Samuel Nunn

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. This threat is very different from the threat of nuclear annihilation with which our Nation and the world has dealt during the cold war. During the cold war, both we and the Soviet Union recognized that either side could destroy the other within about an hour, but only at the price of its own destruction. In the course of carrying out that mutual assured destruction, most of the rest of the civilized world would have been destroyed, in greater or lesser degree, as well. Today, this kind of cataclysmic threat is greatly reduced. And if we are able to continue to implement START I and START II Treaties on both sides, reducing the number of warheads dramatically, it will be reduced further. Tragically, the end of the cold war, however, has not brought peace and stability, but rather has seemingly unleashed countless small bloody wars around the globe. The end of the cold war also encouraged a number of states that are hostile to the United States to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction and appropriate delivery means as an adjunct to their conventional military forces. They are motivated by two beliefs. One is that the possession of such weapons of mass destruction will advance regional status and power relative to neighboring and often rival states. Second is that they believe possession of weapons of mass destruction, coupled with the threat to use them, can both deter superpower states from interfering in regional conflicts and blackmail them into favorable courses of action. While here I am not speaking of nuclear weapons, I am including that. In many of these countries, probably a greater threat is the chemical and biological proliferation we now see going on. Finally, Mr. President, fanatics, small disaffected groups and subnational factions or movements who hold various grievances against governments, or against society, all have increasing access to, and knowledge about the construction of, weapons of mass destruction. Such individuals and groups are not likely to be deterred from using weapons of mass destruction by the classical threat of overwhelming retaliation. In many past instances of terrorism, we have not even known who the perpetrators were or where they were based. It is very hard to threaten retaliation when you do not know who did it or where they came from or where they were based. These groups are not deterred by the threat of a nuclear counterstrike. A national missile defense system, no matter how capable, is sometimes and often irrelevant to this kind of terrorism. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Senator Roth chairs, and I am the ranking Democrat on that committee, held a series of hearings over the last year on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We heard from representatives of the intelligence and law enforcement communities, the Defense Department, private industry, State and local governments, academia, as well as foreign officials. These witnesses described a threat that we cannot ignore and which we are virtually unprepared to handle. CIA Director John Deutch, for one, candidly observed that ``we have been lucky so far.'' Mr. President, the release of deadly sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system should have been a warning bell for America. Prior to those attacks, this Aum Shrinkiyo sect that made this attack was unknown to the United States intelligence and was poorly monitored by Japanese authorities. The Aum Shrinkiyo sect actually conducted several test releases of lethal chemicals prior to the subway attack. Yet, their capacity to manufacture and store those chemicals was unknown to Japanese authorities, this in spite of the fact that they had over 50,000 members in Russia. They were recruiting nuclear scientists. They owned a radio station in Vladivostok and tested sarin gas in Australia against sheep. In addition to many other things they have done, they were not on the radar screen. We received an even louder warning bell in the World Trade Center bombing which brought it home to America. It was here in the United States, not halfway around the world. The trial judge, at the sentencing of those responsible in that terrible terrorist incident, pointed to several factors that could have made the tragedy far worse. First, in an effort to get that tower to fall down over its twin tower next door, the killers wanted to park the truck in front of a key structural member of the outer corner of the building. But they could not find an empty parking space. So they went elsewhere. Second, the killers had access to chemicals to make lethal cyanide gas and, according to the judge, probably put them into the truck bomb. Fortunately, the chemicals appeared to have been vaporized by the force of the blast. Otherwise, the smoke and fumes that were drawn into and up through the tower would have been far more lethal. So, Mr. President, in all likelihood, it is very likely that the United States has already had, without really focusing on it, our first chemical attack by terrorists. That is the World Trade Center bombing. Fortunately, those chemicals did not activate. Mr. President, we had a third warning bell in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This showed yet again the ease of access to simple, widely available commercial products that when combined can create powerful explosions. This knowledge, and much more, is available today over the Internet for anyone who wants to tune in. The Department of Defense invested billions in the design and protection of binary chemical weapons. A binary chemical weapon contains two chemicals, each of which is harmless when used separately, and they are widely used industrial chemicals. Yet, when mixed together, they create lethal chemical weapons. You can find lists of the ingredients needed to make binary weapons on the Internet today. Now let me turn to the current state of our domestic efforts to deal with nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological attack. In recent years, several modest test exercises have been held. In one large exercise, the first hundred or so emergency response personnel-- police, firemen, medical personnel--arriving at the scene of the mock simulated disaster rushed headlong into the emergency scene and were promptly declared dead by the referees. In other words, the people who came to the rescue were among the first victims. In the second exercise, featuring both chemical and biological weapons, contaminated casualties brought to the nearest hospital were handled so carelessly by hospital personnel that within hours most of the staff were judged to have been killed or incapacitated by spreading contamination. Mr. President, my purpose is not to frighten the American people; it is to persuade the Congress and the American people that we face a new and severe national security threat for which all governments at all levels are woefully inadequately prepared. We must begin now to prepare what surely threatens us already. To do this effectively requires three things. First, it requires taking the expertise that has been built up over the years in both the Department of Defense and Department of Energy by successive defense budgets and making that expertise available--and rapidly available--to Federal, State, and local emergency preparedness and emergency response teams. The Department of Defense and the Department of Energy need to bring training to the other officials in our State, local, and Federal Government in the detection, recognition, containment, and treatment of acute crises arising from the use of some form of weapon of mass destruction to those on the front lines in our major metropolitan areas. DOD and DOE need to train them in the use of detection equipment and in the use of protective gear to avoid becoming casualties themselves. DOD needs to train emergency medical personnel in the appropriate treatment, for triage, and the administration of antibiotics. There is much to do, and doing it will require DOD and DOE funding. There is simply no other practical source of this kind of expertise. The time to do it is now and not after we suffer a great tragedy. I, like many of my colleagues, believe there is a high likelihood that a chemical or biological incident will take place on American soil in the next several years. We do not want to be in a posture of demanding to know why we were not prepared. We do not want a domestic Pearl Harbor. This training and equipping function is the heart of the amendment, but it is not the whole amendment. There are other parts of the amendment dealing with Customs and dealing with the stopping of these weapons of mass destruction at the source. At this point in time, I will reserve the remainder of my remarks, and I yield the floor to my two partners in this endeavor, Senator Lugar and then Senator Domenici.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Byrd, I offer an amendment which would provide service credit for longevity and pay to individuals who simultaneously are senior ROTC cadets or midshipmen and members of the Selected Reserve under the Simultaneous Membership Program. I believe this amendment has been cleared on both sides of the aisle. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by Senator Lieberman from Connecticut that would authorize funding for the Corps surface-to-air missile, known as Corps SAM, at the level requested by the President. I am a cosponsor of this amendment. I believe it has been cleared on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senators Johnston and Breaux, I offer an amendment that would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to transfer 85,000 acres of the national forest in Louisiana to the Secretary of the Army for use in connection with training and maneuver activities in connection with Fort Polk, LA. I believe this amendment has been cleared on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. NUNN. I will supplement it for the Record. I have not studied that report at this stage. We have had a number of hearings in our committee. We have heard from these same officials, such as the Department of Energy Secretary, and I believe the Senator from New Mexico put a letter in the Record from the Department of Energy and Secretary of Defense Perry endorsing this legislation. It is a strong endorsement for this effort from the DOE and DOD. So I am confident that this report, based on those endorsements, based on the numerous meetings we have had, and based on the testimony--I am sure this amendment would reinforce, supplement, and give impetus to the recommendations in that report. I would have to supplement the Record on that particular answer because I have not had a chance to study the report itself.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I yield back all the time we may have.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, how much time would I have?

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. NUNN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4296 (Purpose: To provide that of the funds available for research, development, test, and evaluation for the Air Force for arms control implementation, $6,500,000 shall be available for basic research in nuclear seismic monitoring)

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared. I would like to note for the Record that Mr. Effron, who has worked on a number of these amendments, recused himself from any consideration of this amendment since his name has been sent up as a member of the Court of Military Appeals, if approved by the Senate. So, Mr. Effron played no part in this amendment whatsoever, and it was cleared by other staff members. I think that should be noted for the Record.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the Bingaman amendment and, as I have already done, I urge the adoption of the Byrd amendment.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by our colleague from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd. We need to do all we can to deal with gulf war syndrome. We have seen reports, just in the last week, about new discoveries that have been made relating to the Iraqi chemical stockpile and the possibility of that being connected to some of the terrible problems that our service people are experiencing. We all know all the problems with Agent Orange and how long we spent on that one. I think it is time to come to grips with this, and I believe the Byrd amendment is a positive step in the right direction. So I urge our colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I want to commend Senator Lieberman and Senator Coats for their leadership on this issue. The amendment they are offering, of which I am an original cosponsor, and which I worked with them on, will build upon the recommendations of the 1995 report on the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, that there be a quadrennial defense review. Secretary Perry has decided to conduct that review. This would ensure that a number of important defense issues are addressed during the course of that review, and will establish a national defense panel that will play a key role in the defense review that would conduct its own forward-looking review of force structures. I am reminded, Admiral Owens, former Vice Chairman of Joints Chiefs of Staff, in his testimony on the eve of his retirement, and in frank discussions with many of us, stated that he believed that the acquisition of new platforms such as planes, ships, and tanks, are far less important than the incorporation of new, forward-edge technologies and information systems and the platforms already in the military's inventory. He even stated that such technologies would permit cuts in existing platforms, in terms of numbers. It is my belief and my hope that national defense panel would be able to chart a road forward for us that takes a look at, certainly, Admiral Owens' review, looks at contrary views to that, and makes some recommendations that would be a benefit to both the Congress and the administration. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments today to offer a tribute to Lt. Gen. George R. Christmas, U.S. Marine Corps. General Christmas is currently the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Reserves Affairs at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps and will be retiring from the Corps in the very near future after more than 34 years of faithful and outstanding service. General Christmas was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1962. During the next 34 years, he served in command and staff assignments true to the Marine's Hymn--in every aspect of the Marine Corps: He has been a student and an instructor; He has served at the flagpole in the Marine Corps Headquarters as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps and thousands of miles from the flagpole as the Director for Operations for the United States Pacific Command. In peacetime, he has commanded an infantry platoon, a recruit training battalion, an infantry regiment, an expeditionary brigade, a Force Service Support Group, and a Marine Expeditionary Force. In combat, he commanded an infantry company and participated in the now legendary Battle for Hue City. During this vicious fighting, General Christmas was seriously wounded. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery and actions during this fighting. In July of 1994, General Christmas assumed his current duties as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Reserve Affairs for the Marine Corps. General Christmas is no stranger to the Armed Services Committee having appeared before the committee on many occasions to help us work through the many challenging issues that have faced the military services in the post-cold war era. He is, in every sense, a Marine's Marine--an eager student, a dedicated teacher, a superb resources manager, an outstanding leader, a combat warrior, a very talented professional and a true gentleman. Most importantly, through the years, General Christmas has never lost sight of the importance of the individual Marine to our Nation's combat readiness. His concern for every Marine, for every family member and for every retiree was readily apparent each time the committee has sought his views. The Marine Corps is a better place, a more ready force, and a greater national asset because Gen. Ron Christmas chose to dedicate his life to wearing the Globe and Anchor. As Gen. Ron Christmas leaves active service, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and admiration for a job tremendously well done and, on behalf of those who have come to know him and to value his counsel, I would like to offer my very best wishes to him and to his wonderful family for every happiness and success in the future.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, as we begin the fourth day of consideration of this bill, I thought it would be appropriate to give the Senate my own view of where we have been and where I think we are going if we are going to finish this bill, which is a very important measure. Thus far, we have debated this bill for about 24 hours. We have disposed of 34 amendments. I have not kept an exact count of the amount of time consumed by consideration of three nonrelevant, nongermane amendments thus far to our bill, but I will make a conservative estimate, and a charitable observation, that well over half of the time of our debate has been devoted to these three nonrelevant amendments. While I believe the issues of reopening Pennsylvania Avenue, pharmaceutical patents under the GATT agreement, and the stalking of women are certainly worthy of Senate debate, none of them are in the jurisdiction of this committee, and none of them are in the jurisdiction of the conference when we go to conference. All of them, even if they are passed on this bill, will require outside conferees and are unlikely to be accepted by the House. The simple fact is that we cannot afford the time it takes to consider and to continue considering these nonrelevant amendments. I may vote for all of them. But, at some point, the Senate has to decide whether it wants to pass a defense bill. If so, then both sides of the aisle have to cooperate and not continue putting these kinds of amendments on the bill. I know the leadership is now discussing a unanimous-consent agreement on the minimum wage, which would be a big step forward, because if that does not occur, then that will certainly come up on this bill, in which case we will never finish this bill this week. I know Senators have a right to offer such amendments, but--and I know that my colleague from South Carolina, the chairman of the committee, and I have talked about this, and he has already addressed it--I hope that we can resist the temptation from this point on to have amendments that are not germane to the bill, have nothing to do with defense, are not in the jurisdiction of this committee, would not be in the jurisdiction of the conference, and would be very unlikely to be accepted in the conference. If we do that, we can push forward with completion of this bill by offering those amendments that are relevant to this bill. Toward that end, over the past 4 days, the committee's Democratic staff has been working hard on our side of the aisle to compile a list of what would be considered the major defense amendments to be offered by Democratic Senators, and time agreements for the consideration of these amendments. We have that list, and we are working with the leadership to finalize the list. I would not say it is final now, but we certainly have some idea--more than we did the other day. In addition, we will continue to urge Senators who have an amendment to offer on this bill to notify us of their intention as soon as possible so that we can develop a finite list of amendments that will lead to a time of completion of the Senate consideration of S. 1745. I know that a cloture motion has been filed on the defense bill and a vote will occur on that tomorrow morning. I understand where the Senator from South Carolina and the leadership is coming from in proposing that motion. I do not intend to support cloture at this time. Invocation of cloture would require not only relevancy, but also germaneness. Many amendments that directly relate to defense and that are in the jurisdiction of the committee, which would be considered by the conference and that would not require outside conferees, are relevant to the bill but not germane to the bill, which would be required under cloture. So I do not intend to support cloture tomorrow. If it is invoked, everyone should realize that most of these amendments that I would call nonrelevant would be ruled out. I mentioned that considerable time has been consumed on nonrelevant amendments. I hope that we can find ways to have time agreements. I hope we can find a way to get a definite list of amendments and make sure that those are the only ones that are going to be offered so we know we can finish this bill. If we can do that on both sides, then, of course, we will not need to invoke cloture. If we are not able to do that on both sides in the near term, then at some point I will support cloture. But I do not intend to do so tomorrow. The defense bill was started last Tuesday, and one of the reasons I will not support cloture--in addition to the relevant and germane considerations, which are very technical but very important when people are frozen out of amendments--is we have been interrupted over and over again in the consideration of this bill. Although we have had the bill before us for 4 days, we have not had many hours for debate on the bill itself. We have been interrupted, as I said, by nonrelevant, nongermane amendments. We were interrupted for consideration of Federal Reserve nominations on last Thursday. I understand that. I certainly understand that we had no choice on that. We, also, of course, have had a day and a half of debate during this time on the campaign finance bill which we voted on cloture on a few minutes ago. That was on the floor both Monday and a half day Tuesday. So we have not really had a clear shot at moving this bill forward with genuine defense amendments. I think we ought to give that a real try as we move forward this week. If we do not make progress in debating major defense amendments--we keep getting these amendments that are well-meaning and I am sure very sincerely pursued by Senators but that have nothing to do with defense and in all likelihood would not be part of a defense bill that went to the President. If we continue to get those, we will simply not be able to finish this bill. So with the continued leadership of our chairman, Senator Thurmond, and the leaders, I am hopeful that by the end of the day today we will begin to have a road map to lead us to the conclusion of this bill. I urge everyone on this side of the aisle to let us know about your amendments. Many of them can be worked and altered somewhat and accepted. Some of them can be accepted the way they are now. But if we are able to get those amendments, I would want to work with the Senator from South Carolina in every way possible to have a definite list of amendments on the Democratic side that would represent all of the amendments that would be offered so that we could get a unanimous consent agreement that no other amendments would be offered, and then we would be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from South Carolina has been working diligently, and he called a hearing. We have a number of very important military nominations out of our committee. They are now pending on the calendar. I know he has also followed that and has been working diligently to try to get all of these nominations approved by the end of business this evening, or certainly by tomorrow. I both thank him for that, and I emphasize to all of our colleagues how important it is. Many of these positions need to be filled now. We have had these nominations before us for the appropriate time. We have looked into them on the committee. They are very top officials that will be going to various and important positions all over the world. We have General Kadish, U.S. Air Force, who is one of these. We have General Kross. General Kross will be going to TRANSCOM. We have a number of Army nominations. We have General Tilelli, to be the top military official in a very, very important and volatile part of the world, Korea. He wears two hats, both in U.S. Army and the U.N. Command. We have General Wesley Clark in the SOUTHCOM position--enormously important. We have a number of U.S. Army Reserve officers: General Bergson, General Caton, General Kropp, General O'Connell, Colonel Deloatch, to be major generals; Colonel Diamond, to be brigadier general; Colonel Gilley, Colonel Gilliam, Colonel Roan, Colonel Rossi, and Colonel Simmons, to be brigadier generals. We have Lt. Gen. David Bramlett going to FORCEM, another very important position, commanding all of our Army forces in the United States. We have General Schoomaker. We have a number of Marine Corps generals: Brigadier General Braaten; Brigadier General DeLong; Brigadier General Hanlon; Brigadier General Higginbotham; Brigadier General Karamarkovich; Brig. Gen. Jack Klimp; Maj. Gen. Carol Mutter, she will become the head of manpower in the Marines Corps. She will also became the highest ranking female to serve not only in the Marine Corps but also in the history of our military. I have met her, have talked to her, and have followed her career--an enormously important general. I will not name all of these, but I guess the first thing I would like to say to my chairman, Senator Thurmond, is that I appreciate his diligence in trying to get these nominations through, and I hope that we will be able to get all of them through this evening. I certainly urge my colleagues who may have questions about any of the nominees or have any concerns about the nominees, to basically come to the floor and let us know and state their concerns, and let us see if we cannot follow them and get all of these nominations through. I think it is important for them to go through. I believe, if any of them do not go through, that it is very important for the leadership of the Senate to schedule a debate and let us debate them. If there are any concerns about any of them, I think we ought to debate it, get the concern out on the floor and have the Senate vote on it. That would be my hope. I believe the Senator from South Carolina will share that hope.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, there was a unanimous-consent request that was submitted today asking that all amendments be filed today or not be in order. That unanimous-consent request was not agreed to. It is my strong hope, though, that we will be able to have that kind of unanimous-consent request agreed to early next week. I serve notice on our side of the aisle that we would like all amendments filed by 4 o'clock next Tuesday afternoon. I have talked to the chairman about this. I have talked to the majority leader, Senator Lott, about this. It is certainly my intention to do everything possible to get that kind of unanimous-consent agreement early next week. So I serve notice today to all our colleagues, particularly those on the Democratic side of the aisle, from my perspective, that I will do everything in my power to help Senator Thurmond, and the leaders on both sides of the aisle, in their efforts to move this bill next week. The way to do that is to have all amendments that are going to be considered on this bill in by Tuesday at 4 o'clock. It is my understanding that the majority leader would like to pass this bill next week, as well as the Defense appropriations bill. We have gotten bogged down on nongermane amendments now. It is my hope we can get back on Defense amendments, stick to those and get this bill done next week. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Johnston, I request that a member of his staff, Comdr. Paul Gonzales, a congressional fellow, be allowed floor privileges for the duration of debate on the Defense authorization bill.