[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6855-6862]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S HOMELAND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Capito). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon 
of Pennsylvania) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to focus on 
an issue that is dominating the front page of every newspaper in 
America today and that is the defense of America's homeland. President 
Bush gave a major speech yesterday where he outlined a commitment to 
pursuit of a national missile defense and provide a protection for this 
Nation from the bully pulpit leadership that he can provide, which has 
not been there for the past 8 years.
  Tonight I will talk about that issue in depth. I will talk about the 
objections that are being raised by some; why we need this kind of 
capability; what the current system capability is that we are 
developing. And I am going to respond to criticisms that this will 
start a new arms race.
  But let me also start by saying that we have had some absolutely 
overwhelming success, Madam Speaker, in a program that actually you 
helped us put forward this year to provide support for our domestic 
defenders in America, our Nation's fire and EMS personnel. For the last 
220-some years in America we have not done anything in Washington to 
support those brave men and women in 32,000 departments across this 
country, 1.2 million men and women, 85 percent of whom are volunteers, 
who protect our towns and cities.

[[Page 6856]]

  As Madam Speaker knows, last year the defense authorization bill, and 
she lobbied for this as a candidate in West Virginia, and I appreciate 
that leadership, we in fact were able to successfully put in place a 
program that provides grants for these individual emergency response 
departments nationwide on a competitive basis. The time period for 
applying for the grants was 30 days, and it ended today.
  Now, some said there would not be much in the way of requests because 
there is not much need. The preliminary results at FEMA are in. Madam 
Speaker, over 20,000 grant application requests were received in 30 
days, and the requests will total in excess of $2 billion. There is a 
significant need out there for America to respond to help for our first 
responders, especially as it relates to homeland defense. We only have 
$100 million to allocate this year, but it is my hope that with the 
support of Members on both sides of the aisle we can continue to 
increase that funding availability.
  Madam Speaker, my real topic tonight is to focus on the missile 
defense speech that President Bush presented yesterday at the National 
Defense University. He said that we need to change the basic parameters 
which we live under and deal with in our relations with Russia and 
other countries relative to the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty, which was 
negotiated in 1972, allows both the United States and the former Soviet 
Union to rely on deterrence so that neither country would attack the 
other for fear of retaliation.
  In addition, that treaty says that each country can have one missile 
defense system, one ABM system. The Russians chose to deploy such a 
system around Moscow, which protects about 75 percent of their 
population. America chose not to pursue any system, because it was 
politically impossible in America to choose one city over another and 
leave the rest of America vulnerable.
  Today, Madam Speaker, America is totally vulnerable. If an accidental 
launch occurred of one missile from Russia, from North Korea, which we 
know now has the long-range capability, or from China, we have no 
capability to respond.
  Now, is that such a far-fetched idea or notion? Well, Madam Speaker, 
let me document for our colleagues what occurred in January of 1995. As 
we know, the Russians have hundreds of missile launchers, all of which 
can reach any city in America within 25 minutes, and all of which have 
nuclear warheads on top of them.
  Now, there is a very sophisticated command and control system on 
those missiles, as there are on our missiles; but a significant number 
of Russia's missiles are on mobile launchers. They are called SS-25s. 
If my colleagues saw a photograph of one, it would look like it is on 
the back of a tractor-trailer truck. But that missile, even though it 
can be transported any place over an open road area, can travel the 
necessary distance to hit any city in America and devastate that city. 
Each of those SS-25s are controlled locally, even though they have to 
have the command authorization of the central Russian Government.
  Let us look at what happened in January of 1995. Norway was going to 
launch a rocket into the atmosphere to sample weather conditions. So 
Norway contacted Russia and told the Russian Government not to worry 
when we launch this three-stage rocket; it is simply for us to gather 
more information about weather conditions affecting our country. Now, 
because Russia's military has been in a state of disarray, they have 
not been able to invest and reinvest in improving their conventional 
alert systems and their intelligence collection systems. So that when 
Norway launched that three-stage rocket, the Russian intelligence 
agencies misread it as an attack from an American nuclear submarine.
  Boris Yeltsin acknowledged the week after that incident that Russia 
had, in fact, for one of only three times that we know of, put their 
entire offensive ICBM system on alert, which meant, Madam Speaker, that 
Russia was within 15 minutes of launching an ICBM with a nuclear 
warhead against an American city. With 7 minutes left, Boris Yeltsin 
overruled the other two holders of what we call the black boxes, or the 
chegets, in the Russian command and control structure, the general in 
charge of their command staff and the defense minister, Paval Grachev 
and General Kolesnikov. With 7 minutes, left Boris Yeltsin overruled 
them and called off the response against an American city.
  Now, Madam Speaker, for just one moment let us imagine that one of 
those missiles is accidentally launched, which are preprogrammed to hit 
a certain spot in America, and all of their missiles are preprogrammed, 
as ours are preprogrammed. What if that occurred and what if President 
Putin then realized Russia had made a grave mistake; that they 
accidentally allowed, either because of a lack of control of a command 
unit, who may have gotten the launch codes, or because of some other 
glitch, Russia accidentally launched one missile against America? What 
would the phone conversation be like between President Putin and 
President Bush?
  Well, it might go something like this: ``President Bush, I am sorry 
to tell you we have made a tragic mistake. We have accidentally 
launched a missile against one of your cities. We did not mean to do 
it, but our command and control system failed.'' What would be 
President Bush's response? Would he then call a national press 
conference and tell the people of that target city that they have 25 
minutes to move? Because, Madam Speaker, we have no defense today 
against a ballistic missile launch against America. We have no defense 
system in place.
  For the past 6 years, Madam Speaker, I have chaired the research and 
development committee for national security. I have been on the 
security committee for 15 years. So I work these issues. The 
possibility of an accidental launch is not very high, but it does 
exist.

                              {time}  1830

  And the fact is that today America has no defense against such a 
launch. There is no system we can put into space, there is no plane we 
can send up that can shoot down an incoming ICBM at the speed it would 
be traveling.
  The same thing occurred in 1991 when in Desert Storm Saddam Hussein 
decided that he wanted to harm American soldiers. He could have put a 
bomb on a truck, and he could have had it driven into Saudi Arabia 
where our troops were headquartered. But he did not do that. Saddam 
Hussein chose the weapon of choice, a low-complexity Scud missile with 
a conventional bomb on top of it and fired that missile into an 
American barracks in Saudi Arabia. We could not defend against that 
missile, much like we cannot defend against a missile that would be 
launched against an American city.
  As a result of the launch of that Scud missile by Saddam Hussein, 28 
Americans came home in body bags because we let them down. America had 
no system in place to defend against that kind of a missile attack, 
even in a small area the distance between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
  The sad part, Madam Speaker, is that 9, 10 years later we still do 
not have a highly effective system for missile defense to protect our 
troops and allies and our Nation. Part of the reason is because 
President Clinton and Vice President Gore consistently opposed missile 
defense, and consistently found ways to avoid America moving forward in 
developing successful and reliable systems.
  So the first reason we need missile defense is to protect us against 
an accidental or deliberate launch. The CIA has now documented that 
North Korea, an unstable nation, in August of 1998 test-launched a 
three-stage Taepo Dong II rocket that traversed into the atmosphere. It 
did not complete its line of flight, but the CIA estimated if it had, 
it would have been able to reach American soil, the West Coast of 
California, parts of Alaska and parts of Hawaii.
  That allowed the CIA to say publicly that North Korea has the ability 
to launch from its soil a long-range, three-stage missile that could 
deliver a light payload against an American

[[Page 6857]]

city. That missile might not be very accurate, they might aim for Los 
Angeles and hit San Francisco, but if you are a resident of San 
Francisco, it does not matter where they aimed.
  The point is, North Korea has a capability that they never had. 
Unlike when the ABM Treaty was developed, you only had two major 
countries with this kind of ability, the Soviet Union and the United 
States, and we could respectfully agree that neither would attempt to 
attack the other for fear of retaliation. Also, when the Soviet Union 
was in fact a coherent country prior to 1992 before the breakup, the 
Soviet military was well-paid and well-fed. They had discipline. They 
were well-respected in Russia. Today, there are severe internal 
problems and stability problems within the Russian military.
  Therefore, because of those problems, there is a greater likelihood 
of a problem potentially occurring, as there is with the possibility of 
North Korea or China threatening a launch against the United States.
  Madam Speaker, it is not just whether or not they would launch a 
missile against us, because the opponents of missile defense will say, 
wait a minute. Does anybody really believe that North Korea is going to 
fire a missile against the United States? We would wipe them out. We 
would wipe China out. That is not the issue, Madam Speaker.
  The problem is that we now know North Korea has the capability. We 
also know that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon, if they do 
not already have one, which could be placed on a missile.
  Let us take a scenario for a moment. Let us suppose that North Korea 
would invade South Korea, which they have talked about off and on for 
years. The United States would, because of our relationship, probably 
come to the aid of South Korea. And what if North Korea's leadership 
then, and they have certainly indicated unstable decision-making 
processes in the past, suppose they said to America, If you do not pull 
your troops out of South Korea, we are going to launch our long-range 
missile at one of your cities.
  Now, unlike in the past, we know North Korea has that kind of very 
rudimentary capability. Do we then attack North Korea preemptively? Do 
we wipe out any capability they might have? Do we bomb their cities?
  Madam Speaker, we cannot allow a rogue state to have the potential 
for causing problems in the decision-making process of our President 
and command officers because of the potential for a launch, illogical 
launch as it might be, against our sovereign Nation or our allies.
  The idea of a missile defense system under George Bush is not what 
Ronald Reagan proposed, and there will be some in this country who say, 
there goes George Bush trying to restart the Cold War, trying to bring 
back Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative.
  That is not what President Bush was talking about yesterday. No one 
is proposing that we attempt to build a shield over America that could 
stop Russia if they wanted to attack us with all of their missiles. 
That is not the idea being discussed. And most experts agree that would 
be technically and financially impossible to achieve. We are only 
talking about a limited capability, a system that would give us the 
ability to defend against a small number of missiles, an accidental 
launch or a deliberate launch of perhaps 1 to 10 missiles, that we 
could defend against. This does not destabilize our relationship with 
Russia because Russia knows full well that they could launch hundreds 
of missiles at America and very easily overcome the kind of system that 
President Bush is talking about.
  For these reasons, Madam Speaker, it is important that America 
provide a defense for our people.
  The interesting thing is that some of the opponents of missile 
defense have consistently opposed all research in this area. And I 
would say to our colleagues, as I did several years ago when we voted 
on H.R. 4, my missile defense bill in the House, and we pulled more 
Democrats with us than President Clinton did, 103 Democrats voted in 
favor of H.R. 4, 102 Democrats voted against it and all but two 
Republicans voted in favor of that bill, giving us a veto-proof margin. 
Our goal is to give us the capability that every nation in the world is 
now pursuing.
  Israel is one of our key allies. Israel needs missile defense to 
protect her people from the missile technology that Iran, Iraq, Syria 
and Libya now possess. We are working with Israel helping to fund the 
Arrow program and the theater high-energy laser program, giving Israel 
a capability they did not have in Desert Storm.
  The Patriot program was not designed to shoot down missiles in Desert 
Storm. It was a system developed by our Department of Defense to shoot 
down airplanes. But when we knew that Desert Storm was going to take 
place, and we knew that Saddam Hussein had missiles, we had to help 
Israel defend herself, and so we gave her a system designed to shoot 
down airplanes, and we asked the contractor in this country to provide 
a more robust engine to make that missile move more quickly.
  It was not the answer, and it was not successful. Only 40 percent of 
the attempted launches or the successful launches of the Scud missiles 
by Saddam Hussein were stopped by the Patriot systems. We need to do 
better, and that is why for the past 10 years we have used our tax 
dollars in cooperation with Israel to help her build missile defense 
systems.
  We have also helped the Europeans. We are working on a program called 
MEADS, the Medium Extended Air Defense System, which is a cooperative 
program between the United States, between Italy and Germany. The 
program is designed to give those countries a missile defense 
capability in all of Europe. We do want to cooperate with our allies. 
This is not just about protecting America.
  In fact, we proposed the same kind of assistance to our friends in 
the Far East, and we have also proposed to cooperate in the same way 
with our Arab friends in the Middle East. The goal that President Bush 
laid out for the world is that we need to change the dimension. It 
should no longer be a policy of mutually assured destruction.
  Now, to me as a teacher, it is outrageous that we would base our 
foreign policy with Russia on mutually assured destruction. You attack 
us, we will annihilate you. We attack you, you will annihilate us. That 
is a crazy way to have a world order, especially when you have other 
nations that are not in any way, shape or form anywhere near as 
reliable as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War, and we did not 
have the instability that we now have inside of Russia with the 
problems, internal with their military and the command and control and 
alerting problems that they have in reading what is happening in terms 
of rocket launches around the world.
  So for all of these reasons, President Bush has proposed a new 
dynamic. I call it asymmetric deterrence, and that means that we 
continue to negotiate with our allies and friends and countries like 
Russia, and we continue to rely on deterrence as the ultimate threat to 
an attack on our homeland, but we now begin to allow missile defense 
systems.
  Now, the question is, why would America pursue missile defense, it is 
only going to back Russia into a corner. That is not true. The fact is 
that Russia believes in missile defense, as does America. They believe 
in deterrence, as does America. The Soviet Union developed the only 
operational ABM system around Moscow. That system has been upgraded 
four times, and it still exists today.
  When I have been in negotiations with my Russia friends, and I have 
gone to Russia 23 teams, I speak the language, I formed and I chair the 
Interparliamentary Commission with the Russia Duma and the Federation 
Council. When I travel to Moscow and meet with my Russian friends and 
we talk about missile defense, I candidly ask them, If you really 
believe in deterrence alone, take down your ABM system. Be as 
vulnerable as America is, and have no system and rely on deterrence.
  They look at me and smile and laugh and say, You know we will never 
do that.

[[Page 6858]]

  The point is that the Russians believe in missile defense. They have 
aggressive and very capable theater missile defense systems. They have 
the SA-10, the SA-12, the S-300, the S-400. They have now been trying 
to sell a system to both Greece and Israel called the Anti-2500 system. 
It is a very capable, mobile system that can be used by any Nation to 
defend against missile attack.
  In fact, Russia's systems are comparable to systems that we are 
building. So it is not a case of America pursuing missile defense and 
embarrassing Russia because they do not have any systems; they have 
some of the best systems in the world available today.
  Why then, Madam Speaker, would Russia not trust us? Why then would 
the Russian leader publicly express his concerns about the President's 
speech? Why would Russian leaders and European leaders express concern 
about moving forward with missile defense?
  Let me say this, Madam Speaker. If I were a Russian today and if I 
had witnessed what the Clinton administration did in terms of 
cooperation with Russia, I would not trust America in the area of 
missile defense either.

                              {time}  1845

  Let me give you the reasons why I say that, Madam Speaker. We have 
sent mixed signals to Russia for the past 10 years. The first one came 
in 1993. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin challenged George Bush, Sr. to work 
together on missile defense, to have Russian scientists and American 
scientists cooperate and explore ways that we could work together. 
George Bush, Sr. accepted that challenge. The two Presidents of the two 
countries involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia with the 
State Department in the U.S.
  Two high ranking officials were empowered by our two governments to 
negotiate and look at ways that we could cooperate together in missile 
defense in 1992. Those meetings, entitled the Ross-Mamedov talks took 
place on an ongoing basis. In 1993, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore came 
into office, they had opposed missile defense. Without consulting with 
the Russian government, they abruptly canceled the Ross-Mamedov talks. 
We sent the first signal to the Russians that we do not want to 
cooperate with you on missile defense. We do not want to be your 
partner in looking at ways to change the dynamic of our relationship.
  The second signal was sent to the Russians in 1996 and 1997. We had 
in fact funded one joint program between our Defense Department and the 
Russian defense department in the missile defense area called Ramos. 
Ramos was designed to build two satellites, one controlled by Russia, 
one controlled by the U.S., identical in operation, so that each 
country would get the same identical information when a rocket was 
launched someplace on the surface of the Earth, so we would have the 
same alert mechanism. It also was designed to build trust between our 
countries in the area of missile defense. The program was supported 
aggressively by the Congress. In fact, as the chairman of the Research 
Committee, I put Ramos in as a line item in the defense budget. In 1996 
and 1997 with no advance notice to the Russians nor to the Congress, 
the Clinton administration decided to cancel the Ramos program. When 
the Russians found out about this, they were livid. I got three phone 
calls and faxes and e-mails at my office from senior Russian leaders.
  They said, ``Congressman Weldon, what is going on? We thought America 
wanted to work with us in finding ways to cooperate.'' I said, ``Well, 
that was our thought and that was our idea.'' I then called Deputy 
Secretary of Defense John Hamre and I called Leon Fuerth, Vice 
President Gore's defense adviser. I said, ``What is going on here? What 
you are doing by canceling this program is you are undermining 
confidence in Russia that we are trying to build.'' I then went over to 
the Senate and enlisted the support of Democrat Senator Carl Levin who 
agreed with me as the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee in 
the Senate. He and I worked vigilantly with our colleagues, and we 
overturned the administration's decision. The program is still funded 
today. But the damage was done. Because for the second time, the 
Clinton administration told the Russians, ``We do not want to cooperate 
with you.''
  The third time occurred in 1997. At a time when most people in the 
world and in this country were acknowledging that the ABM treaty had 
outlived its usefulness because we were no longer in a bipolar world 
with two countries, the Soviet Union and America. We now had other 
countries with long-range missile capability, China and North Korea and 
Iran moving in that direction. At a time when most in this country were 
saying, let us provide some flexibility in the way this treaty is being 
interpreted, what did the Clinton administration do? They sent our U.S. 
negotiators to Geneva where we were in ongoing discussions with the 
Russians over the ABM treaty.
  Instead of trying to find ways to make the ABM treaty more flexible, 
the Clinton administration was negotiating a tightening up of the ABM 
treaty, contrary to the thought of almost everyone in this country. I 
for the life of me could not understand what the Clinton administration 
was doing. When I read about these discussions with the Russians, I 
heard about this plan to multilateralize the treaty, bring other 
countries in, even though they did not have long range missiles, and I 
heard about this artificial demarcation, differentiating between 
theater and national missile defense, Madam Speaker, I did something 
that no other Member of Congress did.
  I went to Geneva. I got the approval of our State Department, and we 
set up a negotiating session. The chief U.S. negotiator was on my side, 
Stanley Rivales and the chief Russian negotiator was sitting across 
from me, General Koltunov. We talked for 2\1/2\ hours about the 
administration's negotiations for these two ideas of tightening up the 
ABM treaty. So I inquired of General Koltunov, ``General, why do you in 
Russia want to bring more countries in as signatories to the ABM 
treaty?'' Only two nations were the original signatories, the Soviet 
Union and the U.S. Why did you pick three former Soviet states, 
Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, to become equal partners to the U.S. 
and Russia? That will make it more difficult to amend the treaty. And 
none of those three countries have long range missiles. They have all 
been returned to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
  General Koltunov looked at me and he said, ``Congressman Weldon, you 
are asking that question of the wrong person. We didn't propose to 
multilateralize the treaty. The person sitting next to you did.'' 
Meaning that our government was trying to push the Russian government 
into expanding the treaty to include three former Soviet states. Why 
would you do that especially when none of those three countries had 
long range missiles, unless your purpose was to make the ABM treaty 
more difficult to modify?
  The second question dealt with demarcation. I could not understand 
how we could negotiate with the Russians an artificial differentiation 
between a theater missile defense system for a given area and a 
national missile defense with longer range. So I said to the chief 
Russian negotiator, General Koltunov, ``General, explain to me, how did 
you arrive at these numbers of interceptor speed and range?'' If I am 
in a small country like Israel, a theater program like THAAD is a 
national program to Israel because it can cover their entire territory. 
In America, a program like THAAD would not be a national missile 
defense because it could not cover all of our territory. ``How did you 
determine the difference?''
  General Koltunov told me, after thinking for a few moments, ``Well, 
Congressman, there were serious negotiations between our scientists and 
your scientists, and they arrived at these numbers.'' But he did not 
give me any justification. Well, I was not satisfied. I came back to 
the United States. We concluded those negotiations in Geneva. President 
Clinton sent the signal to Russia that America was supportive of 
tightening up the ABM treaty. So the Russians again for the third time

[[Page 6859]]

took us at our word. But the Clinton administration knew, Madam 
Speaker, they could not get either of those two changes to the treaty 
through the U.S. Senate, even though the U.S. Constitution requires any 
substantive change to any treaty to be submitted to the Senate for 
advice and consent.
  For 3 years, from 1997 to the year 2000, actually to the year 2001 
because that is today, until the end of the Clinton administration, the 
administration failed to submit either of those two changes to the ABM 
treaty to the Senate as required by our Constitution so the Senate 
could debate them. I am convinced the reason the administration did not 
do that was because they knew that neither one of them would pass the 
Senate. They could not even get a majority of Democrats in the Senate 
to support those two changes. They were not in America's best 
interests. So for 3 years, the Russians had been convinced by Clinton 
that we were supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty, even though 
the administration knew the Senate and the American people would not 
support those changes.
  Last May, when the Russian Duma was considering ratification of the 
START II treaty, a treaty which our Senate had already passed years 
ago, the Clinton administration, I am convinced, convinced the Russian 
leadership to have the Duma add those two changes to the ABM treaty 
onto the back of the START II treaty. Why would they do that? Because 
they knew the START II treaty had already been ratified by the Senate 
and because they knew they could not get those two ABM changes through 
the Senate, so they said if the Russians add them on, then the Senate 
will have to accept them when the treaty comes back to us for re-
ratification. So when the state Duma in Russia ratified the START II 
treaty last spring, they added those two Geneva protocols on the START 
II treaty, it then came back to the U.S., and what did our Senate say? 
``No way are we going to pass the START II treaty.''
  So the Russians for the third time saw America going back on what 
they thought was our word. Three times in 8 years we sent mixed signals 
to Russia about missile defense. It is no wonder that the Russians do 
not understand what America's real intentions are in terms of missile 
defense. Now, they understand my intentions, because I have a good 
solid relationship with them. They know that I want us to be involved 
with Russia. The Russians know that we want to be partners with them. 
We want to find common ground.
  In fact, the weekend before our vote on H.R. 4 which this House 
passed overwhelmingly, I invited Don Rumsfeld, our current defense 
secretary, who was chairman of the Rumsfeld Commission; Jim Woolsey, 
who was Bill Clinton's CIA director; and Bill Schneider, a Deputy 
Secretary of State, to travel with me to Moscow. I took several Members 
of Congress from both parties along. We went to Moscow before the vote 
here so that we could reassure the Russians that our intent in moving 
forward in missile defense was not to back the Russians into a corner. 
We did not see Russia as the enemy. We were not doing this to try to 
create an advantage over Russia. And that we wanted to work together 
with Russia.
  Madam Speaker, I am convinced through my contact with Russian leaders 
that they can and will understand that America's intent on missile 
defense is not to create an arms race. The Russians believe in missile 
defense because they know the threats are real. We believe in missile 
defense because the threats are real. For those who say the threats are 
not real, I say, tell that to the families of those 28 young Americans 
who were buried in this country because we could not defend against 
that missile attack in 1991 in Saudi Arabia.
  Madam Speaker, with the Russian leaders that I work with, people like 
Dr. Yevghenie Velakof who heads up the Kurchatov Institute understand 
what we are trying to accomplish. In fact Dr. Velakof and I coauthored 
an op-ed 3 years ago that was entitled ``From Mutually Assured 
Destruction to Mutually Assured Protection.'' Dr. Velakof understands 
what George Bush is trying to do. When Russians understand that we are 
serious and want them involved and that we are not playing games, they 
will cooperate with us.
  But, Madam Speaker, I have to tell you, there is one other group in 
this country who is causing the feeling of instability in Russia. There 
is one other group in this country who will be vigorously against 
missile defense, who are actually causing more unrest among the Russian 
people than the missile defense idea itself. Who are those people, 
Madam Speaker? They are some of the very arms control organizations in 
this city that claim to be for peace, that claim to be for stable 
relations.
  Why do I say that, Madam Speaker? Let me tell you what Yevghenie 
Velakof told me 2 years ago. At the height of our bill being passed by 
the House and the Senate, Yevghenie Velakof came in for one of his 
regular meetings at my office. He brought with him a Time magazine 
edition, I believe it was February 25, I believe it was in 1998.
  There was a two-page feature in Time magazine on missile defense. It 
was written about the new plan being pushed by the Congress to give 
America the protection that George Bush outlined yesterday. They called 
the plan Star Wars II, or sequel to what Reagan had done, which is a 
misnomer. But the idea was to lay out for the American people the idea 
of what we are talking about with a limited missile defense system. In 
one corner of that article, taking up almost one-half of one page was 
the chart I am going to present that I have had blown up. In a story 
about missile defense and how America was trying to pursue protection 
for our people was this chart. Let me read the top and the bottom 
opening sentences.
  ``Destroying Russia. Arms control advocates map the Pentagon's top 
secret plan for waging war. 1200 warheads hit 800 targets.'' This is a 
map of Russia. They have got locations where we supposedly have a top 
secret plan to destroy Russia. Across the bottom is the following 
statement. ``Killing zones. The vast spread of radiation will wipe out 
more than 20 million people in Russia.'' Dr. Velakof said to me, 
``Curt, I know what your intention is with missile defense. It is to 
protect your people. But this is what the Russian people will see.'' 
They will see an article in Time magazine with a chart produced by the 
Natural Resources Defense Council, an arms control group, that is 
trying to say that our real intent is to kill 20 million Russian 
people.

                              {time}  1900

  That is why the Russians are concerned about missile defense. It is 
not because of the system. It is because of an inconsistent, 
incoherent, roller coaster foreign policy where three times in 8 years 
we sent mixed signals to Moscow on missile defense. It is because of 
the arms control crowd that tries to scare the Russian people into 
thinking that somehow our real intent is to wipe them out and dominate 
them. That has to be dealt with in this debate that began yesterday.
  We have to put the facts on the table. Our goal is not to wipe out 
Russia. Our goal is not to kill 20 million Russian people. In fact, our 
goal is to work with Russia; it is to work NATO; it is to work with 
Ukraine; it is to work with Canada; with the European countries to 
develop something we have not had before, an ability to shoot down 
offensive missiles.
  Mr. Speaker, over 70 nations today in the world have missiles that 
they control. Countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, India, Pakistan, 
North Korea and a whole host of other countries all have missiles. Some 
have conventional weapons on them. Some have the potential to put a 
chemical or a biological agent on them, but they all have missiles and 
they all have launchers.
  Mr. Speaker, today in the world over 22 nations can build missiles 
and are building them, and they are selling them to other nations. 
Missiles are out of control. We did not expect this threat to come from 
unstable nations for another 15 to 20 years, but over the

[[Page 6860]]

past 10 years we have lost control of proliferation. Because of 
Russia's instability and because of China's lack of compliance, Russia 
and China have allowed technology to flow to unstable nations which 
then have given those nations abilities in missile technology that we 
did not think they would have for at least 15 years.
  Let me talk about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker, because that has a 
direct bearing on why President Bush yesterday said we have to have 
missile defense now, because the threats are here today. Iran now has a 
Shahab III system they are working on. The Shahab IV and Shahab V, 
which are medium-range missile systems, can kill tons of people all 
throughout Europe and can hit Israel directly. We know Iraq has 
missiles. We know all these countries have missiles.
  How did they get this technology, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately, because 
of America's lack of enforcement of arms control agreements.
  Two years ago, I asked the Congressional Research Service, an 
independent, bipartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, it is 
not partisan, all of our colleagues use it, I asked them to do a study 
for me of how many instances of arms control violations had occurred in 
the 1990s. I put that report in the Congressional Record last year.
  The answer is that up until 1998, we had evidence that Russia and 
China had illegally transferred technology, much of it missile 
technology, to unstable nations in violation of arms control agreements 
38 times; 20 times by the Chinese, 18 times by the Russians. The arms 
control agreements are supposed to have sanctions applied when we catch 
other countries in violation. Much like if we catch an American company 
illegally selling technology to a foreign nation that they should 
noting selling to, we arrest their officers. We fine them and, if 
necessary, we put them in jail. Thirty-eight times we caught the 
Russians and Chinese illegally giving technology to our enemies. Only 
two times out of 38 did we impose the required sanctions when we caught 
the Chinese transferring M-11 missiles to Pakistan, when we caught the 
Chinese transferring ring magnets for their nuclear program to 
Pakistan. The other 36 times we turned our head.
  Let me give a real example, Mr. Speaker, for our colleagues to 
remember. I was in Moscow in January of 1996. The Washington Post had 
just reported in December a front page story, above the fold: ``U.S. 
Catches Russia Transferring Guidance Systems to Iraq.'' That was the 
headline. I was in Moscow, so I went to our embassy and I met with 
Ambassador Pickering, who most recently was the number three person in 
the State Department under Bill Clinton.
  I said, Mr. Ambassador, what was the Russian response when you asked 
the Russians about the illegal transfer of technology to Iraq?
  He said, Congressman Weldon, I have not asked them yet.
  I said, why would you not ask them? That is a violation of the 
missile technology control regime, an arms control agreement between us 
and them and other countries.
  He said that has to come from Washington. It has to come from the 
White House or the Secretary of State.
  So I came back to America, and I wrote President Clinton a letter, a 
3-page letter, asking him to respond to the allegation. In March of 
that year, President Clinton sent me a letter, which I still have; and 
in the letter he said, Congressman Weldon, I share your concern about 
the allegation that Russia may have transferred guidance systems to 
Iraq that would improve their missile systems; and I can say if it 
occurred and we can prove it, we will take aggressive action. But, 
Congressman Weldon, we do not have any evidence. Yes, we have 
allegations, but we cannot prove that Russia transferred guidance 
systems to Iraq.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I brought the proof today. For the past year, Mr. 
Speaker, I have taken these devices around the country with me. This is 
an accelerometer, a very high-priced device that controls the speed of 
a missile. This is a gyroscope. This system locks into a satellite GPS 
mechanism to control the accuracy of where the missile is going. When 
one puts these two devices in a missile, they make that missile very 
accurate.
  Iraq cannot build these devices. They are too sophisticated. Only the 
U.S., Russia and China, because they got the technology from us over 
the past 5 years, can build these devices. It is illegal to give these 
devices to unstable nations.
  These devices have Soviet markings on them. These devices were 
clipped off of SSN-19 long-range Soviet missiles. These devices used to 
be in missiles in Russian submarines aimed at U.S. cities, but because 
of treaties, when Russia discarded these old missiles they were 
supposed to destroy these, but they did not do it. We caught the 
Russians three times transferring not one set of these devices, but 
over 100 set of these devices to Iraq.
  What would Iraq want with them? Iraq would want them to put in their 
missiles like the one they sent into Desert Storm that killed 28 young 
Americans to make their missile more accurate. We allowed the 
technology to flow, and we did nothing about it.
  Here is the evidence, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say where I got them, but 
I can say agencies of our Government have over 100 sets of these 
devices. And let me say, my guess is there are probably thousands of 
these devices that were illegally sent from Russian entities to Iraq 
and Iran.
  Now, do I blame the Russian Government? Not necessarily. It is caused 
by instability in Russia, but we in America had an obligation to 
enforce arms control agreements. Now, why would President Clinton not 
want to enforce an arms control agreement? We caught them red handed. 
We have the evidence.
  The answer, Mr. Speaker, lies in the fact that the Clinton foreign 
policy for 8 years was a personal friendship between Bill Clinton and 
Boris Yeltsin. As long as those two people were friendly and in power, 
President Clinton assumed that our relationship with Russia would be 
stable.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I wanted Yeltsin to succeed as much as President 
Clinton; but our goal in Russia should not have been to support a man. 
It should have been to support institutions: the institution of the 
presidency, whoever that might be; the institution of a free parliament 
and Duma, whoever they might elect; the institution of a legal system, 
of an economic framework.
  We should have been supporting institutions of democracy as opposed 
to a personality, because as Boris Yeltsin lost the vigor that he first 
brought to his job, he began to surround himself with corrupt 
individuals. In fact, he named the oligarchs that ended up running 
Russia's banks. These Russian oligarchs, many of whom were crooks and 
thieves, were ending up taking billions of dollars of foreign money, 
IMF and World Bank money, that was supposed to help the Russians 
rebuild their economy, rebuild their schools, their roads and their 
communities. But instead, the friends of Boris who controlled the 
economic institutions in Russia diverted that money to illegal 
operations, to Swiss bank accounts, to U.S. real estate investments. In 
fact, our Justice Department issued indictments against five Bank of 
New York officials just 2 years ago.
  The allegation is that they were involved in corruption with Boris 
Yeltsin's friends in diverting up to $5 billion of money that was 
supposed to help the Russian people.
  What did we do? We went like this and like this. Just as we did with 
the arms control violations, we pretended we did not see them. We 
pretended we did not have evidence. We knew 5 years ago that there were 
corrupt Russians working with corrupt Americans, stealing money to 
benefit the Russian people. Do we wonder why now the Russian people do 
not trust our intentions?
  When Yeltsin was about to leave office, his popularity in Moscow was 
2 percent. Ninety-eight percent of the Russian people felt he was 
corrupt and had become a drunk, but there we were still supporting 
Boris Yeltsin. We wonder why the Russian people do not trust our 
intentions. If I were a Russian then, I would not trust our intentions 
either. We blew it to some extent, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page 6861]]

  The visual image Americans had in 1992 was Boris Yeltsin standing on 
a tank outside the Russian White House, openly defying Communism, 
20,000 people around him. As he stood on the tank and said Communism is 
dead, the Soviet Union is over, we are in a new strategic alliance, 
Russia and America together, that was 1992. 1999, what was the visual 
picture on CNN in the fall of 1999? Ten thousand, 15,000 young Russians 
outside the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, clogging the 
street, throwing paint at our embassy, firing handguns at our embassy 
and burning the American flag, because we had been supporting corrupt 
institutions and people in Russia. We had been denying reality, and the 
Russian people lost faith and confidence in what America was really all 
about.
  In fact, it was about that time I had a Russian Duma member over 
here. He did a national press conference and this is what he said to 
the American people on national TV. He said, you know, the Soviet 
Communist Party spent tens of billions of dollars over 70 years to 
convince the Russian people that America was evil and Americans were 
evil, and they failed. Your government has managed to do in a few short 
years and months what the Russian Soviet Communist Party could not 
achieve in 70 years.
  The last formal request of Boris Yeltsin, before he left office for 
his hand-picked successor, was a commitment he received from President 
Putin to pardon him and his family. The first official action of 
President Putin, when he took office, was to pardon Boris Yeltsin and 
his family, including his daughter Tatyana, from crimes committed 
against the Russian people, that America knew about and pretended we 
did not see. That is why the Russians do not trust our intentions.
  The biggest challenge for President Bush is rebuilding the trust of 
the Russian people and its leadership that America wants to be a stable 
trading partner with Russia. We will not tolerate proliferation. We 
will not tolerate giving foreign unstable nations illegal technology, 
but we want Russia to succeed. We want to help them create a mortgage 
program for their people, which is my number one priority. We want to 
help their defense industry get back on its feet and produce other 
products. We want to engage their military with our military. We want 
to help them solve the problem of nuclear contamination in the Arctic, 
a big issue for the Russians. We want to help Russia succeed and become 
a trading partner of the U.S.

                              {time}  1915

  Missile defense is not the reason that Russia is concerned, it is the 
lack of trust and confidence in what America really wants that has the 
Russian leadership and the Russian people concerned.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to move forward with missile defense in 
cooperation with the Russians and the rest of the peace-loving people 
in the world. I cannot, for the life of me, as a teacher, understand 
how those in this country still want to rely on offensive weapons to 
kill each other, as opposed to defensive weapons to protect our people. 
That does not make sense to me.
  We can achieve what President Bush wants.
  Now, it is a tough task, because you are talking about hitting a 
bullet with a bullet, stopping a projectile in the atmosphere that is 
moving very quickly, and stopping it with another bullet. And you 
cannot hit that projectile when it is on the way down or it will rain 
terror on the people in that country, in this case our people.
  That happened in Israel when those Scud missiles kept landing. Even 
though the Patriot system may have hit it, the debris kept coming down 
on the Israeli people. We need technology, as President Bush rightly 
outlined, to hit the missile in the ascent phase, as it is on the way 
up. It is called boost-phase intercept. The reason why that is 
important is, you knock that missile out on the way up, and the only 
people harmed are the people who launched the missile against someone 
else.
  What President Bush is saying is, we need to develop a new 
capability, using technology with our allies, to give us that kind of 
protection; and he has proposed for the first time in the last 10 years 
that he will use the bully pulpit to move the technology forward.
  Are we prepared today? No. There still is additional testing. Have we 
had success? Absolutely. Out of 31 attempts, we have been successful in 
over half of them. Our THAAD program has had intercepts, successful 
ones. Our PAC-3 program has had five successful intercepts. Our 
National Missile Defense program has had one successful intercept. We 
know the technology is achievable. It is an engineering problem to 
integrate the systems, and that is the challenge that we have to help 
the President overcome.
  I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that those of our colleagues in this 
body and the other body who supported missile defense last year and the 
year before will again come back and support President Bush. This is 
not a partisan issue. The battle for missile defense in America was not 
a Republican battle; it was won by a bipartisan effort with Democrats 
and Republicans coming together, understanding that threats were 
emerging quicker than we thought they would emerge.
  We need to work together to give the President the kind of support he 
has outlined in his vision for a new world order, one where we focus 
cooperative efforts together. The Europeans can cooperate with us, as 
they are already doing. In fact, I am hoping right now to establish a 
meeting, an unofficial meeting, in one of the Arab countries, where I 
will plan to invite the Israelis and the Russians to sit down and have 
a conversation about how we can jointly pursue missile defense 
cooperation in the Middle East, with Jews and allies working together, 
with Americans and Russians.
  On Friday of this week, Mr. Speaker, I will travel to New York City, 
where I will give a major foreign policy speech at the World Russian 
Forum, and I will tell the leaders of Russia, I will tell the business 
leaders in Russia, that we want to work together, George Bush wants 
Russia to be our friend and partner. There is no reason why we cannot 
achieve that.
  I will then come back to Washington and next week will sponsor with 
the Free Congress Foundation, with Paul Weyrich, a bipartisan 
conference on the Hill with Russian leaders. The chairman of the 
International Affairs Committee for the Russian Duma, Dmitrii Rogozin, 
will be here, and he and I and others will come together and talk about 
cooperation. We will then travel to Moscow and we will have a 
conference in Moscow on missile defense cooperation. We will work 
together to find common ground, to build confidence among both 
countries to move forward together.
  We need to put away the arguments and the petty wars of the Cold War 
era. Relying on mutually assured destruction is not the answer. Working 
together for peaceful protection of our friends, our allies and our 
neighbors, is the solution of the 21st century. That is what George 
Bush outlined for us yesterday. He is on the right track. He did not 
say we have all the answers, because we do not, but he did say, 
together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
  I was a young kid in school when John Kennedy made a very famous 
speech in 1960. He said ``I challenge America to land a man on the moon 
within this decade.'' I can tell you, people laughed at him. They 
thought, this guy is crazy. Here is President Kennedy saying we are 
going to land on the moon? We cannot even get our planes to fly totally 
safe in the atmosphere. How are we going to land on the moon? He 
challenged America to land on the moon, to explore outer space 
technology.
  You know what happened, Mr. Speaker. Nine years later, in July of 
1969, we landed the first human being on the moon. It was an historic 
event that showed that America can accomplish anything.
  There are those who will say, there are a few of them, who will say 
this is not technologically possible. Mr. Speaker, that is hogwash. In 
fact, to counter those, we have put together a task force of 
professors. None of the

[[Page 6862]]

professors we have on this ad hoc committee are working for any 
contractor. They are all professors.
  I am going to be inviting all of my colleagues in Congress to ask 
those professors, one at a time or as a group, to come into your 
offices. They are not doing any contract work with defense contractors. 
They are not on the Pentagon's payroll. They are from universities, 
like Texas A&M, like some of our major engineering schools, who 
understand the physics is achievable.
  They will be available as we begin this debate to counter those who 
will simply try to use their doctorate titles to convince us that 
somehow we cannot accomplish this.
  I asked the head of the Boeing program in a hearing last year, a 
fellow by the name of Dr. Teller, how difficult it was to achieve the 
result of missile defense for America and its people. He said, 
``Congressman Weldon, I have been assigned to this all my life.'' He 
said managing the Space Station was a tougher challenge than building 
missile defense.
  Together, Republicans and Democrats, allies and our own people, we 
can create a new world, a safe world, where all of our people can be 
protected from what happened to those 28 Americans in 1991.

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