[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5530-5537]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. AKIN. We're about to start on a journey on an interesting topic 
of discussion and one that has hit the papers and one that could very 
much affect the shaping of how the world develops and the safety of the 
world. And that is the new discussion on the Nuclear Posture Review. 
That's a report that the Federal Government has just released along 
with the new START Treaty which the President has been working on 
negotiating with the Russians.
  And these are talking about the future of our country, the future of 
our world, particularly as it relates to nuclear weapons or weapons of 
mass destruction. And the initial kind of read on what's going on 
sounds pretty good. We want to try to reduce the amount of 
proliferation of nuclear materials to make the world a safer place. We 
want to talk about a day when there won't be any nuclear weapons in the 
world. We want to try to, in general, reduce the amount of threat and 
risk to our own Nation and other nations.
  And it all sounds pretty good when you first look at it, until you 
start to take a look at the troubling assumptions that have been built 
into these two documents. First of all, they call the Nuclear Posture 
Review the NPR and the START Treaty, of course, is going back to the 
1991 historic treaty.
  And so I'm joined here on the floor by some good friends of mine, 
some people who are good thinkers. But I think I will mention some of 
the topics that I would like to see us be talking about here in the 
next number of minutes. And I think we need to take a look at 
assumptions.
  Many times people have good intentions, but the assumptions that are 
built in are not so good. There was once a guy who was a pharmacist and 
he had good intentions; but, unfortunately, he prescribed too much of a 
particular chemical and killed his patient. He had good intentions, but 
the result was the death of the patient. That could easily happen to 
many Americans with the false assumptions that are built into the START 
negotiations and this Nuclear Posture Review.
  The first thing I would like to take a look at is going to be the 
world without nukes and is that a reasonable assumption; is that 
something that we should be working toward and exactly how are we going 
to produce this world where there are no longer nuclear weapons.
  The next assumption is whether or not it's reasonable to trust Russia 
when you negotiate arms treaties.
  The third question would be the overall whether or not we're going to 
be advancing missile defense and whether or not we're going to develop 
a missile defense. Is that connected to the idea of the START Treaty?
  The fourth point would be does it make sense to say we're not going 
to develop any future nuclear weapons or devices.
  And, lastly, to define when we might or might not use a nuclear 
weapon.
  These are all kinds of assumptions built into these documents. I 
think they need to be discussed and discussed very carefully by those 
of us who are dealing with our nuclear posture.
  I'm going to start off by recognizing my good friend, Rob Bishop from 
Utah. Congressman Turner also is joining us, Mike Turner from Ohio. And 
I know that they have their own perspectives on this and are very well 
qualified in certain areas here, and I also have some charts we could 
go to.
  But I would like to take a look at some of those assumptions because 
the devil is often in the details.
  I would yield time to my good friend, Congressman Turner from Ohio.
  What part of Ohio are you from?
  Mr. TURNER. Dayton, Ohio.
  Mr. AKIN. A good industrial area, too. Good for you.
  Thank you, Mike. Please.
  Mr. TURNER. I appreciate your leadership. We serve in the Armed 
Services Committee together so these are issues that we take up 
frequently.
  We held a hearing today on the Nuclear Posture Review and on the 
START Treaty, and there are a number of things as you outlined that I 
think people should be very concerned about.
  One, of course, is what they're referring to as the negative 
assurances where in the Nuclear Posture Review they've included a 
statement where the President has taken off the table the prospects of 
using nuclear weapons in defense of this Nation in circumstances where 
we are attacked by a nation that is in compliance with the 
nonproliferation treaty, and even if that attack is with either 
chemical or biological weapons.
  Before we always had the posture of we'll do whatever it takes, 
whatever is necessary to defend this Nation. And the President himself 
last May said--he clearly stated, I don't take options off the table 
when it comes to U.S. security. Period. Unfortunately, this 
administration's Nuclear Posture Review does just that. It delivers a 
muddled message to both our allies and our adversaries that only seeks 
to weaken the strength of our deterrent.
  It's really unclear as to why the administration has done this if you 
look at the issue of threat. Certainly the threat has not been reduced 
to the United States. So to take a posture where you're going to 
restrict what we would use in order to defend ourselves is not based 
upon some change that has occurred in the threats that the United 
States is facing.
  They have said that they are pursuing this policy of restricting our 
use of our own defensive weapons in order

[[Page 5531]]

to encourage others not to seek nuclear weapons. But there is no 
historical basis for that. The United States has continued to reduce 
the overall number of nuclear weapons, as has Russia. As we've seen, 
Iran is seeking to be a nuclear power; North Korea is becoming a 
nuclear power. Without any historical basis for an assumption that 
others would not seek nuclear weapons if the United States agrees to 
not use theirs, this administration has proceeded down this path.
  Mr. AKIN. Could I interrupt for a second?
  I think what you brought up is an interesting point. First of all, 
the President said all of the options are on the table. And here we go 
again seeing him say one thing and doing the exact opposite.
  It reminds me of a question. I'm a pretty old geezer. I've been 
around here for a while. I remember the Ronald Reagan days. And I 
remember it was kind of the height of the Cold War and people would ask 
him, Now, President Reagan, what would happen if this and this and 
this. And he would kind of look at people with his big old grin and he 
would say, You know, I've told you before, I don't answer ``what if'' 
questioning. Now, he said that in a nice way, but his point was why do 
we want to answer what if and then lock ourselves into some particular 
means of responding when it isn't really appropriate when the actual 
day arrives.
  Mr. TURNER. That is what this policy is. It's a what-if.
  Mr. AKIN. It's answering a whole lot of what-if questions. Why do we 
have to do that?
  Mr. TURNER. The administration is saying the what-if is if this 
country is attacked by someone who is in compliance with the NPT, even 
if we're attacked with biological or chemical weapons, they would not 
use everything that we have in our arsenal that might be necessary in 
order to protect ourselves.
  Mr. AKIN. So just stop for a minute. Let's do a what-if, because 
that's apparently what this treaty is trying to define, these what-ifs.
  So some country has maybe signed agreements that they're not going to 
develop biological weapons. They do that on the sly, hit our cities 
with biological weapons and people are dying with some strange kind of 
virus or something running around, and we're losing a whole lot of 
population--and of course I think we have a pledge that we're not 
developing biological weapons so we can't respond with biological 
weapons somewhere. So what are we supposed to do then? We've already 
guaranteed them that we're not going to use nuclear weapons.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. TURNER. Well, here is, I think, the most important thing. You 
invoked Ronald Reagan and you were saying how you shouldn't answer 
hypotheticals. I think here is what the blanket statement should be.
  The blanket statement should be, when it comes to defending the 
United States against a devastating attack, our message should be clear 
and simple. If our Nation is attacked, we will use all means necessary 
to defend ourselves, period. There shouldn't be an issue of whether 
they signed, whether they agreed that they wouldn't develop nuclear 
weapons and so we are not going to use nuclear weapons.
  I mean, first off, nobody is for using nuclear weapons. I mean, there 
is no advocacy group that says we need to be using nuclear weapons or 
no one, certainly--from a human value statement, the President's 
statement of a world without nuclear weapons is something that everyone 
would want to achieve.
  Mr. AKIN. Sure.
  Mr. TURNER. It's the reality, though, of the issue of defending our 
Nation. And here this President has said, I won't take anything off the 
table. I will always do what's necessary to defend the United States. 
Period.
  That was last May. And then now, with the administration's nuclear 
posture review, he is saying, but I am going to, in advance, tell you 
that if you are in compliance with the NPT, if you attack this Nation, 
if you attack the United States, even if you attack the United States 
with chemical or biological weapons, I am going to take off the table 
the nuclear weapons that are in my arsenal, even if it's necessary to 
protect the United States.
  Now, they go on to say, the administration says, well, we have 
overwhelming conventional forces and so that will make a bit of a 
difference. We don't really need our nuclear weapons. But they say they 
are doing this to try to encourage others to not develop nuclear 
weapons. Again, there is no historical basis for it. As we have reduced 
our stockpiles and Russia has reduced their stockpiles, other nations 
have continued to seek nuclear weapons.
  But the other issue is, what is the true message then to those other 
nations? Well, we have overwhelming conventional force. They don't have 
overwhelming conventional force. Certainly, developing nuclear weapons 
is an equalizer that they can look to.
  I think it's disingenuous to say that we are not going to use our 
nuclear weapons, but we might change our mind, but at the same time we 
want you not to use them. But it's in that framework of the 
hypothetical of saying that this, this country, if it's attacked, won't 
defend itself to the full extent when it might be necessary.
  Mr. AKIN. Okay, so it seems to me we have got a couple of different 
issues here that you brought up. The first question is, does it even 
make sense for us to do the ``what if'' question? If somebody does 
this, this, and this, well, we are not going to do that. What is that 
bias, you know, and is that really helpful? And particularly when these 
things tend to be nuanced the way they are phrased, it adds a lot of 
haze and uncertainty. But certainly answering that ``what if'' question 
probably doesn't make us a more secure country.
  But let's go to what I think is your second point.
  Mr. TURNER. Let me go back to that for a second. You said the 
administration is actually calling this an assurance policy, that they 
are providing assurances. But usually I think and the American people 
think of the word ``assurance'' being something you give your friends 
and allies. And, in this instance, this is an assurance that the 
administration is giving to a nation that would be an attacker to our 
Nation, someone who is attacking us. That's not the circumstance of 
what I would think of assurance.
  Mr. AKIN. Assurance to our enemies.
  But the second thing was the idea that somehow we are going to move 
toward this world without nukes, and the way we are going to do it is 
to reduce not only our number of nuclear weapons but reduce our 
development or deployment of nuclear weapons. I mean, it sounds so good 
on the surface, but let's just take this apart a little bit.
  Let's just say, you have got America now. We have a bunch of nuclear 
weapons, and we just say, hey, this is such a great idea. We are just 
going to get rid of all our nukes, and we are not going to develop any. 
Or we are going to get rid of a certain percentage of them, and we are 
not going to develop any new ones, which is what this treaty is 
supposed to do.
  My question is, how is this going to reduce the number of nuclear 
weapons in the world?
  First of all, think about there are 35 or more nations that depend on 
us to create this nuclear umbrella of protection. So they are not 
developing their own nukes because they know that the U.S. is going to 
protect them. So what are they going to do logically if that umbrella 
of protection of the U.S. having this overwhelming nuclear force, if we 
take that down, if you are one of those 35 nations, what are you going 
to be thinking?
  Mr. TURNER. It's a very good point. Because those nations that depend 
upon us, who have not developed nuclear weapons, who believe that they 
are part of our nuclear umbrella, that they believe that we extend, in 
cooperative understanding, our deterrents for their benefit. If that 
deterrence is removed, then, of course, there is the prospect that 
these additional nations will feel the need to develop their own 
weapons.
  Mr. AKIN. So we are reducing weapons, but these other nations are 
going

[[Page 5532]]

to want to increase, so that doesn't really compute with the logic of 
this thing.
  Now let's go to the next class of nations, third-world nations, maybe 
some of them that are more likely to be our opponents, adversaries, or 
troublemakers. Now we tell them we are going to reduce our number of 
nukes and our development of new things. What is their logical response 
to that? Well, let's see, they say, well, we could never whip them in 
conventional forces, so we have got to find some other way.
  Mr. TURNER. Exactly.
  Mr. AKIN. So what are they going to do?
  Mr. TURNER. I think it's also a false accomplishment. When the 
administration promotes this statement of a world without nuclear 
weapons, again, it's a human-value statement that I think everyone 
would wish to be true. But in translating it then to a to-do list or a 
policy from the United States, going from a human-value statement to an 
actual to-do list and policy without a change that has occurred in the 
world dynamics, that's where we get dangerous for the United States.
  Here is the false accomplishment. This President will talk about his 
accomplishment of limiting the role and the number of U.S. nuclear 
weapons. I think what people are interested in is this President 
limiting the nuclear weapons risk that we are facing as a Nation.
  Mr. AKIN. But shouldn't the focus be on U.S. security? Shouldn't that 
be the question? And are we going the wrong way?
  Mr. TURNER. We will have to see what comes out of the conference that 
the President has held. He was identifying the increase, that threat 
that we have for nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation issues. 
And certainly those are the correct issues for him to be raising at 
this point, and we certainly wish him great success in accomplishing 
some visible reduction in the threat to the United States, besides just 
the visible reduction in the role and the number of U.S. deterrents.
  Mr. AKIN. So the bottom line should be about U.S. security. I mean, 
that's what we should be focused on. Yet how does it get us more 
security if we reduce our nuclear capabilities and other nations than 
become encouraged to increase theirs?
  Mr. TURNER. Absolutely.
  Mr. AKIN. So there is a fundamental disconnect in the logic here 
somewhere. Understand that it's all for glorious and super ends and 
supposed to be a good deal and all, but how does it specifically help 
us and how does it increase U.S. security? That is not clear at all.
  The idea of us reducing capabilities seems to be completely 
counterproductive. Because it's going to encourage either third-world 
adversaries to take advantage of our vulnerability that we created 
voluntarily on ourselves, self-inflicted wounds, or the people who are 
our friends are going to develop additional nuclear capabilities to 
protect themselves. So I don't see how this thing works.
  Mr. TURNER. Congressman, you had also mentioned the the point of 
START and the issue of missile defense. I think one issue that people 
are concerned about that relates directly to this issue is any 
limitation on the United States' ability to defend itself in deploying 
what is a provable, workable technology in missile defense. The START 
treaty has in its preamble or recognition between the United States and 
Russia the correlation between defensive and strategic weapons.
  The Russians have stepped forward and said that this language, they 
believe, was essential in order to get their approval for START, 
because they want the United States' missile defense system to be 
counted against the issue of our nuclear deterrent--their nuclear 
deterrent.
  They haven't gone as far as to say that they might withdraw from 
START, depending on the extent to which we deploy a missile defense 
system. Well, what's really concerning is that the administration, at 
this same time that they are agreeing to and pursuing the START, which 
has been signed, with language that ties missile defense to our nuclear 
deterrent, the administration is pursuing for Europe a missile defense 
system.
  Now, it's unclear whether the President's own plan for a missile 
defense system already violates the Russians' concern under START. We 
may be in a situation where the President is pursuing a policy that 
will already cause the relationship with Russia start to be a terminal 
relationship. In the hearing today, I asked Secretary Tauscher, where 
are we with the Russians on this issue?
  The administration already knows what they want to do with missile 
defense. It is certainly something knowable by the Russians at this 
point. The Russians are saying they will withdraw if the missile 
defense is pursued. My concern is that the administration will get down 
the road, where they will have supported START, received ratification 
of START, be pursuing a missile defense system that Russia objects to 
and that it might weaken this administration's resolve for deploying 
that system.
  Mr. AKIN. The history of missile defense goes back quite a ways. It 
goes back to Ronald Reagan, who proposed the whole idea of missile 
defense; and people, liberals, tried to make fun of it. They said it 
was Star Wars, and it will never work, and it will destabilize 
relations between nuclear armed countries like us and the Soviet Union.
  Ronald Reagan said, no, I don't think so. He said, we have a 
responsibility to defend our citizens, and we need to build a missile 
defense.
  Of course, we, all the way through from the time of Reagan to when I 
came here in 2001, we had really not done it. President Bush went to 
the Russians, went to the Europeans and said, sorry, guys, I am going 
to let you know, here is your 6-months' notice. We are going to start 
developing missile defense.
  And, of course, the Democrats had been opposed to it, but they were 
in the minority, and we passed it when we were on the Armed Services 
Committee to do missile defense. And it wasn't missile defense against 
China or Russia, but it was missile defense against these rogue nations 
like Iran and North Korea. So we built it. In spite of the fact people 
said you couldn't do it, we did it. Test after test, we did it, and we 
made it work, and we built missile defense. Then they made a treaty 
with Poland and the Czech Republic, saying we are going to deploy 
missile defense not just in Alaska but in Poland and the Czech 
Republic.
  Thank you very much, Congressman Turner from Ohio. I really 
appreciate your leadership on the whole area of national security. You 
have done a great job.
  I am joined also by my good friend, Rob Bishop from Utah.
  But let's just get on this missile defense a little bit. So we built 
it, and we built a number of missile defense silos in Alaska. It was 
called a ground-based system, and it shoots a missile that's 
tremendously large, about 20-some tons of missile. It goes very high, 
very fast, and it has the capability of stopping intercontinental 
ballistic missiles.
  Many of the trajectory of those go past Alaska where these missiles 
can do a good job of stopping the enemy. Now these same missiles were 
going to be put into Poland, into the Czech Republic. One was a radar 
site. One was an actual missile site. And the Obama administration 
decided to cut the ground out from behind our allies. They had made 
significant political--took a lot of heat from their own citizenry, got 
permission, got the support of their citizens to build these systems to 
protect Western Europe, particularly from Iranian ballistic missiles.
  And the administration decides on very little notice, literally on 
the day where the Polish were observing the time that the Russians had 
come into Poland, and just cut the ground out from under them and said 
we are not going to do that. What are they going to replace them with? 
Oh, they said, we are going to use a ballistic defense system based on 
our ballistic missile destroyers.
  The only trouble is, it was based on a missile that hasn't been 
developed yet, that doesn't work yet, and it's a 2-ton as opposed to a 
20-ton missile, and it's a missile that we don't have. So now

[[Page 5533]]

we are supposed to have these destroyers floating around the 
Mediterranean providing missile defense for Europe, and these 
destroyers don't even have the right kind of missile on them to stop a 
ballistic or intercontinental ballistic missile. The bigger the 
missile, the bigger the anti-missile that you have to have to fight it.
  So the whole point of this was here you have North Korea. They fire 
these different missiles. The current range of the larger North Korean 
missiles is 3- to 6,000 miles. That puts Alaska in the sights and other 
potential targets from North Korea.
  Likewise, we have Iran potentially launching, and you can see these 
different distances, depending on how much power the Iranian missile 
has, how many stages and how far it can go, starts to move into 
targeting Western Europe. This is what we were protecting against with 
the missile sites in the Czech Republic and Poland, which this 
administration has cancelled.
  They have also cancelled a number of other aspects of missile defense 
which we will get into, one that was tremendously successfully tested 
just in the last few months. It's this aircraft here with this funny-
looking nose, looks like a cyclops, and this is a very powerful, 
actually, three lasers in one. That was tested successfully to knock 
down missiles; and, of course, to shoot a laser at a missile isn't that 
expensive.

                              {time}  1815

  You can get a lot of shots out of a laser and it goes very fast. It 
is a very effective way to stop missiles on the launchpad. So that's 
another thing that this administration decided that they were not going 
to fund. These treaties are talking about continuing that trend to 
reduce our investment in missile defense, and that is very troubling 
indeed.
  My good friend Congressman Bishop from Utah knows quite a bit about 
the specific missiles that do this, and I would like to call on your 
expertise to help us with this subject, please.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, I appreciate my good friend from Missouri 
bringing this issue up to us again, especially now that we're talking 
about missiles.
  One of the things President Reagan once said is: Was the United 
States ever involved in a war because we were too strong? The answer is 
no. But what we're also talking about here is sometimes--as I was an 
old school teacher--when we're young and naive, we tend to overlook 
details, and those details could be devastating. For example, Napoleon 
lost the Battle of Waterloo not because he was outmaneuvered at 
Waterloo. He was not. He lost it because they overlooked a detail. They 
didn't bring a bag of nails. At that time, when you overtook the enemy 
artillery, you would dismantle it by driving a nail through the firing 
mechanism so it would be useless.
  When Napoleon overran the British artillery, they didn't bring any 
nails with them. Consequently, the British recaptured that artillery 
and it wreaked havoc on Napoleon's forces. And every book of what would 
have happened always has a chapter of what would have happened if they 
had actually brought the nails.
  Mr. AKIN. A bag of nails. Now, I appreciate having a history 
professor here. It's just a little detail, but it was an important and 
sort of a tide-turning detail that was not considered.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Now, let me turn that analogy slightly into the 
situation we are in right now, because I think this administration is 
missing a lot of bags of nails that are out there. One in particular 
deals with our missile program in the future if, indeed, the direction 
we're going is not the right direction and we want to change that.
  You and I were here with several other Members last year a long time 
talking about our missile defense system, because last year we cut the 
potential of a mobile missile defense system, KEI. We stopped the 
ground-based missile defense system that we had, and we were 
complaining that that was probably an inopportune time.
  One of the nails that we are now missing is what happens if we don't 
look at the unintended consequences of our actions. I'm going to say 
how this thing kind of turns together, and sometimes I think this 
administration is not realizing how everything in government relates.
  Last year, when we stopped the ground-based missiles and stopped the 
KEI, among other things that we did, we put the industrial base in 
disarray. Now I'm coming back to the old industrial base argument 
because I'm using it again and again. This year, NASA, space 
exploration, which you think has nothing to do with defense, but space 
exploration is trying to take this product, the Ares rocket, which was 
labeled our best innovation of last year, and they want to cancel the 
production.
  Now, that ties together as a bag of nails simply because the people 
who work in the companies that produce this rocket also produce the 
missiles. So the rockets that are built to send a guy to the moon are 
built by the same kinds of people who build the rockets to stop a North 
Korean or Iranian or some other rogue missile from coming into this 
country. And if we devastate the industrial base, we don't have the 
capacity to change our projection and fix this problem if, indeed, it 
takes place, and we increase the cost to the defense of this country 
significantly because of it. Let me give you one example.
  Just the oxidizer that starts the propulsion concept in our motors, 
that, because of the cuts last year to our missile system, has gone 
from $5 to $12 a pound. It's a fixed cost to produce this stuff, and we 
use it by the ton. And when you cut down the amount you use, the 
company then has to make a profit, so they charge more per unit. So 
we've gone from $5 to $12.
  If, indeed, you stop the Ares 1 program in our space program, who 
uses this stuff significantly, that cost will either double or triple 
or be even more. So it means to produce the same motors we need to just 
maintain where we are, we are going to spend hundreds of millions of 
dollars--maybe running into the billions of dollars--without having 
done anything to improve our status. We will spend more money. We will 
not have a better product, and if we want to turn around and change 
that, we don't have the industrial base yet. If we fire all those 
people who are making these kinds of rockets, we don't have anywhere to 
turn for our own defense system.
  The Department of Defense has recognized that. The Navy has said that 
they are fearful that the increased cost for them could be 10 to 20 
percent. They don't know where the increase can stand if, indeed, we go 
along and cancel our space program.
  Mr. AKIN. So let me just recap what you're saying.
  If you don't have the industrial base to produce the kinds of 
missiles that we need for missile defense, the way that that can work 
is, one, you're not going to have the rocket scientists. In other 
words, a rocket scientist is a rocket scientist. You've got to have 
some of them around if you want to make rockets. Those people are being 
employed currently for this particular solid rocket that is noted more 
for space exploration than it is for defense, but it's the same 
technology.
  So, first of all, your industrial base is eroded by the fact that you 
can't keep those engineers around and they don't have anything to work 
on, so they go do something else. The second thing is, because you 
don't have the production facilities, now the cost of materials goes 
up.
  And it goes beyond that, doesn't it? You don't just build one of 
these things in thin air. You've got to have a building to build it in. 
You've got to have the machines that are used to package the fuel and 
the design of how the pressure is contained, and how you control burn 
rate and the direction--all kinds of things that go into building a 
rocket; right?
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Yes. And our ICBMs, for example, need to stay 
there until the year 2030. That's their planned life. But what happens 
if you do one of those solid rocket motors and you pull it out to do 
the inspection and there is a problem with it? Where are the experts to 
go in and find out what went wrong, and how do you solve that

[[Page 5534]]

problem in the future? Where are the niche suppliers who are no longer 
in the market? This is one of those things.
  So I'm talking about nails for the future of our missile defense 
system that are being lost because we simply didn't think ahead--or 
this administration didn't think ahead.
  DOD sent us a report last year that said if you slowed down 
Constellation, it would have a significant negative impact. Secretary 
for Acquisitions in the Department of Defense said that this industrial 
base is not our birthright. If we lose this industrial base, we may 
never get it back. And all of them are saying--General Keller said the 
same thing, that he is not comfortable with the direction we're going 
because the cost overruns that will come to the defense system simply 
means, obviously, NASA and Department of Defense did not talk one with 
another.
  The Augustine Commission report that was supposedly giving a report 
on what we would do with our space in the future said, This is a 
problem. The industrial base situation is a significant problem if, 
indeed, you stop the Constellation program. You need to work that 
ahead. NASA did not do it. They either chose to ignore it or they 
didn't study the report very closely. Those are the nails we have.
  So you have those pictures up there of what we are going to do with 
North Korean potential missiles that were in striking distance of the 
United States; Iranian missiles that could come within striking 
distance in the future but are definitely within striking distance of 
Europe now. And what is even more terrifying is if one of those 
countries-- and I don't think it would be beyond the realm of 
possibility--were to give their devices to some rogue player, not 
necessarily another nation, but some rogue player, and obviously have 
them aimed at the United States, and we, because we decided not to 
think through situations and think ahead of what we're doing, for 
either naivete, being new, or simply ideological reasons, we have lost 
the nails to make sure that we continue to defend this particular 
country.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, the thing that strikes me about this whole situation 
is, first of all, if you want to deal with the nuclear proliferation 
thing, that's one thing, but to connect it to missile defense seems to 
be the height of stupidity, just really an irrational decision. And to 
walk away from the fundamental principle that the job of the Federal 
Government more than anything else should be the defense of this 
country, the security of the citizens who pay for that defense, and to 
give that idea up for the old concept of mutually assured destruction, 
just makes no sense whatsoever.
  We were on the right track to develop missile defense. The people 
that said we couldn't do it were all proven wrong. We are doing it. We 
not only hit a missile with a missile, we hit a spot on a missile with 
a missile, metal-on-metal collisions. And not only have we been able to 
do that and shown that we have the technology to do that, but now what 
we're talking about doing is even going beyond that to the airborne 
laser system, which just this last year, firing its last shots before 
it was going to be shelved, it was called by the Democrats a big 
science experiment--I suppose that's a pejorative term saying we don't 
think much of it--and yet this aircraft flying off the west coast 
engaged two targets.
  One was a liquid rocket motor missile. It was launched from some 
considerable miles away, in excess of 100 miles, I believe, and this 
airplane locked onto the missile with its--it has two small lasers. The 
first is just to find where the missile is, and it's putting that first 
laser on the missile. The second laser checks the optics of the 
atmosphere. The third laser, which is tremendously powerful, fires a 
beam, and it just destroyed that liquid fuel missile in air. Then it 
turns around and does the same thing to a solid rocket missile, and yet 
this is another thing that the administration is scrapping.
  And the question is, if we're interested in U.S. national security, 
why in the world do we want to bow down to the Russians? Ronald Reagan 
was there at Reykjavik, and there was a great big idea that they were 
going to have this big treaty. Reagan walked away from it. He said to 
the Soviets, he said, Look, I'm not going to agree to that because I'm 
going to protect my people with missile defense. And here we are going 
back in history, and now we're going to stop this missile defense. And 
what you're talking about, Congressman, is a part of one of the 
supplier base that has to be there to do missile defense. Why are we 
going to dismantle that? It just doesn't make sense.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I agree totally with the gentleman from Missouri, 
who is such a leader on the Armed Services Committee. Part of the 
problem, nuclear soft power notwithstanding, we are talking about the 
overall defense of this country, and in area after area we tend to be 
weakening our position.
  I agree with the gentleman that we should not have scaled back in our 
laser technology. I agree definitely that last year we made a mistake 
when we cut the kinetic energy intercourse program, those mobile 
rockets aimed to stop missiles coming at us. I agree that we made a 
mistake when we limited the number of ground-based missiles that we 
had, ready to go. The silos ready to be filled, we just simply stopped 
it, artificially, arbitrarily, and that puts us in a weaker situation.
  I am also concerned that when you add to what they're talking about 
doing about on the Constellation program for NASA, it's not just about 
the manned space flights. It's also the impact that has on the 
industrial base that prohibits us from ever changing course in any of 
these other particular areas. It is all part and parcel with what I 
think is perhaps a very cavalier approach to the defense of this 
country that time after time after time overlooks the details and how 
those details interact and puts us at a more vulnerable situation.
  Once again, no one will ever attack us because we are too strong. 
They could attack us because we have failed to bring a bag of nails 
into battle with us.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, I really appreciate your perspective, gentleman, and 
particularly the little historic lesson of the bag of nails.
  It seems to me sometimes our leadership is getting so grandiose and 
it's saying what we're going to do is provide a world without nuclear 
weapons. You know, it seems to me that what they probably should do is 
invest in a time machine and go back in history if they want a world 
without nuclear weapons, because we can get rid of all of our nukes.
  We can open the kimono and let people beat us up, and that's not 
going to change the fact that there are going to be nations out there 
that are going to proliferate. Now, that doesn't mean we need to 
encourage them. We need to try and stop them. But we're not going to 
stop them by being weak and selling our own national security down the 
river, and that is what's going on here.
  In an effort to apparently be a grandiose peacemaker, we're thinking 
you're going to create peace out of weakness. We have found that that 
is not a good formula, and particularly, to betray the security of the 
American people without looking at the details, as you're saying, 
really does not make sense.

                              {time}  1830

  Now, there is another aspect--and you know something about history. I 
recall all of these treaties we made with the former Soviet Union, and 
when the Soviet Union collapsed, we got information about what happened 
on those treaties. What we found out was that the Soviet Union was 
cheating like mad on every single one of those treaties. They said, 
We're not going to build any biological weapons. Yet they've got a 
biological weapons laboratory going in Russia.
  We were over here, and I was a brand new guy in the U.S. Congress 
just a few years ago, and we were interviewing one of the top 
scientists who worked in the biological weapons laboratory, one which 
the Soviet Union had said, We're not going to do that. We find out 15, 
20 years later that the Soviet Union has got these ballistic missiles 
loaded with the smallpox virus that they're going

[[Page 5535]]

to shoot at us, and we haven't got the foggiest idea that they cheated 
like mad, have a biological weapons laboratory, and are going to pepper 
us with smallpox, which we have a limited amount of vaccine to protect 
against.
  So here we are again, learning so much from history that we're going 
to make another deal with the Russians and assume they're not going to 
cheat on it. I guess my question is: How do we know that they're not 
going to cheat? What are we getting out of this deal?
  Do you remember some of the history of those treaties, gentleman?
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I don't have the expertise right here to go 
through some of the details. Obviously, you're ahead of me on those 
particular ones; but it still goes back to the basic approach that, 
even if the Russians are legitimate in these treaties and even if they 
live up to them, we live in a world where it is not just necessarily 
the Russians for whom we have to be prepared and that, even if we make 
a treaty with the Russians, the North Koreans and the Iranians are not 
necessarily going to be cowed by us.
  Mr. AKIN. They're not playing by the same rules anyway.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. They could easily transport some of their stuff 
to nations closer to us, which makes it even more deadly for us.
  So what we have to do is make sure that, when we look at what we are 
doing vis-a-vis the Russians, we have to put it in the context of: Are 
we able to defend ourselves against all sorts of rogue players who are 
out there, not just the Russians or the Chinese? That's why the 
decisions we made this year, based on the decisions we made last year, 
I think, put us in a weaker position to say, yes, we could defend 
ourselves against the rogue nations as well.
  Mr. AKIN. You know, I thought it was on the front page of the paper 
today, the idea that scud missiles had been given, I think it was, from 
Iran to Hezbollah or something like that.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. From Syria to Hezbollah.
  Mr. AKIN. From Syria to Hezbollah, scud missiles.
  So there was a weapons transfer to a group that is a pretty known 
terrorist group. They're not all part of this deal. So even if you 
could trust Russia, which I don't and which we have no historic reason 
to trust, what happens to the other nations when you make these deals, 
especially when you're not going to develop more missile defense?
  There is another thing we're not supposed to develop either--and I 
really appreciate my good friend from Utah for joining us, Congressman 
Bishop. You have provided really good detail, particularly on that 
industrial base aspect. Thanks for the ``bag of nails'' explanation.
  You know, with regard to details, I do remember there was something 
about the German tank corps being unstoppable except for there was some 
problem. They didn't have the right type of spare fuel tank or 
something, and it was a big problem because they hadn't gotten the 
right kind of gas can to go along with their tanks. It was some small 
detail.
  I yield.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. As we move forward with this proposed treaty, but 
also as we look to the overall military budget, which, I think, is what 
you're talking about as well and especially our missile defense, let us 
make sure that we have not left some detail uncovered. I hope that, in 
the future, they're not writing those ``what would have been'' books 
about the United States because we simply failed to be prepared and 
because we failed to look at the details of our situation.
  So I appreciate the gentleman for bringing this issue to the floor. 
It is a significant issue, and it's one that this Nation should take 
seriously--looking at how we're dealing in the future not just with our 
nuclear posture but also with our missile defense posture. Indeed, if 
we're going to have to spend almost billions of dollars to maintain, 
that's money that comes out of the combat veteran and the combat ground 
forces that we have. That also is unacceptable.
  So I appreciate being allowed to participate with you for a short 
period of time.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, I very much appreciate your perspective and the 
clarity with which you make your points.
  The Congress is a richer place because of Congressman Bishop and his 
service to us.
  We are joined by another good friend who is probably one of the 
foremost authorities on missile defense, my good friend from Arizona, 
Trent Franks.
  Before we jump into that, I thought I might just give a couple of 
points to recap and to focus our discussion here this evening. We are 
talking about two different things that have been going on in the news.
  The first is the question of the Nuclear Posture Review, or the NPR, 
which is an overall document released by the U.S. Government, talking 
about what we're doing with nuclear kinds of things. It contains a 
whole series of false assumptions, in my opinion. While it sounds good 
on the surface, the question is: How does it really work? Also, there 
is the New START Treaty, which the President has been negotiating with 
the Russians, and that is along the same lines as the Nuclear Posture 
Review. My concerns are pretty much listed in five points.
  The first point is that somehow we are supposed to create a world 
without nukes, and the way we're going to do that is to reduce 
America's stockpile of nuclear weapons, not develop anything new, and 
cut back on missile defense. So we're going to reduce our own national 
defenses, and somehow that is supposed to help make other people do the 
same thing. My question is: Does it really do that?
  The nations that depend on us will say, Oh, we can't count on them 
for a nuclear umbrella.
  They're liable to increase.
  Then the Third World country that may decide it wants to cause us a 
lot of trouble or to blackmail us says, Hey, the way we can do that is 
the U.S. is disengaged. We need to jump in and really develop our 
nukes.
  So how do we get to this ``wonderful world'' without nukes?
  The second point is: How much do you trust Russia? Even if you do, 
how about all of the other countries?
  The third point is: Why do we connect missile defense to the nuclear 
posture? Missile defense is simply a way of making our Nation more 
secure. Why would we freeze that?
  The fourth point is: Why would we want to limit further nuclear 
development? We'll get on to that in a minute with my good friend from 
Arizona.
  Then the last question is: Why are we going to do what Ronald Reagan 
said you should never do, which is to discuss what-ifs? I think if 
we're attacked by a foreign nation and it does us harm, it doesn't need 
to know exactly what we're going to do. Everything should be on the 
table if you endanger U.S. citizens. Yet this treaty is going to say, 
Well, if you do this, we won't do this, this and this.
  Why do we want to try and spell that out?
  So those are five concerns that I want to make sure that we discuss 
today, and I want to recognize my good friend from Arizona, Congressman 
Franks.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  You know, I've been trying to follow some of the conversation here, 
and I think that everything you've said has a profound significance, 
and I appreciate it.
  I know this is a general discussion about missile defense, about our 
nuclear posture and about the concerns that we have related to Iran. 
The recent summit that was here in Washington essentially, or 
ostensibly, was about trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands 
of terrorists. Yet the reality is that this ominous intersection of 
jihadist terrorism and nuclear proliferation has been inexorably and 
relentlessly rolling toward America and the free world for decades, and 
it is now a menace that is almost upon us. I believe that it represents 
the gravest short-term threat to peace and security of the entire human 
family in the world today; and I believe that the Islamic Republic of 
Iran, due to the

[[Page 5536]]

jihadist ideology of its leaders, represents a particularly significant 
danger to America and her allies.
  President Ahmadinejad was speaking to the whole world when he said 
that, You, for your part, if you would like to have good relations with 
the Iranian nation in the future, recognize the Iranian nation's 
greatness, and bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and 
surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will 
later force you to surrender and bow down.
  Now, that makes me a little nervous given the fact that Iran has 
recently begun to enrich uranium really beyond 20 percent now, which is 
four times the necessary enrichment percentage for peaceful purposes, 
and it puts them at about 90 percent of the way there for being able to 
have fissile material for nuclear weapons.
  So I just have to say it's a difficult thing, especially difficult 
for me in some ways, because I stood at that podium there 5 years ago, 
and I called upon the country to refer Iran to the Security Council. 
The guess is, at that time, they had probably less than 164 
centrifuges, and now they have 8,000. Of course, as my good friend from 
Missouri knows, 3,000 is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear 
enrichment program that can be used as a platform for a full-scale 
industrial program capable of churning out dozens of nuclear warheads 
per year.
  I guess I'll yield back here, but I would say this: what we are 
really facing with Iran is a jihadist nation with leaders who threaten 
the whole world, who threaten the peace of Israel, who threaten to wipe 
them out. It is now developing an industrial base to make dozens of 
nuclear warheads in the future.
  I know people say, Well, that's over a year away or 2 years away or 3 
years away. Well, let's pretend for a moment that that's correct. I'm 
not sure that having something that will change the world that 
dramatically and then all of humanity that significantly which is only 
2 or 3 years away is cause for celebration. It's especially concerning 
when you consider the fact that, throughout history, especially in the 
case of, say, like North Korea, our timetables have always been wrong. 
We've always thought, well, it was going to take them a lot longer than 
it did. Anyway, at this point, I would just suggest to you that, I 
think, this is a profoundly significant issue.
  I yield back to my friend, the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, I thank you, gentleman.
  I'd like to just pick up on a couple of the themes that you've 
mentioned. You've used this phrase frequently. I don't know if you 
coined it, but I think of it as something that you authored. I guess 
you could almost think of it in terms of planets and astronomy, which 
is, when you get a juxtaposition of two things, the first thing you're 
talking about is the development of nuclear weapons, and the second 
thing is that it's in the hands of a terrorist state.
  We already have nuclear weapons. We have terrorist states, but we 
haven't seen the eclipse of when those two things come together. You're 
talking about that as being a very destabilizing situation in the 
world, a situation that threatens the lives of at least thousands, 
perhaps many millions, of people; and it is a nation that has a history 
of essentially blackmail. So when you put that kind of combination 
together that you're talking about, we're talking about a very 
significant international kind of crisis that we have to be prepared 
for.
  Now, they also have to be able to deliver that weapons system. That's 
another thing that you're really an expert on, which is that ballistic 
missile defense is also coming in. There are people who say you can 
just put this stuff in a suitcase and smuggle it into town. So who 
cares about ballistic missiles or ballistic missile defense? Yet, as 
you know, these nuclear weapons have to be delivered in some way, and 
there are different ways to deliver them.
  One of them, of course, is to put them way up in the atmosphere, and 
they go off and take out all of your communications. Another one, of 
course, is to bring them over a city where they go off and they kill 
many more people than if they were sitting on the ground. So there are 
combinations of those things, and those are all things that you have 
studied and have taken a look at, and all of them are bad medicine.
  What concerns me particularly is the reckless course of this 
administration as it's making these grandiose kinds of ``we're going to 
make the world a safer place'' ideas by disarming and by saying, We're 
not going to be developing missile defense and by saying, We're not 
going to develop any new use of nuclear things.
  One thing we've not yet talked about on the floor--and you can jump 
in on this if you'd like--is that we've got North Korea and Iran, both 
of which are pretty good at digging tunnels. They take their capacities 
and put them way underground. You can drop conventional bombs on them, 
and nothing happens because they're down in the Earth that far. The 
only way to stop that is probably with some new type of device called a 
nuclear Earth penetrator where you put a nuclear device, a small one, 
on a bomb that goes way down in the Earth, and it explodes. Now, 
anything radioactive stays down in the Earth, but it creates enough 
concussion that it basically shakes those tunnels and collapses those 
infrastructures.
  That is an example of where we might want to develop a new nuclear 
device because of a problem that we have, and yet we wouldn't be able 
to do that with this negotiation. So are you concerned about that? Have 
you given that some thought?
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, certainly, I am, and I thank the 
gentleman for yielding.
  The RNEP, or robust nuclear Earth penetrator, which you mentioned, 
was something that many of us advocated for in the past because we 
wanted to make sure that we could hold assets like Natanz or the 
facility at Qum in Iran. We wanted to be able to be sure that we could 
hold that at risk so that they didn't think that they could build 
nuclear weapons without any danger to them. This is a particularly 
significant situation, so I couldn't agree with you more.
  Of course, you mentioned missile defense. You're talking about the 
delivery mechanisms as far as where the bomb goes off. That's a very, 
very important point; but there is another one, which is the timing. 
That's being able to deliver something realtime, in other words, on 
demand. See, that's what gives them a strategic capability, which is if 
they can say, Okay, your city--New York, or whatever it might be--is 30 
minutes from our ICBM capability, and it's always aimed at us.

                              {time}  1845

  See, if we have nuclear missile defense capability, then it is no 
longer as much of a strategic threat and it devalues that program 
pretty profoundly. And when a country like Iran, that is facing great 
dangers from the outside world anyway if they become nuclear armed like 
Israel or others, then perhaps that becomes a part of their calculus, 
and perhaps it keeps them from moving forward with their nuclear power 
program in the first place.
  Unfortunately, this administration, and you know, I just got to tell 
you, this administration cancelled our efforts in Europe to be able to 
have the capability to interdict missiles coming from Iran, whether it 
was going to be to protect our forward deployed troops, or to be able 
to protect Europe, and certainly if they gain the ICBM capability, to 
protect the United States. And it is astonishing to me that we did 
that, because we have no system that can really be built in time to go 
into their calculus in the meantime.
  So while some of the greatest security threats in a generation are 
coming up on our generation, the Obama administration seems to be busy 
insulting our friends and emboldening our enemies. And all the while 
taxing and borrowing and spending our economy into a place of such 
vulnerability that our capacity to respond to these threats in the 
future will be demonstrably diminished. And when it comes to the 
growing incontrovertible danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, I would just

[[Page 5537]]

tell my good friend that this Obama administration has been asleep at 
the wheel.
  Mr. AKIN. That is really, really a frightening prospect. The thing 
that I find interesting about this, what we are doing is we are 
reducing our defense spending. Here is a chart of the budget that would 
reduce our national defense spending. These are numbers that were 
released by the Obama administration. This is the 45-year average at 
5.3 percent. And what you can see is it is being reduced here.
  Now, the thing that is amazing, this wouldn't be so troubling to me 
if it weren't for the fact if you took a look at what rate we are 
spending money. Bush's worst spending year was 2008 under the Pelosi 
Congress here. 2008. And that was about $450 billion he spent that we 
didn't have, which put us, that is about 3.2 percent of gross domestic 
product. This last year, 2009, instead of being $450 billion, it was 
$1.4 trillion in spending that we didn't have. That was more than a 
three times increase over Bush's worst spending. And that goes up to 
9.9 percent of GDP, which is the highest level since World War II.
  So we are spending money that we don't have at an incredible rate. 
Take a look at what is happening to defense here. This is a wrongheaded 
set of priorities and very troubling. I have my good friend from Texas, 
Congressman Gohmert, who is joining us. I know that you have taken a 
look at a number of these different issues and questions. Please jump 
in and point out your own perspective.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, we do have the danger of Iran about to go nuclear 
at the same time, as you all have pointed out, that our President 
cancelled what took so long and took such great effort by so many, 
including our friends in Poland, to establish this missile defense that 
was going to be built. That got cancelled. That was going to help 
protect us. That was going to help protect our allies.
  I just want to read here some of the comments that have been made. 
President Barack Obama said on November 7, 2008, ``Let me repeat what I 
stated during the course of the campaign. Iran's development of a 
nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable.'' He said on October 20, 
2009, that the bond between the United States and Israel is much more 
than a strategic alliance.
  And then you look at what Ahmadinejad has said. He said in 2005, 
quote, ``God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon 
experience a world without the United States and Zionism.'' He also 
said that Israel was to be wiped off the map. He said, ``Like it or 
not, Israel is heading toward annihilation.'' He also said, ``Today, 
the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has 
come, and the countdown to annihilation of the emperor of power and 
wealth has started.'' It has started. And we are disarming unilaterally 
while Iran--we are talking about maybe some sanctions, like maybe that 
will work as well as it did against Iraq? It didn't work because people 
cheated.
  Russia and China have said, hey, we're making a lot of money selling 
to these folks right now. We're not sure we're getting on board with 
this. And all the while those centrifuges are just a spinnin'. They are 
spinnin' while we're all here talking. And we're coming closer to the 
day when Ahmadinejad will be able to try to keep his promise, all while 
we are disarming. It makes no sense. We took an oath to provide for the 
common defense. It is high time we did that.
  Mr. AKIN. I thank the gentleman for joining us. Thank you, Mr. 
Speaker. I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday.

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