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Mr. INHOFE. I thank the distinguished Senator from South Carolina for yielding to me and for the fine job that he has done in preparation on his committee of the Department of Defense authorization bill. It has been a very difficult and arduous time that we have had in trying to get this done with objections from the White House every step of the way.

Since the beginning of our country's history, national security has been our Government's most solemn obligation to its citizens. In order to honor this obligation, sufficient resources must be given to the forces that protect us. These forces do not ask much of us for their service. But they do need a certain amount of support from their Government in order to carry out their duties and protect the security of the United States as well as maintain our status as the world's preeminent military power.

In order to allow our military to honor their sworn duty, we have to provide them with the means to do many things. We must give them the authority to retain ample manpower in the form of adequate end strengths. Our military must have the means to recruit high-quality personnel to carry us into the 21st century. In addition, in order to keep our high-quality personnel, and protect the high quality of life which is so important in maintaining morale, we must provide them with equitable pay and benefits--including a 3-percent pay raise to protect against inflation--and appropriate levels of funding for the construction and maintenance of troop billets and military family housing.

We must keep the sword sharp by providing enough resources to maintain current readiness, and to continue modernization efforts to provide the capabilities needed for future wars. Our military must also be given the means to field the type and quantity of weapons systems and equipment needed to fight and win battles decisively, with minimal risk to our troops, just as they did in the gulf war.

An important lesson learned in the gulf war was that we need to be able to protect our troops from ballistic missiles , missiles that are capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. Whether it is nuclear, chemical, or biological, we must protect our forces while they are in the field and we must protect their families at home. The way we do this is through the development and deployment of missile defense systems: land- and sea-based theater missile defense systems, which can protect U.S. and allied forces against cruise and ballistic missiles while deployed in the field; and a national missile defense system to defend America itself.

The missile defense funding authorized in this bill is not sufficient to put in place the robust system I would like to see. It is a life support program, designed to keep as much of our program viable until a Republican President is elected. At that point, we will be able to move more aggressively toward building a national missile defense system, just as the American people expect us to.

We know that most Americans think we have a missile defense capability, and we know that they are outraged and frightened when they learn that we do not. They hear the administration cite intelligence estimates to justify waiting and waiting on missile defense . But any American who witnessed Pearl Harbor in 1941, or the invasion of South Korea in 1950, or the invasion of Kuwait in 1990--and that's most of us, Mr. President--knows that intelligence estimates are wrong as often as they are right, and that even good intelligence gets misread by political leaders. I would rather have a defense and hope my intelligence was correct than have complete faith in intelligence; the Clinton administration apparently disagrees.

I am particularly concerned by this emphasis on future threats because the administration uses it to justify doing nothing. They say that the missile threat isn't here yet. But isn't defense all about getting out in front of threats? And what about the technology that threatens us today? Russia and China have missiles --in the case of Russia, thousands of missiles --which could be accidentally fired at us today.

More than 20 other nations are developing the technology. Terrorists and rogue nations, with enough money and some perseverance, will buy their way into the nuclear club. And until we get a missile defense system in place, there will be nothing we can do about it.

Missile defense is complex. Sophisticated defense technology is seldom produced precisely on schedule. This is why we need to start now. We will have a national missile defense system; the question is whether or not it will be before or after the first time we need it.

I have spoken about what we must provide for our military. I would also like to point out what burdens we should remove from them. We can eliminate defense spending that does not contribute directly to the national security of the United States; such as policing of the Olympic games. More importantly, we should stand back and evaluate U.S. involvement in nontraditional military operations, and its impact on combat readiness, budgeting, and our national interests. Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti; these and other police actions--some of them going on today--drain defense funds and put a strain on personnel who are already being stretched beyond their breaking point.

In this part of our foreign policy, mistakes have certainly been bipartisan. George Bush, a Republican President, began the Somalia commitment. It took a humiliating defeat and the deaths of 18 Rangers in Mogadishu for us to learn about the limits of that humanitarian operation. Operations in Bosnia will have cost American taxpayers more than $3.5 billion in defense dollars if our troops leave by December. I say `if' because neither I nor anyone else in this body believes we will be out of Bosnia by December. The American people were truly deceived by the administration on this commitment.

I went to Bosnia last November, before the IFOR mission began, and I watched experienced U.N. and NATO leaders laugh at the idea that we would be through in Bosnia after 1 year. One U.N. commander, General Huakland of Norway, said that involvement in Bosnia was like putting your hand in water--when you take it out, nothing is different. If the administration intends to keep troops in Bosnia longer, they owe it to us and to the American people to say so before our Presidential election. But I do not expect them to shoot straight on this, either.

Some people, it seems, never seem to see a breaking point for our military. They say we are spending enough on defense . I have criticized the administration's defense priorities, but I am also dismayed by some of the voices I have heard in this chamber. I cannot believe that some of my colleagues believe their own antidefense rhetoric. Let me examine some of the most common attacks on this responsible defense budget that I've heard recently, four arguments that we hear over and over and over again:

First: `This is money the Pentagon has not asked for.' My liberal friends make this statement as if they believe that the defense budget request is decided by admirals and generals based on what they need to fight and win wars. In fact, because each of the services and the Department of Defense itself is run by administration-appointed civilians, the Pentagon's budget request is based on the administration's priorities. It is then modified by Congress, just like every other Government agency's budget.

It is the Congress' constitutional responsibility to review and either increase or decrease this and all department budgets based on our view of the Nation's needs. Congress never blindly accepts the Pentagon budget request. When the Reagan administration asked for increases in the defense budget in the 1980's, my liberal colleagues never suggested that the Congress accept them without argument. That is exactly the kind of argument we're having today--the President thinks we should continue to cut defense sharply, and we disagree. It is our view that military spending has been cut too deeply and is well below the minimum required for a sound national defense .

The fact is that the real Pentagon agrees with us. This year the four service chiefs, in a public repudiation of the administration, made it clear that they need $20 billion a year more in procurement funding than what the Clinton administration has requested. Each warned of the dire consequences of the continued aging of their weapons and equipment. So when we consider `what the Pentagon asked for,' I intend to listen to the chiefs who have made a career of preparing for war, not the President's political appointees.

Second: `This budget focuses on the wrong threats.' Of course there are growing unconventional threats to the United States and her citizens, including terrorism and information warfare. In fact, some of our additional spending on R & D is going toward programs such as counter proliferation support and chemical and biological defense . But we should not be forced to choose which threat to remain exposed to--as we address these new threats, we have to still be prepared for conventional warfare.

I urge my colleagues to remember that defense spending is not an investment, but an insurance policy. And we need different kinds of insurance. Their odds of having a car accident may be far greater than the odds that their house will burn down, but most Americans have both car and fire insurance. This same logic underlies our continued readiness on conventional threats even as we prepare for the unconventional threats of the future.

Third: `Why buy advanced weapons when American weapons are already the best in the world?' It is true that American weapons are the best in the world today. But as threats evolve and weapons technology throughout the world improves, we must stay ahead. When we go to war, we don't want a fair fight--we want to overwhelm the enemy with speed, stealth, and lethality. This costs money, but what is our alternative? To ask our troops to get closer to the enemy, to expose themselves more to enemy fire, to fight longer and harder in order to win?

We need look no further than the gulf war. We sent a half-million troops to the other side of the world, where they won a major land war in less than 100 hours of ground combat. We suffered 146 killed and 354 wounded in that war, and mourned each and every one of them. But how many more would we have lost if we had not invested billions in the 1980's in stealthy aircraft, cruise missiles , Aegis ships, and advanced land combat systems? We bought those weapons in the 1980's at a time when we also had the most technologically advanced force in the world, and many opponents of the Reagan budgets criticized those purchases. In the end, I would argue that President Bush was very lucky to fight his war with Ronald Reagan's military. I often wonder how a future President will feel about fighting a war with Bill Clinton's military.

Fourth: `We spend far more on defense than other countries.' Of course we spend more money on defense than other countries. But there are two problems with this comparison: it assumes that all countries are equal, and it suggests that the comparison between how much the United States spends versus other nations, accurately predicts which side will prevail in conflict.

But because of geography, all things aren't equal. We are separated from our potential enemies by two great oceans. And rather than fighting wars in our own backyard, Americans prefer to fight over there. Because we prefer to fight abroad, it will naturally cost us much more than it costs our enemies to field the same force, since we have to transport, sustain, and operate our fighting force in a place where the enemy already is.

Each of these activities--moving, sustaining, and fighting far away--increases the cost of our military without significantly changing the friendly-to-enemy force ratio. This cost is raised further if we want to field a force that is not just equivalent to our enemy's, but one that can defeat his force with minimal casualties, just as we did in the gulf war. The question, therefore, is not whether we will be paying more for our Armed Forces than our enemy does, but rather how much more we must pay. Is the right number three times as much, as with Russia, or more?

More than 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu said you should have five times the strength of an enemy to assure success. Well, there have been some changes in warfare since Sun Tzu's time. We now have tanks, and planes, and submarines, so the ratio has changed a little. And we can stand here and argue until we are blue in the face over what the proper force level is; two times, three times, five times as much as the other guy. But the cost of our unique geography makes any comparison between what we pay and what our enemies pay irrelevant. The point is: if you want to fight over there, and win, decisively, with minimal losses, then you can expect to pay many times what the enemy pays for his military. So this argument is cruel and invalid.

Now, the people who make these and other statements about this defense bill are smart. They know that we must cross our oceans to fight. They know that what we consider defense spending may not be what our enemies consider defense spending: First, there is the high cost of our high-quality volunteer military: recruiting, paying, providing medical care, and retirement. Many people don't realize it, but two-thirds of our defense budget is spent on paying people. Then there is the cost of supporting our world-wide surveillance network, our nuclear deterrent and so on. They know these costs are unique to the United States but they choose to ignore it in their arguments. Why? Because it supports their view of proper levels of defense spending. We can disagree about what it takes to field a given capability, but we should drop these invalid comparisons and deal with the facts.

As we prepare to vote on the fiscal year 1997 Defense bill, I am truly concerned about the effects that decreasing levels of defense spending have had upon our armed forces. If the general public fully understood the severity of defense cuts under the Clinton administration, they would be outraged. In my State of Oklahoma, I have heard this message already. We can see the cuts all around us and it is time to put these reckless defense cuts to an end. History has demonstrated that superpower status cannot be sustained cheaply, nor can it be sustained by budget requests which do not provide for adequate funding of our forces. I am committed to maintaining America's superpower status, just as I am convinced that the Clinton administration is not.

I was deeply disappointed by the administration's fiscal year 1997 budget request for defense spending. The administration's fiscal year 1997 budget request was $18.6 billion less in real terms than the level enacted for fiscal year 1996.

In real terms, since the end of World War II, there have only been 5 years that the United States has spent less than the Clinton administration is recommending for fiscal year 1997. Only in fiscal year 1947, fiscal year 1948, fiscal year 1949, fiscal year 1950, those years immediately following World War II, and fiscal year 1955 immediately after the Korean war, has defense spending been less than the President's recommendation for this year. Not even during the hollow force years of the 1970s, when we could not afford spare parts to keep our equipment running, have we spent so little on defense . Clearly, it is the responsibility of Congress to address these shortcomings.

Now we know that events in the Persian Gulf over the past several days have gotten President Clinton's attention. He appears to have reversed his earlier threat to veto this bill. But I wonder if he has considered the deeper ramifications of Saddam Hussein's recent activity. This latest round of cruise missiles has reminded me of two basic facts. One, of course, is that the Persian Gulf, like many other regions, remains a very unstable place. The second is that we must be prepared to project power on the other side of the world on very short notice.

It is one thing to throw a few cruise missiles at easily identified desert targets. But what if more is required? What if the missiles do not stop Saddam's advance? Then we are right back where we were in 1990--we must build up a force, move it to the gulf, and fight Saddam Hussein the old fashioned way, of course with overwhelming firepower, but also perhaps man to man and tank to tank.

My friends, should this worst-case scenario arise, we will have a problem. Why? Because, in terms of military strength, we are not right back where we were in 1990. In fact, we aren't even close. Listen carefully! We fought Desert Storm with 11 Army divisions plus two larger Marine divisions, 10 Air Force tactical fighter wings, and 6 carriers, and 100 ships from the Navy. We drew this Desert Storm force from an Army with 28 divisions, an Air Force with 38 tactical fighter wings, and a Navy with 15 carriers and 566 ships.

But look at today's numbers: instead of 28 Army divisions in 1991, we have just 15 today; instead of 38 Air Force wings, we have 20 today; and instead of 566 ships and 15 carriers, our Navy has roughly 350 ships and 12 carriers today. This means, for example, that while we used about 42 percent of the Army's combat power in 1991, we would use more than 70 percent today. So what would we fight a second war with?

It only gets worse--these comparisons assume that the administration's budgets will hold our forces at today's levels. But most outside analysis--General Accounting Office, Heritage Foundation--shows that the Clinton 5-year budget plan is more than $150 billion short of the amount needed to buy the force level that the President himself says is necessary. This is worse than a difference of opinion over priorities--this mismatch between what we say we will do and what we actually can do is dangerous. It undermines confidence among our allies, invites miscalculation by the Saddam Husseins of the world, and gives the American people a false sense of security. No government should do this.

It is our duty, as U.S. Senators, to do our part in providing for our national security. In doing our part, we must vote for a defense bill which gives our military the means to do their part. Our forces do not ask much of us for their service, but they do need a certain amount of support from their Government in order to carry out their duties and protect the security of the United States of America.

I feel it is time we take a more responsible approach to defending this Nation. I urge my colleagues to make a good start, by supporting the fiscal year 1997 DOD authorization bill and its attempt to slow the administration's deep cuts to our Nation's military modernization. Even this level of funding is inadequate; however, it is the best we will be able to do until we have a President who remembers that his first responsibility is not to try to change Americans' behavior with gimmicks in the tax code, but to protect their lives, liberty, and property from threats around the globe.

As inadequate as it is, we must pass this defense authorization bill. It is the best we can get until we change Presidents.

I yield the floor.

Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I wish to commend the able Senator from Oklahoma for the excellent remarks he just made here on the floor of the Senate on this bill. The Senator from Oklahoma is a member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, and a very valuable member. He has made outstanding contributions to our defense on that committee. Again, I commend him.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Defense authorization bill we have before us. I think it is an important step as we consider the appropriations bills that are left before us. I want to specifically commend the leadership of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond, the chairman, Senator Nunn, the ranking member, for bringing this bill to us.

I also want to specifically thank Senator McCain who worked on the floor during Senate consideration of the authorization bill on both my amendment on B-52's and on my national missile defense amendment.

I also want to commend those retiring members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Bill Cohen, the chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee, announced he was not running for reelection. Senator Cohen will be missed here in the U.S. Senate. He has always been somebody who is respected on both sides of the aisle, someone who many of us look to for leadership not only on defense issues but others as well.

Senator Exon of Nebraska, who is the ranking member on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, and the former chairman of that subcommittee, has announced that he is retiring. And he, too, will be sorely missed in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle. And, of course, Senator Nunn, the ranking member and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who has achieved respect not only in this Chamber but across the country as well as a defense expert.

I think we should also recognize the outstanding staffs that have worked on this legislation. I want to single out Les Brownlee, the majority staff director, Eric Thoemmes, also on the majority side who was very important in working with us on the amendments that I have talked about, minority staff director Arnold Punaro, and minority strategic forces expert Bill Hoehn. All of them we worked closely with in the development of this legislation. We appreciate their outstanding service to the committee, to the Senate, and to the country.

Mr. President, I cannot help but respond to some of what I heard from my colleague from Oklahoma. I am supporting this Defense authorization bill. I think it is the right course to take. But I must say, we ought to put some of this in perspective. I mean, we have to remember here the cold war is over. We do not have any force on the face of the globe that in any way rivals the military strength of the United States. Thank goodness that is the case, but it is the case. We also have to remember that we are still running budget deficits in this country, $116 billion in the current fiscal year.

Mr. President, we have to keep our eye on the ball. We just cannot spend money on everything everyone would like. And that includes our armed services. We have to make tough decisions. We have to stay on this course of deficit reduction if we are to prevent fiscal calamity in the future.

It is true we have made enormous progress on the budget deficit. In 1992 it was $290 billion. This year it is projected to be $116 billion, a dramatic improvement, without question. But we also know that we face the time bomb of the baby boom generation, and that requires us to continue to put spending under the microscope. We have to look at every part of the Federal budget, and that includes our defense budget. Let me just say that I think everybody in this Chamber understands that the pressure will continue on every part of Federal spending, and that is as it should be.

Mr. President, there are some parts of this bill that I want to discuss specifically because I think they are critically important in light of what has just happened with respect to the action in Iraq.

Section 1302 of the conference report wisely prohibits the retirement of any strategic systems pending Russian ratification of START II. But we go even further with respect to our B-52's. Those bombers must be retained under these provisions whether or not START II is ratified in recognition of their conventional capabilities.

Mr. President, the amendment that I offered, that has been retained, stipulates that none of the 28 B-52's that were not funded in the Department of Defense request can be sent to the boneyard and that all must be kept fleet standard in a fully maintained attrition reserve. I believe the recent cruise missile strikes in Iraq bring into sharp focus why retention of these provisions in conference was wise.

Mr. President, if I could turn to the charts that I have brought with me, I would like to just point out for a moment the B-52 advantage--global reach, global power. Mr. President, in the recent action against Iraq, the B-52's responded immediately from the United States. Naval vessels could only participate in cruise missile strikes because they had completed a deployment process that can take days or even weeks. Other land and sea forces can take weeks or even months to arrive. The B-52 is able to be there in a matter of hours.

No. 2, B-52's did not require in-theater basing. The United States could not use land-based forces in-theater because of political considerations. The B-52's can operate from the continental United States and from bases in Guam and Diego Garcia, thousands of miles from combat operations.

No. 3, the B-52's placed few lives at risk. Air, land, and sea forces in forward deployments involve hundreds of thousands of personnel in combat operations. But more than one-quarter of the cruise missiles we fired in the first round were launched by only 14 Americans on two B-52's.

No. 4, B-52's were the least expensive system involved. Naval vessels and in-theater forces have large personnel complements and costly support requirements.

No. 5, the B-52 was the only bomber for the mission. The B-52 is the only bomber that at this point carries cruise missiles .

Mr. President, the Department of Defense suggested that we not fund 28 of our 94 B-52's. We believe that would have been a serious mistake. Retirement is clearly unnecessary. These B-52's have been comprehensively upgraded. I have been told by the former head of Air Combat Command that these planes are good until the year 2035. Often we hear people say B-52's are older than the pilots flying them. Mr. President, that is with respect to the name plate on the B-52's. Many of these airframes were, it is true, constructed in the 1960's, but what people forget, there have been billions of dollars of upgrades to these planes, including new skins, new everything.

Mr. President, General Loh, head of the Air Combat Command, told me these planes are good until the year 2035 because, if you look at the landings, you look at the flying hours, there are far fewer landings and flying hours on these airframes than on commercial planes. As a result, these planes, with all of the upgrades that have been done, are good until the year 2035. We should not be sending a single one of them to the bone yard.

Mr. President, in addition, reengining, the proposal by Boeing, could produce $6 billion in savings, enough to finance retention of the 28 that were unfunded in the DOD budget. This makes great sense to reengine these planes, put on commercial engines that will experience some 40 percent in fuel savings, make these planes even more responsive and even longer lasting in our force inventory.

I believe that retirement of any of our B-52's would be ill-advised. I want to salute the committee for taking this position, as well. I believe it is unwise to retire B-52's for the following reasons:

No. 1, it endangers arms control. A B-52 retirement reduces Russia's incentive to ratify START II. We ought not to be taking down strategic systems before there is a Russian ratification of START II. That makes no sense. I am very pleased that under the leadership of Senator Thurmond and Senator Nunn, the committee has taken that position. That is a wise and prudent position. The committee ought to be saluted for taking it.

No. 2, retirement of these strategic systems now preempts the 1997 defense studies. We have major studies underway, Mr. President, to determine the appropriate force structure for the future. We ought not to preempt those studies now.

No. 3, to retire B-52's would sacrifice a superior global bomber. B-52's have a longer range than the B-1 or the B-2. They have the greatest versatility because they are fully dual capable and the only bomber with cruise missiles allowing standoff operations, as we saw in the Iraqi confrontation.

No. 4, they have the largest total payload of any bomber.

No. 5, they are the least costly to maintain and operate.

Finally, Mr. President, and perhaps most important, to reduce any of our bombers would only add to the existing bomber gap. Some have asked me, what do I mean by bomber gap? Mr. President, let me make clear, the Bottom Up Review said we need at least 100 deployable bombers--100 deployable bombers--in order to prevail in two MRC's simultaneously.

Mr. President, today we only have 92 deployable bombers, 92 deployable; the Bottom Up Review said we need 100. Mr. President, to send any bombers to the bone yard in this circumstance makes very little sense.

I might add that I believe the new efforts that are underway to evaluate our strategic systems will disclose that 100 deployable bombers are not sufficient. In fact, I believe 100 deployable bombers is sadly insufficient to meet the requirements of two MRC's. We will have a chance at a later time to go into the assumptions that have been made to establish the 100 deployable bombers as the appropriate target.

Mr. President, it certainly makes no sense to be adding to the bomber gap at a time when, I think, it is in great question whether or not 100 deployable bombers is sufficient to meet the contingency of two MRC's.

Let me just close, Mr. President, by again thanking the committee leadership and the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee for working with us to put together the Conrad amendment that calls for retaining our B-52 force and also for the national missile defense provisions that are included in this conference report. I want to thank the chairman of the committee, Senator Thurmond. I want to thank the ranking member, Senator Nunn, and I want to thank their very able and professional staffs for the assistance they have provided to us. I yield the floor.