     Saddam Hussein was toppled. Such weapons, like some of the 
     thousands of other short-range missiles in arsenals around 
     the world, could find their way into terrorists hands and be 
     launched at this country from ships off our shores.
       Can there be any doubt but that Ronald Reagan--faced with 
     today's threat of missile attack and the proliferation of 
     nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction--would have 
     been any less resolute in building missile defenses and 
     maintaining our nuclear deterrent than he was in the 1980s? 
     If last week's praise for his visionary leadership two 
     decades ago was not dishonest rhetoric, it should inspire, 
     and guide us all now.

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