Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. I think the gentleman is right. We are not going to have any choice but to be very, very certain that we do not have unnecessary redundancies and that we look at each of these architectures and try to take advantage. There are things that can be done with some of these satellites that will help other parts of the constellation, and that is one thing we need to continue to work on. amendment offered by mr. frank of massachusetts

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the gentleman I have supported this amendment before. I intend to support it again, but I want to ask the gentleman: Does the gentleman believe that we should not go further than just disclosing the top line number? Is that adequate from the gentleman's point of view?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, one thing I want to make sure that the Members of the House understand, because we have a lot of new Members, and that is that the intelligence budget is part of the defense budget. These are not two separate budgets. Sometimes I have people say, ``I did not realize that the intelligence budget is a piece of the defense budget.'' It is one big budget.

Mr. DICKS. If the gentleman would yield further, I say to the gentleman, I, too, would support that position. I do not have a problem with disclosing the overall number, but I would definitely oppose going any further in disclosing the components of that number.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Chairman Combest's amendment to section 303 of the bill. As the committee report makes clear, the committee intends to monitor closely the use of the authority provided under section 303. The amendment should assist in this regard by imposing a 3-year sunset provision. Furthermore, as the report also points out, this authority is only appropriate in limited cases. The amendment makes clear that the authority only pertains to specific laws designed to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems or advanced conventional weapons. Finally, the amendment states that the source or method or ongoing criminal investigation that the President may delay the sanction to protect, must be related to the activities giving rise to the sanction. I believe this is a good amendment and I am pleased to accept it.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I have no objection to that change either.

Mr. DICKS. First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] for his very kind remarks, and I want to share in those remarks not only about the chairman, but also about the staff of the committee. We have an extraordinary staff, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] and I have worked very hard to try to bring the staff together in a very bipartisan way to try to deal with the issues, and to work for all the Members, and to work for the entire House, and I think they do an exceptional job, and I am very proud of all of the members of our staff. [[Page H 8829]] I also would point out, too, to the gentleman I think he raises a very important point about the satellite issues. There was a long story just the other day in the Washington Post about the Corona program which was declassified, and one of the things that struck me in reviewing the article was the fact that there was so much misinformation between the United States and the Soviet Union about our missile forces, and one of the things that happened when we had these satellites and had better information is that is really quieted some of the fears and, I think, may have helped us avoid a confrontation between the United States and the soviet Union. So good information is important not only for us, but also for our allies, and I think it helped the United States go through a very difficult time in its history and as we go now into a new era.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. I want to compliment the gentleman from Ohio who has been steadfast in his support for the Buy American provision and for this amendment. We have always been able to work this out in conference. The record of the CIA and other agencies in this bill in this area is very exemplary, by the way, but I want to compliment the gentleman. We have enjoyed working with him over the years, and we on our side of the aisle will be glad to accept the amendment as well.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to our distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson].

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from southern California [Ms. Harman], a member of the Committee on National Security. (Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha], the ranking Democrat member of the Subcommittee on National Security, and our former longtime chairman.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson] in support of the B-2, a senior member of the Subcommittee on National Security.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself my remaining minute and a half. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] just stepped on a landmine. What he forgot to tell us with the standoff cruise missile is that it costs $1.2 million a copy. That is a lot of money compared to $20,000 for the JDAMS. Second, a standoff cruise missile has no capability against mobile targets. Rand did a study. Three B-2s interdicting Saddam's division moving into Kuwait with the sensor-fused weapon, a smart submunition, knocked out 46 percent of the mechanized vehicles in that division. The B-2 also, with the block 30 upgrade, will have an ability to go after the launchers for the Scud missiles. We might have been able to prevent the war, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] said. Conventional deterrence is in our grasp if we have an adequate number of B-2's. Every expert, Rand, Colin Powell, Jasper Welch, say the right number is somewhere between 40 and 60. Let us not end this program now. The line is open. We should buy these bombers. We can get 20 additional B-2's for $15.3 billion. We can retire other planes in order to make room for life-cycle costs. The B-2 is the right weapons system for the future. It will have American lives. Our kids will not get shot down like Captain O'Grady got shot down, and this is the most important issue. To kill this program I think would be a tragedy for the American people and a tragedy for our future military capability. If we have to come back, we are going to have to spend $10 billion just to reopen the production line. We must keep the B-2 line open. The weapons for the B-2 are very cheap. This is a revolutionary conventional capability.

Mr. DICKS. I appreciate the gentleman yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I am somewhat surprised that we are on the floor today attacking the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter Program. The Air Force has said that this is the most sophisticated and yet the best program that it has managed in many, many years. I have had Darleen Druyun, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, up to the office. She feels, as the contractors also feel, that this program is moving along very, very smoothly. The one thing they are concerned about is, if Congress makes a major reduction in the funding profile for this, that you will have a delay, a major delay, in the contract, and it has already stretched out too far as far as I am concerned. I believe that you could move this program forward more rapidly. People say, ``Well, we don't have enough money to do this.'' Well, I would take issue with that. This year and last year, I asked our very able staff on the Defense Subcommittee how much did we cut out just in every line item, going through this budget as we do in enormous detail, and the same number came up, and that is about $3.5 billion. The low-priority items are cut out by the Defense Subcommittee when doing our oversight responsibility. I believe with that, and if we supplemented the C-17 with a nondevelopmental aircraft, we could not only fund the F-22 but we could also fund the B-2. I also think we have got to make priority decisions. Any administration has to decide what are the most important things for the future. The Air Force has determined in its judgment that the F-22 is its most important priority. Sometimes I disagree with their priorities, as we noted in the previous vote, but I think this is a program that is going forward very well. It is a model of stealth technology and high technology. It is the kind of weapon that we are going to need in the future. There are a lot of other systems, by the way, that I would rate as much lower priority, and if we have to make some hard tough decisions down the road, we ought to look at those systems that are basically nonstealthy. The F-22 of course is stealthy and is the best technology for the future. I would say let us stay with this program, let us keep it moving ahead. I would urge my colleagues to reject the amendment of the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Woolsey amendment. Mr. Chairman, last year the House voted on this issue and basically took the position that we should support the backfit. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out to my distinguished friend and colleague that the Nuclear Posture Review, which was done by the Department of Defense, does, in fact, call for the backfit of 4 Trident submarines with the D-5 missile. That is the administration's position and that is the Navy's position. So, I would just say this: That we have entered into a series of arms control agreements which call upon us to make major reduction in our land-based missiles, to reduce our bomber force to a level that I am frankly troubled by, and the basic deterrent that we have left is on our Trident submarines, some of which are based on the east coast in Georgia and others on the west coast in Washington State, from my home area. Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to stay with their position of last year, to oppose the Woolsey amendment, and to continue to support the Trident submarine program and the D-5 backfit.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words and in opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I would just point out to my colleagues that we have made dramatic reductions in the intelligence budget, which is a classified matter and I cannot get into the details of it, but we have cut this budget more than George Bush wanted and much more than Bill Clinton wanted. I think we are on a course to reduce not only personnel but the overall expenditures, part of the major reduction in defense spending. Sometimes people forget that between 1985 and 1995 we have reduced defense spending by about 38 percent, or $100 billion in real terms. The intelligence community has taken its proportion of those reductions, as I mentioned, not only in personnel but also in equipment. This year's bill was put together on a very bipartisan basis. We looked at the needs in all areas of intelligence, and we came up with a number which is classified and I cannot get into, but I think is about as appropriate to the challenge that we are faced with out there. Departed Director Jim Woolsey talked about the fact that in a post- cold-war era the world is not as safe and comfortable and cozy as a lot of people thought it was going to be. We have got problems throughout the world, and in my judgment the intelligence budget today is at about the right size and, as I have said, dramatically below what George Bush and President Clinton asked for.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DICKS. On the defense appropriations bill. The intelligence budget is a part of the defense appropriations bill. What I was saying first is defense spending has been----

Mr. DICKS. I am not going to get into a percentage number because I think that may be classified itself. I am just going to say the defense budget [[Page H 8652]] itself has been cut by 37 percent between 1985 and 1995 or about $100 billion. We are down from $350 billion to $250 billion. If the gentleman would go on with me for one more second, in procurement, we are going to have a procurement readiness problem out there in the future. The cut is from $135 billion to $41 billion. We have been cutting defense very dramatically, and the intelligence budget has been cut as part of that. President Clinton, when he ran for President, talked about cutting it by 1.5 percent per year. We have cut it beyond that. We have cut it more deeply than that. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] has been the person who, when he was chairman, made serious cuts in that budget.

Mr. DICKS. As the gentleman knows, President Clinton has just named Mr. Deutch to come in and be the new director. I as a Democrat feel that John Deutch is very competent, very professional. He has brought in a new management team, he has brought in a whole new top team at the directorate of operations where Mr. Ames resided, and you are right, there were serious problems there. But to come in here now and say, well, because there were serious problems, we need to take a meat ax approach to the intelligence budget, I do not think is the right approach to it. As I looked at the budget just the other day, and I do not think any of the Members of the House have been up to even look at the classified annex of the budget, that is the only way you can really look and see what is in this budget.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. DICKS. I would say to the gentleman, first of all, I share his concern about Medicare, Medicaid, and education, and I did not vote for balanced budget amendment that required a major tax cut which makes it a requirement to cut too deeply into these programs. But I do believe that we have made serious and significant cuts in the intelligence budget already, in prior years leading up to this year, and also we have cut the defense budget which the intelligence budget is part of, so I think we have done the job. I think what the gentleman is offering is too severe, goes too far, and is not well thought out.