Samuel Nunn

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Maybe we need to talk a moment.

Mr. NUNN. The Senator from Wyoming, Senator Simpson, is exactly correct on this matter. We have the letter in from William A. Navas, Jr., Major General, U.S. Army, Director, Army National Guard. The Senator from Wyoming has already read the letter. He basically says that 33 urgently required projects were inadvertently omitted from the list that was submitted. The reason this project was not included to begin with was because it did not meet the criteria because it was not in the 5-year defense plan. This letter says that was an error. So I just want to make it clear that what the Senator has said, from my perspective and the perspective from this side of the aisle, is exactly right. This would have been part of the list had it been listed as is now listed by General Navas, Major General, U.S. Army, Director, Army National Guard. Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

Mr. NUNN. It sounds to me like the time between now and 8 o'clock will be used thoroughly.

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

Mr. NUNN. I do not have any objection. Mr. President, I add one other thing to the unanimous-consent request--that is, with the understanding that there be no second-degree amendments to the McCain amendment.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from North Carolina, have they completed their remarks and the introduction of their bill?

Mr. NUNN. I congratulate both Senators on taking this step. I think there is nothing that is so discouraging and heartbreaking than to see the burnings that have taken place of churches across much of our country. I congratulate both the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from North Carolina. Maybe we can get unanimous support for denouncing this unexplainable and detestable series of acts. Whatever the cause, I think the message should go out that the U.S. Senate is firmly on record, both sides of the aisle, every political philosophy, deploring this kind of conduct. So I congratulate both Senators for introducing this bill. I know it will receive prompt and careful consideration by the Senate and the respective committees.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, as we begin debate on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997, I first express my deep appreciation to Senator Thurmond, the chairman of the committee, for the bipartisan process under his leadership that was followed in marking up this legislation. I also thank Senator Thurmond for the very gracious remarks he made about me. This is my last Defense authorization bill that I will be helping to manage on the floor, and I deeply appreciate his remarks but, most of all, his friendship and his leadership and his stalwart support of national security for the entire time I have been in the U.S. Senate and really for many years before. I express my appreciation to Les Brownlee, the majority staff director, and the other members of the majority staff, for their hard work and cooperation during markup. Of course, I add my deep appreciation, on a continuing basis, to Arnold Punaro, minority staff director, as well as all members of the minority staff working with Mr. Punaro. The Armed Services Committee has a long tradition of members working across the aisle in the interest of national defense, and that was fully reflected in the process that was used to develop the bill now before us. So, Mr. President, I say to Senator Thurmond, I am very grateful to him and to his staff. We have had and will continue to have issues on which there are sharp differences of opinion between Senators on that side of the aisle and this side of the aisle, and between Senators on both sides of the aisle among themselves. It is not simply a breakdown of Democrats versus Republicans. There are a lot of individual views on defense, and that is how it should be on a defense bill, as important as it is, as much money is involved and as much is at stake, which is, indeed, the stake of our national security and our freedom. Those differences, however, should not obscure the fact there is a broad consensus in favor of the key features of this bill. Mr. President, there is strong support for provisions in the bill that enhance the quality of life for our men and women in uniform and their families, including a 3-percent pay raise, a 4-percent increase in basic allowance quarters, revised allowances for single personnel and for couples in which both spouses are members of the Armed Forces, and increased funding for military construction pertaining to family housing, unaccompanied personnel housing, dining facilities and, most important, child development centers. The bill also continues many of the committee's key initiatives over the last decade, including modernization of weapons systems and support for programs essential to the readiness of our military forces. Mr. President, there will certainly be a lot of controversy about the funding level in this bill, and I am sure we will have amendments to try to reduce the funding level of the bill. Let me state, I believe the overall funding level of $267.4 billion represents a prudent increase by the committee to the administration's budget request. It is slightly higher than the $265.6 billion that is contained in the conference report on the budget resolution because that budget resolution contains later information related to inflation. These differences will not require any major readjustment of the committee's priority, but we will need to reduce either on the floor or in conference this bill from $267.4 to $265.6 billion, which is our guideline given to us by the budget resolution passed by both the House and the Senate. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the funding question will recognize that even with this plus-up of the Clinton administration's budget, this bill still represents a real decrease in spending from last year. So I am sure, as usual, all the reports and headlines will read that this is a vast increase in defense. That is not accurate. This is not an increase in defense. This $265.6 billion in the budget resolution, compared to last year, is a reduction in real dollar terms from last year's funding level, but it is an increase over the President's recommended level by about $11 billion. Mr. President, some of the provisions of the bill are likely to be the subject of vigorous debate. Although we have avoided, thus far, many of the provisions that make the House-passed bill unacceptable to the administration, there are a number of issues that remain troublesome. I think it is important for everyone to bear in mind it is clear the House bill and a number of its provisions are unacceptable to the administration, and I hope we can avoid that here. It is clear that we do have some issues that already are unacceptable in this bill to the administration. For example, the language relating to the demarcation line between theater and national missile defense, which is in our bill, is not at this time acceptable to the administration, and the language concerning multilateralization, or adding new parties to the ABM Treaty. Both of these provisions, it is my hope, can be worked in a way that will avoid a veto by the President of this bill, but that remains a very serious challenge. We will also consider a number of amendments that are likely to draw broad bipartisan support, in terms of enhancing our national security. As I noted in my remarks on the floor on May 30, I have been working very diligently with Senator Lugar and Senator Domenici, and others, to address our Nation's lack of preparedness to cope with threats from the full range of weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons. We will have an amendment on this bill by Senator Lugar, Senator Domenici, and myself that will strengthen the ability of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to assist local fire departments and police departments, local law enforcement, in terms of helping prepare them and equip them to deal with a possible chemical or biological attack by terrorists. Mr. President, the nuclear component of that, the so-called NEST capability, already exists in the Department of Energy. We do not have anything comparable on the chemical or biological side. It is my judgment, after having numerous hearings on this subject, after having considerable indepth hearings and a long preliminary investigation of the Aum Shinrikyo and the religious cult attack in Tokyo over a year ago that killed 12 people but injured 5,000. If that attack had been better prepared in terms of delivery system for the sarin gas, there would literally have been tens of thousands of people killed. That was a religious cult that existed and had over $1 billion in assets, although more members are in Russia than Japan. They had tested sarin gas in Australia and even embarked on preliminary stages of trying to develop biological weapons. They had a very serious chemical stockpile and had already, previous to the Tokyo attack, carried out other smaller chemical attacks in Tokyo. Not many of us would have predicted Japan would have been the first place that would have happened, but it is predictable that effort is going to be made in the United States, by either foreign or domestic terrorists. We had the World Trade Center attack. We have seen the devastation of that explosion. What many people do not realize, and what the judge noted in his findings, is that attack on the World Trade Center also included a chemical weapon that was consumed by the flames and, therefore, did not activate and did not cause damage. The damage was done by the conventional-type weapons. So we have already, according to the judge, had a chemical attempt in this country. So it is almost predictable, with very little doubt, that we are going to have chemical and biological efforts made against soft targets in this country, including our cities, including our population centers, over the next 5 to 10 years. We can either begin to get in front of it and deal with it in advance, try to prevent it from happening, or we can wait until it happens and then have everybody say, ``Why didn't we do something about it?'' Mr. President, we are going to try to do something about it on this bill. We are going to have an amendment that would have the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, in a very carefully prescribed way--we are not getting DOD and DOE involved in enforcing the law at a domestic level. We are not talking about that. We are talking about having them help prepare, in terms of training, in terms of equipment, our local police, and fire officials around this country to deal with what almost all experts on terrorism believe is an inevitable kind of threat we face to our own country. We have seen the work of domestic terrorists in Oklahoma City and the terrible, terrible destruction that was caused in terms of human suffering in Oklahoma City and to the Murrah Building there. We have seen the attack in Tokyo. We have seen the World Trade Center attack. Fortunately, the chemical part of that attack did not activate. There was enough destruction without it, but it would have been truly of a worse magnitude had the chemical component really done its job. Mr. President, we have also seen in Russia the Chechen or some group representing the Chechen rebels put a radiological weapon in a very prominent place near Moscow, a radiological weapon being using the radiation from nuclear materials without causing an explosion but causing huge destruction. That was not an effort to actually use the weapon but a warning that it could be done. So we are in a different kind of world now. We have moved from an era of very high risk of nuclear war to an era of much lower risk of nuclear war. But we have moved from an era of high stability because of that very risk of nuclear war and because the two superpowers knew that, if their clients got into a war or if there was some event that came that got out of control, the whole escalation could take place and we could have a nuclear war. Because of that, we had high stability, high risk but high stability, during the cold war. We moved to much lower risk in terms of a nuclear war. We can all be very thankful for that because of the change in climate, because of the arms control agreements, because of the substantial number of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union. All of that greatly reduces the risk of nuclear war. But the decline of the Soviet Empire has also ushered in a new era of lower stability, meaning that there are countries all over the world that are having ethnic, religious conflict. We no longer have the two superpowers who are basically policing the world so that we do not have conflict between two superpowers. We are in another era. We are in an era of organized crime not only in Russia but in many other places. We are in an era where we have had the first empire in history disintegrate but still containing 30,000 or so nuclear weapons, over 40,000 tons of chemical weapons, and no one even knows how much in the way of biological weapons, and also scientists all over the former Soviet Union, not just in Russia, who know how to make these weapons of mass destruction, who know how to make ballistic missiles, but in many cases do not know how they are going to feed their families, and rogue nations all over the world trying to develop these kinds of capabilities, as we have seen in the past in Iraq and other places. The combination of organized crime, terrorism, empire disintegration, tons of material and know-how in terms of weapons of mass destruction, all of that combined means that we are in a different era. What we have to make sure of, in terms of our overall debate in both the ballistic missile defense area, as well as this Nunn-Lugar-Domenici No. 2 effort, as we can call it, we have to make sure that we are not so obsessed with the past that we cannot think of the future. The future kind of threats we are going to face are going to be different. We are going to have to be more agile, as David Abshire, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a recent article he wrote. We are going to have to be more agile, more flexible. We are going to have to understand the threats that face us in the future. And we are going to have to understand that the Department of Defense mission is still to protect the national security of this country. Included in that mission, I think at this stage, is a very critical need to help our police officials and our fire officials be able to deal with the kind of threat that they may face in the future. Mr. President, I will have more to say on this subject. I know that Senator Lugar and Senator Domenici will have more to say. But I did want to let people on both sides of the aisle know that sometime in the next few days while we are considering this bill there will be that kind of an amendment. Mr. President, it will be aimed primarily on the domestic side. It will be very carefully framed so that there will be no doubt that we are not getting DOD and DOE involved in the actual enforcement of the law. That is not the effort here. It is to equip and train and prepare our law enforcement officials to deal with these kinds of threats. There will be a part 2 of this that will deal with a growing need to beef up our Customs Service to make sure that they can do their part and do it well in preventing those kinds of materials from ever getting into this country, and also to help them be more effective in preparing the customs services of other nations, particularly the former Soviet Union, in preventing materials from getting out of those countries--a growing threat. So, Mr. President, there really are three parts of this overall Nunn- Lugar effort. Part one is already underway and has been for about 4 or 5 years. That is, in my mind, still the most crucial need because the window is open for cooperation with these former Soviet states, including but not limited to Russia. We are helping to do that. The last missile was just taken out of the Ukraine. The last nuclear warhead was taken out of the Ukraine the other day. So this is a remarkable success. Two years ago it appeared we were going to have four new nuclear states coming out of the one old one, the Soviet Union. It appeared we were going to have a nuclear component, very strong nuclear component, not only in Russia, but in the Ukraine, also in Kazakhstan and also in Belarus. I know all nuclear warheads have been taken out of Kazakhstan, all nuclear warheads have been taken out of Ukraine, and the last weapons, I am told, will be taken out of Belarus this year. The missiles will be destroyed. The Nunn-Lugar program has helped facilitate that. Secretary of Defense Perry told us this morning at the armed services breakfast, without that program we could not have done what has been done. There is a long way to go. There is a lot left to do. The most prominent feature of this program has been stopping these weapons at the source, preventing them from leaking all over the world. It is going to cost us hundreds of billions of dollars--if we have nuclear materials and chemical and biological materials and missile technology know-how disbursed all over the world, it is going to cost us hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to defend against it. Even then it will be extremely difficult to defend against. The first priority is to stop it at the source, to help these countries--not only Russia, but Ukraine and Kazakhstan and Belarus and others--get control of their own borders, to help them understand the priority of controlling nuclear materials and chemical materials and biological materials and know-how; second, to make sure that they have strong and effective border control and, where they want our help, to help them in that regard; third, to beef up our borders here in this country, to beef up our border protection; and, fourth, to be able to deal with this kind of catastrophe if it ever occurs. First to deter it, prevent it domestically, but to be able to deal with it, not only with police departments and fire departments, but also with health departments. In the Aum Shinrikyo attack in Tokyo, the Japanese police were certainly not prepared. There is no doubt about that. But the health officials, under the circumstances, did a pretty good job. There is strong indication that the Japanese were better prepared to deal with the health aspects of this kind of chemical attack than we are in this country. In fact, one of the key agencies in HHS to deal with this, one of the few agencies, very, very thinly staffed, has had almost all of its funding cut in the House. I hope that can be corrected because I am sure that the people who made those cuts did not realize the context in which that agency would have to work. So we are going to be talking about all those issues. Privilege of the Floor Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following named 14 minority staff members on the Committee on Armed Services and two congressional fellows be granted the privilege of the floor during the consideration of and votes relating to S. 1745, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997. Minority staff members: Christine E. Cowart, Richard D. DeBobes, Andrew S. Effron, Andrew B. Fulford, Daniel B. Ginsberg, Mickie Jan Gordon, Creighton Greene, Patrick T. Henry, William E. Hoehn, Jr., Jennifer A. Lambert, Michael J. McCord, Frank Norton, Jr., Arnold L. Punaro, Julie K. Rief, James R. Thompson III. Congressional fellows: Maurice B. Hutchison and DeNeige V. Watson.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, summing up my remarks, I pledge to Senator Thurmond my cooperation on this bill. The chairman has an awesome responsibility to be here on the floor, to help manage the bill and to make judgment on amendments. My role will be to help him and assist him where he calls on me and where I can be of help. I hope that people who have important amendments will come to the floor and begin that process in the next few hours. I know that the majority leader is under a great deal of pressure with a lot of other bills. I have never known us to be able to pass this bill in less than 3 or 4 days. It is my hope that we can do that in this context. That will depend on the cooperation of all of the Members. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I rise to take this opportunity to honor Captain George Huban who will retire shortly from the U.S. Navy after 28 years of faithful service to our Nation. Captain Huban is a 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Following his commissioning, Captain Huban served aboard the destroyer USS Noa in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He later attended the Supply Corps School and served as Supply Officer on the attack submarine USS Haddock. Captain Huban then went on to a variety of tours including Squadron Supply Officer to ballistic missile Submarine Squadron Fifteen; contracting officer at the Naval Sea Systems Command; assistant to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations; Supply Officer, USS Pugent Sound; and Commander, Sixth Fleet Supply, where he coordinated logistics support for fleet operations off the coast of Lebanon. Following these tours, Captain Huban served at several senior staff positions. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Comptroller of the Navy and was then named Assistant Director of Acquisition Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Captain Huban then served as Director of Supply Corps Personnel at the Naval Supply Systems Command in Washington, DC. His final tour in the Navy was as the Commanding Officer of the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, GA. Although Captain Huban was born in Vermont, the residents of Athens, GA, welcomed him and now consider him one of their own. I am certain he will continue to play in active role in the community following his retirement. While serving as Commanding Officer at the Navy Supply Corp School, he has been instrumental in providing the highest quality of logistics training to officers and enlisted personnel not only to Navy personnel but to all U.S. service personnel, armed forces personnel of many of our allied nations, and Department of Defense civilian personnel. Captain Huban will be followed by Captain John Drerup as Commanding Officer at the Supply Corps School. A man of Captain Huban's character and dedication is rare indeed. His outstanding service will be genuinely missed, and I am pleased to recognize him before the U.S. Senate. Let me also recognize his wife Patricia and daughter Cristin. The sacrifices they have made in support of Captain Huban's service are equally noteworthy. I wish him and his family all the best as he brings to a close a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Navy.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I agree with the suggestion of my friend from Arizona. There is apparently no one else on this side who plans to speak at this point in time. I certainly would agree to that procedure.

Mr. NUNN. Will the Senator yield for one brief moment?

Mr. NUNN. I do not want to make the argument for the Russians here, but I think they would do the same thing we are talking about in the bill that you are talking about. If they see that on our side the ABM Treaty is going to likely be violated, then they will serve notice under START I that it was not in their national interests. To say, on the one hand, we are complying because we are going to give notice and then get out, but, on the other hand, they could not do the same thing and they are therefore violating the treaty is also, I think, a little misleading. I think it works both ways. If they want to get out of START I, they have the right to do so, or if we want to get out of START I. We both have those reciprocal clauses in both ABM and START I, and I think that would be the way either side would go about devolving from the position of compliance.

Mr. NUNN. If there are any other Senators that would like to speak, I would certainly invite them to come over at this time. In brief response to my friend from Arizona, he mentioned that those of us who have expressed some concern about the relationship between what we perceive to be a participatory breach of the ABM Treaty as contained in the Dole-Gingrich bill, and the Russians--it will be necessary to continue to draw down their missile and nuclear weapons category as contained and required in START I, and as will be required in START II, if ratified--that there is this connection in the Dole- Gingrich bill, and anyone virtually reading this bill and who is familiar with the ABM Treaty would consider this to be tantamount to notice that the ABM Treaty is going to be breached. In section 4(a)(1), little (b) under section 4, very clearly the system to be developed for deployment shall include the following elements: No. 1, an interceptor system that optimizes defensive coverage of the continental United States, and so forth, and includes one or a combination of the following: (a) ground-based interceptors; (b) sea-based interceptors; (c) space-based kinetic energy interceptors; (d) space-based direct energy interceptors, and so forth. Three out of the four of those named would violate directly the ABM Treaty. I do not think the ABM Treaty is sacred ground. I believe there ought to be modest amendments to the ABM Treaty. As I suggested in my remarks yesterday, if the Senator wants to carry out the spirit of his remarks which is saying for the Russians we are not going to violate the ABM Treaty and now you do not violate START I, we will not be violating the ABM Treaty if we deploy a ground-based system--and we would not. That is correct. But if we deploy any of the other systems named in this Dole-Gingrich bill we would. So if he would like to vote strictly on the proposition he just offered then we will have a chance to do that on my substitute because that is what it does. It says we will go forward with a treaty, an ABM Treaty compliance system with 100 interceptors at Grand Forks, and then we will seek an amendment to the treaty as provided in the treaty to be able to go to two sites and 1,200 missiles, which would indeed be the original ABM Treaty exactly as it was before there was an amendment in the 1970's. That would be treaty compliant. If we did that, there would be no question that the Russians would have no right to violate START I. They would have no excuse for basically not ratifying START II. But when you basically say to the Russians what we are going to do here is get you to draw down to 3,500 warheads, and then about the time you do that under the START II treaty we are going to deploy perhaps a sea- based system, a space-based system, or space-based direct energy system, what you are saying in effect is we want you to comply with the START I and START II, but just about the time you get through implementing it we are going to in all likelihood break out of the ABM Treaty. That is the message that is going forward here. That is the message everybody understands that has studied the ABM Treaty. So to say we basically are fearful that the Russians are breaking their obligations and leaving out of the equation that we are serving notice we are going to break ourselves, I think, is a little bit misleading. So I say to my friend from Arizona that, if he would like to vote on that proposition staying within the ABM Treaty, or seeking an amendment within a reasonable timeframe to that treaty to permit a better system than the one-site system, he will have every opportunity to do that when we get to a vote on this because that is exactly what the Nunn substitute will provide.

Mr. NUNN. Exactly.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I believe Senator Conrad from North Dakota wanted to speak. We had set aside certain time for him. The debate was originally scheduled to conclude at 12:30. I wanted to serve notice that Senators on our side of the aisle or on this side of the question that would like to speak, they need to come over momentarily so that we can get back to the original time schedule, which is 12:30. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. NUNN. Right.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NUNN

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

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, had been on the floor and would like to speak. But he is not here now.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, following Senator Coats' remarks, I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman.

Mr. NUNN. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Michigan.