Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. I thank my friend for yielding. First let me talk about a positive aspect of his leadership. Curt Weldon has been a person who has driven this bill with respect to missile defense and you are absolutely right that in many cases you asked and solicited as much information as you could get on the problems that the administration had with this bill. Each time they developed a problem, you sat down and tried to work it out. I think you did everything you possibly could do to meet their concerns. It is going to be tragic if the President vetoes this bill, which provides by a date certain some modicum of defense, of missile defense, for the American people which, as you further pointed out, most Americans think we already have. So I want to salute you for your leadership because you had to work with both Members of the other body and folks from this body and some of us that wanted to do more in this bill, and the President's people, and you made a number of agreements and put a number of pieces of language to accommodate them, and for the President to veto this thing simply on the basis that he does not want to protect the American people make no sense at all. I agree with you, if he did the same thing, if he was a leader of Israel and made the same decision with respect to Israel, he would not get 10 percent of the vote in the next election. Let us hope this President does the right thing and to my friend, let me just say briefly, because I know our friend from Michigan has something to add to this discussion, also, that we have done a lot for the troops in this bill. You have mentioned the 2.4 percent pay raise, the increase in the housing allowance that we have in this bill. If the troops are going to get their pay raise January 1, this is the way to do it, but, secondly, we give them some good equipment, and we have increased the number of trucks, armored personnel carriers, tanks, small arms. We have given them new weapon systems. We added a lot of ammo, all the way from basic M-16 ammunition right through to these precision guided munitions like the ones we saw operating in Desert Storm that allow you to stand off, and make strategic hits, and protect people, and keep us from having to put soft bodies into a very violent contact zone with the enemy. So we do a lot of things to equip our soldiers, to give them a quality of life, and, you know, I served a brief, served a tour in Vietnam, did not do anything special, but I served with a lot of special people. I never read a congressional resolution, we passed a number of them now, but I always read my pay raises. If the President really wants to support the troops, the way to support the troops is to sign this bill that will give the families of all those military people who are over there in snow that is even deeper than it is in Washington, DC a little bit of value and a little bit of buying power over the next several months by giving them that 2.4-percent pay raise. Let us see President Clinton really support the troops by sending a few more bucks to their families. So I want to thank the gentleman for everything that he has done because I think you put together an excellent missile package, one that the President can work with over the next 8 or 9 months, we can get together, we can work out some of our more detailed problems in hearings working with the other body. We have the same concern that the Soviets have about the ABM treaty, we understand that they are still wary of the United States, but one thing that you brought out when the members of the Duma met with us was that they, too, are worried about missiles coming from Third World nations, and the real tragedy in this is going to be, if we are so--if the President is so insistent on vetoing a bill that does anything at all toward moving us to defense against missiles on the basis that he thinks in some point in the future this will violate the ABM treaty, here we have an ABM treaty that was signed by two parties, us and the Soviet Union, and yet there are many countries now like North Korea, like Libya, like Iraq which are developing missiles. So because of an agreement that we made with the Russians, we are going to allow a Third World nation to have a vulnerable target either in the United States, on the mainland or against our troops in theater, because we do not want to violate this deal we made with the Russians. The North Koreans did not sign the ABM treaty. They do not care about the ABM treaty. The Libyans did not sign it, Iraqis did not sign the ABM treaty, and when you were discussing this with your fellows and your colleagues in the Duma when they were visiting the United States Congress, I noticed you asked a question of one of them, and that was were they not also concerned with missiles coming in not from the United States, but from third nations, and they answered, yes, they were, and because of that I think--I think if the President will sign this bill, they will understand that, they will understand our problems, and they will move forward accordingly to accommodate not only the United States and the Soviet Union or the Russians in our arms negotiations, but also to accommodate the safety requirements of their own citizens against incoming missiles from other countries. So this is a good defense bill, and lastly I just say to my friend for those who say that might tell the President we are spending too much, this bill is roughly $100 billion less in real dollars than Ronald Reagan's 1986 defense bill, and the reason it is less is because we held the line in those days, and we stood strong, we stayed strong, we funded adequate ammunition, and equipment, and readiness for our troops, and because of that we were able to bring about a peace with the Soviet Union. We achieved in the 1980's peace through strength. This budget is about a hundred billion dollars less than those budgets, and yet I think we have done the right thing in many places in this budget, and we can maintain this peace with this defense bill, and I hope the President signs it.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, the gentleman is right. Last year we purchased fewer combat aircraft than that warmaking nation in Switzerland. We had--I think we did something like 29 aircraft, and they did about 31 or 32. But the facts are that every billion dollars in economic activity expenditures on defense in manufacturing means about 25,000 to 30,000 jobs. So we have lost well over 600,000 jobs in the radical cut in defense spending that this administration has embarked upon. They have gone down roughly $129 billion under the levels that George Bush, and Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney got together and agreed upon as what they considered to be a prudent number, and now we are learning in Bosnia, and the gentleman has been a leader there, we are learning that the world may be a different world now, now that the Berlin Wall has come down. But it is still a very dangerous world.

Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is absolutely true, my friend is stating the fact. Once the President makes his decision on the defense number, and in this case I think it was totally arbitrary, much less than we should spend to be prudent, and you ask the leadership, military leadership, in the series of hearings that we held, you ask them at the table what do you think about this in terms of funding, their answer is we support the President's budget. It has to be like that, and it is. But there are also good, honest, candid Americans, and later on you get to have a conversation about ammunition, about modernization, and they have every single piece of equipment that we put in this bill, the gentleman has put in and I put in this bill, and other members of our committee, because we have a very bipartisan committee, Democrats and Republicans. Everything we have put in has been put in after discussion and thorough discussion with military leadership, and you know that has all come out now in the last few days. They had an article in the Washington Post to the effect that the military leadership had gone to the Joint Chiefs and said we needed to increase spending on modernization by 50 percent. Now we spent a little over $40 billion, so that is saying here they were telling their leadership in the Clinton administration we need to spend an extra $20 billion on modernization, and yet the President's aides say that the 5, or 6, or 7 billion extra that we have spent this year is just too much, and nobody wanted it, nobody asked for it. Well, everything we put in the bill has been asked for, and you know something? I think, as the President gets into this very serious situation in Bosnia and other situations that will come down the line in the next year, he is going to say thank God for those increases in defense.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, well, here we are. It is about 10 years since the buildup under President Ronald Reagan, and for the Members who have talked about the expenditures and how we are busting the budget and spending too much money, this defense bill is about $100 billion less in real dollars than the 1986 defense budget. I think if we came in today, we have heard almost exactly the same speeches that we heard 10 years ago when the budget was $100 billion more. I think if we cut it by $100 billion on the floor in the next 3 minutes, we would still have the same feelings and the same speeches on each side.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman. Let me commend the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] for his work during the year and our great chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], who, with his modesty and his good sense of humor and his great integrity, has held this committee together and worked through the conference process; my old friend, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton], who has had more meetings in his office than we have in mine on issues that affect this committee; and the young men and women in uniform, folks, this is a good bill. It provides equipment. It provides the best in terms of expanding America's airpower, our seapower, our airlift, our ammunition, our basic spares, all the things that are needed by people in uniform to project American power and carry out American foreign policy. In this brave new world that we have all talked about, where are we? We are engaged in a policy in Bosnia that resolves down to a man and a weapon with a bayonet on the end of it. That is projection of American power through American uniformed service people. Now, this is the bill that supports the troops. This has the 2.4- percent pay raise. It has the housing allowance. Let me just tell you, none of our troops read concurrent resolutions. They do read pay raises. Please, support the troops. Support American strength. Vote for this conference report.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, during the Bosnia debate a day or so ago, a number of Members came to the House floor to support provisions that they believe manifested the House's support for the troops: Do we support our troops, a number of whom are going to Bosnia? The President urged us to support the troops, support the provision that was brought by the minority party, by the Democrats, to the House floor, basically validating the President's position on Bosnia. We rejected that, but we are offering every Member of the House today, in just a few minutes, an opportunity to really support the troops. Members can support the troops by supporting the conference report on the defense authorization bill, which gives a 2.4-percent pay increase to the troops. It is a real pay increase that they can make house payments with and car payments with, and have a little better quality of life for their families. It provides more ammunition. It provides good equipment, so at least if the President puts our troops in harm's way, they will be well prepared. Please vote for this measure today.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Rules for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, let met thank the ranking member of the Committee on National Security and the gentleman from South Carolina, Floyd Spence, for putting this package together, as late as it has been for many, many reasons, and putting some reasoned emphasis where it should go in this defense package. First, the Bosnia debate illuminated for all of us one basic fact: We still live in a very uncertain world, and you still achieve peace through strength. Interestingly, when the whole world was looking for a way to achieve peace in Bosnia, their final resolve in Ohio was, it would take American troops with weapons to do that. Well, if you want to support the troops, we have a bill that does it. It gives them a 2.4-percent pay increase; it increases their housing allowance by about 5.2 percent; it gives them a better quality of life; it gives them ammunition. We put about 1 billion dollars' worth of ammunition and precision-guided munitions and other munitions into this package. That means they are going to have some bullets in their guns. It gives them a big boost in readiness. We are going to have more aircraft flying, more ships steaming. It curtails for the first time what really has been a 10-year decline in defense spending. In the procurement accounts, and that is modernization of our platforms at sea, our ships, our sealift, our aircraft, we have been going down steadily for 10 years. We, for the first time, start moving those accounts back up so that we can respond to two MRC's, that is two regional conflicts, at the same time, and have a better chance for our people coming home alive. Mr. Speaker, if you want to support the troops in Bosnia, if you want to keep this country strong and maintain the United States as an international player and as still the leader of the free world, please vote for this conference report.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and thank him for the generous allocation of time. Mr. Speaker, I think everything that could be said about this bill has been said, but let me add my thanks to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Herb Bateman, and the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Gene Taylor, for their leadership in the merchant marine panel on the Committee on National Security, in being the driving forces to put this bill together and get it to the floor. This is a national security bill. A little earlier this year, General Robert Rutherford, commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, told Congress that we had to have our own and maintain our own sealift capability. His words were ``We can't plan on the availability of foreign-flag ships and mariners to go into a theater of war.'' In the Persian Gulf operation, about 80 percent of the equipment that we brought to that theater was brought with sealift. About 20 percent was with airlift. It is a little known fact that actually a lot of the sealift that we brought were what I call rent-a-ships. They were ships that, if the foreign policy of this country had been scrutinized a little more severely by our allies, possibly would not have been available; or if the dangers to those ships as they entered the gulf area had been more severe, possibly those ships would not have been available to move American supplies and logistics capability into the gulf. This is a national security bill. One nice thing about it is the carriers that sign up for this program do not just supply ships, they supply the entire integrated service of transportation. They supply the terminal facilities, they supply the rail systems, they supply the services of the freight forwarders. So you can take equipment from a specific place in the United States and you can guarantee that it is going to be moved all the way through the system into the theater of war or operations that we are maintaining anywhere around the world. For those people who are free traders and say we should not be subsidizing anything, I would remind them that even Adam Smith, who was the father of free trade, said the one area where you have to guarantee by government expenditures that you have strength and have continuing capability is in the area of maritime security. If we do not expend these funds, and we are making a fairly dramatic cut from the program that existed before, we are not going to have that guarantee that when the men and women of this country in uniform go to project power around the world, that the equipment that they need will be there for them. We are making that guarantee with this bill. Once again, my commendations to the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Gene Taylor, and to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Herb Bateman, the great chairman of the panel, for all their hard work.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the truly remarkable life and accomplishments of a constituent in my district, Mrs. Ellen Jepson, of Imperial, CA. Mrs. Jepson recently passed away in La Jolla, CA, after surgery at a local hospital. A mother of three and grandmother of six, Ellen can best be described as an extraordinary woman who never missed an opportunity to give of herself. A native of Oklahoma, Ellen devoted much of her time and energy as a volunteer for various senior citizen organizations in the Imperial Valley. Her reputation as a considerate and caring human being was well known throughout the communities of the Valley. Ellen's desire to help others was an overriding concern that occupied her life until her final days. One of Ellen's previous responsibilities included directing the senior information and referral service for the Salvation Army. During a period in her life when many people would have been content simply pursuing leisurely activities, Ellen opted to make assisting others her passion. Regularly acknowledged for her outstanding conduct, Mrs. Jepson was honored by numerous local organizations and three California Governors for her selfless work. Most recently, Ellen served as the volunteer director of senior emergency services for the United Way of Imperial County. She tirelessly assisted seniors in a variety of ways: arranging for transportation to medical appointments, filling out paperwork, and providing help with utility bills and medication payments. Moreover, as a member of the advisory board to the Agency on Aging, Ellen was able to further assist seniors by providing Government officials with the input necessary to formulate policy for the region's aged population. Mr. Speaker, in an age where our own personal needs and requirements seem to monopolize our priorities, I feel people like Mrs. Ellen Jepson should be recognized as heroes. I believe that perhaps we should all take note of Ellen's productive and esteemed life and modify our own accordingly. Too often, our lives are filled with news and accounts that revolve around the negative; Ellen was a positive assurance that this Nation is made up of generous and considerate human beings. I will sorely miss her.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues, I support the Hefley prohibition because of what I call the leadership issue. This may very well intrude on the President's constitutional prerogatives to lead our troops, and I have to concede that with a different administration in the White House I might well vote the opposite way . But, Mr. Speaker, I think we have to look at what happened in Somalia when American troops requested tanks, because they felt they were needed militarily. They were denied by the Clinton administration because of political reasons, admitted political reasons. We suffered because of that. When Mr. Aideed's troops butchered and dragged Americans through the streets in Mogadishu, we did not pursue Aideed. Mr. Speaker, placing ground troops in this situation is going to require clear, decisive and tough American leadership, and I do not think we have it in the White House at this time. Mr. Speaker, I will support the Hefley prohibition.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say for those of us who have not worked as hard as others have on this issue, we compliment the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] on his work. A lot of people put a lot of dedicated time into this issue. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to meet three tests if we are going to have an adequate disclosure and gift reform. One is it has to be clear. I think gray areas are the worst enemy of everybody. That is what causes problems. Second, it has to be easy to administer. We get to the point in some of the proposals where the recordkeeping itself is going to be the issue. Third, I think it has to meet the commonsense test. I think that the record has been, at least with respect to charities and charitable events, that Members of Congress attending as, whether we call them bait or celebrities or whatever to raise money and to raise help for cancer research, for heart research, and for other good charities, is a good thing; something we should promote and not deny. Mr. Speaker, I think that the Burton proposal meets the clarity test, the easy-to-administer test, and the commonsense test. That is what I am going to support.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted, as we wind down the defense authorization conference, and I think we are going to have a bill very shortly for the country, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what we have done with that bill. You know, our chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], who is the first Republican chairman of the Committee on National Security in 40 years, put together an excellent bill this year, and he worked hand in glove with the chairman of the defense appropriation, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], to see to it that we had side-by-side packages that addressed a number of concerns of both the people who were the uniform in the armed services, and of course all Americans who are concerned about national security, and I just wanted to go over a couple of the things that we did. One thing that we did, and very basically, was we plused up the budget. We added money for equipment in very basic areas that is important to all uniformed people. I call it readiness spending. We spent money on ammunition. In my estimation we have about half the ammo that we need if we are going to fight two regional conflicts, and that means that the Marines, or the Army, or other services who are engaged in land conflict might find themselves running out of ammo about halfway through that fight. So, one thing that we did with this budget under the leadership of the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] is to put in about $1 billion extra for ammunition, all the way from M- 16 rounds to those so-called precision guided munitions that we saw on television during Desert Storm where the world's luckiest Iraqi taxicab driver just made it across the bridge before that one precision guided bomb went in and hit that one strut on the bridge and blew it up. We added those extra dollars for ammo because that is the best service you can do for your uniformed people because that is what keeps them alive in a fight, in a conflict. Another thing we did was increase sealift and airlift. We do not have enough ships and enough airlift to get our people to the battle in time, and because of that in the last war we had to actually go out and rent a bunch of ships. It is kind of a well-kept secret, but if our allies had not agreed with our purpose in Desert Storm, we might have been very much hurting for sealift, but the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] saw to it that we plused up sealift, plused up airlift, and we are now on our way to developing an excellent C-17 aircraft that will be able to take big cargo into very short airstrips in troubled spots around the world. Another area that we involved ourselves in was missile defense, and I think, if there is any hallmark to this chairman's position, his tenure as chairman of the Committee on National Security, his hallmark is that he recognizes that we live in an age of missiles and that this Nation, the people of this Nation, have a right to be defended against incoming ballistic missiles, and our troops in theater should also be defended against some of those slower moving missiles like the Scuds that hit our troops in Desert Storm. So we have undertaken an aggressive program to provide what we call theater missile defenses. Those are short-range defenses against a slower moving ballistic missile so, if our troops are in Saudi Arabia, or on the Korean Peninsula, or other places around the world, and they are shot at by slow-moving ballistic missiles, we will be able to destroy those missiles before they reach our troops. The Republican leadership and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] have been the architects of that program. We also initiated a national missile defense, and the interesting thing is most Americans think we have one already, but, as you know, Mr. Speaker, we do not. We have no defenses against incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles, but we directed this administration to develop and deploy a national missile defense, and I think it is a step we should have taken a long time ago. Under this chairman Floyd Spence, our Republican chairman of the Committee on National Security, for the first time in 40 years we have taken that very important step. So we have an excellent package, Mr. Speaker, and I wish I had time to tell you about all of the things and the provisions that we have in this particular bill, but I think we can say to the American people that they will be more secure because of the chairmanship of the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] of the Committee on National Security and because of the extra dollars that we are putting [[Page H 12071]] in defense and that insurance policy for the American people.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. So I thank the gentleman from Texas so much, and God bless Robert Dornan. I hope you are out there campaigning hard today, Bob.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, Duke Cunningham also, and a lot of the ideas that we had for preserving the defense industrial base of this country, we have started to carry out in this Republican-led Congress, and you have been a big part of that.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, we had a great time in Texas, incidentally, talking to all of the defense industry in this last year with myself and the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson, and we had Bob Dornan there that time.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, I thank the gentleman. Bob Dornan is my candidate. I am endorsing my great seatmate and buddy just north of the San Diego County line, Bob Dornan. His motto is faith, family, and freedom. The gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] has run under that banner for a long time. We just saw his effect as a conscience, one of the House consciences along with Henry Hyde and Chris Smith of the pro-life value and ethic in this Congress, how he has been such a leader there. He has a great family, and that faith, family, and freedom is something that always resonates, at least when I see Bob, because I think of his great family. Sally, I call her Sally Kay Dornan, it is really Sally Hansen Dornan, is a wonderful person. I know her very well, and she helps to preside over their five children, Robin Marie Griffin, Robert Kenneth, II, Teresa Anne Cobin, Mark Douglas and Kathleen Regina Penn, and they have eight grandchildren and I am going to name them, since we have them right here. Richard K. Cobin, Terry Cobin, Kevin Gary Griffin, Collin Robert Griffin, Anna Victoria Cobin, Erin Marie Griffin, Haley Olivia Dornan. Of course, Bob Dornan's uncle was the ``Tin Man'', Jack Haley, in the ``Wizard of Oz,'' so that is where Haley comes from, and of course rounding off with Robert K. Dornan, III. Let me tell you, if you go to Bob Dornan's house, you do not see any of what the national news media complains about as being a mean demeanor or tough or ill-willed, all of the tough stands that he takes when he sees real liberalism on the horizon. You see a grandfather who lives for those kids. You drive up to that big ex-hockey player's house out there in McLean and you will see Bob Dornan coming down, if it is in the wintertime, a bobsled run that would challenge what we have in the winter Olympics, and he may have a camera mounted on the front of his helmet and have four or five grandkids cuddled in his arms, or he may be throwing water balloons at them out of the top story of that house. Bob Dornan lives for his family. He has a great family. I can remember once watching the Larry King Show, a detractor sitting there and talking about taking on Bob Dornan in a race, and the phone rang and Larry King took it and it was Mark from California. That was Mark Dornan, his son. When Mark Dornan finished with that particular guest, it was clear who had won. That is how close that Dornan family is. So faith, family, freedom. Bob Dornan has a lot to offer this country, and I think he has injected a lot of value, a lot of ethics and a lot of real conservative spirit into this presidential race. I would be happy to yield, having talked so long, to the great fighter pilot, the gentleman from Texas Mr. Sam Johnson.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for asking, and no, it is not a member of NATO.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Sam Johnson, the famous fighter pilot.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Absolutely. He went to see a number of the family members of people who had died and members of people who had been wounded, members of the uniformed services who had been wounded. I can remember members of the families sitting, coming, driving or flying from their homes around the United States to be here in this Chamber and meet Bob and listen to his description of what happened. So Bob was a great ambassador, not just for the uniformed service members themselves but for their families. I think that is representative of everything he has done. He has been, as you said, to every single military hot spot around the world. He goes there when it is hot. He went to Vietnam literally dozens of times, and a person who really cares about the security of this Nation. You know, he is the only Member of this body who is running for President, and I think he is a great candidate. And he is a guy who, it is kind of interesting that Bob Dornan is probably the most unpolitical for a guy who has been in Congress for 20 years or more, the most unpolitical Member of this body, because he rarely does things that make sense purely from a political standpoint, from an analytical, how will this advance my career, how will this help me, how will this position assist me from my standpoint. I can remember when I was a freshman in this House, and we were competing for the Armed Services seat that came up in California with the retirement of one of our senior Members, and all of those who were competing for that seat, myself included, would get up and make a speech. Then we would have, at the end of the speeches, we would have a vote by the members of the California delegation as to who got that seat, and Bob Dornan got up and started to speak for himself as all the rest of us had. We all were self-promoters except Bob. Halfway through the speech, he stopped and said, ``You know, we really should give this seat to Duncan Hunter, a Vietnam veteran from San Diego.'' He gave about 5 reasons why we should vote for me. He said. ``I am voting for Duncan,'' and sat down. I won the seat as a result of that. I think Members of the body looked at Bob and said, ``Why would you do that? That was the most unpolitical thing you could do. You had a good chance of winning it yourself.'' But a few years later, here is Bob Dornan back not only as a member of that committee, the Committee on National Security, but also the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee where he has done a lot this year to make lives better for our military families, and he is also the chairman of a very important subcommittee in the Intelligence Committee, which is the Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee. As the gentleman mentioned, Bob Dornan has a lot of smarts with respect especially to national security. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank my friend for yielding. You know, I am reminded, in Somalia, because Bob Dornan is a guy who really dedicates himself to this Chamber and to his obligation as a U.S. Congressman, and while the rest of us were doing a few things on Somalia, we were getting the briefings, we were participating in the few areas where Members of Congress were given some leave by the administration to register our feelings, but Bob Dornan went to Somalia. Going there and back, I think is about a 40-hour plane ride which none of us would look forward to, and in the end, Bob Dornan contacted every family of a uniformed service member who was killed in Somalia, and he talked to them, and he let them know how much they were appreciated, and their loved ones were appreciated. He did a total analysis of the situation and reported back to those of us on the Committee on Armed Services, in fact, to the whole Congress in great detail.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. I think the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I was attracted to his very articulate statement. He reminds me that when we have the Secretary of Defense before us, the Secretary of State and other leading members of the Clinton administration, the one question they could not answer was, what happens when that one car bomb occurs and you lose 12 or 15 or 20 people? Do you stay there? Do you show resolve? Do you move out immediately? They offered no answer beyond what has happened already in Somalia and other places. That is, that we are driven out. If we are driven out because of terrorism, then we have lost all of the important things that they talked about. Like holding NATO together, maintaining our credibility with our European allies, et cetera. They never answered that question.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, let me thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services and the chairman of the Committee on Government Operations for their great work. Let me give a dimension to this problem that has not been explored before. This year in the Department of Defense we are going to be spending about $40 billion for procurement of weapons systems. That is for aircraft, for ships, for submarines, and for all that equipment that our Armed Forces use, so we spend about $40 billion for equipment. Well, folks, we have about 300,000 Government shoppers buying that equipment. Those 300,000 Government shoppers, that is two U.S. Marine Corps of shoppers. I call them the 173rd Airborne shopping division, call them the Big Red One shopping division, but those shoppers are necessary because we have built a mountainous system of regulations that says if you buy a military airplane for $100 million, you will spend abut $40 million that you pay in salaries to the Pentagon for the service of buying it. If we do not start reducing the regulations, and this bill goes a long way toward doing that, we are going to continue to maintain two U.S. Marine Corps for the service of shopping for weapon systems. That is not in the interest of the taxpayers. I commend the gentlemen for their hard work. I just hope everybody in the House realizes the efficiencies that we can achieve if we will pass this bill.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] for yielding me this time. My colleagues, we are close to this vote, and what we are doing today is going down the path that we commenced after Vietnam because during Vietnam we lost 2,200 aircraft, mostly to SAM missiles. We lost aircraft that had pilots from every congressional district in this Nation. [[Page H 8618]] The smartest people in this country got together at our request, Congress and the President, and we asked, ``Is there any way to avoid radar so we can protect our pilots?'' Then, lo and behold, the great American technological base came up with stealth, with the ability to avoid radar. Now probably radar, the invention of radar, was the greatest military invention of this century. I would say the ability to avoid radar is probably the second greatest invention of this century. If we do not go with the B-2 bomber, we are going to see pilots go down just like Mr. O'Grady went down. Do not reject this technology. Protect our pilots.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, last week on August 29 and 30, the officers and crew of the U.S.S. Hayler made history. In exercises against one of the most sophisticated diesel submarine forces in the world, armed with a full load-out of modern torpedoes, the ship successfully defeated every simulated attack. The state of the art capability that was most professionally demonstrated by the ship's captain, CDR Alan B. Hicks, and the U.S.S. Hayler represents a technological breakthrough and a real success story for acquisition reform and reinventing Government. This technological leap was provided by two new systems known as MSTRAP and LEAD that were developed and deployed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost than traditional Mil-Spec approaches would have taken.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of conservatives on both sides of this question, and I have a lot of respect for the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, as well as my great friend, the gentleman from Indiana, Dan Burton. But I think we are talking about here not a government mandate. It is no more a mandate for parents to be able to have a tool to use to decide what their kids are going to see than to have a PG rating or an R rating. That is put out by at least a quasi- governmental board, and yet it is something that is available in the absence of anything else. The best thing in the world is for a parent to have seen a show and say that show is okay for my kids. That is how we do with the movies generally. But you cannot do that now with this giant menu of shows that are available. There is no working parent in the country who can go through 300 television shows before they leave for work and say I think these are good for the kids. So in the absence of that, with the mom or the dad running out the door to make their second job, they at least, if they want to, can click this V-chip in and perhaps restrain some of the violence. Mr. Chairman, I think it makes sense. Vote for the Burton amendment and vote against the Coburn amendment.