Congressional Record: June 27, 2002 (Senate)
Page S6182-S6200
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003--Continued
[...]
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, On May 14, Department of Defense
officials announced that they intended to classify details of future
flight tests of the national missile defense system. This occurred
after the Senate Armed Services Committee had completed its work on the
Defense authorization bill, so we were unable to address this issue in
the committee version of the bill. The issue needs to be addressed,
however.
The administration claims that placing a shroud of secrecy around the
national missile defense testing program is necessary to prevent
details of its operation from being revealed to potential enemies. One
can argue whether such secrecy is truly needed, since we are many years
away from deployment an effective national missile defense systems.
What is not arguable is that Congress has a right and obligation to
know the results of such critical tests, regardless of whether they are
classified.
The amendment offered by Senator Reed and myself would ensure that
Congress gets regular reports, classified as necessary, on the results
of each national missile defense flight test, 120 days following the
test.
The reports should describe the objectives of each test, and whether
the objectives were met. Such information
[[Page S6196]]
is absolutely essential for Congress to be able to understand and
evaluate the performance of the national missile defense system.
The word in the modified amendment is "thorough." This amendment
ensures that constitutionally mandated oversight will, in fact,
continue to be respected.
I hope all of my colleagues will support this important amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Amendment No. 4029
Mr. REED. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 4029.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. REED] for himself and
Mr. Levin proposes an amendment numbered 4029.
Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To require a report on the results of each flight test of the
Ground-based Midcourse national missile defense system)
On page 34, after line 23, insert the following:
SEC. 226. REPORTS ON FLIGHT TESTING OF GROUND-BASED MIDCOURSE
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM.
(a) Requirement.--The Director of the United States Missile
Defense Agency shall submit to the congressional defense
committees a report on each flight test of the Ground-based
Midcourse national missile defense system. The report shall
be submitted not later than 90 days after the date of the
test.
(b) Content.--A report on a flight test under subsection
(a) shall include the following matters:
(1) A detailed discussion of the content and objectives of
the test.
(2) For each test objective, a statement regarding whether
the objective was achieved.
(3) For any test objective not achieved--
(A) a detailed discussion describing the reasons for not
achieving the objective; and
(B) a discussion of any plans for future tests to achieve
the objective.
(c) Format.--The reports required under subsection (a)
shall be submitted in unclassified form, with a classified
annex as necessary.
Amendment No. 4029, As Modified
Mr. REED. Madam President, I also at this time seek unanimous consent
to send a modification of the amendment to the desk and have it
reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, reserving the right to object--I shall
not--the Senator submitted the amendment to me. I have been in
consultation with the Department of Defense. We came back with certain
modifications. The Senator has modified this amendment consistent with
those recommendations that I received from the Department of Defense.
I have no objection to the Senator modifying the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is so
modified.
The amendment (No. 4029), as modified, is as follows:
On page 34, after line 23, insert the following:
SEC. 226. REPORTS ON FLIGHT TESTING OF GROUND-BASED MIDCOURSE
NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM.
(a) Requirement.--The Director of the United States Missile
Defense Agency shall submit to the congressional defense
committees a report on each flight test of the Ground-based
Midcourse national missile defense system. The report shall
be submitted not later than 120 days after the date of the
test.
(b) Content.--A report on a flight test under subsection
(a) shall include the following matters:
(1) A thorough discussion of the content and objectives of
the test.
(2) For each test objective, a statement regarding whether
the objective was achieved.
(3) For any test objective not achieved--
(A) a thorough discussion describing the reasons for not
achieving the objective; and
(B) a discussion of any plans for future tests to achieve
the objective.
(c) Format.--The reports required under subsection (a)
shall be submitted in classified form and unclassified form.
Mr. REED. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his help on this
amendment.
I think this is an opportune time to call for passage of the
amendment prior to any other discussion at this time. I urge passage of
the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
Mr. WARNER. We have no objection, Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 4029), as modified, was agreed to.
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. WARNER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I congratulate the Senator from Rhode
Island on his amendment. I think he may want to take a minute to
describe it. I will yield the floor for that purpose, and then I would
like to add a comment on it of my own.
I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I have spoken to the two managers of the
bill. It appears this is the last hurdle before final passage of this
legislation. The staff is working now on a unanimous consent agreement.
We will have final passage at or around 2 o'clock today.
Mr. LEVIN. Sounds good.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, may I say to the distinguished leader
that we have, as I am sure each manager has, tried to contact all
offices and all Senators who have expressed any desire to either speak
or submit amendments otherwise. But, as I understand it, we will
hopefully vote around 2 o'clock. Can we allow a reasonable period such
that if there is anything I have left undone Senators may contact me,
or reciprocate on your side? Perhaps we can get a unanimous consent
request in 15 or 20 minutes to lock in the vote at 2 o'clock.
Mr. REID. It takes the staff a while to do the unanimous consent
request. It will take 15 or 20 minutes to do that.
Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator from Nevada will yield for an additional
question, there are a number of amendments which I understand may be
worked out between now and 2 o'clock.
Mr. WARNER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. REID. We would make sure that any consent allows that to take
place.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
Mr. REED. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Virginia for his
help and cooperation, and the Senator from Michigan for his
accommodation.
This is an amendment that responds to an announcement made by the
Missile Defense Agency shortly after the conclusion of our committee
deliberations. The announcement was that they would classify the
details of all future flight tests of the national missile defense
system--now called the land-based midcourse system.
I believe Congress needs information of that kind. I also believe
those unclassified portions of the tests should be available to a
broader community, particularly the scientific community.
The amendment that has been agreed to and included in this bill would
require the Missile Defense Agency to provide to the Congress within
120 days a thorough report of the details of the tests. And it would
include both an unclassified format and a classified format so that
those items the Defense Department and the Missile Defense Agency
believes should be secret will be kept secret, and it will be reported
to us in a classified form.
Let me say that one of the persistent criticisms of the first test of
the missile defense system--the land-based midcourse system--was the
fact that the tests were unrealistic. In fact, this criticism--
particularly by the scientific community--led the Missile Defense
Agency to adopt a much more realistic, thorough, and exhaustive test
process for our missile defense system.
That criticism, in effect, has been very helpful to the development
of the national missile defense. I think it is something that should be
encouraged--certainly not discouraged.
This view is also shared widely in many other places. Yesterday USA
Today had an editorial which said "The Pentagon policy wrongly shields
missile defense data."
They went on to point out that past scientific commentary about the
performance of weapons systems has been very valuable in terms of
improving those systems. They point specifically to the Patriot system.
Initially, the Defense Department claimed that the Patriot was wildly
successful in the gulf war.
It turned out that a scientist at MIT was able to look at some of the
news video. He observed, based on his scientific training, that these
claims were dubious. In fact, he proved to be correct. Once the
Pentagon publicly acknowledged that the effectiveness of
[[Page S6197]]
the Patriot was not as they had originally claimed, it was the
beginning of serious work to accelerate the development of additional
improvements. That improvement is now the PAC-3 system, a much more
capable system.
I believe honestly that the Defense Department would have tried to
move to a better version of Patriot anyway, but certainly the public
scrutiny of this type of information helped that process move forward
much more expeditiously.
As USA Today points out, we could spend up to $100 billion under the
administration's missile defense plan. As they say:
Taxpayers deserve assurances beyond the Pentagon's word
that the system works.
This is particularly important when, at the same time the Missile
Defense Agency is talking about putting a much broader cloak of secrecy
around what they do, they are also saying they want to have a
contingent deployment of missile systems as early as 2004.
Again, some of these tests are not even scheduled to take place until
after that date. Yet they are talking about a system in which they want
to have something ready by 2004.
I fear that the pressure to put something in the field by 2004 will
overcome the willingness to be as clear and transparent as you want
them to be about these tests.
I hope this amendment will reinforce the Defense Department's view
that these details are useful for the Congress and, in unclassified
form, useful for the scientific community.
As a former director of operational testing, Phil Coyle, stated in a
Washington Post article, on June 11, the new classification policy that
is being proposed by the Missile Defense Agency is, in his words, "not
justified by either the progress and tests so far or by the realisms of
the test."
We are still at a very rudimentary stage, a stage in which details of
the test will help inform the Congress, will help inform scientific
observers, and, I hope, will help us keep this system on track and keep
the system, in effect, honest, so that if people are looking closely,
all the t's will be crossed and all the i's dotted.
I must also say, at this point, too, that General Kadish,
particularly, has committed himself and budget dollars to ensure that a
much more realistic and much more rigorous form of testing is employed.
That is commendable and, indeed, is supported in the underlying
legislation by our authorization.
Testing and reporting of results is very important because, as I
mentioned many times, the comments of outside authorities, scientists,
are very useful. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for example,
prepared a report about the first several tests of the ground-based
midcourse system. They made several valuable suggestions.
First, they suggested that you make the end game more realistic. By
that, they meant we make the engagement with the kill vehicle and the
enemy warhead much more realistic than the tests were at that stage.
That is being done, not solely because of the UCS recommendation, but
certainly it helped move along, I think, the concentration on more
realism.
They also talked about more realistic test conditions. Some of these
things do not strike me, at this juncture, as particularly sensitive
information.
They talked about the geometry of the interception, whether it is the
same flight track for the enemy warhead as well as for the interception
vehicle, the kill vehicle.
The time of day: If we are only testing at the same time of day, when
atmospheric conditions and sunlight or starlight are most opportune to
discriminate a warhead from decoys, that is not a realistic test.
The weather conditions: Are we testing in foul weather as well as
fair weather?
The flyout range, the altitude of the intercept--there are many
things that are very important. And we should have an idea, on an
unclassified and classified basis, of these parameters. And the
scientific community should at least have an indication, on an
unclassified basis, of what is taking place.
I believe the amendment is important. It is useful. I am
extraordinarily pleased that the ranking member, the Senator from
Virginia, was helpful in getting this done so expeditiously.
One final point, we are simply codifying what I believe and what I
know to be the intent of the Department of Defense.
In that same USA Today article previously mentioned, Secretary
Aldridge wrote:
There is not now, and can never be, any component of this
missile defense program classified beyond the reach of the
security clearances of its congressional overseers. Congress'
constitutionally mandated oversight will always be respected.
That constitutionally mandated oversight has been codified in this
amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Edwards). The Senator From Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I make these few remarks concerning the
Reed amendment now before the Senate.
With the modifications that I have proposed and the majority has
accepted, I am not objecting to the inclusion of this amendment in the
defense authorization bill. These modifications were at the request of
the Department of Defense. But I do have concerns with its substance,
concerns that are shared by the Administration and, specifically, the
Director of the Missile Defense Agency.
This amendment offered by Senator Reed would require the Director of
the Missile Defense Agency to submit a report to the congressional
defense committees on each flight test of the ground-based midcourse
missile defense system, what we used to call the national missile
defense system. This amendment would add an additional three to five
reports a year to the long and continually growing list of reports that
the Missile Defense Agency must submit to Congress annually.
Last year, at the insistence of our majority, the defense
authorization act required several reports to Congress on missile
defense. I strove, with some success, to assure that those reports were
consistent with what Congress requires of other defense programs. This
year, the bill our majority crafted in committee imposes five new
reporting requirements related to missile defense, including annual
operational assessments on research and development programs, annual
assessments of military requirements for all Missile Defense Agency
programs, and detailed cost information on several missile defense
programs--information, I might add, that in some cases simply isn't
available.
My specific concerns are, as follows:
First, this amendment requires a report on every single flight test
of the national missile defense system. I am unaware of any other
program in the Department of Defense for which we in Congress impose
such detailed reporting requirements. As I stated earlier, my intent
last year was to make reporting requirements on missile defense
programs consistent with those for other defense programs.
Second, this amendment adds to the already substantial reporting
burden on the Missile Defense Agency. I would note that the Secretary
of Defense, in a letter to Chairman Levin and me, informed us that our
bill, even prior to this amendment, "would impose a number of
burdensome statutory restrictions that would undermine our ability to
manage the [missile defense] program effectively." The Office of
Management and Budget reiterated this view. A few moments ago, I spoke
to General Kadish, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, who
echoed these concerns even as he reiterated his willingness to provide
Congress with all information on tests to facilitate our legitimate
oversight function.
Third, Congress already has a process to gain all the information
that it desires on a test or tests. We need simply ask for a report or
a briefing, and the Missile Defense Agency has responded, is
responding, and will respond. I have heard no allegation that
information on tests has been denied to the appropriate committee, or
is not available on request.
I fully concur with those who believe that Congress should have
access to all relevant information related to missile defense tests. I
have relayed the assurances I received that the Missile Defense Agency
will provide us with this information. All members, and staff with
appropriate clearances, will have access to this information. Indeed,
Committee staff received a classified
[[Page S6198]]
briefing related to targets and countermeasures prior to the last long-
range missile defense test.
In the interest of comity and the desire to complete work on this
important legislation expeditiously, I will not oppose inclusion of
this amendment in the pending bill. I will work during our conference
with the House to improve the provisions on missile defense.
Mr. President, we had to handle this amendment very expeditiously in
order to achieve our 2 o'clock objective to have final passage. I did
review it very carefully with the Department of Defense. We did make
the technical changes. But I would have to say that I hope there is no
inference, from this amendment as it now has been amended, that the
Department would not have responded to the Congress had the Congress
requested any information under any tests.
So the amendment points up the importance of and the interest in the
Congress, but at the same time Congress could have obtained the same
information, as required by this amendment, had it taken the
initiative. Am I not correct in that, I ask the Senator?
Mr. REED. If the Senator will yield, you are absolutely correct. What
I would suggest is, because of the highly technical nature of the whole
program, often we do not know what questions to ask at times. As a
result, with this reporting requirement, I think we will fulfill our
constitutional obligation.
I guess I would respond, finally, by saying there is a saying from a
famous poet from New England, Robert Frost: "Good fences make good
neighbors." Perhaps if we look at this as a good fence, we will be
better neighbors with our friends in MDA.
[...]
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wanted to again thank the
leadership of our Armed Services Committee, the distinguished Senators
from Michigan and Virginia, respectively, the chairman and ranking
member of our committee, for the acceptance last evening of an
amendment I had offered that was cosponsored by a number of Senators,
including several on our Armed Services Committee, concerning a
requirement that the Department of Defense will do an investigation and
will report to the Congress on a regular basis about the biological and
chemical testing that may have put some of our service men and women
and, indeed, some civilians in harm's way.
Certainly, that wasn't the original intent when these tests were
conducted back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. But, indeed,
that has been the upshot of what we now find out, in some cases, 30, 40
years later--even a half century later--that there may have been
exposure that is causing our veterans to now need to know what the
whole truth is in order to fix the past mistakes where veterans have
been exposed to toxic substances, particularly from this chemical and
biological testing, and to get full disclosure of this testing because
it has been classified over the past number of decades. The veterans of
this country certainly have a right to know, particularly with regard
to getting them to come in and get the health care they need if, in
fact, the health care is required.
Now, that is a general statement. Let me kind of flush it out with
some specifics. In the sixties and the seventies, ships of ours in the
Pacific were gassed with biological and chemical substances and, in
some cases, simulants or simulations of those substances. That was a
program under the acronym of SHAD, Shipboard Hazard and Defense. It was
ostensibly to test those ships' ability to react and protect themselves
if an enemy came out and suddenly tried to put these biological or
chemical agents on our ships in order to immobilize and to kill our
Navy.
In some cases, we were told these were not the actual materials, such
as nerve gas, but that it was a simulant of nerve gas. Years later,
decades later, we are finding that these simulants that were used are
having an effect on the people who were sprayed; and, indeed, there
actually may have been some exposure to the actual chemical and
biological agents instead of just the simulants. There were 113 of
these tests. Only 6 have been declassified. Of those 6, a population of
4,300 veterans have been identified to be contacted and, to date, only
622 have been written to when the Department of Defense declassified
it, gave it to the Veterans' Administration. They wrote the letters and
said: If you are having any effects, come into the veterans medical
facility. Of those 622, a good number of them were in Florida, which is
how I first started hearing about this.
Senator Cleland will have hearings this fall on this very same issue,
but what we are going to look into in this amendment, just attached
last night to DOD, is the shipboard gassing in the sixties and
seventies.
What Senator Cleland's committee is going to look into is the overall
testing because, lo and behold, I started
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getting all of these ruminations coming out of Florida about some
mysterious tests that were conducted in the fifties at the old Boca
Raton Airfield, an old World War II airfield, and an 85-acre parcel to
the north that apparently is still undeveloped. But guess what has
grown up around it. Florida Atlantic University, one of our major
universities, was built on this site. The Boca Raton Airport, one of
the major general aviation airports in Florida, is right there.
When I requested this information from the DOD back in February, as
the junior Senator from Florida, DOD wrote back and said it is
classified. Well, thank goodness that Senator Levin, our chairman, has
tasked Senator Cleland, our Personnel Subcommittee chairman, to get
into this because our committee is clearly capable of handling
classified information.
So I want the leadership to know how much I appreciate them doing
this so the veterans will have full disclosure--were they in harm's
way?--now that we are just finding out three and four decades later,
certainly incited by these letters that, as we speak, are being mailed
out to these veterans all over the country.
Thanks to the chairman and the ranking member, they accepted this
amendment, which will be etched into law in our DOD authorization bill.
Then, as we pursue the larger bill, including all the tests, other than
just SHAD, Senator Cleland's subcommittee will get into this
investigation.
It is my understanding that Senator Rockefeller, the chairman of the
Veterans' Affairs Committee, is also interested in having hearings on
this very same subject. I am so grateful to the leadership of this
body, on behalf of the veterans of Florida in my case, and on behalf of
the veterans of this country, to find out what happened--to peel back
the onion and see what really happened--and if there is a problem, we
can get these veterans into the medical facilities.
I thank the chairman for making this possible. I thank the
distinguished assistant majority leader for giving me this time.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Nelson for his
determination and passion on this issue. It will benefit the veterans
who may have been affected. We are happy to work with him. Hopefully,
his leadership will produce the critically necessary information we
need to help with their medical situation. They are all in his debt and
this body is as well.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[...]
