Rep. Weldon Outlines Rationale for Missile Defense

DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S HOMELAND
House of Representatives
May 02, 2001

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to focus on
an issue that is dominating the front page of every newspaper in
America today and that is the defense of America's homeland. President
Bush gave a major speech yesterday where he outlined a commitment to
pursuit of a national missile defense and provide a protection for
this Nation....

I will talk about the objections that are being raised by some; why we
need this kind of capability; what the current system capability is
that we are developing. And I am going to respond to criticisms that
this will start a new arms race....

Madam Speaker, my real topic tonight is to focus on the missile
defense speech that President Bush presented yesterday at the National
Defense University. He said that we need to change the basic
parameters which we live under and deal with in our relations with
Russia and other countries relative to the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty,
which was negotiated in 1972, allows both the United States and the
former Soviet Union to rely on deterrence so that neither country
would attack the other for fear of retaliation.

In addition, that treaty says that each country can have one missile
defense system, one ABM system. The Russians chose to deploy such a
system around Moscow, which protects about 75 percent of their
population. America chose not to pursue any system, because it was
politically impossible in America to choose one city over another and
leave the rest of America vulnerable.

Today, Madam Speaker, America is totally vulnerable. If an accidental
launch occurred of one missile from Russia, from North Korea, which we
know now has the long-range capability, or from China, we have no
capability to respond.

Now, is that such a far-fetched idea or notion?

Well, Madam Speaker, let me document for our colleagues what occurred
in January of 1995. As we know, the Russians have hundreds of missile
launchers, all of which can reach any city in America within 25
minutes, and all of which have nuclear warheads on top of them.

Now, there is a very sophisticated command and control system on those
missiles, as there are on our missiles; but a significant number of
Russia's missiles are on mobile launchers. They are called SS-25s. If
my colleagues saw a photograph of one, it would look like it is on the
back of a tractor-trailer truck. But that missile, even though it can
be transported any place over an open road area, can travel the
necessary distance to hit any city in America and devastate that city.
Each of those SS-25s are controlled locally, even though they have to
have the command authorization of the central Russian Government.

Let us look at what happened in January of 1995. Norway was going to
launch a rocket into the atmosphere to sample weather conditions. So
Norway contacted Russia and told the Russian Government not to worry
when we launch this three-stage rocket; it is simply for us to gather
more information about weather conditions affecting our country. Now,
because Russia's military has been in a state of disarray, they have
not been able to invest and reinvest in improving their conventional
alert systems and their intelligence collection systems. So that when
Norway launched that three-stage rocket, the Russian intelligence
agencies misread it as an attack from an American nuclear submarine.

Boris Yeltsin acknowledged the week after that incident that Russia
had, in fact, for one of only three times that we know of, put their
entire offensive ICBM system on alert, which meant, Madam Speaker,
that Russia was within 15 minutes of launching an ICBM with a nuclear
warhead against an American city.... With 7 minutes, left Boris
Yeltsin overruled them and called off the response against an American
city.

Now, Madam Speaker, for just one moment let us imagine that one of
those missiles is accidentally launched, which are preprogrammed to
hit a certain spot in America, and all of their missiles are
preprogrammed, as ours are preprogrammed. What if that occurred and
what if President Putin then realized Russia had made a grave mistake;
that they accidentally allowed, either because of a lack of control of
a command unit, who may have gotten the launch codes, or because of
some other glitch, Russia accidentally launched one missile against
America? What would the phone conversation be like between President
Putin and President Bush?

Well, it might go something like this: "President Bush, I am sorry to
tell you we have made a tragic mistake. We have accidentally launched
a missile against one of your cities. We did not mean to do it, but
our command and control system failed." What would be President Bush's
response? Would he then call a national press conference and tell the
people of that target city that they have 25 minutes to move? Because,
Madam Speaker, we have no defense today against a ballistic missile
launch against America. We have no defense system in place.

For the past 6 years, Madam Speaker, I have chaired the research and
development committee for national security. I have been on the
security committee for 15 years. So I work these issues. The
possibility of an accidental launch is not very high, but it does
exist.

And the fact is that today America has no defense against such a
launch. There is no system we can put into space, there is no plane we
can send up that can shoot down an incoming ICBM at the speed it would
be traveling.

The same thing occurred in 1991 when in Desert Storm Saddam Hussein
decided that he wanted to harm American soldiers. He could have put a
bomb on a truck, and he could have had it driven into Saudi Arabia
where our troops were headquartered. But he did not do that. Saddam
Hussein chose the weapon of choice, a low-complexity Scud missile with
a conventional bomb on top of it and fired that missile into an
American barracks in Saudi Arabia. We could not defend against that
missile, much like we cannot defend against a missile that would be
launched against an American city.

As a result of the launch of that Scud missile by Saddam Hussein, 28
Americans came home in body bags because we let them down. America had
no system in place to defend against that kind of a missile attack,
even in a small area the distance between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The sad part, Madam Speaker, is that 9, 10 years later we still do not
have a highly effective system for missile defense to protect our
troops and allies and our Nation....

So the first reason we need missile defense is to protect us against
an accidental or deliberate launch. The CIA has now documented that
North Korea, an unstable nation, in August of 1998 test-launched a
three-stage Taepo Dong II rocket that traversed into the atmosphere.
It did not complete its line of flight, but the CIA estimated if it
had, it would have been able to reach American soil, the West Coast of
California, parts of Alaska and parts of Hawaii.

That allowed the CIA to say publicly that North Korea has the ability
to launch from its soil a long-range, three-stage missile that could
deliver a light payload against an American city. That missile might
not be very accurate, they might aim for Los Angeles and hit San
Francisco, but if you are a resident of San Francisco, it does not
matter where they aimed.

The point is, North Korea has a capability that they never had. Unlike
when the ABM Treaty was developed, you only had two major countries
with this kind of ability, the Soviet Union and the United States, and
we could respectfully agree that neither would attempt to attack the
other for fear of retaliation. Also, when the Soviet Union was in fact
a coherent country prior to 1992 before the breakup, the Soviet
military was well-paid and well-fed. They had discipline. They were
well-respected in Russia. Today, there are severe internal problems
and stability problems within the Russian military.

Therefore, because of those problems, there is a greater likelihood of
a problem potentially occurring, as there is with the possibility of
North Korea or China threatening a launch against the U.S.

Madam Speaker, it is not just whether or not they would launch a
missile against us, because the opponents of missile defense will say,
wait a minute. Does anybody really believe that North Korea is going
to fire a missile against the United States? We would wipe them out.
We would wipe China out. That is not the issue, Madam Speaker.

The problem is that we now know North Korea has the capability. We
also know that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon, if they do
not already have one, which could be placed on a missile.

Let us take a scenario for a moment. Let us suppose that North Korea
would invade South Korea, which they have talked about off and on for
years. The U.S. would, because of our relationship, probably come to
the aid of South Korea. And what if North Korea's leadership then, and
they have certainly indicated unstable decision-making processes in
the past, suppose they said to America, If you do not pull your troops
out of South Korea, we are going to launch our long-range missile at
one of your cities.

Now, unlike in the past, we know North Korea has that kind of very
rudimentary capability. Do we then attack North Korea preemptively? Do
we wipe out any capability they might have? Do we bomb their cities?

Madam Speaker, we cannot allow a rogue state to have the potential for
causing problems in the decision-making process of our President and
command officers because of the potential for a launch, illogical
launch as it might be, against our sovereign Nation or our allies.

The idea of a missile defense system under George Bush is not what
Ronald Reagan proposed, and there will be some in this country who
say, there goes George Bush trying to restart the Cold War, trying to
bring back Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative. That is not
what President Bush was talking about yesterday. No one is proposing
that we attempt to build a shield over America that could stop Russia
if they wanted to attack us with all of their missiles.... We are only
talking about a limited capability, a system that would give us the
ability to defend against a small number of missiles, an accidental
launch or a deliberate launch of perhaps 1 to 10 missiles, that we
could defend against. This does not destabilize our relationship with
Russia because Russia knows full well that they could launch hundreds
of missiles at America and very easily overcome the kind of system
that President Bush is talking about.

For these reasons, Madam Speaker, it is important that America provide
a defense for our people.

The interesting thing is that some of the opponents of missile defense
have consistently opposed all research in this area. And I would say
to our colleagues, as I did several years ago when we voted on H.R. 4,
my missile defense bill in the House, and we pulled more Democrats
with us than President Clinton did, 103 Democrats voted in favor of
H.R. 4, 102 Democrats voted against it and all but two Republicans
voted in favor of that bill, giving us a veto-proof margin. Our goal
is to give us the capability that every nation in the world is now
pursuing....

We do want to cooperate with our allies. This is not just about
protecting America....

The goal that President Bush laid out for the world is that we need to
change the dimension. It should no longer be a policy of mutually
assured destruction.

Now, to me as a teacher, it is outrageous that we would base our
foreign policy with Russia on mutually assured destruction. You attack
us, we will annihilate you. We attack you, you will annihilate us.
That is a crazy way to have a world order, especially when you have
other nations that are not in any way, shape or form anywhere near as
reliable as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War, and we did not
have the instability that we now have inside of Russia with the
problems, internal with their military and the command and control and
alerting problems that they have in reading what is happening in terms
of rocket launches around the world.

So for all of these reasons, President Bush has proposed a new
dynamic. I call it asymmetric deterrence, and that means that we
continue to negotiate with our allies and friends and countries like
Russia, and we continue to rely on deterrence as the ultimate threat
to an attack on our homeland, but we now begin to allow missile
defense systems.

Now, the question is, why would America pursue missile defense, it is
only going to back Russia into a corner. That is not true. The fact is
that Russia believes in missile defense, as does America. They believe
in deterrence, as does America. The Soviet Union developed the only
operational ABM system around Moscow. That system has been upgraded
four times, and it still exists today.

When I have been in negotiations with my Russia friends, and I have
gone to Russia 23 teams, I speak the language, I formed and I chair
the Interparliamentary Commission with the Russia Duma and the
Federation Council. When I travel to Moscow and meet with my Russian
friends and we talk about missile defense, I candidly ask them, If you
really believe in deterrence alone, take down your ABM system. Be as
vulnerable as America is, and have no system and rely on deterrence.

They look at me and smile and laugh and say, You know we will never do
that.

The point is that the Russians believe in missile defense. They have
aggressive and very capable theater missile defense systems. They have
the SA-10, the SA-12, the S-300, the S-400....

In fact, Russia's systems are comparable to systems that we are
building. So it is not a case of America pursuing missile defense and
embarrassing Russia because they do not have any systems; they have
some of the best systems in the world available today.

Why then, Madam Speaker, would Russia not trust us? Why then would the
Russian leader publicly express his concerns about the President's
speech? Why would Russian leaders and European leaders express concern
about moving forward with missile defense?

Let me say this, Madam Speaker. If I were a Russian today and if I had
witnessed what the Clinton administration did in terms of cooperation
with Russia, I would not trust America in the area of missile defense
either.

Let me give you the reasons why I say that, Madam Speaker. We have
sent mixed signals to Russia for the past 10 years. The first one came
in 1993. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin challenged George Bush, Sr. to work
together on missile defense, to have Russian scientists and American
scientists cooperate and explore ways that we could work together.
George Bush, Sr. accepted that challenge. The two Presidents of the
two countries involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia with
the State Department in the U.S....

In 1993, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore came into office, they had
opposed missile defense. Without consulting with the Russian
government, they abruptly canceled the Ross-Mamedov talks. We sent the
first signal to the Russians that we do not want to cooperate with you
on missile defense. We do not want to be your partner in looking at
ways to change the dynamic of our relationship.

The second signal was sent to the Russians in 1996 and 1997. We had in
fact funded one joint program between our Defense Department and the
Russian defense department in the missile defense area called Ramos.
Ramos was designed to build two satellites, one controlled by Russia,
one controlled by the U.S., identical in operation, so that each
country would get the same identical information when a rocket was
launched someplace on the surface of the Earth, so we would have the
same alert mechanism. It also was designed to build trust between our
countries in the area of missile defense.... In 1996 and 1997 with no
advance notice to the Russians nor to the Congress, the Clinton
administration decided to cancel the Ramos program. When the Russians
found out about this, they were livid. I got three phone calls and
faxes and e-mails at my office from senior Russian leaders....

I then went over to the Senate and enlisted the support of Democrat
Senator Carl LEVIN who agreed with me as the top Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee in the Senate. He and I worked vigilantly with our
colleagues, and we overturned the administration's decision. The
program is still funded today. But the damage was done. Because for
the second time, the Clinton administration told the Russians, "We do
not want to cooperate with you."

The third time occurred in 1997. At a time when most people in the
world and in this country were acknowledging that the ABM treaty had
outlived its usefulness because we were no longer in a bipolar world
with two countries, the Soviet Union and America. We now had other
countries with long-range missile capability, China and North Korea
and Iran moving in that direction. At a time when most in this country
were saying, let us provide some flexibility in the way this treaty is
being interpreted, what did the Clinton administration do? They sent
our U.S. negotiators to Geneva where we were in ongoing discussions
with the Russians over the ABM treaty.

Instead of trying to find ways to make the ABM treaty more flexible,
the Clinton administration was negotiating a tightening up of the ABM
treaty, contrary to the thought of almost everyone in this country. I
for the life of me could not understand what the Clinton
administration was doing. When I read about these discussions with the
Russians, I heard about this plan to multilateralize the treaty, bring
other countries in, even though they did not have long range missiles,
and I heard about this artificial demarcation, differentiating between
theater and national missile defense, Madam Speaker, I did something
that no other Member of Congress did.

I went to Geneva. I got the approval of our State Department, and we
set up a negotiating session. The chief U.S. negotiator was on my
side, Stanley Rivales and the chief Russian negotiator was sitting
across from me, General Koltunov. We talked for 2 1/2 hours about the
administration's negotiations for these two ideas of tightening up the
ABM treaty. So I inquired of General Koltunov, "General, why do you in
Russia want to bring more countries in as signatories to the ABM
treaty?" Only two nations were the original signatories, the Soviet
Union and the U.S. Why did you pick three former Soviet states,
Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, to become equal partners to the U.S.
and Russia? That will make it more difficult to amend the treaty. And
none of those three countries have long range missiles. They have all
been returned to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

General Koltunov looked at me and he said, "Congressman WELDON, you
are asking that question of the wrong person. We didn't propose to
multilateralize the treaty. The person sitting next to you did."
Meaning that our government was trying to push the Russian government
into expanding the treaty to include three former Soviet states. Why
would you do that especially when none of those three countries had
long range missiles, unless your purpose was to make the ABM treaty
more difficult to modify?

The second question dealt with demarcation. I could not understand how
we could negotiate with the Russians an artificial differentiation
between a theater missile defense system for a given area and a
national missile defense with longer range. So I said to the chief
Russian negotiator, General Koltunov, "General, explain to me, how did
you arrive at these numbers of interceptor speed and range?" ....

General Koltunov told me, after thinking for a few moments, "Well,
Congressman, there were serious negotiations between our scientists
and your scientists, and they arrived at these numbers." But he did
not give me any justification. Well, I was not satisfied. I came back
to the United States. We concluded those negotiations in Geneva.
President Clinton sent the signal to Russia that America was
supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty. So the Russians again for
the third time took us at our word. But the Clinton administration
knew, Madam Speaker, they could not get either of those two changes to
the treaty through the U.S. Senate, even though the U.S. Constitution
requires any substantive change to any treaty to be submitted to the
Senate for advice and consent.

For 3 years, from 1997 to the year 2000, actually to the year 2001
because that is today, until the end of the Clinton administration,
the administration failed to submit either of those two changes to the
ABM treaty to the Senate as required by our Constitution so the Senate
could debate them.... So for 3 years, the Russians had been convinced
by Clinton that we were supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty,
even though the administration knew the Senate and the American people
would not support those changes.

Last May, when the Russian Duma was considering ratification of the
START II treaty, a treaty which our Senate had already passed years
ago, the Clinton administration, I am convinced, convinced the Russian
leadership to have the Duma add those two changes to the ABM treaty
onto the back of the START II treaty. Why would they do that? Because
they knew the START II treaty had already been ratified by the Senate
and because they knew they could not get those two ABM changes through
the Senate, so they said if the Russians add them on, then the Senate
will have to accept them when the treaty comes back to us for
re-ratification. So when the state Duma in Russia ratified the START
II treaty last spring, they added those two Geneva protocols on the
START II treaty, it then came back to the U.S., and what did our
Senate say? "No way are we going to pass the START II treaty."

So the Russians for the third time saw America going back on what they
thought was our word. Three times in 8 years we sent mixed signals to
Russia about missile defense. It is no wonder that the Russians do not
understand what America's real intentions are in terms of missile
defense. Now, they understand my intentions, because I have a good
solid relationship with them. They know that I want us to be involved
with Russia. The Russians know that we want to be partners with them.
We want to find common ground....

I took several Members of Congress from both parties along. We went to
Moscow before the vote here so that we could reassure the Russians
that our intent in moving forward in missile defense was not to back
the Russians into a corner. We did not see Russia as the enemy. We
were not doing this to try to create an advantage over Russia. And
that we wanted to work together with Russia.

Madam Speaker, I am convinced through my contact with Russian leaders
that they can and will understand that America's intent on missile
defense is not to create an arms race. The Russians believe in missile
defense because they know the threats are real. We believe in missile
defense because the threats are real....

Madam Speaker, with the Russian leaders that I work with, people like
Dr. Yevghenie Velakof who heads up the Kurchatov Institute understand
what we are trying to accomplish. In fact Dr. Velakof and I coauthored
an op-ed 3 years ago that was entitled "From Mutually Assured
Destruction to Mutually Assured Protection." Dr. Velakof understands
what George Bush is trying to do. When Russians understand that we are
serious and want them involved and that we are not playing games, they
will cooperate with us....

That is why the Russians are concerned about missile defense. It is
not because of the system. It is because of an inconsistent,
incoherent, roller coaster foreign policy where three times in 8 years
we sent mixed signals to Moscow on missile defense....

In fact, our goal is to work with Russia; it is to work NATO; it is to
work with Ukraine; it is to work with Canada; with the European
countries to develop something we have not had before, an ability to
shoot down offensive missiles.

Mr. Speaker, over 70 nations today in the world have missiles that
they control. Countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, India,
Pakistan, North Korea and a whole host of other countries all have
missiles. Some have conventional weapons on them. Some have the
potential to put a chemical or a biological agent on them, but they
all have missiles and they all have launchers.

Mr. Speaker, today in the world over 22 nations can build missiles and
are building them, and they are selling them to other nations.
Missiles are out of control. We did not expect this threat to come
from unstable nations for another 15 to 20 years, but over the past 10
years we have lost control of proliferation. Because of Russia's
instability and because of China's lack of compliance, Russia and
China have allowed technology to flow to unstable nations which then
have given those nations abilities in missile technology that we did
not think they would have for at least 15 years.

Let me talk about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker, because that has a
direct bearing on why President Bush yesterday said we have to have
missile defense now, because the threats are here today. Iran now has
a Shahab III system they are working on. The Shahab IV and Shahab V,
which are medium-range missile systems, can kill tons of people all
throughout Europe and can hit Israel directly. We know Iraq has
missiles. We know all these countries have missiles.

How did they get this technology, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately, because
of America's lack of enforcement of arms control agreements.

Two years ago, I asked the Congressional Research Service, an
independent, bipartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, it is
not partisan, all of our colleagues use it, I asked them to do a study
for me of how many instances of arms control violations had occurred
in the 1990s. I put that report in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD last year.

The answer is that up until 1998, we had evidence that Russia and
China had illegally transferred technology, much of it missile
technology, to unstable nations in violation of arms control
agreements 38 times; 20 times by the Chinese, 18 times by the
Russians. The arms control agreements are supposed to have sanctions
applied when we catch other countries in violation. Much like if we
catch an American company illegally selling technology to a foreign
nation that they should noting selling to, we arrest their officers.
We fine them and, if necessary, we put them in jail. Thirty-eight
times we caught the Russians and Chinese illegally giving technology
to our enemies. Only two times out of 38 did we impose the required
sanctions when we caught the Chinese transferring M-11 missiles to
Pakistan, when we caught the Chinese transferring ring magnets for
their nuclear program to Pakistan. The other 36 times we turned our
head....

These devices have Soviet markings on them. These devices were clipped
off of SSN-19 long-range Soviet missiles. These devices used to be in
missiles in Russian submarines aimed at U.S. cities, but because of
treaties, when Russia discarded these old missiles they were supposed
to destroy these, but they did not do it. We caught the Russians three
times transferring not one set of these devices, but over 100 set of
these devices to Iraq.

What would Iraq want with them? Iraq would want them to put in their
missiles like the one they sent into Desert Storm that killed 28 young
Americans to make their missile more accurate. We allowed the
technology to flow, and we did nothing about it.

Here is the evidence, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say where I got them, but
I can say agencies of our Government have over 100 sets of these
devices. And let me say, my guess is there are probably thousands of
these devices that were illegally sent from Russian entities to Iraq
and Iran....

The biggest challenge for President Bush is rebuilding the trust of
the Russian people and its leadership that America wants to be a
stable trading partner with Russia. We will not tolerate
proliferation. We will not tolerate giving foreign unstable nations
illegal technology, but we want Russia to succeed. We want to help
them create a mortgage program for their people, which is my number
one priority. We want to help their defense industry get back on its
feet and produce other products. We want to engage their military with
our military. We want to help them solve the problem of nuclear
contamination in the Arctic, a big issue for the Russians. We want to
help Russia succeed and become a trading partner of the U.S.

Missile defense is not the reason that Russia is concerned, it is the
lack of trust and confidence in what America really wants that has the
Russian leadership and the Russian people concerned.

Mr. Speaker, we need to move forward with missile defense in
cooperation with the Russians and the rest of the peace-loving people
in the world. I cannot, for the life of me, as a teacher, understand
how those in this country still want to rely on offensive weapons to
kill each other, as opposed to defensive weapons to protect our
people. That does not make sense to me.

We can achieve what President Bush wants.

Now, it is a tough task, because you are talking about hitting a
bullet with a bullet, stopping a projectile in the atmosphere that is
moving very quickly, and stopping it with another bullet. And you
cannot hit that projectile when it is on the way down or it will rain
terror on the people in that country, in this case our people....

We need technology, as President Bush rightly outlined, to hit the
missile in the ascent phase, as it is on the way up. It is called
boost-phase intercept. The reason why that is important is, you knock
that missile out on the way up, and the only people harmed are the
people who launched the missile against someone else.

What President Bush is saying is, we need to develop a new capability,
using technology with our allies, to give us that kind of protection;
and he has proposed for the first time in the last 10 years that he
will use the bully pulpit to move the technology forward.

Are we prepared today? No. There still is additional testing. Have we
had success? Absolutely. Out of 31 attempts, we have been successful
in over half of them. Our THAAD program has had intercepts, successful
ones. Our PAC-3 program has had five successful intercepts. Our
National Missile Defense program has had one successful intercept. We
know the technology is achievable. It is an engineering problem to
integrate the systems, and that is the challenge that we have to help
the President overcome.

I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that those of our colleagues in this body
and the other body who supported missile defense last year and the
year before will again come back and support President Bush. This is
not a partisan issue. The battle for missile defense in America was
not a Republican battle; it was won by a bipartisan effort with
Democrats and Republicans coming together, understanding that threats
were emerging quicker than we thought they would emerge.

We need to work together to give the President the kind of support he
has outlined in his vision for a new world order, one where we focus
cooperative efforts together. The Europeans can cooperate with us, as
they are already doing. In fact, I am hoping right now to establish a
meeting, an unofficial meeting, in one of the Arab countries, where I
will plan to invite the Israelis and the Russians to sit down and have
a conversation about how we can jointly pursue missile defense
cooperation in the Middle East, with Jews and allies working together,
with Americans and Russians....

The chairman of the International Affairs Committee for the Russian
Duma, Dmitrii Rogozin, will be here, and he and I and others will come
together and talk about cooperation. We will then travel to Moscow and
we will have a conference in Moscow on missile defense cooperation. We
will work together to find common ground, to build confidence among
both countries to move forward together.

We need to put away the arguments and the petty wars of the Cold War
era. Relying on mutually assured destruction is not the answer.
Working together for peaceful protection of our friends, our allies
and our neighbors, is the solution of the 21st century. That is what
George Bush outlined for us yesterday. He is on the right track. He
did not say we have all the answers, because we do not, but he did
say, together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish....

There are those who will say, there are a few of them, who will say
this is not technologically possible. Mr. Speaker, that is hogwash. In
fact, to counter those, we have put together a task force of
professors. None of the professors we have on this ad hoc committee
are working for any contractor. They are all professors.

I am going to be inviting all of my colleagues in Congress to ask
those professors, one at a time or as a group, to come into your
offices....
They will be available as we begin this debate to counter those who
will simply try to use their doctorate titles to convince us that
somehow we cannot accomplish this.

I asked the head of the Boeing program in a hearing last year, a
fellow by the name of Dr. Teller, how difficult it was to achieve the
result of missile defense for America and its people.... He said
managing the Space Station was a tougher challenge than building
missile defense.

Together, Republicans and Democrats, allies and our own people, we can
create a new world, a safe world, where all of our people can be
protected from what happened to those 28 Americans in 1991.