[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15343-15346]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE

  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
hosted a briefing for interested Senators by Dr. Condoleezza Rice on 
Monday afternoon in the Capitol during which she discussed with almost 
20 Senators who were present the recent meetings she had with Russian 
leaders in Moscow.
  I was impressed with the steadfast resolve of the President during 
his meetings with President Putin in Genoa in moving beyond the 
confrontational relationship with Russia and replacing the doctrine of 
mutual assured destruction with a new framework that would be 
consistent with our national defense interests as they now exist rather 
than as they existed in 1972.
  Two years ago, Congress debated and passed the National Missile 
Defense Act of 1999, which enunciated the policy of the United States 
to deploy as soon as technologically possible a system to defend the 
territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile 
attack, whether accidental, unauthorized, or intentional. That bill was 
passed with overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress and 
signed into law on July 23, 1999.
  The National Missile Defense Act became necessary because of two 
unfortunate facts: The emergence of a new threat to our Nation and our 
lack of capability to defend against that

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threat. The threat stems from the proliferation of the technology to 
build long-range ballistic missiles.
  Our inability to defend against that threat is tied to the ABM Treaty 
of 1972. The changes that have occurred in the world since the cold war 
had not been reflected in our national policy until the enactment of 
the National Missile Defense Act.
  President Bush is moving ahead to fulfill both the letter and spirit 
of the National Missile Defense Act. He has restructured the Missile 
Defense Program from one that was carefully tailored not to conflict 
with the 1972 ABM Treaty into one which will provide the best defense 
possible for our Nation in the shortest period of time. He has properly 
focused the Missile Defense Program on the threat we face rather than 
the ABM Treaty, and he has clearly stated he intends to move beyond the 
cold war ABM Treaty and into a new era in which the United States does 
not base its security on pledges of mutual annihilation with a country 
with which we are not at war.
  The President has personally carried this message to our allies, 
friends, and former adversaries, and his efforts have met with 
impressive success. Not all critics have been persuaded and some never 
will be, but many who were skeptical now support our efforts, and some, 
such as the Premier of Italy just last week in Genoa, have 
enthusiastically endorsed them.
  Perhaps the most striking change has occurred in Russia. When the 
previous administration proposed modifications to the ABM Treaty, the 
Russian Government refused even to entertain the notion, but in the 
face of the resolve demonstrated by President Bush, the Russian 
Government has agreed to his suggestion to enter into talks to 
establish an entirely new strategic framework to guide the relationship 
between our countries. The developments of the past few months are 
truly changing the international political world we have known for so 
long.
  At the same time, our Missile Defense Program, which for years had 
been underfunded, is continuing to recover and is making substantial 
technical progress. That program has faced formidable obstacles--
besides the technical challenge of reliably intercepting ballistic 
missiles. It has faced the constraints of an old treaty that was 
intended specifically to impede and prohibit the development and 
deployment of such missile defenses.
  Congress has taken the lead over the past few years in helping to get 
the Missile Defense Program back on its feet by increasing the funding 
available for the work on defenses against both shorter range and 
longer range ballistic missiles, and those programs have demonstrated 
great progress. The Patriot PAC-3 system has succeeded in 7 out of 8 
intercept attempts against shorter range ballistic missiles, such as 
the Scuds that caused such destruction and took 28 American lives 
during the gulf war. After some early testing failures attributed to 
quality control problems, the longer range THAAD system finished its 
initial testing with consecutive successes, and our defense against 
long-range ballistic missiles was successful the very first time it was 
tested in October of 1999, and that success was repeated in another 
intercept test just a few weeks ago.
  The Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Program testified 
recently that the ground-based missile defense system now in testing no 
longer requires that anything be invented, only that it be correctly 
engineered. Clearly, the advanced technology required for reliable 
intercept of ballistic missiles is rapidly deteriorating.
  But there is far more that we can and should be doing. Unfortunately, 
despite the success that has been demonstrated, missile defense work 
has been confined to the technology superficially permitted by the 1972 
ABM Treaty. That agreement prohibits some of the most promising 
technologies and basing modes available, including air-, space-, sea-, 
and mobile land-based systems, as well as those based on new 
capabilities like lasers. The ABM Treaty impedes the development and 
deployment of these missile defenses. This was its central purpose when 
it was crafted three decades ago as a reflection of the political 
relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States known as 
the cold war.
  President Bush has declared his determination to leave the cold war 
behind. He has backed up his declaration with concrete actions and his 
leadership has generated real progress, despite the sniping of some 
critics.
  I believe the rapid progress of the last few months is a result of 
leadership of President Bush and his determination to do what is 
necessary in this modern world to defend our Nation. It is important to 
consult with our allies, as he has done, and it will be helpful if we 
can work out an agreement with the Russians to leave the cold war and 
its trappings behind. Our moving forward to defend ourselves against 
these new threats cannot depend on the assent of others. President Bush 
has made it clear that he believes this, and I think his resolve is 
exactly the reason we have seen attitudes change. But our determination 
to defend our Nation cannot be contingent on someone else's permission.
  I suppose it was predictable that the more momentum is generated, the 
more wild the claims of the critics would get, and we have seen that, 
too, in recent days. Those who would prefer America be vulnerable to 
missile attack have taken a variety of approaches in their efforts to 
ensure that remains the case. One is to say we should go slow, don't 
rush the technology, don't do anything diplomatically risky. But 
timidity is a good part of the reason we face such an urgent situation 
now, with a real and serious threat but nothing yet in the field to 
defend against it. The ones who have always said ``go slow'' are the 
same critics who will say that the slowness of the program's progress 
is evidence that missile defense is not yet mature. Our failure for 
years to do enough to counter this problem is why we must work with 
urgency today.
  The critics also assert that our long-range missile defense 
capability will be easily defeated by simple countermeasures. These 
assertions are based on wild claims from people who would have us 
believe that building a missile defense is too difficult a task for the 
United States--which possesses the most sophisticated missile and 
countermeasure capability in the world--but defeating a missile defense 
is a simple task for those who are just now acquiring the capability 
for long-range missiles. Such arguments are unpersuasive.
  The critics also tell us that deployment of missile defenses will 
create an arms race, even though the Russians have neither the 
resources nor a reason to engage in a buildup in strategic offensive 
arms. Even if they did, with whom would they race? President Bush has 
announced his intention to dramatically reduce the offensive nuclear 
forces of the United States, regardless of what the Russians do, and 
has taken the first step toward doing so by announcing the deactivation 
of our multiple warhead Peacekeeper missiles. A situation in which one 
side builds up its missiles while the other reduces is certainly not an 
arms race. I think the Russians understand this, too, and will 
recognize the futility of spending scarce resources to counter a 
missile defense system that does not threaten them.
  As for China, while the previous administration was devoting itself 
to--in its words--``strengthening the ABM Treaty,'' China was 
modernizing and expanding its nuclear forces. So China has already 
demonstrated that assessments of its own national security interests 
are unlikely to be affected by what the United States does or doesn't 
do with respect to missile defenses. Moreover, those who suggest we 
forgo defenses so as not to ``threaten'' China are implying that China 
has some sort of right to threaten us with its missiles. I reject such 
a suggestion. Defenses are not provocative, no nation has a right to 
threaten the United States, and the United States has no obligation to 
guarantee any country's right to do so.
  There are other criticisms of our missile defense efforts, most even 
less convincing than those I have just mentioned, and other arguments 
in its

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favor which I have not discussed. I'm sure other Senators will address 
many of them in the course of the next few days. But the discussion has 
moved far beyond where it was 2 years ago when we stood here and 
debated the National Missile Defense Act. Thanks to the actions of 
Congress, there is no longer any question about whether the United 
States will defend its citizens against missile attack, only about the 
methods we use and how fast we will field them. And thanks to the 
efforts of President Bush there is no longer any question about whether 
we will continue to be held hostage by an obsolete agreement from 
another era. I welcome the progress that has been made on all fronts, 
and I look forward to supporting the achievement of genuine security of 
the United States and its citizens.
  Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues for 
giving me an opportunity to speak for a few minutes this afternoon on a 
point I want to make regarding missile defense and the budget and the 
ABM Treaty compliance. I think this is going to be a very important 
debate. It has already started in the Armed Services Committee on which 
I serve.
  I thought my colleague from Mississippi, Mr. Thad Cochran, this 
morning made some very cogent comments. I did want to follow up with 
some further comments on that particular issue.
  I have heard some reluctance by a few of my colleagues to approve the 
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization budget without knowing for 
certain now whether the testing activities planned comply with the ABM 
Treaty. They say the Senate cannot approve a budget if it is not 
compliant.
  As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, it is my 
understanding that compliance determinations are almost never--I 
emphasize never--made well in advance of a test or other activity. It 
is virtually impossible to do so because the plans often change right 
up to the time of the test. I would like to highlight a few examples of 
this occurring.
  In integrated flight test 1, what we commonly refer to as IFT-1, 
which was the first test of the exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which 
occurred on January 16, 1977, compliance itself was not certified until 
December 20 of 1996.
  Here is another example, the Technical Critical Measurements Program, 
the TCMP, flight 2A was not certified until February 14, 1997, just 8 
days before that actual test occurred.
  The risk reduction flight test 1, for what was then the National 
Missile Defense Program, was certified just 3 days before it occurred 
in 1997, and the second risk reduction flight was certified just 2 days 
before it was conducted a month later.
  A test for the NMD prototype radar was not certified until August 31, 
1998. That was less than 3 weeks before it occurred.
  The first test of the Navy theater-wide missile was certified 
November 2, 1998, for a November 20 flight.
  IFT-3 for the National Missile Defense system, which was the first--
and successful--intercept attempt, was certified on September 28, 1999, 
just 4 days before the test.
  IFT-4 was certified 12 days before the test took place on January 18, 
2000.
  The certification for IFT-5 was issued 8 days before that test last 
summer, but the certification actually had to be modified on July 7, 
the day before the test because of changes in the test plan.
  I have a chart on my right. On this column, we talk about test 
events. We talk about the day the test was performed. Then we talk 
about the day that it was certified for compliance with the ABM Treaty.
  As you can tell from the many times I mentioned earlier in several 
examples, it was just a day before the actual test flight for compliant 
certification.
  My point is to expect us to have compliance during the budget 
deliberations before the Senate hearing simply doesn't make any sense.
  However, I will note that there are at least two exceptions to this 
practice. Last year, Congress approved a budget that included military 
construction funding for a radar in Alaska that Congress knew was non-
compliant with the ABM Treaty. And in January 1994, a compliance review 
of the proposed THAAD program determined that it was not in compliance 
with the terms of the ABM Treaty. Yet in the fall of 1994, Congress 
voted to approve the BMDO budget--one that included a program that was 
certified to be non-compliant.
  It is also interesting to note that THAAD program testing was 
approved in January of 1995 on the condition that its ability to accept 
data from external sensors be substantially limited. Only in 1996 was 
THAAD testing with external cuing data approved because the 
determination was finally made that THAAD did not have ABM 
capabilities. I believe this stands as a good illustration of two 
salient facts: first, that ABM Treaty compliance is in part a matter of 
both legal and political judgment; second, that the United States has 
always reserved for itself the authority to judge the compliance of its 
own programs.
  Bearing these facts in mind, I would argue that this administration 
has been very straightforward with Congress. The President, the 
Secretary of Defense, and the Deputy Secretary have all told us that 
the United States and Russia need to move beyond the ABM Treaty. They 
have told us that the President's commitment to deploy missile defenses 
and the missile defense program he has proposed are on a collision 
course with the ABM Treaty. They have told us that the BMDO test 
program was not designed either to violate or comply with the Treaty, 
but that it was designed to proceed as efficiently as possible toward 
the goal of developing effective missile defenses. They have told us 
that, as a result, there will be serious issues concerning treaty 
compliance that will arise in a matter of months.
  My colleague from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, tried to make that 
point--that we need to focus on what our needs are and shoot towards 
those defensive needs.
  Secretary Wolfowitz has even identified the key issues that he 
expects will emerge. The Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Lt. Gen. 
Kadish have also told us that BMDO program activities have not been 
fully vetted through the certification process--as is typically the 
case. Consequently, the legal and political judgements to resolve those 
issues have not been made yet.
  I would further argue that statements by Secretary Wolfowitz, Lt. 
Gen. Kadish, and others in the administration have been remarkably open 
and consistent in this area. Lt. Gen. Kadish indicated in a briefing 
several weeks ago his understanding that the BMDO program proposals for 
fiscal year 2002 would be compliant with the ABM Treaty, with the 
important caveat, that some issues needed to be clarified by the 
compliance review process. Secretary Wolfowitz went into considerable 
detail concerning areas in which the proposed program would ``bump 
into'' treaty constraints. An administration document says that the 
proposed program would be ``in conflict'' with the treaty ``in the 
matter of months, not years.''
  Whether someone says the program is ``awaiting clarification'' or 
``that it may bump up against'' or ``come into conflict with'' the ABM 
treaty, the point is that this is a serious issue that needs to be 
resolved. And that was precisely the Deputy Secretary's point--that 
several months ahead of time, the department would know what key 
program issues would need to be resolved through the established 
compliance review processes, and that they would be resolved through 
these processes in regular order.
  In considering how we ought to handle these issues, we need to bear 
in mind that there is a wide range of opinion concerning the value of 
the ABM Treaty. Some believe that the ABM Treaty is the foundation 
stone on which U.S. security is built. Others argue that the ABM Treaty 
is gone and has simply outlived its usefulness and some agree with the 
administration that the Nation needs to move on to a new strategic 
framework to guide our relations with Russia.
  Given this range of opinion, and the administration's view that the 
treaty's

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value has been overtaken by events, the use of well-established 
processes and procedures to judge the treaty compliance of BMDO program 
activities hardly seems radical or unusual. Indeed, it seems a modest 
and conservative approach.
  Secretary Wolfowitz outlined for us several possible outcomes of 
these deliberations within the compliance review process. The nation 
may have moved beyond the ABM Treaty to a new strategic framework with 
Russia and the program will not be constrained by the treaty. The 
program activities in question might be deemed to be compliant with the 
treaty. Or on the other hand, the program activities might be deemed to 
be inconsistent with the treaty.
  In the absence of an alternative framework, according to the 
Secretary, the Nation will be faced with an unpalatable choice--either 
we must alter the test program so that it is compliant with the treaty 
but is less efficient and more costly, or we must face the prospect of 
exercising our rights under article XV that allows the nation to 
withdraw from the treaty. Please note--and this cannot be stressed too 
much--in all of these cases, the United States will remain in 
compliance with our obligations under domestic and international law.
  Thus, the suggestion that Senators should not agree to the BMDO 
budget because we don't have perfect visibility into the ABM Treaty 
compliance of Ballistic Missile Defense program activities strikes me 
as, at best, odd. It is inconsistent with past practice. It is 
inconsistent with established processes and procedures used throughout 
the Clinton administration and which the Bush administration intends to 
continue. And it is inconsistent with the simple fact that the United 
State will remain in compliance with our obligations under domestic and 
international law regardless of the conclusions of the established 
legal and political authorities regarding specific BMD test activities.
  It does strike me as a path that indicates a desire for confrontation 
with the administration, not cooperation, and one that expresses 
philosophical opposition to missile defense rather than practical 
programmatic concerns. For the Congress to take the position that 
absolute adherence to the ABM Treaty is a prerequisite for approval of 
a BMDO budget would, in one stroke, undermine both tracks of the 
President's policy: to proceed with expedited development of missile 
defenses and to engage Russia in a constructive dialogue.
  I urge all my colleagues to proceed in this matter in a calm, 
reasoned, and non-partisan manner that does not undermine the President 
or the flexibility to proceed in his discussions with Russia as he sees 
fit.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

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