    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 5, 1999]
    [Pages 1683-1685]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
    Year 2000
    October 5, 1999

        Thank you very much, Secretary Cohen,
    for your remarks, your leadership, and for the depth of your concern for
    our men and women in the military.
        Secretary Richardson, Secretary
    West, Deputy Secretary Hamre, General Shelton, General
    Ralston, Senior Master Sergeant Hall--he told me today this is the fourth time we've
    met and the first time in Washington, DC. I've tried to get around to
    see people like the senior master sergeant in uniform in the Middle East
    and Asia and elsewhere.
        I want to thank all those who serve them: the senior service chiefs,
    the service secretaries, the senior enlisted advisers. I'd also like to
    say a special world of thanks to all the Members of Congress here, too
    numerous to recognize them all. But I do want to acknowledge the
    presence of Senator Warner, Senator
    Levin, Senator Thurmond, Senator Robb, Senator
    Allard, Representative Spence and Representative Skelton, and
    the many other Members of the House of Representatives here today.
        This, for me, more than anything else, is a day to say thank you;
    thank you for recognizing the urgent needs and the great opportunities
    of our military on the edge of a new century.
        Today should be a proud day for men and women in uniform, not only
    here in this audience but all around the world. Time and again, they
    have all delivered for our country. Today America delivers for them.
        In a few moments, I will have the privilege of signing the National
    Defense Authorization Act. As you have already heard, it provides for a
    strong national defense and a better quality of life for our military
    personnel and their families. It builds on the bipartisan consensus that
    we must keep our military ready, take care of our men and women in
    uniform, and modernize our forces.
        Today, we have about 1.4 million men and women serving our country
    on active duty, doing what needs to be done from Korea to Kosovo, to
    Bosnia, to Iraq, to helping our neighbors in the hemisphere and in
    Turkey dig out from natural disasters, to simply giving us confidence
    that America is forever strong and secure.
        We ask our men and women in uniform to endure danger and hardship,
    and you do; to suffer separation from your families, and you endure
    that. We ask you to be the best in the world, and you are. In return,
    you ask very little. But we owe you the tools you need to do the job and
    the quality of life you and your families deserve.
        This bill makes good on our pledge to keep our Armed Forces the best
    equipped and maintained fighting force on Earth. It carries forward
    modernization programs, funding the F-22 stealth fighter, the V-22
    Osprey, the Comanche helicopter, advanced destroyers, submarines,
    amphibious ships, command and control systems, and a new generation of
    precision munitions. The bill also recognizes that no matter how
    dazzling our technological dominance, wars still will be won today and
    tomorrow as they have been throughout history, by people with the
    requisite training, skill, and spirit to prevail.
        The excellence of our military is the direct product of the
    excellence of our men and

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    women in uniform. This bill invests in that excellence. It authorizes,
    as you have already heard, a comprehensive program of pay and retirement
    improvements that add up to the biggest increase in military
    compensation in a generation. It increases bonuses for enlistment and
    reenlistment, and provides incentives needed to recruit and retrain our
    military personnel.
        I would like to say a special word of appreciation to all the
    members of our military, including a lot of enlisted personnel, who have
    discussed these issues with me over the last 2 or 3 years, in
    particular. And I would like to thank the Members of Congress not only
    for the work they did on the pay issue but also on the retirement issue.
    And I'd like to say a special word of appreciation on that to
    Congressman Murtha, who first talked to me about it, and I know labored
    very hard on it.
        Now, an awful lot of people worked to make this bill a reality. And
    I'm glad that there are so many members of both parties of the House and
    the Senate Armed Services Committee here today. I also want to thank
    Secretary Cohen, General Shelton, and all the people at the Pentagon for their
    leadership and determination.
        This bill is an expression of America at its best. It's about
    patriotism, not partisanship. It's about putting the people of our Armed
    Forces first. No matter how well we equip these forces to deal with any
    threat, I would also argue that we owe them every effort we possibly can
    to diminish that threat--the threat to the members of our Armed Forces
    and to the American people whom they must defend.
        One of the greatest threats our people face today, and our Armed
    Forces face, is the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass
    destruction. We have worked in a bipartisan way to diminish those
    threats, passing the Chemical Weapons Convention, getting an indefinite
    extension of the nonproliferation treaty. We are now working to
    strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention.
        At this time, the Senate has a unique opportunity to diminish that
    threat by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It will end
    nuclear weapons testing forever, while allowing us to maintain our
    military strength in nuclear weapons and helping to keep other countries
    out of the nuclear weapons business.
        We stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1992 in the United States.
    Instead, we spend some $4.5 billion a year on programs that allow us to
    maintain an unassailable nuclear threat. This treaty will strengthen our
    security by helping to prevent other countries from developing nuclear
    arsenals and preventing testing in countries that have nuclear weapons
    already but have nowhere near the sophisticated program we do for
    maintaining the readiness of our arsenal in the absence of testing.
        It will strengthen our ability to verify by supplementing our
    intelligence capabilities with a global network of sensors and onsite
    inspections, something we will not have if the treaty does not enter
    into force. It will make it easier for us to determine whether other
    nations are engaged in nuclear activity and to take appropriate action
    if they are.
        Obviously, no treaty--not this one or any other--can provide an
    absolute guarantee of security or singlehandedly stop the spread of
    deadly weapons. Like all treaties, this one would have to be vigorously
    enforced and backed by a strong national defense. But I would argue if
    the Senate rejects the treaty we run a far greater risk that nuclear
    arsenals will grow and weapons will spread to volatile regions, to
    dangerous rulers, even to terrorists.
        I want to emphasize again, the United States has been out of the
    testing business for 7 years now. We are not engaged in nuclear testing.
    If we reject this treaty, the message will be, ``We're not testing, but
    you can test if you want to,'' with all the attendant consequences that
    might have in India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, and many other
    places around the world. I want to avoid a world where more and more
    countries race toward nuclear capability. That's the choice we face, not
    a perfect world, but one where we can restrain nuclear testing, but
    train the growth of nuclear arsenals.
        Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy first advocated a comprehensive
    test ban treaty. Four former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
    together with Chairman Shelton and our
    Nation's leading nuclear scientists, including those who head our
    national weapons labs, advocate this treaty. I believe the treaty is
    good for America's security. I believe walking away and defeating it
    would send a message that America is no longer the leading advocate of
    nonproliferation in the world.
        So, all I ask today is not a vote; the discussion just began. What I
    ask is that we meet this challenge in the same bipartisan fashion in
    which we approached the defense authorization

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    bill. The stakes are exactly the same. When a young man or woman joins
    the United States military, they don't ask you if you're a Republican or
    a Democrat. And you all make it clear you're prepared to give your life
    for your country. We should do everything we can to ensure your safety,
    to give you a bright future, even as we give you the tools and the
    support to do the work you have sworn to do.
        Let me say in closing, after nearly 7 years in this office, there
    has been no greater honor, privilege, or joy than the opportunity I have
    had to see our men and women in uniform do their jobs, all kinds of jobs
    all over the world. I have also been very moved by how honestly and
    frankly and straightforwardly they have answered every question I have
    ever put to any of them. In a very real sense today, the work the
    Congress did and the support that I and our administration gave to this
    legislation is purely and simply the product of what our men and women
    in uniform, from the highest rank to the lowest, told us needed to be
    done for them and for America.
        So again I say, this is a day for celebration and thanksgiving, and
    more than anyone else, I feel that deep gratitude to you.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 4:15 p.m. on the River Terrace at the
    Pentagon. In his remarks, he referred to Senior M.Sgt. Robert E. Hall,
    Sergeant Major of the Army. S. 1059, approved October 5, was assigned
    Public Law No. 106-65.