[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 16086]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 16086]]

                       BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE

  Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, as momentum builds for the 
deployment of missile defense and the abandonment of the obsolete ABM 
Treaty, those who oppose missile defense are getting more and more 
desperate in their arguments. One argument that we're hearing with more 
frequency is the threat of the suitcase bomb. This argument maintains 
that we shouldn't be spending our scarce defense dollars on ballistic 
missile defense when there are easier and cheaper ways a potential 
enemy could deliver a weapon of mass destruction to the United States. 
Rogue states could just smuggle a bomb in on a ship, or put it in a 
suitcase in New York, or drop biological weapons into our water supply. 
A missile defense system won't do anything to stop a suitcase bomb, so 
it must be a waste of money, or so the argument goes.
  This argument is repeated with such frequency, it might be useful to 
state for the record why it misses the point.
  Let me state the most obvious reason first. The presence of one kind 
of threat doesn't mean you shouldn't also defend against other threats. 
Imagine if this logic were applied consistently to our approach to 
national defense. Why have an army if you can be attacked by sea? Or, 
why have air defenses if you can be attacked by land? Such reasoning is 
absurd. If we refused to defend against one threat simply because other 
threats exist, we would end up completely defenseless.
  National defense capabilities are like insurance policies: we hope we 
never have to use them, but the consequences of not having them could 
be catastrophic. No one would argue that because you have auto 
insurance you shouldn't also buy insurance for your house. However, 
opponents of missile defense argue that you don't need insurance 
against ballistic missiles, but that you only need insurance against 
suitcase bombs and other terrorist threats.
  I think we would all agree that a potential adversary would likely 
try to exploit any perceived vulnerabilities in our defenses. This is 
only logical. If the U.S. forgoes the capability to repel a missile 
attack, that creates a powerful incentive for our adversaries to seek a 
ballistic missile capability. Once again, this is only logical.
  I would like to emphasize that defending against the so-called 
suitcase bomb threats is not an alternative to defending against 
ballistic missiles, as opponents of missile defense assert. We must do 
both. We have an obligation to do both.
  Keep in mind that terrorist acts, such as those that would be 
perpetrated by a suitcase bomb, serve purposes entirely different from 
ballistic missiles. The surreptitious placement and detonation of a 
weapon, such as occurred at the World Trade Center or in Oklahoma City, 
is intended to disrupt society by spreading terror. Such acts depend on 
covert action and their goal is the actual use of the weapon. That's 
not why nations acquire ballistic missiles.
  How many times have we heard opponents of missile defense drag out 
the tired cliche ``Missiles have a return address!'' as though that 
somehow devalues them. The opposite is true, missiles derive their 
value from the knowledge of their existence and the belief that they 
might be used. Of course they have a return address; their owners want 
to make sure we know it. The point is not, as it is with terrorist 
weapons, to hide the existence of ballistic missiles, but to broadcast 
it. The ability to coerce the United States with ballistic missiles 
depends on our belief that a potential adversary has nuclear missile 
and would be willing to use them against us. We called this principle 
deterrence when the Soviet Union was in existence. However, in the 
hands of a dictator, deterrence can quickly become coercion and 
blackmail.
  Those who argue that missile defense is not necessary as long as a 
potential adversary could use a suitcase bomb erroneously assume that 
the goal of a rogue state in having a ballistic missile is to use it 
somewhere. This is not necessarily correct. These rogue states 
recognize that ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads provide 
an effective way to coerce the United States. Imagine a dictator who 
could stand up to the United States with a nuclear missile, knowing 
full well that there is nothing the United States can do to defend 
itself.
  There is another huge difference between the terrorist act and the 
ballistic missile--we are actively fighting against terrorism but doing 
nothing whatsoever to protect ourselves against ballistic missiles. 
Last year, the United States spent around $11 billion in counter 
terrorism programs, more than double what we spent on the entire 
missile defense program, including theater missile defenses. Spending 
this year on counter terrorism programs will be even higher. And that 
layer of defense is working, as evidenced last year by the successful 
interdiction of terrorist infiltration attempts on our northern border. 
Counter terrorism is an important aspect of our national security 
program and we need to continue to be vigilant and to dedicate the 
necessary resources to it. But we have no defense against ballistic 
missiles, and we cannot continue to have this glaring vulnerability in 
our defenses.
  For those opponents of missile defense, I pose the following 
questions. Why are nations like North Korea and Iran spending billions 
of dollars on the development of ballistic missiles? Are they 
irrational, spending money on things they don't need? I think that's 
highly unlikely. I think a better explanation is that the leaders of 
such nations see tremendous value in such weapons. They understand that 
the only way to counter the power of the United States and reduce its 
influence is to exploit its vulnerabilities. I think they have surveyed 
the landscape and have correctly perceived that our one glaring 
vulnerability is our utter defenselessness against ballistic missile 
attack. And I think they have realized that ballistic missiles, with 
their return address painted right on the side in big bright letters, 
can be instruments of coercion without ever being launched.
  That is a purpose very different from the one served by suitcase 
bombs, and it is time opponents of missile defense stopped pretending 
otherwise.

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