NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE
(Senate - May 23, 1996)
[Page: S5625]
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I take the floor to say that it appears to me we may be talking about National Missile Defense or the Defend America Act very soon. Perhaps it will even be laid down before we finish tonight so there is a cloture vote when we come back. I am not sure.
I want to observe--and I have done this for years that I have been in Congress--that we just finished a budget in which there was a lot of talk about reducing the Federal deficit, the need to reduce Federal spending, and the Defend America Act, or the National Missile Defense Program, is a program, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that just to build--not to operate, just to build--will cost between $30 billion and $60 billion. Now, the operational costs will be much, much greater than that.
It seems to me the funding question ought to be posed and ought to be answered by those who bring a spending program to the floor of the Senate that says let us spend up to an additional $60 billion more on a program that I do not think this country needs because the National Missile Defense Program, or the Defend America Act, will not truly be an astrodome over our country that will defend us against incoming missiles. It presumes that we should build a defense against ICBM's in the event a rogue nation would launch an ICBM with a nuclear tip against our country, or in the event there is an accidental nuclear launch against our country.
Of course, a nuclear device might very likely come from a less sophisticated missile like a cruise missile. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of cruise missiles proliferating this world. They are much easier to get access to. A nuclear-tipped cruise missile is a much more likely threat to this country than the ICBM, or perhaps a suitcase and 20 pounds of plutonium and the opportunity to turn it into a nuclear device, or perhaps a glass vile no larger than this with the most deadly biological agents to mankind.
Of course, we will spend $60 billion on a star wars program, at the end of which it will be obsolete and will not protect this country against that which we advertise we need protection.
We had an ABM system built in North Dakota. Billions and billions of dollars in today's money went into that in northeastern North Dakota. It was declared mothballed the same month it was declared operational. In other words, the same month they declared operational a system which they said we desperately needed they decided would no longer be needed, and it sits up there as a concrete monument to bad planning. It was an expenditure of the taxpayers' money that, in my judgment, need not have been made.
Now we are told that we have the need for a national defense program, or Defend America Act, of some type that will defend us only against a very narrow, limited threat, not a full-scale nuclear attack from an adversary, because it will not defend us against that, will not defend us against a nuclear attack of cruise missiles. It cannot do that. It will not defend us against a nuclear attack by a terrorist nation putting a nuclear bomb in a suitcase in the trunk of a Yugo car, a rusty old Yugo at a dock in New York City. But we are told $60 billion to build and how many tens of billions of dollars to operate is what is necessary.
I say to those who will bring that to the floor, while you do that, please bring us a plan telling us who is going to pay the tax to build it. Where are you going to get the money? Who is going to pay the tax? And then describe why that is necessary and the fact when you get done you have not created the defense for America you say you are going to create.
There are many needs that we have in this country in defense. Many remain unmet. This kind of proposal ranks well down, in my judgment, in the order of priorities. If it is technologically feasible to be built to protect this country, it ranks well down in the order of priorities. My hope is that we
will have a full, aggressive, interesting debate on this because it is not a debate about pennies. It is a debate about a major, sizable spending program, new spending program at a time when we are trying to downsize and at a time when we are talking about the need to control Federal spending.
Those who bring this to the floor of the Senate have an obligation to tell us how it is going to be paid for. The announcement of this so-called Defend America Act was made at a press conference recently, and the question was asked: Where do you get the money for this? And the answer at the press conference by Members of the Senate was: Well, we will leave that to the experts.
No, it will not be left to the experts. This Congress will have to decide who pays for a new Federal spending program that will cost $60 billion plus and after being built will not in fact defend this country against a nuclear attack.
There are many needs that we have in our defense system in this country. Some worry that we are in a circumstance where we will decide to downsize in defense too much: We will be unprepared to meet an adversary; we will be unprepared to meet a threat.
I understand that. I understand this country has gone through this in previous periods, and I do not want us to be in that position. But I also understand that in every area of the armed services there are weapons programs that simply seem to have a life of their own and they tend to build and build, and they become not so much a justifiable program that is necessary to defend our country, but they become a program that is supported by a range of politicians and corporations and other interests that give it a life of its own, even when it becomes unnecessary or when the science and the technology demonstrate it is not needed.
I hope we will have an aggressive discussion about this, about the threat and about the amount of proposed expenditure, and about who is going to come up with the money, and especially about whether, in fact, this is needed for this country's defense.
Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence. I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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