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NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997

(Senate - June 28, 1996)

Mr. President, Napoleon is remembered for his military exploits, for the battles he fought and the death and destruction that resulted from his actions. But in the end, for all of his personal ambitions, was France any greater as a result of his militaristic acts? What great artists, what great musicians, and what great philosophers were killed in those battles, who might have benefitted all mankind? What monies spent on Napoleon's great armies might otherwise have built spiral, soaring cathedrals, beautiful parks, and stately roads, or fed and educated children? I fear that, like Napoleon, we are in danger of letting our ambitions and priorities become skewed so far in favor of military spending and military might in the pursuit of our role as `the last superpower' that we will be remembered in history only as

Napoleon is remembered, for acts of war rather than acts of progress.

Which reminds me of Robert G. Ingersoll's oration at the grave of Napoleon:

A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris--I saw him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tricolor in his hand--I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids----

I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo--at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to Elba.

I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands clasped behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

And I thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition.

And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun.

I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife at my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their loving arms about me--I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as `Napoleon the Great!'

So, Mr. President, like Ingersoll in his writing of that beautiful prose, captured my feelings as I watch what has been taking place over the last few years. I support a strong military, prepared and equipped to defend the United States and its genuine security interests abroad. But I am not so bedazzled by a military gilded and draped with a surfeit of unnecessary weapons--with trappings `fit almost for a dead deity'--that I cannot recall other priorities closer to home. I hold my family, and all American families, high on my list of priorities. I hope that in conference we will be able to rethink these spending priorities, to reduce the untimely procurement proposed in this bill, avoid a threatened veto, and produce a bill that balances our legitimate security requirements with our very critical domestic needs.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the Senate Armed Services Committee's national defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1997. I voted to report the bill out of the Armed Services Committee because I believe it should be openly debated on the Senate floor. I cannot support this bill in its current form as it contains significant and questionable spending increases from the original authorization requested by the Pentagon.

This bill recommends a total spending level for the Pentagon of $267.3 billion in fiscal year 1997, an extra $13 billion beyond everything the Pentagon requested for the year. In today's climate of budget cuts, Federal deficits, and balanced budget debate, it is irresponsible to spend an additional $13 billion on top of the Pentagon's budget request. It is a rare Government agency that is granted everything it asks for in its annual budget, and an additional allocation of $13 billion above and beyond its top request level is quite extreme. Balancing the budget is a priority for me. I do not believe that we can afford to spend this much money--especially when military experts question the need for it.

One example of this bill's overspending is the case of the F-16. The Department of Defense has planned to build four F-16's in fiscal year 1997. When asked what additional resources they might need related to the F-16 program, DOD responded that they ideally would like to have two more, for a total of six. The Senate Armed Services Committee somehow considered it prudent to provide an additional $107.4 million so that the Air Force may purchase a total of eight F-16's. This is a national defense bill, not a national jobs bill.

I am also puzzled by the committee's position on the funding of nuclear attack submarines. Although a full procurement plan was laid out by the committee in last year's defense authorization bill, this year's bill overrides that schedule and instead spends $701 million to accelerate the development of these submarines. Although some may assert that forcing production costs to occur earlier saves money, there is a point where acceleration of production actually costs more money in the long run. If engineers are not provided enough time to work out the bugs of a new design before building phase II of the same vehicle, cost overruns are likely to occur. There are sound reasons why we take time when developing a new combat vehicle, and to suggest that speeding up production saves money is not always the case.

Some of the most dangerous provisions in this bill are in the section on ballistic missile defense. The Senate has already considered alternative ballistic missile defense policy this year in the Defend America Act. It is clear that there is not overwhelming support for an acceleration of a ballistic missile defense system.

The President vetoed last year's defense authorization bill because it mandated deployment of a national missile defense system. The administration's current deployment policy is a 3+3 program which continues research for 3 years--into fiscal year 1999--and allows a decision to be made at that time to deploy a national missile defense system in 3 years or to continue research if the perceived threat does not warrant deployment. The committee has added $300 million to the national missile defense accounts in an effort to make sure that a

system is deployable by 2003. Since the administration has not changed its position on reviewing deployment in 3 years, for the committee to suggest that deployment is needed in 3 years is beyond the previous mandate of the Senate and equivalent to asking for a veto from the President.

It is not just the ballistic missile defense policy questions that I would call into question. The committee has added $856 million to the Pentagon's $2.8 billion request for funding the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization [BMDO]. The committee boosts star wars funding by adding $40 million to the requested $7.4 million for the Applied Interceptor Technology Program; by adding $70 million to the requested $30 million for the space-based laser; by adding $140 million to the requested $482 million for the theater high altitude area defense system; and by adding $246 million to the requested $58.2 million for the Navy upper tier system. These aggressive funding increases clearly accelerate development of the star wars initiative far beyond what the Pentagon had requested; this additional level of spending is almost unfathomable in an age of fiscal austerity.

In addition, this bill contains language that would impede efforts the President is making to abide by the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. The ABM Treaty was originally negotiated in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union; since the breakup of the Soviet Union, President Clinton has been trying to determine how the treaty can still apply to the independent states now replacing the former Soviet Union. The committee states that `* * * the United States shall not be bound by any international agreement entered into by the President that would add one or more countries to the ABM Treaty or would otherwise convert the treaty from a bilateral to a multilateral treaty, unless the agreement is entered pursuant to the treaty making power under the Constitution.' The administration has expressed serious reservations with this language. If this language is adopted, Russians will have ample reason to believe that the United States no longer intends to abide by the provisions of the ABM Treaty and would likely become reluctant to negotiate any further nuclear weapon reductions.

Mr. President, we really ought to think twice before we vote on this bill. With an extra $13 billion in increased spending levels and substantive changes in ballistic missile defense policy, I do not feel comfortable supporting it. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

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AMENDMENT NO. 4420

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Strom Thurmond and my distinguished colleague from Alabama, Senator Howell Heflin.

Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished chairman and my fellow Alabamian.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I too would be happy to enter into a colloquy with my friends from Alabama.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. Chairman, I disagree with premise of Senator Conrad's sense of the Senate amendment regarding the Air Force's National Missile Defense proposal. The program would violate the ABM Treaty and perhaps even the START I Treaty, the cornerstone of nuclear arms reduction. I certainly hope that the committee's acceptance of this sense of Senate amendment does not constitute an endorsement of this highly questionable program.

Mr. HEFLIN. I agree with Senator Shelby that the Air Force program is a bad idea. It is dead-end technology that would leave us with a system of extremely limited capability and no growth potential to meet a changing threat. I, too, hope that the committee has not expressed an endorsement by accepting this amendment.

Mr. THURMOND. The committee does not specifically endorse the Air Force proposal. I strongly support the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's existing National Missile Defense program which includes the ground based interceptor, ground based radar and the Space and Missile Tracking System. I agree that this proposal presents a number of serious questions regarding arms control implications and potential future growth. The committee supports the need to have a serious examination of these questions before any significant amount of funding is directed to further evaluating the Air Force Proposal.

Mr. SHELBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for addressing our concerns.

Mr. SHELBY. Thank you, Mr. President.