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NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997
(House of Representatives - May 14, 1996)

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Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank our distinguished chairman of the full committee for yielding me the time to talk in general about this bill and one of the major problems that I have with this administration when it comes to defense spending.

There have been a number of evidences, Mr. Chairman, of hypocrisy as we walk through the defense process that I want to talk about today. As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, it started last year when in a combined conference of the House and the Senate, we added approximately $7 billion to the authorization bill in the authorization process. We were severely criticized by the President and by Secretary Perry for putting money in that they said was not necessary, even though we put money in for such things as cruise missile defense, money in for pay raises for the military personnel, improving housing, qualify of housing initiatives for military personnel around the country, including money for countermine measures.

What really aggravated me, Mr. Chairman, was when Secretary Perry came before our committee, and I respect the gentleman and respect the position that he took last year that the add-ons that we made were unnecessary. But in presenting to use the flow charts that talked about how much money the Clinton administration was requesting for acquisition, what was interesting is that the line was bottomed out. Secretary Perry said to us in the committee, as you can see, there are no further cuts requested in terms of acquisition. In fact, the bottoming out has occurred and we are actually starting to increase.

Mr. Chairman, what the Secretary was doing was taking credit for money that we put in last year that he criticized us for. Mr. Chairman, we cannot have it both ways. If we really feel that we added too much money in, that is fine. I respect the gentleman if that is in fact his position. But do not come back this year and then take credit for that and say we have really done the service well in terms of maintaining the acquisition levels.

Now more specifically, Mr. Chairman, unlike many of my colleagues on this side, I opposed the B-2 bomber. I felt it was a technology that I like but we just cannot afford. The President railed about the B-2 bomber, said it was unnecessary. The conference put money in for the B-2, and what did the President do? He goes out to southern California to the areas where

the B-2 bomber is built and he stands up and says, I am going to build one more B-2 bomber. I am going to use the technology available to reconfigure one that we have left, one more platform to go to 20.

Obviously that is well received by all those workers. But then he goes on to say, and I am going to commission a study of deep-strike bomber capabilities. And oh, by the way, that study probably will not be out until after the November election.

Mr. Chairman, that is outrageous. If we are against the B-2 bomber, then we are against the B-2 bomber in Pennsylvania and in California, regardless of who we are talking to.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we added $7 billion last year. Much of that money has gone to pay for the missions that this President has assigned our troops, to Somalia, to Haiti, around the world. But what really aggravates me, Mr. Chairman, is that here is a President criticizing us for putting more money in but not willing to tell the American people that some of the money that is being asked to be reprogrammed is going to be used to train the Haitian police force. And it is going to be used for travel costs for the Haitian police force. Now, I have got some police in Philadelphia who could use some training, and I have got some police who could use some travel expenses. But the President does not want to talk about that because he asked for that money. He wants to use the money for those purposes that he feels are priorities that in my mind are not militarily significant.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is a good bill. We take the priorities that the Joint Chiefs have given us in terms of adding on additional dollars for key issues. Our troops in Bosnia need more money for countermine measures. Our troops around the world need more money and support for understanding a threat from chemical and biological weapons.

Mr. Chairman, let me really get to the heart of what this debate is all about. I read the veto message put out by the President where in the end, after saying he is going to veto the bill, he talks about the Nautilus program, the program that we are doing to help Israel. Mr. Chairman, I want our colleagues to listen to this, because this President went before AIPAC and he told AIPAC at their national convention, I urge my colleagues to read his statement, that he is committed to an agreement to expand our theater missile defense program so that we will have the ability to detect and destroy incoming missiles. That way Israel will not only have the advantage it needs today, but will be able to defeat the threats of tomorrow, which is basically the Nautilus program.

This President is all for it and so is Secretary Perry. But like every other defense priority, what did this President do, Mr. Chairman? When the funding requests were made, what we are talking about, the high energy laser program, which is in fact the Nautilus program, in fiscal year 1994, the Clinton budget was $4.8 million. This Congress put in $24.8 million. In fiscal year 1995, this President, who had the audacity to go before AIPAC and say I support you and the high energy laser program must go forward, asked for zero money. He zeroed the program out. Not one dime of money. Yet he is taking credit for that initiative in front of every person concerned about Israel's security across the world.

What did they ask for it this year before there was an incident of the Katyusha rockets being fired? They asked for $3 million, starvation of the program.

Mr. Chairman, the time for the demagoguery of this administration on defense spending has got to come to an end. This President can no longer get away with

saying one thing and doing something else, whether it is the Nautilus program, whether it is the B-2 bomber or whether it is missile defense.

Mr. Chairman, let me say we are not about tweaking Russia in this bill. In my conversations with key Russian leaders over the weekend with Senator Bill Bradley, we did not hear one word about missile defense. What do we hear in terms of jeopardizing the START II talks? We heard about this administration's plan to expand NATO. But we never hear the President talk about that, because that is a key priority. That is the only thing the Russians talked about the entire time we were there. In fact, I said to them, I have heard more about NATO expansion in 2 days than I have heard on the floor of the Congress in 2 years. But this administration does not talk about that, because it is not consistent with their position.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, under the leadership of this full committee chairman, we have reached out to the Russians in a way that has never been done before; $20 million of joint missile defense initiatives with the Russians so that we can continue the Ramos project, the Skipper project and do joint technology work. Under the leadership of this chairman, we have reached out to the Russians to show them that we want to work together.

Mr. Chairman, let me also say we are not going to be shortchanged by looking at a military leadership in Russia that was the same when it was the former Soviet Union. While democracy is occurring over there and economic reform and stability and hopefully the elections will turn out well next month, the military leadership is the same. Mr. Chairman, I would ask my colleagues if they would get a copy of what is called the Sirikov document, an internal document circulated among the Russian Ministry of Defense that shows some of the military thought about what their posture should be with the United States.

This is not my document, Mr. Chairman. This was circulated in the Russian media 2 short months ago. I had it translated. What does it say? It says that Russia should look at the United States militarily as a long-term adversary. That Russia should look at the United States in a way that allows them, if they are backed into a corner, to share technology and missile defense capability and offensive missile technology with Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

It further states that the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are rogue nations run by mafiosi. Mr. Chairman, that is the problem. We are not talking about Boris Yelstin. We are not talking about those leaders like Mr. Lukin who definitely want better relations. We are talking about a military that we still have to be prepared to deal with. I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

Mr. Chairman, we are committed to work with Russia. We are committed to work with the leaders. The current efforts that are being put forth by the Utah Russian Institute to establish a working relationship with those members of the Russian Duma who want us to work together cooperatively.

Under Speaker Gingrich's leadership we have established a new landmark process that will allow us for the first time to have the Speaker of the Russian Duma, Mr. Seleznyov and the Speaker of this Congress to come together twice a year where our Members who are interested in key issues can get to know their colleagues, both in the Russian Duma and in this American Congress.

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Mr. Chairman, what we are saying is we want to work with the Russians, we want to reach out to them, we want to share technology. But in the end we do not want to shortchange the American people. This administration will have us believe that arms control agreements are the end all and the cure all. I do not disagree with arms control agreements, but when I see the administration ignore a violation of the missile control technology regime, as they did in December, and not even call the Russians for it, when I see not even calling the Russians on a nuclear test that occurred in Nove Zamky, I wonder how we can say we base our relationship on arms control agreements when we do not want to call the Russians when they violate those same agreements.

What we are saying, Mr. Chairman, is we have a solid approach to work with the Russians, to show that we no longer live in a bipolar world, that we must, first of all, protect and defend the American people.

It is so ironic, Mr. Chairman, with all the rhetoric of the administration that both the Air Force and the Army have said they can give us an ABM Treaty compliant missile defense capability, not for the tens of billions of dollars that President Clinton cites in his veto message, but for between $2 and $5 billion.

These are the administration's leaders in the Pentagon who are telling us we can give the American people something they do not now have, and that is a protection against what? Five incoming missiles. What is so outrageous is that while we try to give the American people this protection, the Russians have had an operational ABM system for the past 20 years that protects 80 percent of their population.

Mr. Chairman, I ask our colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 9 1/2 minutes.

First, let me say, Mr. Chairman, that with respect to premature expansion of NATO I would tend to agree with the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon], but I would remind my colleague that in the context of H.R. 7, Contract for America, there was a great deal of very poignant, strident remarks with respect to the issue of the expansion of NATO, and it is slightly disingenuous to make that attack at this point when those remarks were contained in the Republican sponsored H.R. 7.

Second, I tried to listen very carefully to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon], who pointed out that they could purchase a missile, a national missile defense, from between $2 and $3 billion. That is not the missile defense system that is contained in the freestanding piece of legislation that will come to the floor over the next several days. As a matter of fact, as I understand it, the Congressional Budget Office, in costing the potential of the freestanding piece of legislation dealing with nationalistic defense, would more approximate $8 billion, and that is if we just keep it on the ground. If we go into space with Brilliant Pebbles, et cetera, we could be talking about a missile system well in excess of $30 billion, maybe approaching even $40 billion. So this $2 or $3 billion does not square with the reality.

Now, there are several comments that have been made during the course of this debate that I think we need to clarify. With respect to this so-called modernization crisis and the need for procurement, my colleagues on this side of the aisle plused up the procurement budget by $7.5 billion, an incredible amount of money. Now, their argument is that we had a procurement crisis, a modernization crisis. Mr. Chairman, the simple facts are as follows:

In the context of a post-cold-war environment we began to downsize our military force structure. In downsizing our military force structure after the $300 billion per year spending that characterized the 1980's, we had an incredible inventory of resources designed to serve a much larger force structure.

Now, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if we got inventory to support a force structure here and we are downsizing to a force structure here, that that excess inventory can handle this force structure. So for several years obviously

the procurement budget went down as we drew from these excesses in the inventory. The thought was that down the road, they ran back up as we move beyond this so-called procurement holiday, saving taxpayers billions of dollars. That was rational, that was calm, that was cogent, that was responsible. But we are adding $7.5 billion over and above all of that.

Next comment: We are now operating on the basis of the Bottom-Up Review that justifies a military budget to carry out two major regional contingencies. I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that that Bottom-Up Review was more a first cautious step away from the end of the cold war than it was a bold step into the future, and I asked Secretary Perry should the Bottom-Up Review be perceived as a dynamic living document and not a static document? His answer was, yes, that we are presently looking at the world through a glass darkly, and as we gain greater knowledge about the world, we must then begin to change the assumptions upon which we build a military budget.

I believe we are beginning to develop that kind of analysis. I have said over and over and continue to believe that there is much less chance that we would engage in some major regional war than it is we would be involved in the Somalias, the Haitis, the Rwandas, and the Bosnias of the world, activities other than war. But we are building a military budget to fight the last war. We still cling tenaciously to the notions of the cold war. Even one of my colleagues used an antiquated term like the far left. I thought we were beyond that, Mr. Chairman. The cold war is over.

Old labels make no sense. Old ideas make no sense. Old paradigms make no sense. We have to strip those labels, strip those ideas, strip those paradigms and come to the table intellectually honest enough to develop a military budget based on the realities of the emerging world, and we ought to be challenging each other intellectually, we ought to be challenging each other with respect to our fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayer. Spending $267 billion in the context of the cold war, post-cold-war, is obscene when we are challenging education budgets, welfare budgets, jobs budgets, health budgets and other budgets, finding money to balance the budget. But some kind of way we found $13 billion to build the military budget. Who are we afraid of in the world? Some Third World country?

When we fought in Desert Storm, the President told us we were fighting the fourth largest military in the world. The Soviet Union vanished. The Warsaw Pact evaporated. We were spending over 200 and some odd billion dollars per year to wage war, potentially wage war, on two entities that no longer exist.

Mr. Chairman, we do not need this military budget.

Finally, let me say this. I was hoping that we would come to this floor to explore the realities of what we ned in a post-cold-war environment. None of us could have anticipated this moment. Historians will decide who won the cold war and how it ended. I do not have time for that. It is real, it is here, it is now, and we must step up to the plate and address it.

I believe the end of the cold war allows us to develop a new national security strategy with three components: First, a healthy vibrant economy, which means that we invest in our people and we invest in our country, where we have an intelligent, enlightened, educated, informed, and well-trained society. Healthy, where we invest in technologies and research that enhance the quality of human life as we march into the 21st century at the end of the post-cold-war world, the end of the cold war.

The second element is a foreign policy based upon the notion that it is a heck of a lot more responsible to attempt to prevent war than it is to walk cocky into war. The problems of the world do not necessarily lend themselves to a military solution. The problems of the world are political and economic and social and cultural and need to be resolved in that context. We ought to be about prevention, political solution, dialog, sitting at the peace table.

Why have we produced peace in Bosnia? Because people came to the negotiating table. Diplomacy was the order of the day, not building more bombs and more missiles and more weapons so that we stride across the world prepared to wage war. The world has changed, and we must change with it.

The third element is a properly sized, properly trained, properly equipped military to meet the national security needs into the 21st century. I do not believe this budget does that. We have not taken the time to review the bottom-up review and come up with a new one if we do not think it works. We have not taken the time to sit down to develop a national security strategy so that our children and our children's children inherit a world that is indeed worthy of them.

That is why we are paid to be here, to grapple with each other, to debate beyond that, to think and to have the audacity to think new and to think fresh and to think boldly. But we are marching cautiously away from the cold war, funding weapon systems that we do not need.

In conclusion, we are doing it because of unemployment. We are doing it because we know that people work on these weapon systems, and I understand that. Each of us has to get up each day and pay our bills and pay our rent and educate our children, house our family. So I am not cavalier about jobs. But there is a better way to produce jobs in this country than for the military budget to be a jobs bill. Our strategy ought to be a strategy that embraces full employment, that embraces economic conversion, that invests in people and invests in our society, but not use the military budget because we lack the courage and lack the willingness to move boldly into the future.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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