[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13476-13482]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 COMMENDING MILITARY AND DEFENSE CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL RESPONSIBLE FOR 
                   SUCCESSFUL BALLISTIC MISSILE TEST

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 195) commending the United States military and 
defense contractor personnel responsible for a successful in-flight 
ballistic missile defense interceptor test on July 14, 2001, and for 
other purposes.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 195

       Whereas at 11:09 p.m., eastern daylight time on July 14, 
     2001, the United States successfully tested an interceptor 
     missile against a target Minuteman intercontinental ballistic 
     missile in flight;
       Whereas the target missile was launched from Vandenburg Air 
     Force Base, California, and was traveling at approximately 
     140 miles above the Earth at a speed of greater than 11,000 
     feet per second, which is more than three times faster than a 
     high-powered rifle bullet, when struck by the interceptor 
     missile;
       Whereas the interceptor missile was also traveling at a 
     speed greater than 11,000 feet per second at the time of 
     impact;
       Whereas more than 35,000 Americans contributed to the 
     successful test, including the Air Force team which launched 
     the target

[[Page 13477]]

     missile from Vandenburg Air Force Base and the Army team 
     which developed the radar and kill vehicle, the Navy and 
     Coast Guard team which provided security for the test, the 
     Ballistic Missile Defense Organization team which supervised 
     the testing program, and the contractor team consisting of 
     thousands of American scientists, engineers, and blue collar 
     workers employed by the prime contractors and hundreds of 
     small businesses; and
       Whereas the House of Representatives understands that 
     testing of ballistic missile defenses will involve many 
     failures as well as successes in the future, the House of 
     Representatives nonetheless commends the effort and ingenuity 
     of those who worked so hard to make the test a success: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives thanks and 
     commends the thousands of United States military and 
     Government personnel, contractors, engineers, scientists, and 
     workers who worked diligently to make the July 14, 2001, 
     missile defense intercept test a success.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Spratt) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans sometimes do great things. At 11:09 p.m. 
Eastern Standard Time last Saturday, the work of some 35,000 Americans, 
including service personnel from the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast 
Guard, and the Army combined to produce a wondrous success in our 
missile defense testing program.

                              {time}  1100

  It was extraordinary, Mr. Speaker. We had an interceptor that was 
launched from Vanderbilt Air Force Base in California, heading west, 
achieving a speed of some 11,000 feet per second, or more than three 
times faster than a high powered rifle bullet; and an interceptor was 
launched from Kwajalein Island, also achieving a speed of close to 
11,000 feet per second, also going much faster than a rifle bullet; and 
at 11:09 eastern time that interceptor successfully hit the target 
vehicle and destroyed it 148 miles above the Earth over the Western 
Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, I think Americans need to draw a number of conclusions 
from this very successful test. First, it is absolutely appropriate 
that we in the House of Representatives commend all the great people 
who worked on this program, and we intend to do that fully. Of course, 
the Army developed the radar and the kill vehicle working from their 
missile defense headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. The Air Force in 
this case launched the Minuteman missile, which was the target missile, 
from Vanderbilt Air Force Base. We had Navy and Coast Guard monitoring 
and providing security in the Pacific. So we had thousands and 
thousands of men and women in uniform supporting these tests, all the 
way from folks who were doing basic security work to folks who were 
doing some very high-level physics work.
  Along with that, we had lots of Americans, scientists, engineers, 
blue-collar workers, some working for major contractors and others 
working for small business. One thing we have learned in this missile 
defense business is that the innovators, sometimes the smartest guys, 
are in the companies with 20, 30, 40, 50 people, and all of these 
people combined to produce a success that was stupendous. It was 
remarkable.
  The idea that people, you could raise two high-powered rifles, so to 
speak, farther apart than Los Angeles and New York, and shoot at a 
point toward the center of the country, and those two high-powered 
rifle bullets would hit precisely together at a point over the Midwest, 
is an extraordinary thing. It is something that many people thought was 
impossible.
  So I think it is entirely appropriate for the full House, on both 
sides of the aisle, regardless of what your position is on the ABM 
treaty or missile defense, to commend the wondrous efforts of the men 
and women of our uniformed services, and also all the folks working in 
business to make this thing work, all the contractor personnel who made 
it go.
  Secondly, I think we have to acknowledge we have got a long road 
ahead in this program. As our resolution states, we are going to have 
lots of successes; we are going to have lots of failures. I am reminded 
that with Polaris, the Polaris tests numbered over 120, and it failed 
more than 50 percent of the time. The first time we put up surveillance 
satellite capability, our first 11 launches failed before we succeeded. 
Yet that was a very important capability to achieve.
  So you have to have lots of failures. In fact, if you test 
rigorously, if you make these tests as difficult as you possibly can, 
while still learning a lot, you are going to have failures. I think we 
will have failures in the future, just as we are going to have failures 
with our other theater missile defense systems. But, nonetheless, Mr. 
Speaker, we have proven that not only can you hit a bullet with a 
bullet, but you can hit something going three times as fast as a bullet 
with an interceptor going three times as fast as a bullet, and that is 
truly extraordinary.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good day for America. It is a great milestone 
in this missile defense program that we have. We have a lot of hard 
work ahead. We have got lots of challenges, these tests will get 
tougher and tougher; and in the future, of course, we will have 
failures as well as successes.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Hunter) in support of this bill, as a cosponsor of the bill, as well as 
the floor manager for the bill on our side of the aisle.
  The road to Saturday's successful intercept has been long and 
arduous; and we have miles to go before we can say we have gotten 
there, even gotten to the point where we have what we call a limited 
defense system capable of defending us against rogue missile attacks, 
simple rogue missile attacks, or perhaps unauthorized or accidental 
strike. We have a long way to go, and we should not let the euphoria of 
this moment obscure that fundamental fact.
  Indeed, if we have learned anything since March 23, 1983, when Mr. 
Reagan made his speech and proposed what became the Strategic Defense 
Initiative, it is that missile defense is not likely, unfortunately, to 
make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. It may enhance deterrence, 
but it is unlikely to replace deterrence. That is a fundamental point.
  Nevertheless, I think enhancing deterrence is a worthy goal. I think 
that if we can prove through testing, like the tests that we held 
Saturday night, rigorous testing, that gets more and more demanding and 
challenging with each test, that eventually takes on countermeasures as 
well, if we can prove after this kind of rigorous testing that we have 
a system worthy of deploying, that will give us limited protection 
against the kind of threat I just described, it is worth deploying; and 
I think it is worth observing what was accomplished Saturday night, 
because it moves us in that direction.
  Let me emphasize that testing is critical. I have been a long-time 
supporter of that. We do not want to fool ourselves into thinking that 
we have got a system that can take on this daunting challenge when, in 
fact, it can easily be overcome or is not capable of what it is touted 
to be. We do not want to fool ourselves by deploying some kind of 
scarecrow system.
  We associate ballistic missile defense with Mr. Reagan's speech on 
March 23, 1983; but in truth both administrations, the Clinton 
administration, the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, 
going all the way back to Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1967, have supported 
missile defense in one form or another.
  Indeed, the safeguard system originated in 1967 with President 
Johnson's administration. It was taken to the point that it was 
deployed. The Spartan system failed a number of times. No one felt that 
it was a complete and good defense system; and after spending what 
would amount in today's money of about $20 billion, we abandoned the 
system in North Dakota.

[[Page 13478]]

  We kept spending money on ballistic missile defense in Democratic and 
Republican administrations. There were systems that have long been 
forgotten, like the BAMBI, which was a boost-phase interceptor, which 
was abandoned because it could not be proven to be invulnerable to 
counterattacks in fixed orbits in space.
  Indeed, the path to Saturday night is littered with systems that 
simply could not meet the mettle. We have spent a lot of money, $60 
billion since 1983, to get where we have gotten; but we have had some 
successes, and I think it is right to take some time aside to savor 
those success.
  I think the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) would agree we 
should not forget that this was not the first intercept with this 
system. Indeed, the first intercept occurred 2 years ago under the 
Clinton administration. This was a Clinton administration system. They 
in effect brought the technology to the point where it could be tested 
Saturday night and proven to work at least in those circumstances.
  Mr. Speaker, when the test was concluded, General Kadish, who is 
doing a commendable job as the manager of this program, a very 
practical, pragmatic man, told everybody there, all the press there, 
when they asked him what should we deduce from the success we just had, 
he said if you just lower the level a little bit and let us proceed in 
a rigorous disinterested way, let us not get too excited about this 
thing, let us do our work, we think we can prove to you that we have 
got something worthy of deploying.
  I think it is very, very fitting and very, very appropriate for us to 
rise today to commend the thousands of people who have made this a 
success.
  While we are at it, I think we might commend a lot of other people in 
the so-called military-industrial complex, which is what we call them 
when we are usually disappointed, when we are usually confounded by the 
bills they present us, when we are usually suspicious of what they are 
up to.
  When they succeed like Saturday night, we call them the arsenal of 
America. There are a lot of people out there are working in the arsenal 
of America making the F-22 meet its test every day. There are a lot of 
them working in other programs, like the THAAD, which was almost 
discarded. We gave it some extra money and another chance. They went 
out and made it work. They have just brought to fruition the PAC-3.
  So there are successes, and we should commend them for their enormous 
technological capability, their perseverance and ability that brought 
us this far. I hope that this sort of bipartisan occasion today is an 
example of how we can treat ballistic missile defense in the future. It 
has been a political totem, frankly. I would like to see it treated 
like any other weapons system, the F-22, the C-17, you name it. If it 
meets the mettle, we go forward with it; but it if it does not, it 
should be held to the same standards, truly with the same sort of 
rational examination and expectation we would any military system.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Traficant).
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, leaders of China and Russia have just 
kissed, signed an agreement, and referred to Uncle Sam as an 
imperialist. China got our secrets from spies and from buying, with the 
help of Janet Reno. Russia got them from the FBI and Robert Hanssen. 
All of our enemies know our technology.
  I was not an original supporter of the Star Wars initiative, but I am 
now. America cannot be defended by the neighborhood crime watch. When 
they took our spy plane, I do not know what the big crisis was; China 
made everything that was in it.
  We have got a tremendous problem on our hands, and the only way to 
protect the American people is to continue with our technology buildup 
to provide a reasonable shield.
  This test, and I commend all of those involved, gives us hope for the 
beginning of an initiative started by former President Reagan, and I 
commend him here today. He had the vision and the foresight to see that 
America would be challenged by maybe even rogue nations with nuclear 
capability that was illegally gained from America.
  Beam me up here.
  I want to join the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) in saluting 
all of those involved, and recommend to the Congress of the United 
States that we go forward and continue to fund this initiative. Our 
number one priority is national security, and we should get that job 
done.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina 
for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, apparently I am the only person who is going to come out 
here and raise a question. Everybody who has watched the military 
industrial complex develop weapons systems must be amazed that the day 
after something happens in the Pacific, we run out on the floor in this 
virtual reality Congress to make a PR event, which will be in the 
newspapers, as though we have succeeded. Now we must put out $60 
billion or $100 billion.
  If you listen carefully to the words of the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt), this thing has failed over and over again. This 
is only the second time out of four, in a system where you put the 
problem out there and you have the answer, and you shoot at it, and two 
out of four times you have missed.
  Now, how can anybody be excited about a system like that? If I know 
what the pitcher is going to throw and I stand here, I am going to hit 
it. Everybody knows that. That is why they hide the pitcher's signals 
between the catcher's legs. They do not want people to know at bat what 
the pitcher is going to throw. But here we have this system, right here 
and right here, and twice we missed it; and we are out here 
congratulating.
  I do not say anything about the employees. Boeing has worked on all 
kinds of these programs, but we never came out and congratulated them 
the first time they succeeded. This is simply to build up a momentum in 
this society for a system which, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Traficant) says, is driving the Chinese and the Russians together.
  To put this system up, we have to tear up the ABM treaty. The 
Russians have said do not do it; it has kept peace for 50 years. The 
Chinese have said do not do it.

                              {time}  1115

  Why are we out here whipping up the public to believe this is a good 
idea?
  I am going to vote against the resolution; not against the people, 
but against the purpose of it.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think one aspect of this resolution that the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I have coauthored is that it does not speak 
to the politics of missile defense or the ABM Treaty or the 
relationship of the Soviet Union and the United States. What it does 
speak to is a technological challenge that we gave lots of people, many 
of whom make great sacrifices to work in the uniform of the United 
States or who go to work everyday in various places around this 
country, working either for the government or for private business, 
whether they are physicists or engineers or blue collar workers, 
working on a program that I would state again is monumental in its 
success.
  Once again, both of these systems were going three times faster than 
a high-powered rifle bullet, and they collided 148 miles above the 
earth, some 4,800 miles off into the Pacific, an extraordinary thing. 
It is like having somebody stand in San Diego with a high-powered rifle 
shooting to the center of the country and somebody standing in New York 
doing the same thing, except the high-powered rifles really went three 
times as fast as an ordinary high-powered rifle, and having those 
little bullets collide in midair.
  Now, I think that is an extraordinary thing. Indeed, it is something 
that a

[[Page 13479]]

lot of critics of this system said was impossible: hitting a bullet 
with a bullet. But I think if we look at the resolution that the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I have cosponsored, it 
does not say that this is the end of the line and that somehow we have 
now achieved absolute defense against incoming ballistic missiles.
  What it does say, and I quote: ``The House of Representatives 
understands that testing of ballistic missile defenses will involve 
many failures as well as successes in the future. The House of 
Representatives, nonetheless, commends the effort and ingenuity of 
those who worked so hard to make the test a success.''
  Mr. Speaker, when Billy Mitchell came back to the Coolidge 
administration in the 1920s, one of his messages was that we had 
entered the age of air power, whether Americans liked it or not. He 
recommended to a then Republican administration that they spend a lot 
of money developing air power. Well, we had a number of budget hawks 
who did not want to do that, and we did not do as much as we should 
have. As a result of that, we were not as ready as we should have been 
for World War II.
  Well, today, Mr. Speaker, and particularly since the Gulf War when 
Americans were killed for the first time with ballistic missiles fired 
by Saddam Hussein, we realize that we live now not in the age of air 
power but in the age of missiles. When we look at the array of military 
systems across the board that we have, and the gentleman from South 
Carolina and I work on a daily basis with lots of other great Democrat 
and Republican members of the Committee on Armed Services, we know that 
we build systems to stop ships. We build systems to detect submarines. 
We build systems to handle tactical aircraft, fighter aircraft. We 
build systems to take down bombers. We build systems to handle and that 
can handle capably just about every type of offensive weapon that an 
enemy could throw at us, except one.
  So the one question I have always asked the Secretary of Defense when 
he appears before myself and the other members of the Committee on 
Armed Services is: Could you today, could you today stop a single 
incoming ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, coming into an 
American city? And the answer always is, whether it is a Democrat or 
Republican administration: No; today we cannot do that.
  Well, that is what we are working toward, Democrats and Republicans, 
people in uniform and people out of uniform, is to achieve that 
capability.
  I think that it is very important for us to understand, and the 
reason the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I put this 
language in, acknowledging that there are going to be failures in this 
testing program as well as successes and the difficulty of this 
program. We are going to have decoys. That is, when the offensive 
missile puts its warhead, projects its warhead off of the booster 
system, it is going to have perhaps decoys that would attract the 
interceptor missile; and the interceptor missile would end up hitting 
decoys, not being able to discriminate between a decoy and a real 
warhead. We have to work that problem. We have to be able to handle 
that problem.
  We are going to have, in some cases, perhaps evasive maneuvers. We 
are going to have lots of problems. We are going to have in some cases 
multiple shots; that is, a number of warheads coming in that we have to 
handle at one time. We may have to handle the effects of a nuclear 
burst at some point.
  On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, the alternative is for us to do 
nothing. The old saying is, ``You don't do anything until you can do 
everything, so you do nothing;'' and I think that is an inappropriate 
position for the United States to take. If we do not try to build a 
defense and do not try to develop this interception capability, this 
will be the first time in this century that the United States has 
looked at a weapon, at an offensive weapon, and decided that they are 
not going to try to learn how to defend against it. I think that would 
be a mistake.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me just take a minute to comment on the legislative history of 
this resolution.
  I first learned of this resolution when I got a call yesterday 
afternoon from the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) on the golf 
course. He had his staff busy at work on this, and he wanted to send me 
a copy of it. Over the evening, we proposed a number of changes to the 
preamble and to the resolving clause. The gentleman from California 
(Mr. Hunter), to his credit, acknowledged our purpose, which was to 
confine this resolution to the purpose at hand; that is, commending 
those who have accomplished what is a daunting feat. It is done every 
day, but this is a particularly daunting feat. It was a big challenge. 
So we want to send them a message of commendation. We took out 
references as to how much we should infer or read from this particular 
success as to whether or not we would one day have a big missile field 
over the country so that those who disagree could at least send a word 
of commendation to the people who have so ably pulled off this test.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) for 
working with me, but I want to say to my side that this is a much 
pared-back resolution which we resolved through genuine compromise and 
I agreed to cosponsor about 1 minute before this debate began.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, that was a good 
decision, I might say to the gentleman.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maine (Mr. Allen).
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Although I am proud of the men and women in our military service and 
those working for defense contractors who were part of this success, I 
have to rise in opposition to the resolution for several reasons, 
first, in terms of process. As the gentleman from South Carolina said, 
this resolution was never considered by the Committee on Armed 
Services. It was just brought to the attention of the minority 
yesterday at 5 o'clock. There was no consultation with the minority 
until then. I think many Members really do not have a grip on the 
implications of what it is we are voting on.
  Second, precedent. This resolution commends the U.S. military 
personnel and contractors for the apparently successful national 
missile defense tests of last Saturday. BMDO says it will conduct 10 
more tests in the next year. So do we pass a resolution each time it 
hits? Should we pass a resolution each time it misses? Because there 
are some Members who would want to do that, although I am not one of 
them. Would the majority support their right to offer such a 
resolution? What kind of precedent are we setting? Will we feel 
compelled to vote every time a major weapons system passes a milestone? 
The F-22, for example. Why not pass a resolution every time a community 
gets a COPS grant or a housing grant?
  My third objection is substance. General Kadish, in the post-test 
briefing, cautioned that scientists could need months to finish 
analyzing the test results: ``We do not know for certain that every 
objective was met,'' he said. ``In all probability, some of them were 
not.'' I believe it is irresponsible to put the House on record before 
there has been a full analysis.
  Now, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) on the Republican 
side, who has worked on this issue for years, and I do not see eye to 
eye on missile defense very much, but together we sent a ``Dear 
Colleague'' last week urging Members not to rush to judgment on the 
test results, positive or negative. We quoted General Kadish: ``I do 
not believe it is helpful to overplay our successes or failures.'' This 
resolution runs counter to the spirit of his plea. It is not 
productive. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and I can 
actually agree on something related to missile defense, we hope a few 
other Members will listen.
  Finally, politics. This resolution will not help solve NMD's 
technological

[[Page 13480]]

problems. It will not resolve the ABM Treaty issues. It will not get us 
to deployment any faster. In my opinion, it serves no purpose other 
than a political one. The best thing we could do for national missile 
defense is to reduce the political and idealogical motivation and focus 
on the technology, on the strategic and security issues.
  For those reasons, I believe this resolution is ill-advised and 
should be withdrawn or defeated.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me just remind my colleague who just spoke that there are a 
couple of things that General Kadish did agree on with respect to the 
test. First, the intercept was made. The interceptor missile, traveling 
three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet, fired from 
Kwajalein Island did intercept a target missile coming from Vandenburg 
that also was going three times the speed of a high-powered rifle 
bullet. Literally, a bullet hit a bullet 138 miles above the earth in 
the mid-Pacific. That is a fact.
  It is true that we monitored this test with a lot of technology, that 
it is an in-depth test. There is a lot of analysis going on right now, 
and we are going to see how much information we harvest from this. But 
I would just tell my friend that I went on record before this test 
happened saying that I was going to support the continued funding of 
this program, whether it succeeded or failed, because I believe that 
this is an important national priority. That is my position.
  But, nonetheless, if the gentleman looks at the enormity of American 
effort that went into this test, over 35,000 people in the uniformed 
services and out participating; and if this was a space shot, if this 
was an exploratory shot into space involving the Challenger or some 
other aspect of what I would call domestic space exploration, this test 
would have been given great publicity and great kudos by the media and 
the United States. I would remind my colleagues, these folks in the 
uniformed services who work on missile defense work just as hard, put 
in just as many hours and are just as ingenious as the folks that work 
on domestic space exploration.
  I thought it was absolutely fitting, and I still do, to give them 
recognition. We have made it very clear. We say that there are going to 
be lots of failures as well as successes, and we understand that. This 
is not an attempt to change the ABM Treaty. It is an attempt to 
acknowledge the American genius that played itself out on Saturday 
night.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Hayes).
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I thank my colleagues for bringing this very important 
resolution to the floor.
  I think about what I have heard this morning, and it occurs to me 
that some things that we debate here are not very clear, but others are 
quite clear. National security is spoken of in the Constitution as one 
of our primary responsibilities.
  I do not really see this as a political or as a public relations 
issue. It is a philosophical issue. The gentleman from California (Mr. 
Hunter) and others and myself believe that strong national security, 
the protection of our families and our country against foreign 
aggression with missiles is very important to our future. This was a 
milestone. A technically very difficult assignment was met. It was 
successful, and we are moving in the right direction.
  In this day and age, when philosophies clash here, I think it is 
important to set the record straight: This is about sound science; this 
is not science fiction. We have the ability to produce this protective 
system. It can be done only by continued effort to protect this country 
and future generations. And I applaud the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Hunter), I applaud our men and women in uniform, and I think it 
behooves us to continue to support this resolution and to make sure 
that this country, both space and space inside and outside, are 
protected. I think this resolution is very timely.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I sent a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld today which cites 
reports that certain modifications were made to the test vehicle and 
warhead to greatly increase the likelihood of success.
  In the letter, I state that Congress must know which modifications 
were made, how they contributed to the success, and the likelihood that 
such modifications could be used in a real engagement of the missile 
defense system.
  I asked if the kill vehicle or dummy warhead employed a GPS, global 
positioning system, and if so, at what stages was the GPS system used.
  I asked, did the kill vehicle or dummy warhead employ a C-band radar 
system, and if so, at what stages was the C-band radar system used.
  I asked, did either the GPS system or C-band radar system communicate 
with or reveal any information to the Target Object Map.
  I asked if the software modifications to the tracking computer or 
infrared tracking system provided information to the kill vehicle not 
normally available in a real-life scenario.
  I think before Congress acts on such a resolution, it would be nice 
to get an answer to some of these questions. Otherwise, what we have is 
a situation here where we are into a dark fantasyland, where the threat 
of a nuclear strike against the United States is being exaggerated or 
it is nonexistent.
  Our task as Nation and as a world should be to get rid of existing 
nuclear arms, to stop nuclear proliferation to new countries, to deal 
with arms control and arms elimination.
  We have people who are actually predicting nuclear war in the future. 
We are back to the days of the Cold War. We have a responsibility to 
work for peace, not through nuclear proliferation, not through nuclear 
rearmament, not through building bigger and better missile systems or 
systems which defeat the ABM treaty or the nonproliferation treaty, but 
through the painstaking work, the daily work of diplomacy, of human 
relations, of seeking cooperation between nations.
  It is fascinating that we have technology to restart the arms race, 
that we have technology which violates the nonproliferation treaty, 
that we have technology which violates the ABM treaty. But it would be 
even more fascinating if we used this opportunity to start a new dawn 
of peace where we get rid of nuclear weapons once and for all.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a resolution commending 
defense contractors and the military for the ballistic missile defense 
test of July 14, 2001. This test, not the personnel, mind you, but this 
test, is really something to condemn, not to commend.
  The defense industry and the Pentagon have now passed their half-
scaled-down, simplified test. This is really nothing to celebrate. When 
our schools have that failure rate, the President wants to close them 
down. The military-industrial complex is apparently held to a much 
lower standard.
  More fundamentally, this test moves us ever closer to violating the 
antiballistic missile treaty. We signed and ratified the ABM because we 
recognize that missile defense systems could destabilize more than they 
could protect.
  We cannot go back on our word and abandon this treaty. Peace is 
really our national security. We cannot be a nation that approaches 
nonproliferation while really practicing escalation, and that is what 
this test has taken us down the road to. Instead of leading the way 
towards responsible disarmament, we are unraveling arms control 
agreements.
  We must be a nation that decides where we really want to go. Do we 
want to go down a path to a new arms

[[Page 13481]]

race, or forward to a real post-Cold War peace?
  Attempts to build a national missile defense system are really not 
enhancing our national security, they are destabilizing the world, 
which I heard over and over again just 2 weeks ago from our European 
allies. Violating treaties does not make the world a safer place.
  Congress should not be celebrating spending billions and billions of 
dollars on national missile defense. We should be standing by our 
treaty agreements, we should be working to end nuclear proliferation, 
and we should be spending that money on vital national needs, such as 
health care, education, and housing.
  Yes, there are dangers in the world, but missile defense systems will 
spark new arms races, nuclear proliferation, violated treaties, and 
destabilizations, and also billions in spending. These are the fruits 
of missile defense. That is nothing to celebrate.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say that all Americans remember the fact that 
some 28 Americans were killed in Desert Storm by ballistic missiles. 
Those Americans who were killed by those incoming Scuds were not killed 
by tanks, they were not killed by machine gun fire, they were not 
killed by fighter attack aircraft, they were killed by ballistic 
missiles.
  Those Scud missiles were going faster than a bullet, and we threw up 
some Patriot missiles, defending against those incoming Scuds. We got 
some, we missed some. There is a discrepancy as to how many we got and 
how many we missed. But at the end, when the smoke cleared, 28 
Americans were dead and some 100 were wounded.
  We have troops around the world, and at some point, and I think we 
have reached that point, we have to acknowledge that we are squarely in 
the age of missiles. Missiles will kill Americans in the future, I 
think we can predict that, unless we build defenses.
  The idea that unless we build a perfect defense, we do not have any 
defense, does not make any sense. Certainly some of those young people 
who were in Saudi Arabia who were the targets of those Scud missile 
attacks did come home alive because some of those Patriot missiles that 
we had defending against the attacks did hit their targets, and some of 
those Scuds were knocked out of the sky before they could kill 
Americans.
  We have slow missiles, the Scuds; we have medium-speed missiles, the 
missiles like the SS-20s; and we have very high-speed missiles, like 
the Minuteman missiles like the target we shot at over the Pacific.
  It is very clear these tests are going to get tougher. They have to 
get tougher to replicate what we think will be operational conditions. 
We are going to have lots of misses in the future. But for us to not 
pursue this capability to defend our troops and our people in American 
cities would be disregarding our obligation as a Congress of the United 
States to preserve national security.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on Saturday night, in the euphoria after the test, 
General Kadish warned against reading too much into this single test. 
He warned specifically that we have a long way to go before we have a 
system we can deploy.
  I think, at this moment and in days ahead, we should bear his caution 
in mind and take his prudence to heart. This test shows that the 
technology for an operational system is within our reach, and that is 
good news. This was a daunting feat. That is why I support this 
commendation. But it is not yet within our grasp.
  We should continue with this ground-based system, we should commend 
the people who were developing it, testing it. They are working hard, 
and they deserve our gratitude. But we should not fool ourselves. 
Challenges remain. This system should be held to the same standards as 
any other weapons system before we make the decision to deploy.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it would probably be appropriate to quote 
Churchill after North Africa at this point, who was asked, ``What does 
this signify?'' He said ``It is not the end. It is not even the 
beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning.''
  Maybe we are a bit farther ahead than that, but that is where we 
stand. We should not get too carried away or euphoric about one single 
test. There are many more to come.
  This resolution itself says we had better be prepared for failures, 
because they are likely to happen, particularly if the program does 
what we have asked it to do, and that is begin with the simple and move 
to the complex; add with each test more rigor, more difficulty, 
countermeasures, and other things. We are going to see failures before 
we have a system that we can judge.
  One further point, and it is a critical point. This system, the 
ballistic missile system and all its components, is different from 
other weapons systems in the sense that it is affected and controlled 
by a treaty called the ABM treaty of 1972.
  This treaty, some support it, some do not, but in any event, it is an 
integral part of our arms control relationship with the Soviet Union 
and today with Russia. It underlies START II, it makes possible START 
III, and we must be careful not to create a rupture with Russia over 
the provisions of the treaty. In anything we do, we should try to make 
it treaty compliant, or at least make it possible by a mutual amendment 
to the treaty.
  If we deploy this system and create a rupture in our relationship 
with Russia, if we abrogate the ABM treaty and simply walk away from it 
defiantly, we can see the Russians, as they have threatened, pull out 
of START II, forego START III, and call an end to cooperative threat 
reduction, which has removed hundreds of warheads that were a menacing 
threat to us.
  If we did that, if that was the end result, then the net result for 
our national security would be a greater threat and not a lesser threat 
as a result of deploying ballistic missile defense. Those sober words 
need to be borne in mind as we pass this celebratory resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. I think we can all appreciate the work of all Federal 
employees who work in defense-related matters, but that is not really 
what this resolution's subtext is about. This is an attempt to approve 
a process which violates the ABM treaty and which, in its essence, will 
restart the arms race.
  There is no reason for the United States and Russia and China to be 
engaged in a showdown over nuclear arms. We need to get rid of nuclear 
weapons, we need to enforce our arms treaties, and we need not to move 
forward with this Star Wars program which wastes taxpayer dollars and 
which diverts us from the necessary work of building a new peace in our 
world.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Linder).
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  I think it is interesting, the debate over this system, as to whether 
the science is there or not, because I recall a time 30 years ago when 
President Kennedy, with great courage, said, ``We will put a man on the 
moon by the end of this decade,'' and we did not have any of that 
science, but we achieved it.
  When this Nation can put itself behind a project, it will succeed.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, to conclude this debate, we are saying to the men and 
women of the Armed Services, to the men and women of the Ballistic 
Missile Defense Organization, and all those folks in big and small 
businesses, the 35,000 people that made this test a success, good work. 
It was a job well done. Now let us roll up our sleeves and go on to the 
next challenge.


                             General Leave

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

[[Page 13482]]

may have 5 legislative days in which to to revise and extend their 
remarks on this legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) mentioned 
a golf course. The Republicans did beat the Democrats in the annual 
golf tournament yesterday, with the leadership of the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Oxley). I know he will be interested in that.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, House Resolution 195.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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