[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 40 (Monday, October 11, 1999)]
[Pages 1925-1927]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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

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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 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

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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.