Congressional Record: June 12, 2001 (House)
Page H3044-H3051
ADMINISTRATION'S POLICY ON NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Grucci). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Tierney) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I join a number of my colleagues here this
evening to discuss the administration's policy on national missile
defense.
I put up on the board here one of the comics that was recently in a
newspaper showing Secretary Powell with members of NATO and essentially
asking Secretary Powell if they really expect him to buy that, and that
is, of course, a used car which stands symbolically, in this instance,
for the national missile defense program being discussed and being put
forth by this administration at this time.
Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues to discuss that policy and
specifically the administration's apparent attempt to move swiftly to
deploy that system even before tests show that it is feasible.
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There are apparent plans to proceed beyond research and development,
though no proper consideration has been given to many critical factors.
We have yet to really assess all threats against the United States,
whether they be from another state or a nonstate.
The alleged purpose of this limited national missile defense or the
early stages of the Bush administration plan is supposedly to protect
us against rogue nations or against accidental or
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unintended launches. Rogue nation threats are primarily the national
missile defense concern, or so we are told. If that is the case, we
should assess them and assess them on whether or not that threat of
missiles from rogue nations compares to other threats that exist to our
Nation.
Currently, the threat of weapons of mass destruction from missiles
ranks low on the list of CIA possible threats. While some rogue nations
have crude missile systems nearing the capability of reaching the
continental United States, they are, according to the CIA and others,
less credible threats than other forms of aggression and terrorism. In
keeping with that train of thought, we should establish most likely
threats and key our defenses towards those that are most likely.
With limited funding resources, the United States must be sure that
our spending is proportionate to our established priorities. Spending
on any national missile defense must not adversely affect readiness or
military personnel quality of life or modernization of conventional
land, air and naval forces, nor should it adversely affect research and
development efforts aimed at necessary leap-ahead technologies. It
cannot ignore the benefits of timely and reliable intelligence or
diplomacy.
In view of all our national priorities, whether they be domestic in
nature or international and defense prospects that affect our national
security, the cost that is going to be incurred must be warranted by
the security benefits we should expect to gain.
Americans deserve to know before we deploy the realistic cost
estimates and who will pay. Is it only the United States that is going
to fit the bill, or will all nations that stand to benefit from any
deployed national missile defense system participate in sharing the
cost? So far, the projections show the following costs.
Mr. Speaker, I have another chart. Mr. Speaker, as the chart
indicates, the initial estimates for 20 interceptors were originally
estimated to be at a cost of nine to $11 billion. The fact of the
matter was that that was in January of 1999 at $10.6 billion. By
November of that year, it was at $28.7 billion. By February of 2000, it
had moved up to 100 interceptors being planned, and the estimate then
was $26.6 billion. By April, it rose to $29.5 billion; by May to $36.2
billion; by August of 2000, $40.3 billion by the own estimate of the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Now in August of 2000, the CAIG
report estimates it up to about $43.2 billion. That is with a number of
items not included.
As my colleagues can see on the chart, other estimates in testing
adjustments, alternative booster programs add another $4.5 billion,
bringing it up to some $47.7 billion. Not included also is the
restructuring of the program to remedy testing delays. That adds
another $2.8 billion. Essentially, we are up to $50.5 billion on this
program and going up, up and forever upward.
We should not forget the fact that this administration is not only
talking about a land-based limited system. It is talking about adding a
second phase and a third phase to the land-based design, adding a sea-
based provision, adding an air-based aspect, and then going on to
space-based laser.
So let us add those up. Adding phases 2 and 3 of a ground-based
system would add another $50 billion. The sea-based system would be
another $53.5 billion. An air-based system would add another $11
billion. The space-based laser, besides inviting in the number of
people to secure items in space which we alone have almost monopoly on,
would add a cost to seventy to $80 billion. So total estimates on this
program are at a minimum of $80 billion to $100 billion or as high as a
trillion dollars, depending on how far out we go.
That should all bring us to the issue of feasibility. The
administration now intends to use this system whether or not it works.
In other words, it is going to buy it before it flies it.
We have had a number of experiences in our military programs with
that, most recently with the F-22 and with the Osprey. The Osprey not
only costs us a lot of money to go back and cure remedies that were not
caught because we did not test it properly, it has cost us the lives of
25 Marines.
In keeping with this administration's ready, shoot and then aim
prospect, Secretary Rumsfeld has taken an in-your-face attitude to our
allies as well as to our friends as well as to Russia and China. He is
determined to put all other considerations aside and deploy this system
even if the technology is not available and is not proven feasible.
Astoundingly, the Washington Post reported these comments from an
administration official, and I quote: ``It is a simple question. Is
something better than nothing?'' It went on to say, ``The President and
the Secretary of Defense have made it pretty clear that they believe
some missile defense in the near term is, in fact, better than
nothing.''
Now my colleagues may join me in being astounded in that, but that
statement should at least rest on two underlying assumptions. One would
be that that something in fact works, and this does not; and, two, that
deployment will not subject the country to even greater security
dangers. This program will.
What the Pentagon and the Department of Defense and the Secretary and
the President know but do not apparently want the Americans to discover
or consider or debate is that the National Missile Defense System's
effectiveness has not yet been proven even in the most elementary
sense.
Also, there should be grave concerns regarding the disturbing side
effects of the National Missile Defense System, such as uncontrollable
launches and their attendant risk to world security.
A study has been completed, not by groups opposed to missile defense,
but by the department's own internal experts. That study makes it clear
that potentially profound problems exist with the National Missile
Defense System. The Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, known by
its initials OT&E, is an independent assessment office within the
Department of Defense. It was created to oversee testing programs and
in particular to ensure that weapons development programs are
adequately tested in realistic operating conditions.
Its former director, Mr. Philip Coyle testified on September 8 of
last year before the Subcommitte on National Security, Veterans'
Affairs and International Relations of the Committee on Government
Reform. He testified about a report that he had compiled during the
deployment readiness review that was conducted in the summer of 2000.
As a result of that testimony, it became apparent that the Pentagon
was overstating the technological progress and potential of this
National Missile Defense System.
Because I thought it was imperative that the public have full access
to Mr. Coyle's study, I asked Mr. Coyle to provide the full report for
the record of that committee, and he agreed to my request. My motion
that the subcommittee include that study on the public record for the
September 8, 2000 hearing was accepted without objection. At no time
did Mr. Coyle or Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, the Director of the
Missile Program, express any reservations.
Well, after 8 months and at least six separate requests and a
subpoena threat, the subcommittee finally obtained the study. But the
Department of Defense asked that that study be kept confidential. I
think this is precisely the wrong response.
The Bush administration is proposing to our allies and strategic
partners that deployment be speeded up even beyond optimistic
evaluations. In this context, the need for public debate about the
system's capabilities and its potential dangers if deployed prematurely
is urgently needed.
I have, therefore, written to Secretary Rumsfeld for a full
explanation of the Department of Defense request to hush up this
report. I have asked the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the
subcommittee chairman, to schedule hearings on this study and its
implications as expeditiously as possible. In conversations earlier
this evening with the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), I have
been informed that those hearings will be pursued.
Now, Mr. Coyle raises fundamental problems with the national missile
defense testing programs. He tells us it is far behind schedule, and it
is slipping further. The test program is severely deficient, failing to
test basic elements of the system. In fact, after numerous
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failures, Mr. Coyle tells us that the Pentagon actually altered the
test program to make it easier, and still it continued to fail.
Mr. Coyle described the immature status of the program. There are
limitations in flight testing and inadequacy of available simulations.
Therefore, a rigorous assessment of potential system performance cannot
be made. That is, no one can reliably predict that the National Missile
Defense System, as planned by this administration, will perform at the
required levels.
Testimony of the Director found several ways the system may not work:
its inability to defend against decoys. As discussed extensively in
open literature, the enemy could employ various types of
countermeasures and overwhelm this function.
I hope that our speakers this evening will talk at length at that. I
know the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) is here. He has
particular expertise in this area, and we should discuss it at length.
But rather than address the fatal errors, the omission of tests with
countermeasures could make the system unable to fulfill its core
function of defending against accidental or intended launches; and
rather than discuss that, the Pentagon is hitting them by dumbing down
the testing requirements.
The Department of Defense also provides interceptors with key
discrimination information ahead of time. In other words, it rigs the
game. It tells them trajectory. It tells them timing. It tells them
height. It tells them all sorts of information. Yet, the system will
not have that benefit if and when it is deployed.
So there is a need for rehearsed engagements without advanced
knowledge, yet none have been done so far and none are planned to be
done.
The director criticizes the software user simulations as it suffers
from an unfounded reliance on unrealistic and overly optimistic
parameters. There is no plan to consider conducting flight tests with
multiple targets or interceptors even though multiple engagements could
be expected to be the norm. These are potential security risks of
premature deployment.
Phantom tracks. The system automatically allocates interceptors
against phantom objects. In other words, these are created when the
radar coverage transfers from one radar system to a second radar
system, and the system mistakenly interprets the new radar rhythms as
originating from a second reentry vehicle.
The operators, the manual operators were unable to deal with that.
There is one very serious immediate danger if the United States
launches multiple interceptors against missiles that do not exist.
Adversaries may interpret these launches as a hostile first strike and
respond accordingly.
So it brings us back to this idea that we are going to deploy this
system before we have adequately tested it, before we have talked about
the cost of this program, before we have talked about our priorities in
defense and whether or not this is, in fact, the most serious issue we
ought to be confronting at such an enormous cost while it is still very
far from being feasible.
Deployment has been defined to mean the fielding of an operational
system with some military utility which is effective under realistic
combat conditions against realistic threats and countermeasures,
possibly without adequate prior knowledge of the target cluster
composition, timing, trajectory or direction and when operated by
military personnel at all times of the day and night in all weather.
In almost every one of those categories, there have been tests that
have been failed or tests that are not even planned to determine
whether or not this system can work.
Yet, we have a Secretary and apparently an entire administration that
is willing to walk that plank and commit billions and billions of
dollars on a system that has not been proven to work, casting aside all
of our other defense needs, casting aside the questions that it brings
to our national security, and casting aside the issues of others
priorities within this country.
We have a report that seriously calls into question the readiness of
this national missile defense. I think that report leads to serious
questions of this administration's ill-advised plan to deploy before it
has proven technologically feasible and apparently with total disregard
for costs, stability in this country and the world, and effect on other
priorities.
This is no time for the Department of Defense to bury a study. It is
time for full disclosure, for deliberation and for debate.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and
cede the floor to him.
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, and
I commend him for setting aside some time this evening to talk about it
because every one of us in this room has an obligation to talk about
this important issue. Polling data shows that the public does not feel
well informed about what could be the most expensive defense ever
deployed and one that has serious flaws.
The President is trying to sell his magical mystery shield to the
allies today. As the gentleman's cartoon shows, it is a used car with
no guarantee. The problem with the missile defense, quite simply, is it
would be costly to deploy, easily circumvented, and it would be
strategically destabilizing. In other words, it would actually detract
from our national and international security.
One does not need to read a lot of history to be reminded of the--
Maginot line, the so-called impenetrable wall that has become the
symbol of misguided defense policy. The proposed missile defense shield
probably would not work as designed and wishing will not overcome the
physics. It could be confused with decoys as the gentleman from
Massachusetts mentioned a moment ago.
I am a physicist by background, but one does not need advanced
physics to understand that a Nation that would be capable of building
an intercontinental ballistic missile, that could deliver a weapon of
mass destruction could also deploy decoys by the hundreds, by the
thousands.
In the vacuum of space, a balloon travels just as well as a rocket.
Without the resistance of air, it is easy to inflate a balloon.
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You could inflate dozens or hundreds of balloons. One of them might
contain a warhead, others would look identical. They could all travel
at thousands of miles per hour, many thousands of miles per hour, miles
per second.
I have spent some time looking at the physics of the detection
systems, and I am convinced that it would be very difficult to
determine the decoys from the actual warheads. But putting that aside,
a Maginot-type missile defense system, designed to defend an entire
continent, or as the President has suggested defend all nations from
weapons coming from any nation, well, it could be bypassed with
suitcase bombs or pickup trucks or fishing trawlers or sea-launched
missiles, and so it would be billions of dollars down the drain.
But the real tragedy is it would not be just a diversion of precious
resources that we would not have available for health care, for smaller
class sizes, for modern school facilities, for securing open space, for
taking care of America's veterans, for all of those things that make
America worth defending. No, it would be worse than a waste of money,
because simple strategic analysis will tell us that provocative, yet
permeable, systems are destabilizing and they lead to reduced security.
Think of it this way: we say we are building a defensive system. Some
potential enemy says, well, you are going to prepare an offensive
strike, and then you will use your defensive system to prevent us from
retaliating. And we say, no, no, no, it is only a defensive system. And
they say, sure, we believe you. Well, if they believed us, they would
not be our enemy. In fact, this is a weapon system in search of a
cooperative enemy, an enemy that would not try to spoof us with decoys,
an enemy that would not wonder what is going on behind that shield.
We have all read stories of the knights of yore. When knights carried
shields, they did not carry the shields around the house; they used
those shields in battle, to thrust and parry from behind the shield.
That is why, as counterintuitive as it may seem, a defensive system
becomes a destabilizing
[[Page H3047]]
offensive threat. So this would undo decades of arms control.
And, in fact, the President has said he would use such a missile
defense to go beyond the anti-ballistic missile treaty; in other words,
to abrogate the treaty, to break the treaty, to throw it away. This
system, or any imaginable system, is not going to be a substitute for
cooperative arms control. This is not something where technology will
overcome cooperation. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to
understand that technology will not solve this fundamental problem.
In fact, the President has said that whereas some years ago President
Reagan presented his program, the Strategic Defense Initiative, as
something to render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, President
Bush says he understands that will not happen. So that even with an
international missile defense such as he is proposing, it would still
be necessary to maintain the option of massive retaliation; in other
words, mutual assured destruction. Well, this is not a technological
solution to our strategic predicament. This is not an answer to weapons
of mass destruction.
The United States has not been able to develop a workable missile
defense system after 40 years of trying. We have had the Nike Zeus, the
Sentinel, the Safeguard, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and actually
there was SDI-I, which was a space-based laser, or directed energy
system, known as Star Wars colloquially, and then there was Strategic
Defense Initiative II, which was kinetic kill vehicles, or Brilliant
Pebbles, and there was G-PALS and National Missile Defense; and now
President Bush has extended this to international missile defense.
Well, after all of these years of trying and tens of billions of
dollars spent, we are still nowhere close.
My colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney),
referred to the study that the Pentagon had undertaken of the system.
And essentially they said that not only have there been no successful
intercepts, but that simulations that would give confidence that this
would work do not exist, and that the current state of test facilities
is immature. We are not close to deployment.
And maybe we can take some solace in the fact that we are not close
to deployment, because once this is deployed, it will set off a series
of dominoes of the arms race around the world where countries that
might feel threatened by it, say China, would increase their arsenals
and in turn threaten other countries, say India, who in turn might
build up their arsenals and threaten other countries, say Pakistan.
Now, that is certainly not our intention. This is purely defensive. But
that is the way it would work, and it will not get us out of our
nuclear predicament.
Again, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for setting aside this
time. We have an important and difficult job to do over the coming
weeks to make sure everyone in the country understands the choice that
is before us here.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr.
Allen).
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Tierney) for holding this event tonight to talk about national missile
defense and the Bush administration's enthusiasm for an untested and
uncertain project.
The reason I think it is so important to have this conversation
tonight is that it is very clear to me that this is one of the most
critical issues facing this Congress and one in which the public
obviously needs more information. And whatever the right answer is, we
have to have this kind of discussion and debate. We are not going to
get it during the regular legislative day, so we need to get it after
hours.
In many respects, all of us believe that if we had a national missile
defense system that actually worked and did not threaten our security,
that would be a good thing to have. The difficulties are several: first
of all, we have now spent tens of billions of dollars on the system to
date, and we are a long way from having a system that is actually
tested and that works. There are scientists across this country who are
convinced that this system can never work. It is also clear that to
build a system on the scale that the Bush administration envisions is a
hundred billion dollars and up. A huge amount of money.
Third, there is a problem. We need defenses that are proportional to
the threat. And it is not at all clear that a threat of a ballistic
missile attack by North Korea, by Iran, or some other rogue state is
really at the top of the list of the threats that we face. Many of us
in this room today joined with other concerned citizens who came to
Washington with a simple message for President Bush, and for all of us
as policymakers. First, the President's fast-track missile defense will
make the world less stable, not more stable. Second, rushing deployment
of missile defense will provoke other nations to increase their
offensive arms and undermine U.S. national security.
In particular, it is very likely to encourage the Chinese to develop
more ICBMs, which in turn will make India uncertain and insecure, which
will add to a race in missile development in India and in Pakistan.
Third, abandoning arms control agreements and gambling on unproven
missile defense technologies is unsafe and unwise. When we look back
through the centuries, military history has really been a battle
between the sword and the shield. Building a better shield has always
compelled the forging of a better sword. The Bush administration needs
to explain why it thinks this missile shield is exempt from the laws of
history.
As I said before, missile defense might be justified if it could be
proven to work reliably and consistently and if we were confident that
it would improve our overall national security. But President Bush has
not provided any particulars about his proposal. It is only a
multilayered proposal which will protect us against all kinds of
threats.
Congress and the American people really have to force this
administration to answer the hard questions that they have so far
avoided. For example: one, can missile defense technology be proven to
work reliably and consistently? To date, the answer is no.
Second, what is the cost? To date, the answer is, who knows, but
perhaps tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
Third, will national missile defense improve other overall national
security? Well, not if we abandon the ABM Treaty and abandon an arms
control regime that has kept the peace for 50-odd years.
Fourth, is national missile defense a proportional response to a
credible threat?
I serve on the House Committee on Armed Services, which evaluates
threats to our security. The U.S. intelligence community recently
issued a report on global threats and challenges we may face by 2015.
This is shown on the chart beside me here, ``Threats and Challenges in
2015, a National Intelligence Council Report.'' There are many diverse
threats here. Some of them relate to population trends, aging patterns,
migration, health and AIDS. Others relate to natural resources and the
environment, access to food or to clean water, the availability of
energy, or environmental degradation. Some are related to science and
technology, the global economy, or to national and international
governance.
There are some threats that do relate to future conflicts, and a
national missile defense system protects against one of those threats,
that is, a weapon of mass destruction delivered by means of a long-
range missile. It does not protect against a Ryder truck or a boat or a
suitcase that can be carried into a building or near a building and
blown up.
If we look at what happened tragically in Oklahoma City, or if we
look at what happened to the U.S.S. Cole, I submit that is the future.
Those are the risks that we in this country really have to worry about
far more than having some country decide they are going to fire a
missile at our country, which would be tracked from the moment it left
the ground in North Korea or Iran or somewhere else.
Over the last 55 years, deterrence has worked and it continues to
work. Just take one example. During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein did
not use his chemical and biological weapons. Why? Because the first
Bush administration made it clear that if he did that there would be
massive retaliation. Even
[[Page H3048]]
Saddam Hussein, in the middle of a conflict, respected the power of
retaliation of this country.
My concern is if we put all our money into missile defense, there is
no way that we are not going to underfund these other threats to us
with the delivery of weapons of mass destruction by other means.
{time} 2130
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield. The gentleman
served on the Committee on National Security, and I know he must have
heard many demands to see that our men and women in arms are justly
paid, to see that they have the facilities that they need, that all of
the branches of the armed services have the equipment and the support
that they need.
I listened recently to the former chair of the Senate Committee on
Armed Services, Sam Nunn, who noted that we risk the possibility of
having vital resources that we need for other aspects of the military
all sucked up into this one plan that does not work.
I have been surprised as I have traveled around my district in Texas
at how many people who are coming up and expressing opposition to this
plan who are veterans who have served and who recognize how foolhardy
it is to divert all our resources into one area, and that area being
one that is not proven to work.
I am wondering if the gentleman is hearing from other people who are
in our military services informally or have served in the military who
recognize the danger that has been spotlighted tonight and that former
Senator Nunn has voiced publicly?
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield. The gentleman
from Texas is exactly right. In my home State of Maine, we have Bath
Ironworks where half of the destroyers for the Navy are built. There is
no question in my mind or the minds of many people in Maine, those who
served in the military and those who did not, if you spend tens of
billions of dollars more on a national missile defense system, it will
simply sit there. And we will not have the kind of Navy we need to
protect our interests around the globe. The same argument can be made
with respect to procurement for tactical aircraft. Clearly it can be
made with respect to the pay and benefits for the men and women in our
armed services.
Mr. Speaker, what we have to remember about a national missile
defense system is that it protects against one single threat and is
useful for no other purpose. It would not be effective against Russia
or China. It would only be effective against a state like North Korea
or Iran. When you look at those states, North Korea is willing to sit
down and negotiate away their missile defense program. Iran just
elected a reformist president with 75 percent of the vote. We can deal
with these countries and negotiate with these countries. Believe me, it
is a lot less expensive to do that, negotiate away the threat than it
is to build this kind of system.
But the gentleman is absolutely right, you stay within the defense
budget and before we get to education and health care and the
environment, this kind of system will drain money away from other
urgent national priorities.
If I may add one more thing, it is important to note that Secretary
Rumsfeld recently said that he thought there should be deployed the
rudiments of a missile defense system by 2004, even before the testing
is complete. As one of our colleagues mentioned today, that date is
significant. The point is, try to get something in the ground before
the next election, before the President comes up for reelection. That
is no way to run this kind of defense procurement effort and weapons
system.
Mr. Speaker, if we know anything about weapons systems for the
Department of Defense, we should fly before we buy, we need to test
before we purchase. It is particularly true of the most complex system
on the drawing board at the Pentagon. This system is being rushed in a
way that is destructive not only to our military, but to our national
security. And we need the public to understand this is not a simple
issue, but a great deal is at stake.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say personally to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), I appreciate very much his holding this
event tonight and yield back.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Even if we were to
assume on our wildest dreams, because that is essentially what it would
be, North Korea, one of the poorest nations in the world, that cannot
even feed its own people, would wake up some morning and would have the
vision that it wanted to commit mass suicide, and assuming it is
several years in the future and they had somehow developed a nuclear
missile with the capacity to even reach our coast with any sort of
precision at all, it would be much more likely they would put a
biological or chemical weapon on it, in which case they would use
multiple warheads. In that case, it would overwhelm any limited
national missile defense system we would have.
We are having to project forward and do a system that is much larger,
and get into hundreds of billions of dollars and a prospect that is
unrealistic.
The second issue is the issue of confidence. Ostensibly we are doing
this to have some sort of strategic advantage over some rogue nation
holding us hostage with the prospect that they might send off a weapon
of mass destruction by missile. The fact of the matter is that there is
speculation that we may not be able to come close to 100 percent
effectiveness.
Twenty or so years ago when they were talking about President
Reagan's Star Wars, one of the groups that was advocating against it
used to come out with an umbrella with holes in it and say that is the
kind of protection you are getting. It is essentially the same
situation here. The probability that you would be able to get 100
percent of any weapon sent over in most estimations of any reasonable
scientist is nonexisting. So you would have no confidence that it was
100 percent reliable, and I would suggest that leaves you with no
ability to effect a strategic decision. It is not a useful prospect to
have if it worked on its best abilities on any given day because even
its best abilities are not projected at 100 percent.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the hardworking and able gentleman
from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) for sponsoring this special order this
evening, and it is a pleasure to join the gentlewoman from Illinois
(Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Doggett) in this important discussion.
Today in Madrid, a reporter asked President Bush how he could
reconcile his opposition to the Kyoto Treaty, an opposition that he
says is based upon a lack of scientific evidence, with his support for
Star Wars which is also not supported by scientific evidence.
``How do we know it is going to work?'' President Bush stated.
``Well, we have to spend the dollars on research and development.'' But
I am sure President Bush is aware, he is not proposing only research
and development. The Bush Star Wars proposal involves deployment of the
system, not just research and development. Indeed, this shocking lack
of scientific evidence is the Achilles' heel of the administration's
single-minded pursuit of this system.
As others have mentioned, a Star Wars program will cost our people
over $50 billion or more and still counting, and that is only the first
phase.
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. DOGGETT. I know one of the areas that the gentlewoman has
considerable expertise in is in reference to agriculture and her work
for farmers across the country. It has been suggested by some
administration officials that we apply an agricultural approach to
this. We take this $100 billion, and it does not make any difference if
it works because it can be a giant scarecrow and it will scare off the
people from around the world. I am wondering from your expertise in
agriculture if you think that using Star Wars as a scarecrow might be
sufficient to protect our families?
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman raises a very good
point. I do not think scarecrows work.
Our experience over a decade ago with the MX missile proposal, and to
[[Page H3049]]
have been a party to those debates to a system that first was proposed
to be stationary, and then when they realized that is a sitting duck,
maybe it was a scarecrow, I do not know, they said maybe we should put
it on a train on a track and move it around. We eventually were able to
defeat that and say that the real strength lay in our triad, and the
fact that we had a mobile Navy, we had a mobile Air Force and the best
trained Army in the entire world.
We have to do better, but it does not make any sense to be throwing
billions of dollars away on an unknown system; and, quite frankly,
enraging our European allies and other allies around the world and
ratcheting up the arms race without consultation by this ill-advised
proposal. We know that the scientific evidence is not there, and we
always have been pushing for what kind of system are we talking about.
What is this thing going to do?
Here in Congress we are often given the argument we cannot solve a
problem simply by throwing money at it, whether it is agriculture,
child poverty, prescription drugs, we cannot just throw money at these
problems. But with Star Wars, it seems to be different. Just throw
enough money at it, and we will be lucky if something works in the end.
Do not test the system against the full range of countermeasures and do
not develop a fully integrated prototype before protection, and do not
require an adequate testing program. Just spend $50 billion.
Mr. Speaker, we do not have that luxury because we have a $5 trillion
debt overhang in this economy, and we are dealing with precious
taxpayer dollars. Others have talked about health care and education
and the environment and prescription drugs for our senior citizens,
money to update our food safety systems, all of the money to strengthen
Medicaid and Medicare.
Mr. Speaker, if we go around and look at the real strength of this
country in our Armed Forces, it is those who choose to serve America,
dedicated young men and women living in some of the worst housing
conditions anywhere in the world, including right here in the Nation's
Capital. If we are going to have the best armed men and women systems
in the world, my goodness, should we not be paying attention to those
already serving.
Mr. Speaker, why are our adjutants general from around the country
complaining about too many missions with not enough money? We have to
take care of what we are asked to do today, not throw away money on
deployment of a system that nobody ever fully understood.
I had military retirees come up to me and say, ``Why did we have to
take cuts in benefits? Why are people who served our country put in a
different position in terms of retirement than those who have served on
the civilian side?
The budget that the administration has produced will not meet all of
the health care needs that our veterans have across this country. We
have them classified, A, B, C, D. Everybody is on a different platform
in terms of veterans' health services. We have 25.6 million veterans in
this country. We have to pass a good budget to serve them, and we have
to do what is right and put America's priorities in order.
Truly, this Star Wars proposal is a misplaced priority.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to share in this
special order.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for joining us
tonight. I have a quote here on the board. It is a quote that the
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, made on May 29. He was referring
to a comment made by President Bush. He stated, ``We ought to engage
our brains before we engage our pocketbooks.'' What sharp contrast that
statement is to the administration's apparent focus now on starting a
system that they admit has not been shown to have been tested
thoroughly and that has not been shown to work. We are making an
exception for national missile defense, and hundreds of billions of
dollars. We are not going to engage our brains, we are going to engage
our pocketbooks and start down a path that creates all sorts of mishaps
and mischievous.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
commend him for the leadership he has shown in raising the education
level in this body and hopefully throughout the country in regards to
the importance of this debate, and a thorough study and analysis of the
various proposals that we are hearing coming out of the Bush
administration.
I am glad we have with us as a colleague in this Chamber our own
solar physicist, a former employee at the Nuclear Fusion Laboratory at
Princeton, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), because what we
are talking about is rocket science, and it is nice to have his
perspective in regard to the technological capability that we currently
possess on such an important but expensive program.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to engage in a thorough analysis or
conversation or review of what the Bush administration is talking about
in regards to a missile defense system because I am not sure they know
what this system is going to look like ultimately. How do you get into
the details of a policy proposal when the details are lacking?
{time} 2145
Mr. TIERNEY. I would just point out this next quote up here, the
gentleman has exactly hit on the point. On June 7, Donald Rumsfeld, the
Secretary of Defense, at a press conference, people were asking him,
``Does it even work?''
His answer was, ``This is an interesting question in the sense of
what do you mean when you say that works?''
You look at that on its face value as what is he talking about? We
know when it works. That is why we do studies. That is why Mr. Coyle
did his study, that in case it does not work. Not only does it not
work, it needs considerably more testing until it gets to a point we
are comfortable that it works reasonably well or sufficiently, and they
do not even plan to do the tests so far on that.
But again they want to engage our pocketbooks before we engage our
national brain on this and start building and committing us down that
path. I would just make that point.
Mr. KIND. I thank the gentleman for making that point. It is an
important point. It is a little bit frustrating as we are trying to get
more information from the administration to find out exactly what their
vision is in regards to missile defense: Is it going to just be land-
based or sea-based, air-based? Is it going to involve a space-based
type of missile defense system? Is it going to be a limited defense
system? Is it going to be a national missile defense system or a
universal application which we will share with our allies or any
country in the globe who wants it? Because what kind of moral position
would we be taking if we do in fact develop the technical means to
deploy a system such as this but not offer it to other nations around
the globe when an intentional or an accidental launch of a nuclear
weapon could result in tens of thousands or millions of casualties in a
particular country?
This is what we need to keep asking the administration about. I for
one am not sure if it is the right moral position to just come out and
oppose any type of system at all. There is a lot of discussion about a
rogue madman launching a nuclear missile at the United States, but
there is also the possibility of these missiles falling into the wrong
hands, a possible terrorist gaining control of some launch capability
in Russia, for instance, I think is a real possibility, or even an
accidental launch and what kind of position would we be in then if we
were not at least going forward on the research and development and
exploring the feasibility of this type of system at some point in the
future.
But for me at least fundamentally there are three overriding
questions that I am waiting to get answers for. Firstly, will it work?
Do we have the technological capability of pulling it off? Secondly,
how much is it going to cost the American taxpayers to deploy such a
system? And, thirdly, even if we do find something that works and we
can deploy it, is it going to make the United States more or less
secure in the final analysis?
Mr. DOGGETT. I know the gentleman from Wisconsin is well known in
this body as a hawk of sorts, a deficit hawk. He is always up there on
the top in the ratings of the Concord Coalition on fiscal
responsibility. We have got a budget. This plan that they are
[[Page H3050]]
not sure what they are going to do and when they are going to do it,
has there been any provision made for that in this budget or in future
budgets to tell the American people what this questionable project will
cost and how we are going to pay for it?
Mr. KIND. It is a great question. No. One of the more frustrating
aspects of the budget resolution debate that we had earlier this year,
the context of the tax cut debate that we had earlier this year was
that there was in fact no provision, no asked-for appropriation for the
ongoing deployment of a missile defense system within the
administration. All this has got to add up. It should add up within the
context of a balanced budget, one that does not jeopardize the fiscal
solvency of the current generation or future generations. That again is
more information which is lacking from the administration. Cost
estimates that I am hearing from some of the engineers, some of the
experts who would be in charge of deploying such a system, range
anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion over a 10-year period.
I just had a conversation with former Senator Sam Nunn this
afternoon. He said that whatever figure you get, you might as well
double or triple that amount because it is going to be inherently
difficult to do this in a fiscally responsible manner without the
defense contractors opening up and the subcontractors wanting their
piece of the deployment pie. But even more fundamentally, we have had
test after test after test in trying to hit a bullet with a bullet,
that is, the missile defense test. Each time it has failed. Obviously
we do not today have the current technological capability to pull it
off. I think that is one of the misunderstandings that the general
American public might have. They see that we have gone to the Moon,
they see all this great technological development around us and how it
is transforming our lives and many of them may just assume that we have
the technological smarts to do this, to knock the bullet out of the air
with another bullet when in fact when all the preconditions and the
inputted variables are in the test to begin with, the tests are still
failing. That is a fundamental issue that we need to keep asking
ourselves, is should we first have the technological means to do it
before we deploy or just move forward with deployment regardless of the
cost and regardless of the effectiveness of the system?
Mr. TIERNEY. I think there is an obvious answer to that. For this
country to move forward and commit billions of dollars on a system that
is not known to work, has not been tested, and when Mr. Coyle, the
reporter of which I spoke earlier, specifically says the tests are
inadequate and unrealistic and they do not even plan to do tests that
would be adequate and realistic as this moves forward is a frightening
prospect. I think if we were to be able to have that report instead of
the Department of Defense trying to hide it and trying to keep it
hushed up, if we were to have the Secretary come in and explain to us
why an unclassified report is being kept from the American public or at
least attempted to be kept from the American public, we would be able
to debate the context of that report which specifically says not only
are there tests that are unreasonable, that they had very few
countermeasures in those tests, and then when they decided that they at
one point were not being very successful, they dummied the tests down
and they had even fewer.
At one point there were plans for nine or 10 or more countermeasures
to come in and then they dummied it down to just two items up there and
then one of them was easily distinguishable from the other and they
gave all of the coordinates and other information ahead of time and
still missed. We are not going to have that luxury of any system that
is expected to work, we are not going to get advance notice of where it
is going, what the trajectory is and all the other information.
So I think that that question answers itself, that we would be
foolish as a Nation to spend the kind of money that we are talking
about just for the limited land-based system. And this is testimony I
referred to earlier in front of our Committee on Government Reform, the
Subcommittee on National Security, where they were already up over $50
billion for a program that started at 9 to $11 billion, and that is
only at that stage. Add on phases 2 and 3, you are over $100 billion.
Add on the sea-based, add on the air-based, add on the space-based that
they are talking about, you could be anywhere between $300 billion and
$1 trillion. I think if we start down that path with no expectation
that it is going to add to our national security, the answer is pretty
clear, I think, that we are being pretty irresponsible as a government.
Mr. KIND. I think as far as the two initial questions that I have,
there are some huge question marks in regards to how expensive this is
going to be, whether or not we can in fact deploy a system that is
going to work but, finally, is this going to make us more or less
secure in the final analysis? My friend from Massachusetts recognized
that a lot of the experts working on this system are hoping for maybe
an 80 percent effectiveness rate. Well, 80 percent quite frankly does
not cut it. If you have got multiple missiles being launched at us,
what city are we going to sacrifice? Is that going to be acceptable? I
do not think it gives us much more flexibility in foreign policy
negotiations with rogue nations if we just have an 80 percent effective
system. But perhaps more importantly is what is going to be the
response of Russia and China to even a limited missile defense shield?
Is this going to encourage increased nuclear proliferation within their
country? Because generally the response from countries that feel
threatened from such a system is to ramp up their production of more
nuclear weapons so they can overwhelm our system. It is not just China
we are talking about. This has profound ramifications with India and
Pakistani nuclear policy, perhaps one of the most dangerous areas of
nuclear proliferation on the globe right now. We need to ask ourselves
what will be the response of these other nations. Even though the Bush
administration is claiming that such a shield is not meant to better
Russia or China but rather the rogue nuclear threat that may exist out
there at some point in the future, but I am still not convinced that
our handling of foreign policy as it relates to China is the best
course of action right now. We are very close to engaging them in a new
Cold War atmosphere as we start the 21st century when I feel it can be
ultimately avoided.
Mr. TIERNEY. Reclaiming my time just for a second, conjure up now
information in the report that the administration and the Department of
Defense should let us debate and talk about, about phantom
trajectories, about the prospect of as the radar passes from one to a
second radar, there are phantom tracks and that they are unable to
control missiles shot against those phantom tracks, what is the message
they send to a Russia or a China? How much time do they have to decide
whether or not these are in fact something going after a phantom track
or are they the launch of an offensive capacity against them? And now
you understand somewhat why they feel that if you put this national
missile defense on the drawing table, they already threatened that they
will increase their supply of national defense missiles in the case of
China or in Russia that they will not go into a program or agreement
with us to de-alert those that they already have.
We should all know that is one thing the President has talked about
doing that we should support is de-alerting as many on each side as we
can and moving towards incapacitating them or at least having them
situated where it takes a subsequent and a sufficient amount of time to
have to get them activated so we can step back from the precipice and
have a more reasonable policy on that.
Mr. DOGGETT. I just wanted to point out to the gentleman from
Wisconsin that former Defense Secretary William Perry made much the
same point that you are making within the last few months in saying
that even, quote, a relatively small deployment of defensive systems
could have the effect of triggering a regional nuclear arms race of
considerable proportion.
As we look around the world, as you were just doing, you really
cannot find any enthusiasm out there among our weak allies or among our
strongest allies, some of whom we will have to count on to put these
forward radar stations in their countries. None of them are coming
forward and saying,
[[Page H3051]]
please give us this defense. It seems to be more of a political defense
in this country.
Certainly there are some weapons manufacturers who see hundreds of
billions of dollars of future contracts out of this. But as you search
around the world, have you seen any indication of support in other
parts of the world for this kind of system? I know the current Lone
Star approach as carried here and somewhat misguidedly to Washington is
that it no longer makes any difference what the rest of the world
thinks, but what does the rest of the world think about this?
Mr. KIND. It is interesting. The President is abroad right now in
Europe trying to sell at least partly on this trip the merits of his
missile defense program. It was interesting to read some comments from
some of the military experts within France who kind of chuckled at the
thought. They are not obviously enthusiastic supporters of the program.
They said, well, we kind of tried that, too, after the First World War.
It was called the Maginot Line, trying to deal with a perceived threat.
Obviously we saw how well that worked during the Second World War. Once
the enemy saw what type of defense system was deployed, they figured
out a way to get around it. That is the concern really for a lot of our
allies, our European allies whom we are going to have to rely on and
work with in order to bring greater stability across the globe. That I
think is a very, very important issue.
I think all of us here in the House have seen the defense reviews
from CIA, from the Defense Department, ranking the real threats that we
face today, from the greatest threats to the least threat. Missile
defense, a launch of a nuclear missile basically airmailed to us
because we will know exactly where it was launched from and who sent
it, is one of the least likely threats we face right now in our
national security basket. More likely it would come from biological
terrorism or shipping a nuclear device in a boat up the Hudson or up
the Potomac River, for instance, than someone would just airmail a
nuclear weapon towards us. Yet what is most troubling with the Bush
administration's approach to this is they are defunding a lot of the
important nonproliferation programs we have in place at the Department
of Energy right now and the nuclear collaboration programs that we need
to be pursuing and funding in order to reduce the threat of nuclear
proliferation or terrorism across the globe. Yet in the budget that
they submitted, there were serious funding cutbacks in an area that we
should be encouraging and investing wisely in. That I think is another
serious issue.
Again, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for claiming some time
this evening to talk about this very important issue. I have a feeling
we have not had the last word on this subject.
Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. We certainly have
not, I hope.
For the last word I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from
Massachusetts for putting together such an assembly of experts on the
subject, including yourself, who have presented so many important
facts. We have scientific expertise and budgetary expertise.
I have two reasons primarily that I oppose the national missile
defense. I wish I had a poster. It would be one of Isabel Hart, age 3,
and Eve Schakowsky, age 1, my granddaughters. More than anything in the
whole world, I want them to be safe. If I thought that I could be part
of this United States Congress to create a safety shield for these
children, believe me, I would. But the more I have learned from my
colleague from Massachusetts and others and reading about it and
talking to the experts, I am convinced that far from creating a safety
shield, that this plan actually endangers my granddaughters.
Today, a number of us participated in a press conference where Peace
Action, Women's Action for New Directions, Physicians for Social
Responsibility announced their plan to deliver thousands of petitions
to Members of Congress from people across the country expressing
opposition to Star Wars. I had visitors from the North Suburban Peace
Initiative from my district who delivered that same message to my
office.
I am proud and grateful that my constituents understand the risks and
realities involved with President Bush's national missile defense
plans. I hope that all of my colleagues had an opportunity to review
the important materials that they and other committed citizens
distributed on the Hill this week.
National missile defense is a program that is destined for failure on
so many levels.
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