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BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE LEGISLATION

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would establish as U.S. policy the goal of developing and deploying as soon as practical defenses to defend the American people and our forces overseas against ballistic missile attac k. This bill is identical to a provision recently passed by the House National Security Committee, which will soon be considered by the full House of Representatives.

The administration has proposed a ballistic missile defense program that focuses almost exclusively on theater missile defense. While I strongly support a robust theater program, as reflected in this bill, I believe that the administration's program is no t well balanced.

It is my belief that the administration has failed to put together an adequate national missile defense program to defend the American people against the emerging threat posed by long-range ballistic missiles. Today, the United States faces ballistic miss ile threats, but has no defense. In the future, there will be more countries which will be able to pose such threats to our country. Therefore, we must begin today to plan for the creation of a highly effective national defense that initially will be able to defend against a limited ballistic missile attack.

In the coming months, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be examining a wide range of options for a national missile defense system. Our decisions will become apparent in the fiscal year 1996 defense authorization bill. The purpose of the bill I am introducing today, is to establish a general policy and to require the Secretary of Defense to establish a plan for developing and deploying a national missile defense system.

I would like to thank Senator Kyl for his work in this area and for being a principal cosponsor of this bill. A number of my colleagues from the Armed Services Committee are also joining me in introducing this important legislation, and I thank the m all for their support and hard work on this issue.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today, along with Senator Thurmond and other Senate Armed Services Committee members, I am introducing the Ballistic Missile Defense Revitalization Act of 1995, for the purpose of requiring the Secretary of Defense to develo p for deployment, at the earliest practical date, national and theater ballistic missile defense systems. The companion legislation, section 201 of H.R. 7, has passed the House National Security Committee and will soon be voted on by the full House.

I am submitting this legislation in an effort to get the Pentagon's current ballistic missile defense program back on track. Currently, and in the forseeable future, the United States continues to be woefully unprepared to cope with the threat of ballisti c missile attack. This must end; and the bill I have introduced today will help end our vulnerability.

Twelve years ago during his State of the Union Address, former President Ronald Reagan posed a simple challenge to America's scientific community: Find a way to make ballistic missiles impotent and obsolete. Because, he asked, `Is it not better to save li ves than to avenge them?' With those words, President Reagan chartered one of the most important and controversial defense programs of the modern age--the strategic defense initiative.

Through the years the SDI program was pushed and pulled in many different directions by both the Congress and administration. No push, however, equalled the shove the Clinton administration gave the program in 1993. With the elimination of key ballistic m issile defense programs, the United States is now almost exclusively focused on theater ballistic missile defenses which, hopefully, will be able to defend our troops deployed overseas. But, this limited protection comes at the expense of the development and deployment of national missile defenses.

Focusing only on theater defenses and the threat that is here and now, the administration completely ignores analysis from our Nation's best intelligence experts about the potential future threat to the continental United States.

Intelligence experts have repeatedly warned that terrorism is on the rise, that the quest for nuclear weapons in the Third World has not subsided, and that Russian nuclear materials have shown up on the black market. But, the administration has failed to heed those warnings.

Even the headlines lay bare the future vulnerability faced by the American people.

The Washington Times recently carried the headline `Yeltsin Can't Curtail Arms Spread.'

A Clinton administration official recently stated, `The out-of-control weapons of mass destruction industries in Russia are the No. 1 national security issue facing the United States.'

China has sold to Saudi Arabia the CSS-2, a medium-range missile capable of reaching any place in Europe.

Iran is desperately shopping the blackmarket for the technology to develop nuclear weapons, and Russia wants to sell to Iran.

The threat is real. As former Director of the CIA, Bob Gates, said, `History is not over. It was merely frozen and is now thawing with a vengeance.'

The CIA claims that 25 nations could acquire chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons by the end of the decade. That's 20 more than we have today. And, potentially, 20 nations that are lead by despots who see it as their duty to annihilate the United Sta tes. One of those leaders could be Abul Abbas, head of the Palestinian Liberation Front, who promised revenge on the United States for attacking Iraq. He said, `Revenge takes 40 years. If not my son then the son of my son will kill you. Someday we will ha ve missiles that can reach New York.'

In day-to-day terms, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among the Third World and the lack of defenses against those weapons could radically alter the manner in which the United States carries out its foreign policy. Would we have deployed 1 5,000 troops in Haiti if General Cedras had a weapon of mass destruction and a missile that could reach Florida? Probably not. Would America stand up for human rights and democracy in a starving nation if warlords had stolen nuclear weapons from Russia? P robably not. Would the Persian Gulf war have been fought if Hussein had succeeded in his quest, and acquired a deliverable nuclear weapon? Probably not.

The world will be dramatically different in the 21st century. We cannot predict the future. We don't know who will do it or when it will happen. But, it will happen. Some day, someone, somewhere will launch a ballistic missile at the United States.

When the warning comes, most Americans will believe that we will be able to defend ourselves. We can't. When the codes to launch a nuclear ballistic missile are entered and the keys are turned, there is no way to prevent the missile from reaching its targ et.

We cannot intercept it. We cannot interfere with its guidance system. We cannot make it self-destruct. There is nothing we can do to stop even one single missile from reaching the United States of America. Nothing.

The Clinton administration won't change the situation either. In fact, it's getting worse. The Clinton administration and congressional opponents have destroyed any future strategic capability to defend the United States and are on their way to destroying potential theater defenses as well.

This is being done by their decision to clarify the ABM Treaty to define our next theater defense missile as an illegal missile. The ABM Treaty, recall, was signed in 1972 by Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon. It shouldn't have been endors ed in 1972, and it shouldn't be reendorsed in 1995, 23 years later. It most certainly should not be redefined.

The threat has changed. Technology has improved. And the Soviet Union doesn't even exist. But, the Clinton team insists on deliberately drawing a distinction between strategic and theater ballistic missiles, something that was left undefined in 1972.

What the administration's negotiators have accomplished is not only to negotiate away strategic systems--which came as no surprise--but, also to negotiate away the only advanced theater systems in research and development in the United States.

The Clinton administration has done this by arbitrarily placing speed limits on interceptors. If an interceptor breaks 3km/sec, it is defined as a strategic ABM interceptor and would not be deployable as a theater missile under the new terms of th e ABM Treaty. Key theater defense systems, including THAAD and Navy Upper Tier, have capabilities beyond 3km/sec. and, thus, could not be further developed as designed.

Over the last 2 years, the opponents have won significant budget cuts in ballistic missile defenses and have succeeded in canceling all space-based options. This is especially disturbing because space-based sensors and interceptors are critical to the suc cess of any global strategic defense system. They provide worldwide, instanteous detection of and protection against missiles launched from anywhere in the world, and are both cheaper and more effective than their ground-based counterparts.

During Operation Desert Shield, it took the United States 6 months and 400 airlifts to put in place the Patriot interceptors that were used to shoot down some of the Iraqi Scuds. With space-based interceptors, coverage would be instanteous. Yet, all syste ms capable of accomplishing that mission have been zeroed. Zeroed, because using space for military purposes is politically unpopular.

This narrowmindedness and refusal to view space for what it is--the high frontier, boundless in opportunity--will have serious consequences for our future military successes. Like earlier forays into the air and the sea, the use of space will change the c ourse of warfare. It's already happening. The United States should not deny itself that capability.

The Ballistic Missile Defense Revitalization Act restores the focus of the BMD program to development and deployment of defenses capable of protecting a theater as well as the continental United States. This is an important step in establishing a firm bas is for a national response to the growing threat from Third World ballistic missiles.

In closing, I will note that 12 years of ballistic missile defense research has produced a series of successes. There is no longer any doubt that defense against ballistic missiles is feasible. It is my hope that the next few years of ballistic missile de fense research will achieve President Reagan's original goal--to make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. The moral imperative is, as President Reagan said, that it is better to save lives than to avenge them.