W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. There is one thing I promised that I was going to toss in here, and this is something that I don't think people understand. We need to answer this question, and that is, if somebody could smuggle a nuclear weapon into our country, why do we care so much about something on a missile? And the answer is that when a nuclear weapon is exploded high over a city, the amount of damage it does is hundreds of times what would happen if it were on the ground. And I think that's something that people forget, that it's a combination of the missile getting the altitude and no problems with security, and then all of a sudden you have this tremendous burst in the air over a city, just wreaks absolute havoc and kills millions of people. I want to make sure you hit that point, because people say, oh, this is a waste because somebody could just bring it in a suitcase. Not so simple. Please talk to that point.

Mr. AKIN. My good friend from Ohio, Congressman Turner, please fill in some more of the details here, because you are the person in the committee that's really paying attention to this and we really appreciate your leadership on this. This is so important, a lot of times I am sure your constituents are on you to do all kinds of things, and they probably don't realize how much time and attention you have to give to some of these issues. But we appreciate you and we are very thankful that the people of Ohio send you here.

Mr. AKIN. That duck and cover and the idea that somehow you can kind of stick your head in a hole like some sort of an ostrich and hope that thing isn't going to land on you, that sort of thing just doesn't work when you start to talk about nuclear weapons. So I think we have gotten into a little bit of this question about funding. And I find it somehow a little bit cynical when in the first 5 weeks that we met in this Chamber this year we passed this bill to spend $840 billion, you put that in defense spending, that's equivalent of the average cost of an aircraft carrier. We have 11 aircraft carriers. That would be like building 250 aircraft carriers end to end. That's how much money we spent in the first 5 weeks, and we are saying that we can't defend ourselves against these kinds of missiles that are being developed by rogue nations. That, somehow, just doesn't seem to make sense. And when you see that we have the capability of putting one of these systems into the air like this, and we can basically buy the lives of millions of people in a city for this kind of investment. Now, I am going to ask my friend from Arizona here, you know, is this a big part of the defense? My understanding is we are only talking about 2 percent of the defense budget to be able to do this to protect our citizens. That doesn't seem like too much. Am I about right on the numbers?

Mr. AKIN. I don't understand it either, but I have got a chart. Unfortunately the printer was down so I couldn't put it up on the board, but I could just read some numbers off of it. You go back to 1965, and in 1965 our entitlement spending was between 2 and 3 percent of the budget, of the gross domestic product. It was 2 or 3 percent of gross domestic product was entitlement. Now that entitlement has gone from the high 2s to 8.4 percent in 2007. So it has gone from a little over 2 to 8.4 percent. That's the entitlement growth. And yet the defense spending, at about '68 or so, was almost 10 percent of GDP, and that's gone all the way down to 4 percent. So what you are saying in terms of numbers is absolutely true, and that is we have been slashing defense spending over a period of a number of decades and increasing entitlement. Now, maybe there is a good reason to have entitlement spending, but the one thing is sure: If our country gets hit with nuclear weapons, there isn't any security at all if you don't have military security. I wanted to defer to my friend from Utah, Congressman Bishop.

Mr. AKIN. Well, I appreciate your joining us here and recognizing what we have got going on. You have also mentioned quite a number of other missiles. And just for some of our colleagues that are involved watching our discussion, and I started at the beginning, there is all different kinds of missiles an enemy can shoot at you. Some of them are little ones, some of them are medium-sized, some of them are big ones, and some of them are really big. They all have different trajectories. And so depending on the trajectory, we match that with whatever size missile that we need to be cost effective to try to stop something coming. The picture that we had before is a ground base. This is the big daddy. This is the one for the missiles that are coming over 10,000 miles, but there are a lot of other kinds of missiles. Some of them are more in the 3,000- to 5,000-mile range, and that's where you have our ships, our Aegis-class cruisers and our Arleigh Burke destroyers, with missiles inside these destroyers that they can direct at what's called a ballistic missile, but not an intercontinental ballistic. That's sort of the 3,000 to 5,000 range. And then you have got your Patriots, that literally we have batteries, those defending a particular area or something like in South Korea, where there is a military base. You have Patriot missiles just defending against short-range North Korea. So there is quite a range of these different missiles, and I appreciate your bringing that very important point out, and also the fact that this technology is moving and we need to be putting money into it and keeping ahead of the power curve on this; otherwise, we are going to see some one of our cities paying a big price on this kind of thing. I want to go back to my friend from Colorado, Congressman Lamborn.

Mr. AKIN. We're also joined by another good friend of mine, Congressman Turner from Ohio. I would like you to have a chance to be a part of our conversation and discussion because this is something that affects all Americans and it's something that apparently has not been given a high priority budget-wise; so we want to talk a little bit about that. And I think we could get into the budget a little bit and where we have been spending money if people want to do that. But I yield to my friend Congressman Turner, a fine Congressman and great reputation too in the House.

Mr. AKIN. I would go back to our resident expert, Congressman Franks.

Mr. AKIN. So that's it. We have got 26 or 28 silver bullets here, but that's about all we've got in case somebody shoots an intercontinental. That means more than 10,000 miles. It means it's going up pretty high. You have got to have a big missile to stop a big missile

Mr. AKIN. I thought I remembered 24 but----

Mr. AKIN. We have how many silver bullets like this right now?

Mr. AKIN. That's this missile right here. Am I correct in that?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I am concerned at a number of different things as it relates to missile defense that the current administration is doing. One thing we are doing is cutting the airborne laser. Another thing is this multiple warhead re-entry situation where we basically gave or sold the Chinese the technology of being able to send a missile up and then have the warhead split into parts and those parts targeting different things. So that's a more complicated target to stop, and we're giving up the technology to do that. But then we're also, in some sort of a diplomacy thing, going over to Putin and telling him we're not going to deploy missile defense in Europe to protect Europe and the eastern seaboard. That doesn't make sense to me either. And I would like to go back to my friend from Arizona. Help us out with some of these things because this just doesn't add up, my friend.

Mr. AKIN. I am going to yield to my friend from Colorado, Congressman Lamborn.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, that is an incredibly important point you just made. People are asking the wrong question. It's not whether we're using it because, as a deterrent, every day we protect ourselves, we are using it. Is that what you said? I yield.

Mr. AKIN. We've heard that before, that you can't do it, and it turned out you can do it. Congressman Bishop.

Mr. AKIN. Could you imagine if we had a bunch of those planes traveling around? Any nutcase that wants to shoot a missile with a nuclear device on it, we just poke a hole in it and plop it and it will just fall down. I mean, we could protect incredible numbers of human beings with that kind of technology. I don't understand why we would want to cut that. But the gentleman from Colorado would like to jump in.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, let's develop that a little bit and go back over to some of our other experts here on this. The first thing is the airborne laser, and let's describe that a little bit. First of all, I actually was onboard the plane that's going to be the first plane that carries it. It's like Air Force One. It's a huge aircraft with these multiple, multiple tires on the landing gear and everything, and it's full of some very high-tech equipment. And the purpose of this thing is to shoot a laser, as I understand it, and it hits that fragile missile on the boost phase. Now, Congressman Franks, is it true that that's what is being targeted in the budget that we are going to get rid of that thing that we've spent all of this money on? We're supposed to fire it for the first time this summer. Are they really going to cut that thing? I yield.

Mr. AKIN. So just reclaiming my time, what you are talking about--and I am a little bit of one of these Popular Science-type guys, it is sort of interesting--one of the strategies that uses what I described, you shoot a missile at a missile, and both of them are traveling, and you have to wait until your missile gets there to do something. And the trouble with that is it takes time. And what you are talking about is boost phase. How many seconds is boost phase typically?

Mr. AKIN. Well, reclaiming my time, I appreciate that common sense. We have just seen people who are too willing to use terrorism as a tool for us to assume that we can just relax and not defend ourselves. It just doesn't seem to make any common sense. And I completely agree with your comments. But I had yielded to the gentleman from Arizona to try to get a little bit of the technical thing. And we will also hear from a good friend of mine, Congressman Lamborn, who is great on this subject, also, from Colorado. But I want to go to my friend from Arizona first just to get the mechanisms of how this works.

Mr. AKIN. I would yield to the gentleman.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, you are talking about the fact that we are going to be cutting missile defense. There are going to be cuts to this program. And the question is, is that a good strategy given the light of what's going on? Now, if the only people you are dealing with is the Soviet Union or the former Soviet Union, that is, Russia and China, that is one thing. But we are not dealing with that anymore. I appreciate your perspective. I hope you will stick with us a little bit. What I would like to do is get back to our technical expert here, Congressman Franks. And I would like to get into the weeds just a little bit further because people need to understand that every missile is not a missile, they have different ranges and they require a different response. And so when we start taking a look at our modern missile defense system, it basically is done in pieces and layers. I would like to turn to my good friend from Arizona, and let's talk a little bit about the first way we break things down, which is the boost phase; the midcourse is that the missile is actually at times up in space; and then the reentry as it is coming down. And we treat those differently because there are different vulnerabilities. And we have actually started to build weapons that work--even though people said you can't do it and it won't work, we have these two missiles that have the capability now, which we have tested, where they are coming together, going 15,000 miles an hour closing velocity. And we don't just have one missile hitting another missile, we have one missile hitting a spot on another missile. One of those missiles is pictured here to my left. This is called the ground-based missile. This is our longest, most powerful missile. And it can stop a missile launch from another continent from more than 10,000 miles away. It can see it coming--not this missile, but the system that goes with it--see the missile coming, has time to casually get up to speed, go out across the ocean, and intercept that missile with no explosion whatsoever, closing velocities of 15,000 miles an hour. Now, some of you might consider what it's like to have a car accident; two cars going 100 miles an hour coming down a highway and hitting head to head. Now, that's a nasty car wreck. But that is just one-twentieth or less than what we are talking about here. I would like to call my friend from Arizona to give us the logic of how these things work.

Mr. AKIN. It is hard to understand that mindset for me after September 11 to say that somebody is going to behave rationally, that you are going to assume, you are going to bet your city that somebody is going to behave rationally. And that is an interesting question. We are also joined by a good friend of mine, Congressman Bishop, who wants to be part of the conversation as well, from Utah. And I want to include you in the conversation, too. Thank you for your good work on these questions and willingness to take on some areas that some people don't want to think about or debate or discuss, just want to say it won't work and these people will never be mean to us, they will never go after one of our cities. I yield time.

Mr. AKIN. I think it was a Ronald Reagan thing. But this has been a straight Democrats one way, Republicans the other for many, many years. But that is starting to change some, isn't it?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I want to be very direct here. This has really been a very partisan debate, hasn't it?

Mr. AKIN. That is a scary thought. Thank you. And we will get back to the Congressman, as the expert. We are also joined by some other wonderful patriots and people who have been paying some attention to this subject as well. Congressman Coffman from Colorado, I would be happy to yield you some time. What is your thought on this? I want you to be part of our conversation here this afternoon.