Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. You are probably right; he probably did. We have all seen that the great thing about great Republican Presidents is you continue to love them even when their bureaucracy sometimes does not measure up to their measure of goodness. I think Bob understands that. I think we all have to deal with that on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. HUNTER. Except George Bush.

Mr. HUNTER. It did not just happen. It is a function of a lot of great expertise, leadership and technology, and guys in the House of Representatives like Bob Dornan. Bob was one of a kind in supporting that continued superiority of air power. You have got to have a good old Irish temper if you are an Irishman. I think that is one of the great things about Bob Dornan. When you were in a tight spot, you just wanted Bob to get angry at your adversary and you were taken care of.

Mr. HUNTER. My colleague is absolutely right. Bob Dornan won the majority of the legal votes cast in that particular race. It is sad that so many officeholders who were in a position to do something about that, to pursue the investigation, became intimidated and allowed that thing to fall through. That happened throughout the State of California. Folks that were supposed to be subpoenaed left and went to other countries. In the end the race card was played by the opponents of Mr. Dornan's campaign. That is sad, because everybody, regardless of your ethnic background or your religious background, everybody has got a stake in free and fair and honest elections. Bob Dornan got the majority of the votes in that election.

Mr. HUNTER. There is one other area that Bob was very concerned about, and I think most Americans today, especially in the wake of the September 11 attacks are concerned, and that is the problem that we have, and the problem is that we have no defense against incoming ballistic missiles. The argument against having a defense against missiles has always been that somehow it is unthinkable, it is unimaginable, that cities in the United States could be attacked by incoming missiles. It is not that there are not dozens of countries around the world making these missiles, and I would just hold up this chart to show the dozens of countries. Each one of these lines and boxes represents ballistic missiles that are being developed by various individual countries around the world. It is not that dozens of countries are not making these missiles, which are becoming increasingly capable of covering large distances, meaning a number of them can now reach the United States from various locations around the world. But it was somehow that it was too Buck Rogerish to imagine a missile attack on the United States. Remember when we first started talking about missile defense, and Ronald Reagan started talking about it in 1980, the put-down, and in politics you always try to get, whether you are conservative or liberal, you use a put-down with a touch of humor, and the put-down was this was Star Wars; that this was somehow so unimaginable that we would have an incoming missile hit an American city, that it was something that was more appropriate for a movie screen, where people would go and leave the real world for a few hours and watch a movie, than in real life. So that was a derision that a lot of journalists accorded the idea you should defend yourself against incoming missiles. Of course, we defended ourselves against every other invention of warfare in this century. We defended ourselves against tanks; we came up with counter measures. We defended ourselves against machine guns. We defended ourselves against aircraft. We learned how to make radar to shoot down aircraft. When our own aircraft were shot down with radar, culminating in hundreds of planes being shot down in the Vietnam theater, we developed an airplane that could avoid radar, that at some places could not been seen by radar, the so-called stealth airplane. So every time there has been a technology that could defeat America's military developed by another country, we always built a countertechnology to defend ourselves. For the first time in this century, in fact, in our history, we had people saying we should not defend against incoming ballistic missiles. Of course, we made the treaty with the Soviet Union where we promised not to defend ourselves, they promised not to defend themselves, and the idea was no matter who threw the first rock or missile, there would be such a huge response from the other side that both sides could be assured of destruction. That was called the MAD doctrine, mutually assured destruction. To a large degree, we still operate under that with the Soviet Union. We still have no defense against incoming missiles. But today there are lots of countries, dozens of countries, who never signed that agreement not to defend themselves, or not to attack an America that did not defend itself, building ballistic missiles around the world. So right now President Bush is meeting with President Putin of Russia, and they are both acknowledging the reality that while we have made this agreement between our two countries for better or for worse, there are lots of countries that never signed the agreement who are building these systems with increasing capability to go further and further; and a number of these missiles can now reach the United States of America.

Mr. HUNTER. Another thing has happened since September 11, and that is a lot of Americans realize there are people in the world who do not care about mutual assured destruction; and there are people who have technology, who understand how to leverage technology. Today the experts call it asymmetric warfare, that is, you do something that has a great deal of leverage and damage capability, far beyond the parity or the proportionality of your military to the other military. That is, you may have a very small military that could not in a conventional war take on the United States of America; but if you can use a technological weapon, and that includes today missiles, you can do a lot of damage, far beyond your size. So I think since September 11 it is no longer unimaginable that one of these thousands of missiles that are now being built by our adversaries may in fact be used by them at some point. In fact, with all the construction of ballistic missiles that is taking place right now, it would be the first time in our history that all this construction and development and technology dollars went into a program and it was never utilized. When we saw technology go into the building and development of tanks, they used tanks. When we saw building and technology development go into the development of machine guns, they used them. The same thing with aircraft and artillery. So the idea that the bad guys are building these missiles but they do not intend to ever use them is itself a myth. I think it is becoming harder and harder to explain why we are not building defenses against missiles. Finally, we now have a lot of Americans who were killed in that Desert Storm attack with Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles, that killed Americans; and we saw for the first time on the battlefield American casualties caused by ballistic missiles. We sent up our Patriot missiles to try to intercept them. The Army thinks they got about 80 percent hits. We had some private experts from the outside that said they did not think we got any hits. Probably the truth is somewhere in between. But right now we have more capability to knock down those Scud missiles.

Mr. HUNTER. That is the offering that George Bush, President Bush, is making to the American people with this defense budget. He is requesting the dollars to expand our missile testing range, which presently is in the Pacific. We fire our missiles now, our test missiles, out of Vandenberg. We fire them due west. They cross over Hawaii at about 148 miles above the Earth's surface. And we fire an intercepter missile from Kwajalein Island at that incoming target missile. When they hit, they are both going about three times the speed of a 30.06 bullet. The last test we did a couple of months ago it was a success, although it was an easier test. We had a transponder part-time in the missile going out. We shot that same shot a number of times, because we have a very limited test range. So what President Bush has offered to all Members, whether you are for missile defense or against missile defense, is to do some really tough testing. He has said, and General Kadish, who heads up the Ballistic Missile Defense Office, said was, okay, let us do some tough testing. The critics want it; they say this is too easy. Let us have some tough angles. You shot that pheasant going straight away. Have angles where they cross. Let us have some higher speeds; let us have some difficult geometries. Let us have some more difficult radar acquisition. To do all of that, you have got to build a bigger test range. You cannot just have this narrow alley where you throw the same target up in the same position every time and you shoot it from the same position. So we are now expanding this test range in this defense bill to Alaska, to a location at Fort Greely and a location at Kodiak, Alaska. So we are now going to have some very difficult shots. It will also allow us to shoot-look-shoot. We will have multiple engagements. We throw up a missile, and if we miss it with first shot, we will try to get it with a second one. So we will have a chance to evaluate our success just seconds after we fired our first intercept; and, if we miss that intercept, we come back with a second intercept. So President Bush has taken the challenge from all the naysayers that you talked about that said it does not work. A lot of the naysayers say we do not even want to test it. It is so unthinkable, we do not want to test it. That is no longer a reasonable position. That is why we need every penny of funding that the President has requested in this defense bill for missile defense.

Mr. HUNTER. We just had an attack by people who did not care about mutually assured destruction.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating. Mr. Speaker, God bless the family of Jerry Williams, God bless Bob Dornan and his family, and God bless Ronald Reagan and his family and the strength that he brought to our country.

Mr. HUNTER. I want to thank my good friend for his contribution to this Special Order. I think it is appropriate that we started in southern California talking about Jerry Williams, who was a great cattleman and really carried forth a tradition and legacy of the West in his home and with his great family up in the Santa Ynez Valley where Ronald Reagan settled, and where you and I and Bob Dornan campaigned a number of times. That was really, to some degree, the heart of the political movement that supported then Governor Reagan through a couple of campaigns for the U.S. Presidency and ended up with leadership in the 1980s that proved the validity of peace through strength. That is the idea that we in the United States would become so strong that we would be able to deter aggression. That means we could not only protect ourselves, but we could protect lots of others. We did a lot of great things for the world. We freed a lot of people. This little article from the New York Times about the President or the head of the Communist Sandinistas, former dictator of Nicaragua, being beaten in a free and fair election in Nicaragua is great evidence of the validity of the idea of peace through strength that we engendered in the 1980s.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize some real heroes from my district. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, America has witnessed the best that our Nation has to offer. Men and women from every walk of life and every background have come together to help those in need and to comfort those who have experienced loss. A group of individuals from my district have contributed to this effort. These men and women, from firefighting agencies all over East San Diego County, recently traveled crosscountry to New York assisting in efforts to rescue victims in the World Trade Center attacks. For four and a half days, these brave firefighters gave help wherever it was needed. My fellow colleagues, join me in recognizing Jeff Beeler, Daryn Drum, Ted Kakuris, Marco Maldonado, Scott Springett, Paul Mascoso, Don Anderson, Steve Swaney, Mike Scott, Gerry Brewster, Mike Blood, Beverly Harrell-Bruder, Paul Hyde, Rich Leap, Brian Kidwell, Buz Miller, Jon Handley, Perry Peake, Steve Peters, Jerry Sadler, David Tegardine, Eric Swanson, and David Williams for all their efforts and sacrifices. Firefighters across this country serve their communities every day with the unofficial motto of, ``Leave Nobody Behind.'' Regardless of who you are, these individuals risk their lives to protect those in danger. Today, more than ever, the children of our Nation are saying with pride that they would like to be firemen and women when they grow up. On behalf of San Diego County, I want to thank these firefighters from our community whose actions serve as a strong reminder that America has a good heart and that we will continue to take care of those in need.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me the time, and I thank all my colleagues for their wonderful and eloquent words. I was listening to them back in my office, and that is why I came over also, to pay tribute to Jerry. A number of folks have talked about Jerry's countenance and his optimism and his appearance. And he was impressive because he had that big voice and he exerted that voice, and he had a great leadership role in this House. But he had this countenance and presence that I think, to some degree, was America's presence. He was optimistic. He was always ready to help. He believed very deeply in principle. I would hope that is how other nations would view the United States. I can recall waging battles side-by-side with Jerry and with my buddies, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan came in. And that was such a joy for Jerry Solomon, because he was such an ardent supporter of this guy who believed in peace through strength, President Ronald Reagan. We fought what were known as the Contra wars, and those were the wars in which we came into an era at a time when most of our Central American neighbors had military dictatorships of one type or another. And through putting a shield around those countries, in terms of the foreign intervention, the attempt by the Russians, then the Soviet Union, to try to move into our hemisphere, and giving some leadership to those nations with respect to democracy, we ended up with fragile democracies in all those nations, which heretofore had had military dictatorships and, to some degree, tragic histories. But we did that by extending the strong hand of American leadership, and that was, I think, reflective of Jerry Solomon's belief as to how this country should conduct foreign policy. I recall all the debates we had on the nuclear freeze; the idea that somehow if we would just show a little more passivism, if we would simply halt and not do anything while the Soviet Union built 758 big ICBMs during the 1970s and early 1980s, that somehow they would reciprocate because of our kindness and our good personalities and they in fact would start to build down their nuclear inventory. But Jerry Solomon believed you could only achieve peace by having strength. He was on the floor, as was the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), during the nuclear freeze debate that took place over 3 or 4 weeks, holding out until we impressed upon the American people, and I think the leadership of the Soviet Union, that we intended to remain strong and become stronger. Through the leadership of Ronald Reagan, they called up at one point, and the Soviets said can we talk. We did talk and that led to the first arms reduction agreements. That set the tone for the talks that are going on today, that will result in further reductions to our nuclear stockpiles, as well as the Russians'. Jerry Solomon was here at a critical time in our history. He also believed in the American patriot. I think one of Jerry's great attributes was that he wanted to remake America in his image. I mean that in a good way. Jerry was a patriotic guy who served in the United States Marine Corps, and he wanted to make sure that every young man had that opportunity. He wanted to make sure that every young man registered with the draft and every educational institution which took its freedom to teach from the legacy of the 619,000 Americans who have died in this last century, Jerry wanted to make sure that those educational institutions, if they wanted to receive any largess from the Federal Government, would make sure that they allowed a draft registration and a presence of military recruiters on their campuses. This was Jerry Solomon, the patriot. He believed that every American had a duty to serve his country, and as usual led by example by doing it himself. Jerry, you have left us in a different era, a new era, with new threats, new challenges, new dangers, and some receding dangers. I think if this country will follow that model of optimism, of help for others who need help, of rugged individualism, and of peace through strength, that is the American idea that we only achieve peace and maintain peace in this world by being militarily strong and thereby being able to protect ourselves, and help others, if we follow that Jerry Solomon model, even in this new dangerous world that we live in, we will come out okay.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that, too, I think that one thing that Rush Limbaugh did, he was a great leader with respect to ideas, very creative. But I think also like a lot of other great radio talk show hosts, I think he developed a lot of his ideas by listening to people. There is a great difference in this country between the guy who is on the 20th story of a building in a newspaper office, an editor who decides what is going to be written the next day, who is separated from the people by three or four electronic doors, a set of elevators, lots of security guards, and expounds on what he thinks America should do based on his education, his background, and the people he may talk to when he goes to lunch. A radio talk show host takes that call from Joe on a cell phone in a car and Joe, who is driving home from work, who may be a plumber or he may be a high-tech guy, may have a great idea in any given area, and he is able to transmit that idea and get some feedback from Rush Limbaugh, and I think Rush Limbaugh has resonated, not just led America, but I think he has learned a lot from Americans, as most talk show hosts do.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank everybody for their wonderful tribute to Rush, and I would just observe that 30 years ago people used to get their news and spend a little time thinking about America and thinking about the surroundings and our democracy and reflecting on this country seated at their breakfast table or local coffee shop or at some other place. And Rush Limbaugh ushered in an age in which Americans read their newspaper, not by picking up a paper, but by turning on a radio dial, whether at their place of work or in their car, where we all spend a great deal of time now, and Americans transferred that important time in their daily lives, when you really reflect on who we are and where we are going, from the written media to radio, to the media where you actually could hear a thought propounded and then hear an answer or an argument or another idea to come back from somebody who called into that station. So that is how we read our newspaper, largely as a result of Rush Limbaugh. To Rush Limbaugh I say, it has been a great read.

Mr. HUNTER. Rush Limbaugh and others like him introduced into the national forum something we did not have when we had the three networks and the big newspaper chains, and that is called debate. Rush Limbaugh would debate with people who called him up. Whether they called him from a phone at work or from home or on a cell-phone, he would debate with people. He was not afraid to debate. The idea that somehow if one's ideas are better than the other guys, they should be willing to take him on, that is the American way. Yet, it did not exist in the media, as the gentleman from Minnesota has stated. We had a couple of nightly news anchors who would tell us the way it was. If we heard a President make a speech, we would see the President, but we would not hear him; we would see the image of the President making the speech, and the voiceover from the anchor would tell us what the President said and why it was right or wrong. That was it. That was our information for the night. I have to say, Rush Limbaugh has a lot of great colleagues out there who think a lot of him. I know Mike Reagan thinks a lot of him and does a great job; Oliver North, another guy who does a wonderful job; in San Diego, there is Mark Larson; and of course, Roger Hedgecock, friends of Rush Limbaugh. People who like Rush are willing to have somebody call up on a cell- phone, offer a different point of view, and take them on and have a dialogue. That is how we develop ideas in America.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is very possible that he got his wisdom from the American people, and I think he got a lot of it just from everyday folks who, in many ways, are a lot smarter than a lot of the folks in this city.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, that is a great lead-in. I thank my colleagues for letting me participate. I am reminded that Rush Limbaugh taught the American people to laugh at Washington, D.C., and the self-righteousness of the liberal program was something he just delighted in shredding. He made us think and be creative. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) just said we came in and did a lot of things, but we did that with the support of the American people because Rush held up all of the things we were doing with the status quo system, that was architected by liberals and that was held up in a vary serious and profound manner with their media support, and people began to understand that literally the king had no clothes. They were able to look at a school system where the Federal education dollar sent to Washington, D.C. resulted in about 25 cents going back to the classroom. They were able to laugh with Rush when he pointed out when we were trying to reform welfare that the average welfare recipient was on welfare for 13 years and Rush wondered if maybe that was not quite a while for a guy to be able to go down and get the want ads in the local newspaper. Rush took all of these aspects of government and he held them up to the American people and he did it with humor. I think to get the attention of the American people, one needs to give them a little humor, and he did that so effectively. So he entertained us, but the interesting thing is he always entertained us with fact, because his facts with respect to what he called the ``liberal welfare state'' were much funnier than any fictitious system that one might think up or any sitcom on television. So he made the American people look at Washington, D.C. and made us laugh at ourselves first. When we saw what we built up as we advanced towards socialism and we were able to laugh at ourselves and reflect on the error of these programs, we then got creative and we came up with reform for the welfare system, and we came up with ways to reduce that education rake- off in Washington, D.C. where 75 percent of every education dollar was pulled off the top by government, by very wise people. I thought that on one of Rush's shows, he pointed out that you have the same people flying from our districts across the country, educators, and asked the question, do people gain an IQ because when they cross the Mississippi River, and the same guy that might be spending 100 cents out of that education dollar in Minnesota or Michigan or Georgia or Arizona or California, is he any smarter once his aircraft crosses the Mississippi River and he glides into Washington and now he is going to tell us how to spend that money from his perch in Washington, D.C. instead of having local government do it back in our respective States. So Rush Limbaugh was a guy who first I think got the attention of the American people by entertaining them a little bit, and then they realized that all of his one-liners were based on facts and they realized that the facts described their government. So then we got creative and did something about it. So I thank my colleagues for letting me come down and join with these great Americans, with all of my colleagues, and talk about Rush a little bit.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Madam Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for putting together this compromise that allows us to stand united during this defense bill and not send out the wrong signal to the world, and yet continue to move forward on missile defense. It has been suggested that the question of the day is will we ever be attacked by ballistic missiles? Is it possible, is it imaginable that someday Americans will be killed by ballistic missiles? Well, that question has been answered. It was answered 10 years ago when 28 Americans were killed, the first American casualties, by ballistic missiles during Desert Storm. They were killed by the slow ballistic missile known as the Scud, the Model-T of ballistic missiles, the ones that are proliferated around the world. So the facts are, we have been struck by ballistic missiles, they have killed Americans, they are a real threat, and Democrats and Republicans agree that we have to be able to stop these thousands of ballistic missiles that are proliferating around the world, some of them a function of military sales where countries like North Korea and China and Russia sell these missiles to countries and to groups that would aim them at us; and the other one as a result of information and technology now that is going to rogue groups, going to nations that are not our friends around the world which, indeed, will aim these systems at the United States. Now, let me just address this compromise and what it does. First, it has been suggested over and over again by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) that we do not want to use these things; we do not want to deploy a ballistic missile defense system until we know it works. That is the point. Most of the testing is for the so-called national missile defense system, that is, being able to stop the fast ballistic missiles that can go intercontinental. It is for testing. Now, we just had a test about a month ago, a successful test in which we shot our standard shot; and when we shot our standard shot, we launched a target missile from Vandenberg Air Base. It went west across the Pacific. It was hit, it went about 4,800 miles, it cleared Hawaii; and after it cleared Hawaii, we fired up an interceptor missile out of Kwajalein Island that hit it about 148 miles above the Earth's surface and killed it. Now, we fired that shot several times; and if we ask the ballistic missile defense program, can we make that shot, we can make that shot. With that angle, with that speed, with those physics, we can make that shot. But the critics of the system have said, wait a minute. There are other things we have to be able to do. How about the tougher angles? How about the faster closing speeds? How about the different closing speeds? How about all of those things that are variables? Well, the answer is to this cry for tough testing, we have to expand the test range to have tough testing; and that means we cannot have the same shot time after time where we shoot over Hawaii and we come up with an intercept from Kwajalein Island. We have to now have the Alaskan dimension. The Alaskan dimension is going to make the closing angles, the shooting angles. Just like we are shooting on a skeet range, instead of shooting at the clay bird going straightaway every time, we are now going to have to shoot one that is going at a fast angle. It is going to give us a variety of speeds that we have to shoot at. It is going to give faster interceptor speeds. It is going to make all the difficult challenges that our critics are telling us and that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) alluded to when he talked about these commissions that have said we have to make tougher testing. It is going to give us tougher testing. So I would say to my colleagues, whether one is for missile defense or against missile defense, we certainly want to know what the outcome of these tough tests are going to be. Well, I have news for my colleague. There is not going to be any outcome for us to judge if we do not build the range. Most of the money that goes into this system goes to build the range. Now, let me just say with respect to the Soviet Union, because the ABM Treaty has been mentioned, and I think everybody has reflected on the effect of this strike on America with respect to our position in the world, our relationship with the Soviet Union. We told the Soviet Union, we did make the agreement, the ABM agreement, not to defend ourselves. That is an agreement not to defend ourselves. But we have always said to them, we are not just worried about you, we are worried about these other people. We are worried about all of these nations that are depicted here on this map of the world which are now building and developing ballistic missiles and none of these countries, none of these groups signed any treaty not to defend themselves. They did not sign the ABM Treaty, and we are concerned about that. I think that the Russians now are looking at this more realistically, and I think the President has more credibility in his statement when he said we are truly worried about the unimaginable happening. For those people who said up until a few weeks ago a strike on the United States is unimaginable, a missile strike on the United States is unimaginable, it now becomes apparent to us that unimaginable things happen. So what we need is not just defense against people that take over airlines, it is not just defense at our borders against cargo containers coming in, it is not just defense against submarines and ships and guerrilla warfare and terrorism; it is broad capability against a number of threats. We live today, I say to my colleagues, in an age of missiles; and we are going to have to learn to defend against those missiles if we are going to maintain the national security. Our two leaders have put together a compromise that I do not fully agree with; it does make a $265 million cut from this missile defense budget. However, they did it in a spirit of compromise to get this bill moving, to move it into the conference, and to be able to work our will from that point. Because of that, and because of the need to let the world know that we stand together, that we are not fractured, I support this compromise. I urge everyone to vote for it. Ms. McKINNEY. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Stump/Skelton amendment to combat terrorism. If there is one thing that we have learned from the tragedy of September 11, it is that the greatest threat to our Nation is not from high-tech weapons such as ballistic missiles being launched at our Nation. Therefore, the defense that is of the greatest priority to our Nation is not an $8.3 billion missile defense shield that has no guarantee to work. Instead, we need to protect ourselves from the modern threat of terrorism, protecting our airports and hubs of activity, seeking out those who are responsible for previous attacks, to be aware of and prepared for plans of future attacks, and to act appropriately with the intelligence we gather. This amendment takes away less than 9 percent of the increase for missile defense research and development, and only 3 percent of the entire missile defense budget. I believe that we should reprogram much more towards protecting our constituents from the real threats that our Nation is facing, and spend much less on some Star Wars program. This amendment supports that concept of refocusing our priorities on the true threats to our Nation, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Madam Chairman, I just want to add my thoughts on the B-1 fleet, the idea that we have been so short of money the last several years that we have been like a farmer who has three hay balers and he cannot afford to keep all three of them running, so he starts cannibalizing parts off one of them just so he can keep the other two in operation. That is not the way to run a military, but that is the way we have been forced to run part of our B-1 fleet. And so the idea was to save money, we would cut down that fleet, coming down from the nineties to the sixties, and basically do away with those operations of some 30-some aircraft. That would take out of operation one of our fine assets, our most recently built bombers beyond the few B-2s that we have built, something that has got long- range capability. In fact, those packages may be utilized in upcoming air operations. My own thoughts are that it is wise for us to spend the money that it takes for the spare parts and the operational support to keep the entire B-1 fleet in the air and operational. I think that makes sense. I think that is where the gentleman was going with his amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Let me just say I would be happy to work with the gentleman, with Democrat and Republican Members, and with the administration, to try to persuade them that keeping all our bombers in the air is the way to go.

Mr. HUNTER. Madam Chairman, I would like to talk with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) who is an expert on the B-2 fleet. I still think that most Americans do not realize what we have done with that capability, because I just left the buildings in San Diego where, during World War II, we built bombers at a rate that was remarkable. We built a bomber aircraft per hour. That meant that in 1 day, in 24 hours, we would build more aircraft than we have in the entire B-2 fleet. And in some cases, in missions in Europe and other places, we lost more than that many planes in a day. Yet the B-2 fleet, because it has the ability to avoid and evade enemy radar and, therefore, the ability to penetrate into an enemy's airspace directly over target, coupled with precision munitions, where instead of dropping a giant payload of hundreds of bombs on a bridge or another asset, you send one precision-targeted munition into that one strut on that bridge and bring it down, that capability, that precision munitions, coupled with stealth that we have with B-2, has made us very effective.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. HUNTER. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me, and once again I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for their leadership in bringing Democrats and Republicans together on this bill at this time of national emergency. Mr. Chairman, I thought I would just let my colleagues know, or give them the broader context within which we are working with this defense bill. Ronald Reagan in 1985 had a very major defense bill. That was the height of the buildup, the rebuilding of America's Armed Forces. That bill in today's dollars was $452 billion. Today's bill is a little over $340 billion. That means that even with the increases that we have placed in this bill so far, we are still $100 billion under Ronald Reagan's defense bill of 1985, when we had a gross national product which was much smaller. So it is important for Americans, both in uniform and out of uniform, to understand that today we are asking our people to do more with less. We do not have the force structure that we had during Desert Storm. We had the fruits of the Reagan-Bush defense buildup used in Desert Storm. In those days, we had 18 Army divisions. We have cut those 18 Army divisions down to 10. We had about 546 Navy ships. We have cut that down to 316. We are going down further. We had 24 fighter air wings. We have cut that down to 13. Beyond that, we have piled up some shortages in munitions, equipment, spare parts, and other vital areas. So this effort is not the finish. This is the start of a rebuilding of national defense. I hope we work together in a bipartisan way to add some more things that we now need as we go through the conference with the other body and finally get a bill on the President's desk.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.