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Mr. LEVIN. Now, on ballistic missile defense , I want to focus on these provisions just a little longer because they are so significant to our security and because the provisions in the conference report are such a departure from what the Senate has alrea dy adopted by a wide margin. The ballistic missile defense provisions alone warrant a veto, and the President has said that he will veto this bill, in part because of the ballistic missile defense provisions. The conference report before us contains the following provisions that are unacceptable. These are some of the unacceptable provisions.

First, `It is the policy of the United States * * * to deploy a National Missile Defense System.'

Second, the conference report mandates that the national missile defense system `shall achieve an initial operational capability by the end of 2003.'

Those are the words in the conference report. So it would commit us to deploy a system and to do so by the year 2003, and both of those commitments are significantly different from what we decided to do in the Senate and what we did in the Senate on a very strong, bipartisan vote. In the Senate bill, which was the result of literally weeks of effort, discussions and negotiations, what we said we would do would be to develop, so that later on we could determine whether or not to deploy, a national missi le defense system. We did not set the date for the initial operating capability, the IOC. What we said is that Congress would, prior to any decision to deploy, participate in the decision as to whether or not we would deploy that system.

In the making the decision, we could take many things into consideration which we now do not know. What would be the cost of such a system? How militarily effective would it be? What would the threat be at that time? What would the impact be on United States-Russian relations, including the impact on the ABM Treaty? And what would the prospects be at the deployment decision point after this were developed for that purpose--what would the impact be on the antiballistic missile agreement?

All those things, critical security issues involving relationships with the other country that has a larger number of nuclear weapons, including the military effectiveness, including what the cost would be, including what the threat would be, all of th ose critical items of information not now available would be available at the time a decision were made later whether or not to deploy the missile defense system.

In order to put ourselves in a position where we could make that decision on an intelligent basis, we would develop a national missile defense system. What this conference report does is it makes it the policy of the United States to deploy and to dep loy by a particular year, regardless of what the threat might be at the time when we are in a position to deploy,

regardless of how much it costs us at that point, regardless what the impact is on United States-Russian relations, regardless of whether or not it destroys the START II agreement under which thousands of nuclear warheads are being dismantled.

This conference report, in that regard, it seems to me, not only jeopardizes our security but violates some basic common sense.

The Foreign Relations Committee just reported out by a unanimous vote a strong resolution on ratification of the START II agreement.

That START II agreement, which we are going to be voting on in the Senate in the next few days, can achieve the reduction of thousands of nuclear warheads that otherwise do provide a horrific threat to the United States. It is clearly in our security interests to secure those reductions in nuclear weapons which for decades threatened our security. It is clearly in our interest to eliminate some of the most dangerous nuclear systems from the cold war era.

About 4,000 Russian nuclear warheads would be eliminated so they will never become a threat to us again. Then, we will not have to rely on a ballistic missile defense system to shoot down that number of Russian warheads in flight, but, rather, those w arheads would be eliminated, removed from their weapons systems, dismantled, and the nuclear material disposed of. They will never be part of an arsenal which can threaten us. That is a security guarantee that no ballistic missile defense system could ev er achieve at any cost.

So, eliminating nuclear weapons, thousands of nuclear warheads under arms control treaties like START II is cost effective, it is certain, it guarantees an enhancement to our security, unlike the effort to build a defensive shield against those missil es , particularly if the commitment to build such a defense would violate a treaty that is essential for the passage of the START II Treaty in Russia.

We have been told directly by Russian parliamentarians, we have been told by the Russian Government, that if we jeopardize the ABM Treaty, if we threaten to deploy a system in violation of an agreement which has provided security to both sides and whic h they feel is significant to them, that it is unlikely they will ratify the START II agreement in their legislative body, their Duma.

We have been told that. We read about it, but we also have been told personally by Russian parliamentarians that if we jeopardize the ABM Treaty, we cannot expect them to ratify the START II agreement which will reduce the number of nuclear weapons if they are going to have to face defenses , if they ever were in a position where they were attacked and felt they had to use these weapons. That is what the ABM Treaty is all about. Whether you like the ABM Treaty or you do not like the ABM Treaty, or whet her we should modify it through negotiations or not modify it through negotiations in order to permit the deployment of a defensive system, what seems very likely--and I will say factual, or almost certainly factual--is that that Russian Duma is not goin g to reduce the number of their weapons and not ratify START II if we commit ourselves to deploy a defensive system.

We have been trying to get the START II Treaty voted on in this body prior to the time the Senate adjourns for the year. Many of us have actively sought to get the START II Treaty on the floor of this Senate for a vote this week. I think we are going t o succeed. The majority leader has made a commitment that we will vote on the ratification of START II. I believe that commitment is that he will bring that agreement, that treaty to the floor this week, prior to adjournment, if my memory serves me correc tly.

This was after a long delay where the treaty languished in the Foreign Relations Committee for a number of unrelated reasons. This is a Christmas gift to this Nation, if we can ratify START II.

We could reduce by thousands the weapons in the inventory of each side if we could just get START II ratified here and if we can get it ratified there. I am confident that the Senate is going to give its advice and consent to ratify the START II Treaty because it is so clearly in our national interest to do so. But if we ratify here and the Russians do not ratify it because at the same time we are ratifying START II, we are threatening the ABM Treaty's existence through this conference report language which says we will deploy--and it is the policy of the United States to deploy--a system which violates the treaty which they believe is essential in order for them to reduce the number of weapons in their inventory, we are doing two inconsistent things i n the same week: We would be ratifying START II here but jeopardizing the ratification of START II over in Russia.

As Senator Nunn has pointed out, the provisions on the National Missile Defense that are in this conference report were beyond the scope of any legislation that was passed by the House or the Senate. Both the House and the Senate in thei r defense authorization bill passed language which contains ballistic missile defense provisions, but they are not the provisions in the conference report.

The Senate bill had provisions that were carefully crafted after a great deal of hard work by a bipartisan group of negotiators. Again, the Senate bill said that we would develop a system--we would develop a system with emphasis on the word `develop'-- for deployment and that Congress would have a chance to review the program prior to a decision to deploy it--emphasis on the words `prior to' and `decision to deploy.'

In that review by Congress, we would look at cost, operational effectiveness, the threat on the implications of the ABM Treaty and on United States-Russian relations. Our Senate bill also said that the program should be conducted in conformance with th e ABM Treaty. That package was accepted by the Senate by a vote of 85 to 13. Only one Republican voted against it. The majority leader voted for it. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee voted for it. Every Republican but one, the senior Senator fr om New Hampshire, voted for that conference report. We got a product that was supported by a large majority of this body and by the President.

I was one of the four negotiators. We reviewed every word in that negotiated product very, very carefully. It took, as I mentioned, weeks--offers, counter offers, debate, and exchanges of documents. We finally came up with a compromise. Eighty-five Sen ators voted for it.

What happened in conference is that, first, the majority leader wrote a letter saying that he supported language which would require us to deploy. That certainly was, I think, almost unprecedented--that the majority leader who picked the negotiators, o r, at least, if he did not pick each negotiator, was the one that urged we go down that road to negotiations, and then voted for the negotiated product, but then after the negotiated product was adopted by the Senate wrote a letter to the conferees saying , do not support the product of the U.S. Senate and instead require the deployment of a missile system.

I was very disappointed, and not just about the authority view on the conferees in deciding that they were going to commit themselves to deploy, but I was frankly disappointed in our majority leader in writing that letter to the chairman of the Armed S ervices Committee stating that the conference must result in a commitment to deploy the ballistic missile defense system and to mandate a deployment of a multisite BMD system by the year 2003.

Many times during these negotiations and discussions in conference, Senator Nunn urged that the best basis for reaching an agreement with the House would be to start with a Senate-passed bipartisan compromise, but those suggestions wer e not accepted.

That is how we ended up where we are with this bill. It contains some provisions that are totally unacceptable to, I think, almost all of the Democrats and I believe also to some Republicans about the ballistic missile defense requiring deployment of a system of unknown cost, unknown impact on United States-Russian relations, unknown military effectiveness, and requiring deployment of that kind of a system by the year 2003 against the threat which our intelligence community does not even believe will materialize at least in this decade.

Mr. President, I ask at this time that the full statement of administration policy dated December 15 be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET,
Washington, DC.
Statement of Administration Policy.

[Page: S18799]

(This statement has been coordinated by OMB with the concerned agencies.) December 15, 1995 (Senate)

H.R. 1530--National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 Conference Report.

Senators Thurmond (R) SC and Nunn (D) GA.

If the Conference Report on H.R. 1530 were presented to the President in its current form, the President would veto the bill.

The Conference Report on H.R. 1530, filed on December 15, 1995, would restrict the Administration's ability to carry out our national security objectives and implement key Administration programs. Certain provisions also raise serious constitutional is sues by restricting the President's powers as Commander-in-Chief and foreign policy powers.

The bill would require deployment by 2003 of a costly missile defense system to defend the U.S. from a long-range missile threat which the Intelligence Community does not believe will ever materialize in the coming decade. By forcing an unwarranted a nd unnecessary National Missile Defense (NMD) deployment decision now, the bill would needlessly incur tens of billions of dollars in missile defense costs and force the Department of Defense (DOD) prematurely to lock into a specific technological opti on. In addition, by directing that the NMD be `operationally effective' in defending all 50 states (including Hawaii and Alaska), the bill would likely require a multiple-site NMD architecture that cannot be accommodated within the terms of the ABM Treaty as now written. By setting U.S. policy on a collision course with the ABM Treaty, the bill puts at risk continued Russian implementation of the START I Treaty and Russian ratification of START II, two treaties which together
will reduce the number of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads by two-thirds from Cold War levels, significantly lowering the threat to U.S. national security.

The bill also imposes restrictions on the President's ability to conduct contingency operations that are essential to the national interest. The restrictions on funding to commence a contingency operations and the requirement to submit a supplemental r equest within a certain time period to continue an operation are unwarranted restrictions on the authority of the President. Moreover, by requiring a Presidential certification to assign U.S. Armed Forces under United Nations (UN) operational or tactical control, the bill infringes on the President's constitutional authority.

In addition, the Administration has serious concerns about the following: onerous certification requirements for the use of Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction funds, as well as subcaps on specified activities and elimination of funding for the Def ense Enterprise Fund; restrictions on the Technology Reinvestment Program; restrictions on retirement of U.S. strategic delivery systems; restrictions on DOD's ability to executive disaster relief, demining, and military-to-military contract programs; di rected procurement of specific ships at specific shipyards without a valid industrial base rationale; provisions requiring the discharge of military personnel who are HIV-positive; restrictions on the ability of the Secretary of Defense to manage DOD eff ectively, including the abolition of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation; and finally the Administration continues to object to the restrictions on the a bility of female service members or dependents from obtaining privately funded abortions in U.S. military hospitals abroad.

While the bill is unacceptable to the Administration, there are elements of the authorization bill which are beneficial to the Department, including important changes in acquisition law, new authorities to improve military housing, and essential pay ra ises for military personnel. The Administration calls on the Congress to correct the unacceptable flaws in H.R. 1530 so that these beneficial provisions may be enacted. The President especially calls on the Congress to provide for pay raises and cost of l iving adjustments for military personnel prior to departure for the Christmas recess.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, a portion of that statement of administration policy says the following in opposition to the conference report:

The bill would require deployment by 2003 of a costly missile defense system to defend the U.S. from a long-range missile threat which the Intelligence Community does not believe will ever materialize in the coming decade. By forcing an unwarranted a nd unnecessary National Missile Defense deployment decision now, the bill would needlessly incur tens of billions of dollars in missile defense costs and force the Department of Defense prematurely to lock into a specific technological option. In addit ion, by directing that the National Missile Defense be `operationally effective' in defending all 50 States, the bill would likely require a multi-site National Missile Defense architecture that cannot be accommodated within the terms of the ABM Treaty as now written. By setting U.S. policy on a collision course with the ABM Treaty, the bill puts at risk continued Russian implementation of the START I Treaty and Russian ratification of START II, two treaties which together will reduce the number of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads by two-thirds from Cold War levels, significantly lowering the threat to U.S. national security.

CONCLUSION

Mr. President, on no set of issues is bipartisan cooperation more important than in the area of national security. We need not all agree on every issue, but we must strive to work together in a bipartisan spirit. We have a broad spectrum of views on th e House and Senate Armed Services Committees, but we have a long history of working together, across party lines to try to put together the best bill we can. Regrettably, the conference this year fell short of that objective both in process and in spirit. Too many of these contentious issues were left to only majority staff of the two committees to hash out, and months passed without resolution. By that time, the defense , military construction, and energy and water appropriations bills had been passed an d enacted. I urge the leadership of both the House and Senate committees to reexamine what transpired and accelerate the learning process so that next year, and I stand ready to work with them to try to restore the tradition of cooperation on the Defense authorization bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

. . .

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The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.

Mr. BUMPERS. On the defense authorization bill, I was very pleased to listen last week to a man whom I believe is probably the most respected man in the United States on defense issues. He and I have had very serious disagreements, particularly about t he size of defense spending. But I have never really questioned his motives, his intellect, or his understanding of the defense issues. Yet he stood on the floor last Friday and said he fully intended to vote against this defense authorization bill. That was Sam Nunn, the distinguished Senator from Georgia.

He gave a lot of reasons, not the least of which was this so-called national missile defense system.

Somehow or other, the people in this body simply cannot give up on the Soviet Union. Our defense policies and our State Department policies for as long as the memory of man runneth not, has been keyed to that terrible evil empire of the Soviet Union. W e have spent tens and hundreds of billions--trillions, really, because we were so frightened of the military might of the Soviet Union.

Interestingly, 2 weeks ago we learned that a lot of our defense spending and a lot of our policies were based on misinformation given to us by spies for the Soviet Union who were feeding us disinformation about how powerful the Soviet Union was, and it played right into the hands of the defense industries and the hawks of this country, and we spent trillions of dollars. That is one of the reasons we are in the pickle we are in with a $5 trillion debt we are trying to do something about.

Now we come back, because we still cannot give up on that anti-Soviet mentality, and we say we want a national ballistic missile defense system in place by the year 2003 that will protect all 50 States. There is not any doubt, and neither the chairman nor the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee would refute, that that is going to require multiple antiballistic missile sites.

And when you start talking about multiple sites, you are talking about a direct abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, one of the very few treaties we still have in existence with the Soviet Union, now Russia. It says that neither country will deploy a strategic antiballistic missile system at more than one site in its own territory.

I engaged Senator Nunn in a colloquy on this subject Friday afternoon, and asked him if this is not a legislative abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Senator Nunn very wisely answered in language that all l awyers understand. He said it constitutes an anticipatory breach. What that means is, once we deploy more than one site, we have in fact abrogated the treaty.

Colleagues, let me ask you a question. How would we react if the Russians were to announce today, as we sit here debating this bill, that they are going to deploy a national missile defense system that will have many sites? I promise you that all 100 S enators would be on the floor squealing like a pig under a gate. And you would hear, `There they go again. You cannot trust them.' Yet, here we cavalierly get ready to spend billions on a national missile defense system which will abrogate a treaty that i s in the interest of the Russians, the United States, and all the people of the world.

I ask you this: To add to the question, what if the Russians were doing this, what would our response be? It would be to start deploying one as quickly as we could. And you tell me when the ABM Treaty is gone and the Russians and the United States both have national missile defense systems, who do you think is better off? I can tell you nobody is better off, and the world becomes again a very dangerous place living with a hair trigger.

The Russians are right now in the process of complying with START I. And they are complying with it by dismantling nuclear weapons. They, like the United States, are prepared to consider the ratification of START II which will cut nuclear weapons still further. Do you think if we go ahead with this national missile defense system the Russians are going to ratify START II? Of course, they are not. If we are going to deploy a system that will shoot down their missiles, they are not going to keep dismantl ing missiles. They are not stupid. They know exactly what is going on.

So I am going to vote against this bill because it costs too much money, because the national missile defense plan envisioned in it is dangerous in the extreme, and because we are putting $493 million more into the B-2 program. . . .