Curt Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to take out this 60- minute special order as we today completed in the Committee on National Security the markup of the 1999 defense authorization bill, the authorization bill that lays out the funding framework for defense spending for the next fiscal year. I will be joined tonight by many of the most distinguished Members of this body as we discuss issues affecting national security in this country and the difficult problem that we are facing. The people of America unfortunately have a misconception. That misconception is in fact that we are spending so much more money today on defense than we have in the past. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of simple comparisons, if we compare today defense spending to what it was in the 1960s. I pick that time because we were at relative peace. It was after Korea and before Vietnam. John Kennedy was the President. In the 1960s we were spending each year 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar brought to Washington on national defense, 9 percent of our country's gross national product. In this year's defense bill, we are spending 15 cents of the Federal tax dollar on national security, 2.9 percent of our gross national product. In fact, the defense budget is the only area of spending that the White House and the Congress have cut for 13 consecutive years, cut in very dramatic ways. Those have been bipartisan cuts, some of which I have supported, some of which I have concerns with. But while the defense spending in this country has gone down in terms of overall spending authority at the Federal level, we must understand some very important facts, Mr. Speaker. In the 1960s, we had a draft. Young people were taken out of high school. They served their country for 2 years. They were paid far less than the minimum wage. Today we have an all-volunteer military. No one is drafted. Our young people are well-paid, many are married, they have advanced college degrees, we have housing costs, education costs, health care costs. So quality of life becomes a major part of what we spend our defense dollar on. So today, Mr. Speaker, a much larger portion of that relatively smaller amount of money compared to the 1960s goes for the quality of life of our troops. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the fastest growing part of defense spending today is environmental mitigation. We are spending $12 billion this year to clean up both nuclear materials as well as materials that are nonnuclear. That is all coming out of our defense budget. On top of all of that, Mr. Speaker, deployments of our troops in this decade are at an all-time high. In fact, in the past 6 and 7 years we have deployed our troops 25 times at home and abroad. That compares to the previous 40 years where our troops were only deployed a total of 10 times. None of those 25 deployments in this decade, Mr. Speaker, were budgeted for. None of them were planned for. So the cost of all those deployments has had to be eaten out of our defense budget, further cutting the available dollars that we have to modernize, to put into new technology. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of Defense has given us a number of $15 billion in contingency costs that we have taken out of DOD spending in the past 6 years to pay for those deployments around the world. Bosnia alone by the end of the next fiscal year will have cost us $9.42 billion. All of that money has come out of the defense budget. Because of all of those reasons, Mr. Speaker, we are facing a crisis, a crisis in being able to provide the kinds of equipment, readiness and support that our troops need to do the job on behalf of this country. Tonight I invite our colleagues to join with me as we dedicate the next hour to focusing on these difficult issues of how we spend our defense dollar. To start off that discussion, I would like to yield at this time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on National Security, who is in fact a leader working in a bipartisan way with our colleagues on the other side and has been a tireless advocate for the defense needs of this country.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the Seventh District of Pennsylvania which I represent is exceptionally rich in historical sites which serve to remind us of our colonial and early-American heritage. As we commit resources to allow our school children to re- visit history via virtual reality, I feel it's important that we preserve the true reality of significant historical sites such as the Paoli Battlefield in Malvern, Pennsylvania. This land was the site of the ``Paoli Massacre'' in which British troops led by Major General Grey attacked the American Army of Pennsylvania Regiments on the wooded hillside and two fields between what is now Sugartown Road and Warren Avenue. The ensuing battle resulted in at least 52 American deaths and 7 British fatalities. The British night-time bayonet charge was aided by the fact that Americans were silhouetted against the light of their campfires. Some American troops panicked and fled and general disorder spread throughout the American line. British dragoons, arriving on the field, shattered the American column and pursued retreating Americans as far as Sugartown Road. Only the more disciplined American soldiers escaped the original onslaught unscathed, but a following British assault, conducted by the Royal Highland Regiment, completed the rout. The Paoli Massacre was part of the military conflict between British and Americans forces during the Revolutionary War's Philadelphia Campaign, a chapter of the war that witnessed the occupation of Philadelphia and the famed American encampment at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78. The first two American attempts to stop the British invasion that Fall were the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, and the unsuccessful Battle of the Clouds, September 16, 1777. The Paoli Massacre was part of the third effort to contain British General Sir William Howe's advance on Philadelphia. The Paoli Battlefield Site and Parade Grounds, containing 62 acres, is situated in the Borough of Malvern, Chester County and consists of two adjoining parcels. In 1777, these parcels represented the northern portions of two farms and were the location of the heaviest action of the battle. The eastern parcel, identified as the Battlefield Site, is approximately 40 acres and consists of a forested ravine and slope rising to a plateau containing a plowed field and surrounding woods. The western parcel is the 22 acre Parade Grounds, established in 1822, where the local militia drilled and the community used as a commemorative property focusing on honoring all veterans. Monuments honoring World War I and II veterans can be found there, as well as the mass graves of the slain soldiers of the American Revolution, where a fieldstone wall surrounds a mound and obelisk monument. The tremendous historical value of this land is without question and should be preserved for future generations to appreciate. The Battlefield Site is presently owned by the Malvern Preparatory School. The School's Board of Trustees recently voted to sell the Battlefield for $2.5 million but have resisted placing the land on the open real estate market to provide the local community the opportunity to raise the funds necessary to purchase the land. To date, the Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund has raised in excess of $1 million. The purpose of the Paoli Battelfield Preservation Act of 1998 is to authorize the addition of the Paoli Battlefield site to the Valley Forge National Historical Park and to authorize the appropriation necessary to complement local funds raised to ensure the purchase of the site for preservation purposes. Having recently been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service recognized the Paoli Battlefield citing its importance ``in the area of American military history as a Revolutionary War battle and for honoring the commemorative efforts of the local community to preserve this important site.'' Patrick McGuigan, retired Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army and President of the Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund, has put succinctly describes the importance of this bill: ``This community of 2,944 people possesses a part of American history in our own backyard, a memorial to the highest price Americans have paid--laying down their lives for our freedoms. We are trying to purchase the site for all Americans, and the Chester County Historical Society wants to hook this up with their education program involving local battlefields. Individually, saving this site is a good thing, but collectively, in conjunction with American history, it's a great thing.'' The Battle was a true massacre, henceforth inspiring American Revolutionary troops to cry ``Remember Paoli!'' This legislation merely seeks to facilitate local efforts to preserve this invaluable land--the site of a massacre that henceforth inspired American Revolutionary troops, and now us today, to cry, ``Remember Paoli!''

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, this week we begin the annual process of marking up our defense bills. These are the largest bills that we enact in this Congress each year and, perhaps, I would argue, the most important. Unfortunately, we are facing an impossible situation. The only major area of Federal spending where this administration has actually cut has been in the area of national security. All other Federal agencies have either remained stagnant or they have received slight increases. In fact, this is the twelfth consecutive year of defense cuts. Some would say, well, we are still spending more money on the military, but the facts all prove otherwise. In John Kennedy's era, a time of relative peace after Korea and before Vietnam, we were spending 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar on the military. This year, we are spending 15 cents on the military. In John Kennedy's era, we spent 9 percent of our country's gross national product on defense. This year, it is 2.9 percent. And back in John Kennedy's era, Mr. Speaker, we had a draft where young people were taken out of high school and they were forced to serve the country and then they served for 2 years and left the service of the Nation. Today, we have an all-volunteer force, well-paid, families, children, education costs, housing costs. So quality of life is a much larger portion of that smaller amount of money that we spend on defense. Our job is to try to meet the needs of our military in a very difficult budget environment. Now added to this problem of decreasing defense assets is the fact that, over the past 6 years under this President, we have had our troops deployed 25 times around the world at home and abroad. Now that compares to 10 deployments in the previous 40 years. Twenty-five deployments in 6 years versus 10 deployments in the previous 40 years. And the problem, Mr. Speaker, is none of these 25 deployments were budgeted for, none of these 25 deployments were paid for. So in spite of the dramatically declining defense budgets, we have added up an additional $15 billion that was not planned for that had to come out of defense programs. So we have had an additional cut of $15 billion below the authorized budget amount. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is, in the case of Bosnia, we are spending $9.42 billion on the Bosnian operation. It is not that we do not think we have a role for the U.S. in Bosnia, but what is being said in this body and the other body is, why should America go it alone? Why did we put 36,000 troops in Bosnia when the Germans right next door only put 4,000 troops in that theater? Why are we always asked to foot the bill for these deployments that are so important for regional and global security? After all, President Bush in Desert Storm got the allied nations to reimburse the U.S. $53 billion for the costs of Desert Storm which were $52 billion. Under this administration, we have had no reimbursements; and the $15 billion of contingency costs have all come out of an already strapped defense budget. I raise this issue, Mr. Speaker, because we are in for tough times as we approach the 21st century. We cannot continue to meet the needs of our troops under the type of robust commitments that this President has made for the men and women of America's military. We need to understand the sacrifice, and we need to understand that we need to stop the continuing drain of defense dollars that are so necessary to provide the support for these brave men and women. We also must fund the emerging threats that we see arising. Missile capabilities around the world are coming up. Iran, Iraq are now developing medium-range missiles that North Korea already has. Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, I would ask our colleagues to join us on the Rayburn Triangle where we will unveil one of the Army's newest programs called THAAD, along with a Scud missile, a 40-foot-long missile that was used by Saddam 7 years ago to kill 28 young Americans in Saudi Arabia. This new Army system that we are desperately tying to fund in this difficult budget environment is designed to meet that threat in the 21st century. I urge our colleagues to join the Army and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in seeing firsthand the kind of technology that we are trying to produce in this very difficult budget environment.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, to begin the markup of the National Defense Authorization bill this week, I want to call to the attention of our colleagues two significant events that will take place tomorrow and Thursday involving national security and threats from weapons of mass destruction. All day tomorrow in the Rayburn courtyard, we will have a full demonstration of one of our leading new technologies, the Theater High Altitude Area Defense system as well as a Scud missile, the type of missile that killed our 28 troops in Saudi Arabia just 7 years ago. I would encourage our colleagues to visit that exhibit. On Thursday, we will have 2,000 fire and EMS leaders from across the country assemble in Washington. At noon, we will have a major rally outside the doors of this Chamber to focus on the need for first responders to get full attention and focus as we plus-up money to respond to terrorist acts involving weapons of mass destruction nationwide. I would encourage our colleagues to visit both events and to become active participants in the rally and the event from our fire and EMS leaders from all of our 50 States. {time} 1415

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding; and I just want to join him and thank him for his eloquent statement on behalf of these two brave Americans and to extend my deepest sympathies to their families along with the gentleman from Iowa. Let me state, Mr. Speaker, each year, unfortunately, we have a hundred incidents of this type across this Nation, where there is no other volunteer occupation in America where, each year, 100 brave Americans lose their lives and they are torn from their families as we have with the American volunteer fire service. It is another example of where we have people selflessly providing support to protect our families and our neighborhoods, and it is all the more reason why in this terrible tragedy in Iowa we should recommit ourselves as an institution to try to lessen the amount of loss of life that we have not in just these brave Americans but from those people they are trying to save. I join with my friend and colleague, and I would reiterate that on Thursday, Mr. Speaker, we will be joined by some 2,000 of these leaders from across the country to talk about the kind of needs that would better prepare men like Tom and Larry to deal with these terrible disasters that they face every day in their communities. Right outside of the House Chambers will be a massive display of support for the men and women of the American Fire Service, both paid and volunteers, asking this Congress and this administration to finally listen, to provide not just training but resources, communications equipment, support for pre-planning that does not exist now so that we do not keep having to come down to the well to pay tribute to brave Americans like Tom Archer and Larry Walsh. Let me say in closing, Mr. Speaker, as we in this country look for heroes we do not have to look to Hollywood, and we do not have to look to our athletic figures. We do not have to look to our politicians. We can look to those men and women across this country, 1.2 million of them in 32,000 organizations and departments just like the one that Tom and Larry belonged to who, day in and day out, protect America. And they do not do it for the pay. They do not do it for the recognition. They do it because it is the right thing to do for their community and for their country. I join with my friend, and I thank him for his tireless efforts on behalf of the American Fire Service and in paying tribute to these two great Americans.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chairman, reclaiming my time, just in closing I would mention from the D.C. Fire Department that Battalion Chief Schaefer was the leader. We had Engine Company 13, 2, 8 and 6; Truck Company 7 and 10; Rescue Company 1 and 3; and Battalion 2. They did an absolutely fantastic job. In addition, I would like to enter the names of those officers who were taken to the hospital. We do not know the status of these officers' conditions. They were all affected by smoke inhalation, but I think it once again underscores the need for us to be aware of the duty and the honor that these people take so seriously in protecting the lives of ourselves and our constituents. Taken to local hospitals and either treated or currently there for further treatment are Sergeant Givens, Officer Merz, Officer Scott, Officer Worley, Officer Sturdivant, Officer Cleveland and Officer Blackman-Malloy. We thank all of them. We thank the chief of the department, Chief Abrecht. We thank Bill Livingood for a fantastic job, Dr. Eisold, as well as Ken Lauizer and everyone who came together in doing what should have been the right thing, and that is responding. I would encourage, again, our colleagues to remember that on the seventh floor, the alarm did not go off. It is our responsibility to make sure if an incident occurs that we have to activate that manual alarm. It does not activate automatically. You have to pull that device down. That was not done on the seventh floor. Furthermore, I would say this is an opportune time for me to announce that next Thursday at this time, 12 noon, there will be 3,000 firefighters from across the country in the parking lot right outside this door where we will assemble the largest gathering the Nation's fire and EMS community who are coming to us to talk about the fact that they feel we are not doing enough to assist them in their current efforts by our agencies in Washington to deal with the threats of terrorism and the response to those terrorist acts. I would encourage our colleagues to join with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and myself as we have a national press conference with the Speaker in attendance and focus on their issues, one week from today at 12 noon directly outside of the House Chambers. Amendment Offered by Mr. Nadler

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Madam Chairman, we just experienced what could have been a very tragic incident in one of our House office buildings, and that was a fire which started in the basement of the new elevator shaft that is being constructed, that poured smoke throughout that seven-story complex and required that building to be evacuated for a significant period of time. Eleven years ago I came on this floor and offered a privileged resolution of the House regarding the health and safety of the Members, because we had a similar fire in then Speaker Jim Wright's office which burned out of control, and to which I had to respond that the buildings that we work in are absolute fire traps because there were no detection devices, no alarm systems, no sprinklers, there was no preplanning, no exit drills. There were no efforts in place to guarantee the safety of both the Members and our constituents. Today I can rise and report exactly the opposite. In fact the response was quick, it was efficient. The Sergeant at Arms, the Capitol Hill Police, and those brave officers who by the way had to go to the hospital because of smoke inhalation and whose names I will enter into the Record today, all performed above and beyond the call of duty. I might add, however, that Members who were on the seventh floor of Longworth did acknowledge that immediately the alarm system did not go off, and that is the reason why we must continue to press for adequate preplanning and the need for us to understand the severity of the situation. As I stood there during the entire operation and saw people in wheelchairs and people who were challenged physically coming off the elevators, we come to realize the importance of taking lessons in advance to understand the potential for injury and perhaps even loss of life in these kinds of situations. So while the story was absolutely a positive one, and Sergeant at Arms Livingood and the Architect of the Capitol, Ken Lauzier and the Chief of the Capitol Hill Police did an absolutely fantastic job with all the various components that we could muster on Capitol Hill, Dr. Eisold's staff to treat those personnel who were, in fact, affected with smoke inhalation, there are some lessons to be learned from this. I would hope that it would remind all of us that we need to understand that life safety, both for ourselves and for our staffs and for our constituents, needs to be a top priority every day this Congress is in session.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise as we complete legislative work this week, in anticipation of next week when we will begin the markup process for one of the largest bills we do each year, and that is the defense authorization bill. As my colleague just discussed, we are in a massive downsizing mode that I think is heading us right for a train wreck at the turn of the century in terms of our security posture. You are going to be hearing significant amounts of comments and speeches and activities over the next four weeks as members of our committee, all 57 members, get involved in educating Members of this body, and the American people about where we are in terms of our state of readiness. I want to call attention to my colleagues two events that will take place next week. First of all, Mr. Speaker, the largest loss of military life that we have had in this decade was back 7 years ago when 28 young Americans were killed by a scud missile, a low complexity scud missile shot from Iraq into a barracks in Saudi Arabia. That missile devastated the lives of 28 young Americans. On Wednesday, all day in the Rayburn courtyard off of New Jersey Avenue, we will display a 40-foot-long scud missile, a missile that, in fact, was produced by the Iraqis with assistance from North Korea; that is the same missile that, in fact, killed American troops, the only major loss of life of our troops in this decade. That missile is now being sold around the world. Rogue nations are purchasing it. It is still a threat to this country that we cannot defend against. Along with a display of that Scud missile, which will be available for inspection by our colleagues in the House and the other body and by the American public at that courtyard off of the Rayburn Building on New Jersey Avenue and C Street, will be a demonstration of one of our responses. The Army will, in fact, have a full, active deployment of a THAAD battery. THAAD is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System that we are developing for our Army to deploy in theaters around the world to defeat missiles like the Iraqi Scud missile. The THAAD battery will allow Members to see firsthand the success we have had to date in building what will become a very capable system. The unfortunate part of this is that it is going to take several years before this system will be available. But I want to encourage Members to walk over to the Rayburn courtyard and see for themselves how far we have come in terms of building a comprehensive system. In fact, it has been this body, both Democrats and Republicans, over the past 3 years that have increased funding for these programs, at a time when the administration wanted to continually decimate and decrease funding for these very important programs. The second event will occur the second day, on Thursday of next week, when 2,000 of America's finest American fire and domestic defenders, our emergency services personnel, will travel to Washington for our tenth annual dinner, where on Thursday night at the Washington Hilton we will pay tribute to these brave heroes. These individuals will come from every State in the Union, they will represent every major community, large cities like New York, small towns across America, and they will come with one common purpose: that is, for us to be able to recognize their services. But something different will happen that day, Mr. Speaker. On Thursday, at noon, there will be a massive rally and demonstration at this Capitol building, where the fire and EMS providers in every congressional district in this country will gather for a massive rally at noon, after having surrounded this Capitol building with fire and emergency services apparatus, to make a statement. The statement is a simple one: As this Congress and this administration has increased funding for response to terrorism acts, to the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, and for the disasters that would result from those, from increases in funding for the Defense budget, the Department of Justice budget, the Health and Human Services budget, the FEMA budget, and the Department of Energy budget, none of that money is in fact siphoning down to those people who are where the rubber meets the road, who are the Nation's first responders in each of these situations. The demonstration on Thursday, that will be loud and vocal, to which I invite all of our colleagues from both parties, will focus on the fact that this Congress and the administration need to understand that in working to prepare this Nation to deal with disasters, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction, we need to provide the support to the 1.2 million men and women in the 32,000 departments, 85 percent of whom are volunteer, who protect this country every day. I am also asking our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to reach out and invite fire and EMS personnel from across the country, and especially in this region, to travel to Washington on Thursday to send a signal throughout this Capitol, with a massive rally at noon right outside the steps of this Chamber, that we will no longer tolerate the consideration of our fire and EMS personnel as second-class citizens, that they deserve the top priority in preparing this Nation to deal with disasters, both man- made and the potential use of terrorist devices.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, the supplemental appropriations measure before the House today goes a long way to support the needs of our troops, supporting the added cost of Bosnia and Iraqi enforcement operations while ensuring that we are not further eroding a defense budget that is already stretched too thin. As we move the bill forward, we must consider the many remaining needs of our troops around the globe. Of particular concern to our military commanders stationed abroad are the increasing range of missile threats, particularly those that could emerge this year as a result of Russian technology transfers. Last night, the House unanimously adopted an authorization bill, H.R. 2786, designed to enhance our missile defense systems against that very threat. Unfortunately, due to the timing of that action, we were unable to include those funds in this supplemental. However, it is my understanding that the administration supports execution of the actions in H.R. 2786 in fiscal year 1998.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me thank the chairman of the full committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security for this piece of legislation. I think we need to get to the heart of the issue here and what is at stake. Why do we need this supplemental and why do we need to not further degradate the dollars to support our military? Mr. Chairman, if we look at the facts, in the past 6 years we have seen our troops deployed 25 times at home and around the world. Now if we compare that to the previous 40 years, they were deployed 10 times. Now, Mr. Chairman, the problem is that none of those 25 deployments were budgeted for; none of those 25 deployments were paid for. In the case of Bosnia, Mr. Chairman, by the end of the next fiscal year we will have spent $9.4 billion on Bosnia. In fact, Mr. Chairman, if we look at the previous 7 years, we have spent $15 billion on contingencies around the world. Now, the problem in the Congress is not that we oppose going into Bosnia. That is not the issue. The problem in Bosnia is why was America asked to put in 36,000 troops while the Germans, right next door, put in 4,000 troops? Why are we paying the costs for the troops, the housing and food for the Bangladesh military in Haiti? The problem is that this administration has not done enough to get our allies to kick in their fair share of the cost of these deployments. Look at Desert Storm. The Desert Storm operation cost us $52 billion. We were reimbursed $54 billion. But that has not been the case for the past 6 and 7 years. We have seen time and again money taken away from readiness, from modernization, from R&D, from those programs that we agreed to within a 5-year balanced budget context to be used to pay for deployments, none of which were budgeted for. Therefore, we need to restore this money because the quality of life for our troops is at stake, because the modernization of our systems is at stake, and because we have robbed the military to the core, to the bone. Talk to our troops in the field, Mr. Chairman. Listen to those young kids in Somalia who are on their second and third straight deployments. Listen to their stories of being away from home because of the cuts that we have made. We need to understand these monies are desperately necessary to replenish funds that have been taken away from the military to pay for deployments that were never considered priorities by this administration when our troops were committed in the first place. I ask my colleagues to support this appropriation measure, to oppose any measure to change it, to support the leadership of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) because what they are doing is right for our troops, it is right for America, and it is right for our role in the world today.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the Senate approved funding for the theater missile defense enhancements in its supplemental bill. Given the tight constraints we are working under here today, I will not offer an amendment, but ask the chairman and the chairman of the subcommittee to ensure that this funding remains in the supplemental conference report.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, first of all, let me again thank the leadership of our committee. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) are outstanding leaders working in a true bipartisan manner. Let me also thank Ron Dellums, who was our ranking member up until a few short weeks ago. He, too, lent his support from the time we introduced the original legislation until the time it appears on the floor, and I appreciate his role in that process as well. I also thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Pickett) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for their tireless effort on the other side. Madam Speaker, let me also thank the Speaker of the House, who agreed to move this legislation through, and our colleagues in the other body for their commitment to move this legislation off the desk and get it passed in the Senate as well, and to the appropriators for their commitment to fund these priorities. Madam Speaker, when we look at what is really going to happen in terms of this legislation, I think this chart perhaps sums it up best. We cannot get into actual distances and capabilities because that is classified information. But if we look at the Patriot system, which all of America knows was the workhorse in Desert Storm, and its capability for knocking down Scuds, the capability of the Patriot system against the kind of threat that Iran will have 1 year from now means the Patriot could not handle this at all. Patriot has no capability against a 1,000 kilometer DBM threat. None whatsoever. If we just had the original Patriot system, we could do nothing. We would be shooting missiles in the air with no real capability of knocking those offensive missiles down. By enhancing the Patriot system as we have done to improve it to become the PAC-2, this green area shows the approximate area that this missile would be effective, in these two concentric circles. From a distance standpoint, that is the approximate distance that PAC-2 upgrade would give us. When we implement the provisions of this legislation, we provide for the enhanced radar, the interoperability, the use of existing systems interconnected, the blue area is the result that we get. So my colleagues can see that we are much better able to protect our troops and protect our allies. We have a much greater distance where we can take out that offensive missile while it is still over the country that is shooting at us, and if there is any hostile material in the warhead of that missile, it will rain down on their own citizens and not on our troops or allies. Madam Speaker, this legislation is critically important. It will give us a short-term capability in fiscal year 1998 to give enhanced protection for our troops and for our allies around the world. I thank my colleagues for their support. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler), one of the leading advocates for a strong defense in our country.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pappas), one of our young rising stars in this Congress. (Mr. PAPPAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett). (Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, a Member who has been a tireless advocate for missile defense for this country, and we welcome his participation today. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the distinguished chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and the ranking member of my subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Pickett) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), for their tireless efforts in putting forth this compromise legislation today. Madam Speaker, the largest loss of life that we have had in our military troops from one single incident in this decade was 7 years ago when 28 of our young soldiers were killed by a low complexity Scud missile entering into a barracks in Dhahran. We vowed as a Nation not to let that happen again, and we have been aggressively pursuing various theater missile defense systems to protect our troops and our allies from shorter range missiles that could not hit the United States. Unfortunately, our schedule for deploying those theater missile defense systems was not able to meet the threats as they are in fact emerging. We saw several years ago North Korea begin deploying a No Dung missile that has a range of in the range of about 1,000 kilometers, and this past summer we saw, with the help of both Russia and China, Iran get the capability to deploy two different types of missiles that will have a range between 600 and 1,200 kilometers. Looking at the chart, Madam Speaker, we can see that this missile that Iran will be able to deploy within the period of 12 to 24 months has the capacity to hit our allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the area, as well as our troops stationed in the theater around Iran. This is unacceptable to us, Madam Speaker, and so back in the fall of last year we got together and put together a bipartisan effort to provide short-term enhancements to improve our capability to defeat the missiles that Iran may in fact deploy, and that we know North Korea is already deploying. These enhancements are basically contained in this bill. They involve providing additional footprints to existing systems with enhanced radar and providing interoperability between a number of different systems which gives us a better capability to more quickly identify a target and take that target out. So by putting forth the $147 million dollars in this legislation, we are going to allow our missile defense programs that are currently in place to come together in a unique way, to give us enhanced interoperability, to give us a longer footprint in terms of taking out systems and missiles that may in fact threaten our troops and our allies, and to also begin to cooperate with other nations. In fact, in this legislation, we include money for interoperability with Israel, so that Israel, as it develops its Arrow program, will in fact be able to have that system interoperate with our PAC-3 program and eventually with our Navy and other Army programs. So what we are talking about today, Madam Speaker, is a new opportunity to protect our troops in the shortest possible time using existing systems by enhancing them, not with new dollars, but with dollars that are already available within the budget agreement. Madam Speaker, the other body has in fact passed in its supplemental bill a $151 million allocation that in fact is designed to fund almost all of our priorities in this legislation. I have received a commitment from the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Livingston). In fact, we will do a colloquy on the floor in the supplemental that he will work in the conference to make sure that funding is made available to fund the authorization that we provide today in this legislation. Finally, Madam Speaker, I want to add one other dimension to this legislation. We are dedicating this legislation today to the memory of those 28 young soldiers, many of them from Pennsylvania, who were killed by that Scud missile attack 7 years ago. We do not want their names to be left unnoticed in terms of protecting our other troops, and so I will include for the record the names and classifications and titles and cities of each of those 28 brave Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 7 years ago, to that Scud missile. This legislation, Madam Speaker, in honor of those 28 brave Americans, will allow us to ensure that no other Americans will lose their lives in a similar situation. Madam Speaker, the measure before the House today, H.R. 2786, is the result of a bipartisan effort to identify the most effective actions that could be taken to enhance our defenses against a greatly accelerated missile threat to our troops and allies around the globe. Late last summer we learned that Iran, assisted by Russian technology transfers, could deploy a missile capable of striking U.S. forces and our allies in the Middle East within a year to eighteen months. Recognizing that threat--which the intelligence community had previously predicted to be several years away--and the lack of any U.S. system fully capable of defending against it, I asked the ballistic missile defense organization to recommend steps that could be taken to enhance our defensive capabilities as soon as possible. Based on the initial feedback I received, I introduced H.R. 2786, the Iranian Missile Protection Act. That bill gained strong, bipartisan support, with one hundred and ten cosponsors. Although Congress adjourned before acting on the bill, the case for timely TMD enhancements is stronger than ever. In the six months since the bill was introduced, Iran successfully tested, the engines of its medium-range missile, the Shahab-3. Despite Russia's recent agreement with the U.S. to limit future missile technology transfers, reports indicate that controlling such transactions may still be a problem. Meanwhile, North Korea continues aggressive development of its No-Dong missile, and Saddam Hussein remains intent on intimidating the U.S. with all options at his disposal. Unfortunately, seven years after twenty-eight American soldiers perished in the Iraqi Scud attack on Dharan, we have no missile defense system in place or planned for deployment within the next year fully capable of defending against the increased Iranian missile threat--or against one which could emerge sooner than we expect from North Korea. At this point, we won't be able to get our longer range TMD systems deployed in time to meet the accelerated Iranian threat. But there are things we can do to make systems that will be fielded more effective against that threat. Initially, there was some disagreement between Congress and the administration on how to proceed with theater missile defense enhancements. But there was no argument that we would soon need better capabilities to respond to the emerging threats. That is why committee Republicans and Democrats approached the administration again requesting a refined set of recommendations for near-term TMD enhancements. The legislation before the House today, renamed ``the Theater Missile Defense Improvement Act'' in committee, is the product of that bipartisan initiative. It reflects the advice of the services, the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO), the commanders in chief of our military theaters of operation, and the ballistic missile defense organization. It reflects the administration's conclusion that there are concrete steps that we can and should take to enhance TMD capabilities in the near term, and its recommendation of several high payoff options that can be executed in fiscal year '98. Based on this input, we narrowed the scope of the bill to actions executable in 1998. As a result, the cost of the bill has been cut by more than half--from $331 million to $147 million. It includes: (1) ($35m) Joint composite tracking network development--ensure connectivity of ground-based radar, Pac-3 and Navy cooperative engagement capability. (2) ($15m) Pac-3 remote launch capability development--accelerates doubling of Pac-3 footprint from 2000 to 1999. (3) ($40m) Pac-3 and Navy area defense systems testing--provides for one test on each system to determine capabilities against Iranian threat. (4) ($41m) Pac-3 production enhancement--funds tooling and equipment to double production in 2001-2. (5) ($10m) Arrow interoperability testing--tests with U.S. TMD systems. (6) ($6m) Early warning enhancement--links sensors, communications and command and control to provide improved early warning. The ballistic missile defense organization believes these are the most valuable steps we can take in the near term to enhance TMD capabilities against emerging threats. This package is supported by the administration and was reported out of committee 45-0. Our commanders in the field want this protection, and our allies such as Israel are calling for added enhancements in light of the imminent Iranian threat. The House has already passed legislation calling for sanctions against Russian entities that aided Iran in its missile development. Now it must pass this bill to provide the best protection possible for our troops and allies. Passage of this measure will do just that, allowing our existing missile defense systems to ``be all they can be'' against the near-term missile threats. In honor of those who lost their lives in the Scud attack on Dharan: Specialist Stephen Atherton--Dayton, PA. Specialist Stanley Bartusiak--Romulus, MI. Specialist John Boliver--Monogahela, PA. Sergeant Joseph Bongiomi--Hickory, PA. Sergeant John Boxler--Johnstown, PA. Specialist Beverly Clark--Armagh, PA. Sergeant Alan Craver--Penn Hills, PA. Specialist Rolando A. Deigneau--Unknown address. Specialist Steven Famen--Salisbury, Missouri. Specialist Duane Hollen--Bellwood, PA. Specialist Glen Jones--Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Specialist Frank Keough--Rochester Mills, PA. Specialist Anthony Madison--Monessen, PA. Specialist Steven Mason--Paragould, Arkansas. Specialist Christine Mayes--Rochester Mills, PA. Specialist Michael Mills--Panora, Iowa. Specialist Adrienne Mitchell--Moreno Valley, CA. Specialist Ronald Rennison--Dubuque, IA. Private First Class Timothy Shaw--Alexandria, VA. Sergeant Stephen Siko--Latrobe, PA. Specialist Brian Simpson--Indianapolis, IN. Specialist Thomas Stone--Falconer, NY. Specialist James Tatum--Athens, TN. Private First Class Robert Wade--Savannah, GA. Sergeant Frank Walls--Hawthorne, PA. Corporal Jonathan Williams--Portsmouth, VA. Specialist Richard Wolverton--?, PA. Specialist James Worthy--Albany, GA. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' for H.R. 2786 and join me in dedicating passage of this bill to their memory.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to discuss an issue that is not one of the front page stories nationally, but which really needs to be discussed in this body, and that is the status of our national defense and our national security. It is an especially timely discussion tonight because we are about to take up for consideration both in this body and the other body a supplemental bill that will partially deal with the funds that we have been expending in Bosnia and in other parts of the world where our troops are currently deployed. But before I get into my overview, Mr. Speaker, let me respond to some of the discussion from our colleagues on the other side during the previous hour. They attempted to portray the Republicans as being insensitive to the needs of working people, not caring about seniors, not caring about families, not caring about education, not caring about health care. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. I take great pride in being a Member who, by profession, spent years as a public school teacher in a suburban district next to Philadelphia, ran a chapter 1 program for economically and educationally deprived children, and like my colleagues on the Republican and on the Democrat side, cared desperately about the future of our young people. We in the Republican Party simply have a fundamental difference with our Democrat colleagues. We think that the American people can best decide how to spend their money, what the priorities should be. Obviously, we could spend the money of the American people in a number of different ways, and that is what many of our colleagues on the other side think should be the role of the Federal Government. We, however, believe that giving the American people more of their hard-earned money to spend on their priorities is in fact the best way to allow us all to enjoy the liberties under this system that we are so blessed with. In fact, following my presentation tonight, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske), will be doing an in-depth discussion of health care, and I think he will be raising some very provocative issues about our need to look at the way health care is being provided in this country. So Republicans do care, Mr. Speaker, and Democrats do care. And I think for Members of either party to get up and totally tear apart the other side is, in fact, what it appears to be; it is just shallow rhetoric, it is political rhetoric designed to try to continue what happened in the last campaign cycle. We do not need that. With the difficult problems that this Nation has, we need to have intelligent discussion, debate, and deal with the real issues that face this country. One of those issues, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that has not been getting much attention has been our national security. In fact, if we look at the record over the past 7 years, the only major area of the Federal budget that has in fact been cut in real terms is our defense portion of the budget. In fact, it has gone down for 13 consecutive years. Now, many would argue that the world has changed, and since we are no longer in the Cold War where we are having to keep up with a very powerful Soviet Union, that reductions in defense spending are appropriate; and in fact, Mr. Speaker, I agree with that, and I have supported many of the reductions that we in fact have caused to occur over the past several years. For instance, for the past 3 years, I have been a Republican, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development, voting consistently against the B-2 bomber. It is not that I do not like the technology, I think Stealth technology is critically important, but I just do not think we can afford the B-2 bomber with the budget limitations we have and with the other problems that we have as a Nation. But we need to look at the facts, Mr. Speaker, in terms of what has been happening with our defense posture, what the threats are, and where we are going to be at the beginning of the next century, because I think we are going to face a very perilous period of time. First of all, let us make some comparisons. Now the people of America, my constituents back home in Pennsylvania, believe that we are spending so much more of their tax dollars today on defense than what we did in previous years. The facts just do not bear that out, Mr. Speaker. In fact, in the 1960s, and I picked this period of time because we were at relative peace, it was after Korea, but before Vietnam, the country was not at war. John Kennedy was the President. During that time period, we were spending 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar sent to Washington on our military. We were spending 9 percent of our country's gross national product on defense. We were at peace. Today, Mr. Speaker, we are spending 15 cents of the Federal tax dollars sent to Washington on the military, about 2.9 percent of our GNP. So, in fact, as a percentage of the total amount of money taken in by Washington, we have in fact dramatically cut the amount of that money going for national security. But some other things have changed during that time period that we have to look at. First of all, Mr. Speaker, back when John Kennedy was the President, we had the draft. Young people were sucked out of high school, they were paid far less than the minimum wage, and they were asked to serve the country for 2 years. Today's military is all volunteer; we have no draft. Our young people are paid a decent wage. In fact, many of them have education well beyond high school, college degrees, some have advanced degrees. So we have education costs. We have housing costs because many of our young people in the military today are married; so we have health care costs, housing costs, education costs that we did not have when John Kennedy was President because our troops were largely drafted. So a much larger percentage of this 15 cents on the dollar that we bring into Washington for the military goes for the quality of life of our troops. And in fact, the bulk of our money today, the bulk of the money spent in the defense budget goes to provide for quality of life for the men and women who serve this country. So that is a fundamental change. But some other things have happened, Mr. Speaker. First of all, we have to look at what has occurred during the last 7 years or 6 years as this President has seen fit to dramatically cut defense far beyond what I think is a safe level in terms of long-term spending. During a time where the President has proposed massive decreases in defense spending, he has increased the deployment rate of our troops to an all-time high, in fact, the highest level of deployments in the history of America. Now, let me give some examples, Mr. Speaker. I have a chart that bears this out. This chart shows the number of deployments that our country has provided our troops in terms of the past 7 years. We have deployed our troops, rather, the President has deployed our troops 25 times at home and around the world. These are deployments that involved military operations, some have involved confrontation, many are peacekeeping, some are involved with disaster relief, a whole host of missions. But the point is that during the period of time where we decimated defense spending to an all-time low, we increased the deployment low to an all-time high. Mr. Speaker, 25 deployments in the past 7 years. Now, compare that to the previous 40 years. We had 10 deployments in that period of time. So in the previous 40 years, prior to Bill Clinton becoming the President, our troops were deployed a total of 10 times. Just in the last 7 years, our troops have been deployed 25 times. Now, what is so significant about that, Mr. Speaker? Well, what is so significant about that is that none of those deployments were budgeted for, none of them were planned for. So to pay for those deployments, we had to take money from other accounts, because there were no special monies made available to pay for the costs of all of these deployments. Now, Mr. Speaker, that has a devastating impact on our ability to modernize our military equipment and to maintain the morale of our troops. Let me give an example. The Bosnian operation, we were told, would only last for a matter of months, perhaps a year to 2 years at the most. By the end of the next fiscal year, the American taxpayers will have spent $9.4 billion on the Bosnia operation alone. In fact, Mr. Speaker, over the past 7 years, with those 25 deployments, we have spent $15 billion on contingency operations around the world, none of which were budgeted for. Now, someone might say, Mr. Speaker, well, that really does not matter. The military is getting paid anyway; why can they not do their training in these faraway places? Well, sometimes they can do some of that training, Mr. Speaker, but by and large, we cannot pay for the bulk of the support necessary to pay for our troops just out of the training accounts. It just does not work. What is even more troubling is, as the President has deployed our troops at this rapidly escalating rate, he has not taken the time to get our allies to pay their fair share of the deployment costs. Now, let me give a comparison. George Bush deployed our troops to the Middle East in Desert Storm, a very expensive operation. But there was a fundamental difference, Mr. Speaker. In Desert Storm, leading up to that operation, President Bush interacted with the leaders of the world on a regular basis. He said to them, we will go in there and we will provide the support of our military in cooperation with an allied forces group, and we will provide the bulk of the sealift and the airlift. But, he said to our allies, not only must you provide the troops to go in with our troops, but you must pay for the operation itself. Desert Storm cost $52 billion. America was reimbursed over $53 billion. So that in terms of the cost, there was no negative impact on our budget process. The $15 billion that we have spent on the 25 deployments since Desert Storm have not been paid for and shared by our allies. America has had to pay that bill itself, and all of that funding has come out of defense budgets, none of which was planned for. What does that mean? That means we have slipped programs to the outyears. It means we have not bought new helicopters to replace old ones. We wonder why we are having helicopter accidents today. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we are going to be flying helicopters built during the Vietnam War that will be 45 years old before they are retired, because to pay for those deployments, we have had to stretch out the replacement buys that will allow those helicopters to be retired. The B-52 bomber, Mr. Speaker, will be 55 years old before we ultimately retire that aircraft, yet it is still a critical part of our capacity in terms of bombing needs that we might have around the world. So to pay for all of these deployments, we have had to raid the defense budget. We have kept the numbers that we agreed to, and our party has held fast. But we have eaten out of the Defense Department's capability to modernize our forces and to maintain the quality of life for our troops. But it is even more outrageous than that, Mr. Speaker. In these deployments where our troops have been sent to Haiti and to Somalia and Macedonia and to Bosnia, the concern of our colleagues in Congress is not that we should not be there; I think almost all of us in this body, Democrats and Republicans, believe, as the world's only remaining superpower, we have an obligation to help settle regional conflicts. That is not the issue. The issue in the Congress, Mr. Speaker, is that this administration has not gotten support from our allies to be involved and to pay their fair share. When this body went on record and voted on whether or not to support the President's decision to go into Bosnia, the bulk of our colleagues that I talked to were not against going into Bosnia. They were upset that America was putting 36,000 young Americans in that part of the world when the Germans, right next door to Bosnia, were only committing 4,000 troops. Our colleagues and I say, what is going on here? If Bosnia is right next to Germany, why should not Germany be committing more of its troops, and why should not the European nations be paying more of the cost of the Bosnian operation? In fact, Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that in the case of some of the Scandinavian militaries, we actually agreed to pay some of their housing costs to get their troops to be part of the multinational force. The same thing has occurred in Haiti. Our troops are still in Haiti, still maintaining the peace, when we were told they would only be there for a few months at the longest period of time. In Haiti the President has said to the Congress, I have gotten other nations to come in with America. He is right. But, Mr. Speaker, what he has not told the American people is that to get those countries to come in, he actually has had American DOD dollars pay for the salaries, the housing costs, and the food for those foreign troops. The Bangladesh military has sent 1,000 troops into Haiti to help out. Why? Partially because American tax dollars have paid for those troops to come into Haiti. The point is one, I think, Mr. Speaker, that points up the fact of the problem of our defense budget. In a period where we have cut defense spending dramatically because the threats have decreased, we in fact, Mr. Speaker, have increased deployments and not gotten our allies to share that burden. It has caused us to face a crisis right now in the military. There is one more factor we have to look at, Mr. Speaker. That is the fastest growing portion of the defense budget, the fastest growing portion of the defense budget, in a very quickly shrinking budget, is not for new weapons systems. It is not for salary increases for the troops. It is for a fund that we call environmental mitigation. I take great pride in my environmental voting record, Mr. Speaker, as a Republican, and will continue that record as long as I am in this body. But we are spending $12 billion this year of DOD money for what we call environmental mitigation. Some of that is critically important. When we decommission nuclear submarines, we have to make sure that we deal with that spent nuclear fuel and that we do it in a safe way. When we close down military sites, we have to make sure that we clean up those sites from any hazards that may be there. But Mr. Speaker, we have gone to the extreme. We have begun to use the defense budget as a cash cow. A military base is open on one day, where you have the children, the offspring of military personnel, going to an elementary school on the base and not suffering any adverse consequences. The base closes down, and then the local leaders of the community say, this base is a toxic waste site because the military used chemicals there. Then they demand from the Federal government, and we have gone along with this game, hundreds of millions of dollars not to just clean up those sites, but to develop very extensive reuse and economic development schemes, using money that was originally designed to be used for the defense of this country. That fund, Mr. Speaker, is now $12 billion, and it is growing each year. The point that I am trying to make is not that we have in fact the need to dramatically increase defense spending, because we cannot do that. But, Mr. Speaker, we have some hard choices to make. This President has either got to help us reform the laws dealing with these bases that we have closed, to give us some flexibility in the Congress and in the administration of these base closings in terms of the costs that we have to put forward, he has to get our allies to pay more of the share of these deployments, or reduce the deployment levels that our troops are being asked to commit to around the world, or he has to do what he has already asked for, and that is another round of base closings. The administration today is pleading for this Congress to approve another round of military base closings. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, I agree with the President. We should close more bases in America. I agree with the President, but the President is not going to be able to get a base closing bill through this Congress. The average citizen would say well, if we need to close more bases, if that is going to help us save money because it will reduce our military, why then will not the Congress approve a base closing process? The answer is simple, Mr. Speaker. In the 12 years that I have been in Congress, one of the most difficult assignments that we had to make 6 or 7 years ago was how to reduce the military infrastructure as we cut the number of troops in the military. No Member of Congress wants to close a base in his or her district. It is political suicide. So we went to great lengths, Democrats and Republicans, to set up an independent process to remove politics from base closings, so neither Democrats nor Republicans could decide whose base would be closed based upon politics alone. This independent commission twice recommended base closings. One of the first bases closed was the Philadelphia Navy Yard, right next to my district. When it closed, 13,000 people lost their jobs. But with a shrinking Navy, we cannot support eight public shipyards. We had to close four of them. So the base closing process worked twice. We closed a significant number of bases. Then a third round of base closings was recommended, and something different happened. President Clinton, in the year that he was running for reelection, made a decision. He said, we are going to take the recommendations of the commission, except for two. I am going to recommend that we keep one base in California and one base in Texas open, even though it has been recommended for closure. So those two bases were given reprieves. It just so happened that those two bases are in the two States with the most electoral votes. Many would say that the reason the President disagreed with the base closing commission was because he wanted to have California and Texas support him in the campaign. I am not going to make that accusation today, but what the President did do, Mr. Speaker, was that he soured the process. Members of Congress today, Democrats and Republicans, will not vote for a new round of base closings because they do not trust this administration. We were fooled once, and we will not be fooled again. This President took a nonpolitical process that Republicans and Democrats agreed to and he violated that process. Now we do not have the confidence that this administration will go back to the way base closings occurred in the past. Therefore, we are in a dilemma. We need to close more bases, but this administration, who says we need to close more bases, cannot get a base closing process approved by this Congress. It is because of the actions of this President. All of these things occurring are affecting our defense budget. That is why the debate coming up this week and next week on the floor of the House and the floor of the other body will be about whether or not we replenish some of that money that has been spent on Bosnia into the DOD budget. I think that is the only thing we can do. We have had a budget agreement that has been very tight. We set caps on defense spending, and we have now violated those caps. The Congress did not go in and take money out of that defense budget, we did not raise the caps. It was the President himself that deployed these troops to exotic places around the world, many of which I supported, and did not propose a way to pay for them. Therefore, our defense budget was unilaterally cut. What we want the supplemental to do, what I want the supplemental to do, is to reinstate some of that money, less than $2 billion, to those defense accounts that have been decimated by over $9 billion just for Bosnia alone, and $15 billion for all of our contingency operations over the past 7 years. I think that is the right thing to do for our troops, and the right thing to do for our military. Let me get on to the next point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker: that is, the President lulling us into a false sense of security. The President is the Commander in Chief. When my constituents back in Pennsylvania listen to the President give a speech, they know he is also the Commander in Chief, and he knows what the threats are in the world. But let me talk about some of those threats. Let me talk about the President's use of the bully pulpit to convey to the American people a false sense that there are no longer threats in the world. As I said earlier, I am the first to admit, it is a changed world. The Cold War is over. But does that mean Russia is no longer a threat? Mr. Speaker, I do a significant amount of work with Russia. I formed and chair the initiative with their Duma. I have been to Russia 14 times, four times in the last year. My undergraduate degree is in Russian studies. I know the language, and I am working right now on a number of positive programs to help stabilize Russia. I do not see Russia as an evil empire, Mr. Speaker. But let me say this: Russia is more destabilized today than at any time in the last 50 years. We need to understand that, not from fear of having Russia mount an all-out attack on America. I do not believe that is in any way, shape, or form what Boris Yeltsin or any other leader would want to do. But there is a heightened opportunity or a heightened potential for incidents involving and as a result of the instability in Russia today. Let me give some examples. With the economic chaos in Russia today, more and more of Russia's conventional military is being decimated. The generals and admirals who were the key leaders in the Soviet military have been forced out of their positions with no pensions, with inadequate housing, in most cases no housing. In many cases, as General Lebed testified before my subcommittee last week here in Washington, and as he has told me on two other visits in Moscow and Washington, they have now had to resort to criminal activities to take care of their families. So these generals and admiral, who know where all the technology is in Russia, who know where the nuclear materials are in Russia, are now resorting to selling those materials on the black market because they feel betrayed by the motherland. We are seeing technology transfer occur at a rate now that we have not seen in the past 50 years. This is not being fostered by Boris Yeltsin, it is occurring because of instability in Russia, because of Russian military officers who feel betrayed by their country. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, Russia's demise of their conventional military has caused them to be more reliant on their offensive, long-range strategic missiles. The President has given a speech three times in this well and 190 times in America where he has said something like this. He has looked in the camera and said, you all can sleep well tonight because, for the first time in 50 years, there are no long-range ICBMs pointed at America's children. As the Commander in Chief, Mr. Speaker, he knows we have no way of verifying that. The Russians will not allow us to have access to their targeting, just as we will not allow them to have access to ours. But he also knows, Mr. Speaker, you can retarget an ICBM in 15 to 30 seconds. In addition, Mr. Speaker, he knows that China today has 18 to 25 ICBMs, each with a range of 30,000 kilometers, that are aimed at American cities that can launch at any city in America. But let us look beyond that, Mr. Speaker. Let us look at whether or not there is a potential for an incident to occur that would threaten American troops or the American people. In January, 1995, Norway announces to Russia in a written communication that they are going to launch a multi-stage weather rocket from an island off the coast of Norway. It is a courtesy to notify a neighboring country. The date of the launch comes about, and Norway launches this multi-stage weather rocket. Russian intelligence, with systems that are not being properly maintained, sees this multi- stage rocket taking off and mistakes it for an American multi-stage ICBM coming from one of our submarines at sea. The Russian security system puts the system in Russia on a full alert, which means that they activate the black boxes, the cheggets, that control the Russian nuclear arsenal which are in the hands of Boris Yeltsin, at that time Pavel Grachev, the defense minister, and General Kolesnikov, the chief of the command staff, which meant that Russia had 15 minutes within which was the time period allocated to call off a nuclear response against America to a weather rocket that they had been forewarned of by Norway. Mr. Speaker, this is not a Stephen Spielberg science fiction movie, this is what occurred. The Russians have acknowledged this. In fact, Boris Yeltsin's explanation was that it was a good test of their system; that with 7 minutes left, he overruled Kolesnikov and Grachev and called off the response. Mr. Speaker, that is the threat. The threat is from an accidental launch. The threat is from a rogue Nation getting a capability that threatens our troops, our allies, and our people. That is why we need to continue to focus on national security. Not because Russia is the ``evil empire,'' because they are not. Not because China is coming after us, because they are not. But because there are risks in the world today that I would argue are greater than what they have been for the past 50 years, mainly because of the lack of cohesion inside of Russia and with the Russian Government and its military. Another example, Mr. Speaker, last May I was in Moscow, and among the meetings that I had were with the senior leaders of the Duma, including the Deputy Defense Minister; the Minister of Natural Resources, Orlov; the Minister of Atomic Energy, Mikhaylov; and Boris Nemtsov, the Deputy Prime Minister. I met again with General Lebed. And as you know, General Lebed is a four-star retired general. He is the individual credited with ending two wars that Russia was involved in: the war in Moldavia and the war in Chechnya. Lebed himself ended both of those conflicts. He ran for the presidency against Yeltsin, and Yeltsin was so fearful of his candidacy that he enticed him to leave the race to come work for him as one of his top advisors. Many give General Lebed the credit for allowing Yeltsin to win the last election, because if Lebed had stayed in the race, he would have taken enough votes away from Yeltsin that the Communist Zyuganov would have won the presidential election in Russia at the same time the Communist Party was winning 165 seats in the State Duma. General Lebed, in our meeting last May, a private meeting with six Members of Congress, was talking to us about the security of Russian nuclear weapons. He was talking to us about decommissioned submarines, nuclear powered submarines sitting in dry-dock with no solutions in sight to deal with that nuclear waste and those contaminated products. He gave us a number of examples of Russian military going into Mafia- type operations, selling equipment, hardware, and even the potential of selling nuclear materials. But then he talked about one specific incident. He said in response to a question I asked him about nuclear devices, whether or not Russia had any small nuclear devices, he said, ``Let me tell you a story. When I was the secretary of the Defense Council for President Yeltsin, one of my assignments was to account for 132 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs. These are devices that could be carried by two people, each with the capacity of approximately 1 kiloton, which is about one-tenth the size of the Hiroshima bomb. He said Russia built 132 of these. ``I was given the assignment to account for them.'' He said, ``My people could only find 48.'' We said, ``General, where are the rest?'' And he said, ``I have no idea.'' He said, ``They could be safe. They could be secure. We do not know where they are. They could be in someone else's hands. They could be on the border. They could be in the former Soviet States, I just do not know.'' Mr. Speaker, I came back from that trip. There was no press in place. This was not an attempt, as the Russian Government would later say, by Lebed to get some headlines. There was no press in the meeting. There was no press conference. I came back to Washington and I debriefed the CIA and the DIA on what the Russian general had told me. They could not tell me whether or not they knew whether or not General Lebed knew that these devices were not secure. Our intelligence just did not know the answer to that question. Now, the Russians trashed General Lebed. They called him a traitor. They said he did not know what he was talking about, this general had no idea of whether or not Russia ever built nuclear devices. And many of the senior officials from Russia denied that Russia ever built these devices. ``60 Minutes'' contacted me in August when they read my trip report, which became a part of the Congressional Record, and they said, ``Congressman, did the general really say this?'' And I said yes. They said, ``Can we interview you?'' I said yes. They interviewed me and went to Moscow and interviewed General Lebed. And the first story in September of last year by ``60 Minutes'' was General Lebed repeating what he told me in that meeting in Moscow. Again, the Russia media denied what the general said. They trashed him. In fact, our own Department of Defense, our press spokesman said publicly, ``We have no reason to doubt that Russia does not control any small nuclear devices they may have built.'' So in October, I invited one of my Russian scientific friends to come to Washington. Alexei Yablakov. Dr. Yablakov is one of the most world- renowned environmental leaders in Russia. He is an ecologist. Dr. Yablakov came. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He came to Washington and testified before my committee. He said on the public record that he knew that General Lebed was telling the truth. Russia built these devices, and he knew scientists who were his colleagues who had worked on these devices and who told him that some of them were built for the KGB, and that it was imperative for Russia to find and locate and destroy these nuclear suitcases. Yablakov was called a traitor back in Moscow. The media trashed him. They said he was no good. Yablakov defended his honor. The story was a major story all over Russia. In fact, the Defense Minister called Yablakov into the Kremlin, and working with him, said they would issue a decree, a presidential decree to account for any of these devices that may have been built which they denied had been built earlier. Mr. Speaker, I was again in Moscow in December, and on that trip I met for an hour and a half with the Defense Minister of Russia, General Sergeyev. In his office I again asked him about the small nuclear devices. He said, ``Congressman, we did build these devices. In fact, we built several types of them, as your country did. We know that have you destroyed all of your small nuclear devices. We still have approximately 200. But I commit to you that by the year 2000, we will have them all destroyed.'' Now, why do I tell this story, Mr. Speaker? I tell this story because to create the impression that all is stable in Russia is exactly the wrong position to be stating to the American people. We do not need to scare the American people, but we need to be honest with them, candid with them, and the same thing applies with Russia itself. Because of the instability in Russia, many individuals and entities are looking to sell off technologies and products to rogue nations. Two years ago, we caught Russian institutes and individuals transferring guidance systems for rockets to Iraq. In fact, the Jordanian and Israeli intelligence intercepted these devices which are very expensive, that had been taken off of Russian SSN-19 rockets, very sophisticated long-range rockets that were being shipped to Iraq. Three times the CIA caught Russia transferring sets of guidance systems to Iraq. One hundred twenty sets of these guidance systems, Mr. Speaker, went from Russia to Iraq, to allow Iraq to improve the accuracy of their Scud missiles which killed our 27 Americans 7 years ago. Not one time did this administration impose sanctions as required under the treaty between the U.S. and Russia called Missile Technology Control Regime, which requires sanctions when a nation or an entity is caught selling material that is covered by that treaty. In fact since 1993, we have caught Russia violating the Missile Technology Control Regime seven times. We have not imposed sanctions once. This past summer, the Israelis came to America and they said, we have evidence that Russian scientists are working with Iran to allow Iran to build medium-range missiles that we cannot defend against. Initially the administration raised cain because that kind of intelligence information they did not want out. When the investigation was done, we found out exactly what happened, and that in fact was Russian entities involved with the Russian space agency had been transferring technology to Iran to allow Iran to build a medium-range missile partly based on the Russian SS-4 missile. What does this mean, Mr. Speaker? This means that within 12 months, Iran will have a medium-range missile that can hit any one of 25,000 American troops that this President today has deployed in Bosnia, in other regions around the Middle East, Somalia, Macedonia, because of the capability of those missiles. It also means that Iran will be able to hit, from its homeland, Israel directly with a medium-range missile. It means that Iran is working, as well as Iraq, on developing medium- range missile capabilities that is going to destabilize that part of the world. And the horror story here, Mr. Speaker, is we will have no system in place to defend Israel against those missiles when they are deployed. Now, some say we have the Patriot system. It was great during Desert Storm. The Patriot system was not designed to take out missiles. It was built as a system to shoot down airplanes. When the risk of Saddam's Scud missiles appeared in Desert Storm, Raytheon Corporation was able to heat up that Patriot system to give us some capability to take out low-complexity Scud missiles. But our military has acknowledged publicly that during Desert Storm, the Patriot system was at best 40 percent effective, which meant that 60 percent of the time we could not take out those Scud missiles. And even when we did hit the Scud missile, we were not hitting the warhead where a chemical or biological weapon would be. We were hitting the tail section, so that the debris would actually land on the people and still do the devastating damage of the bomb or the weapon of mass destruction and have its impact on the people whom it was intended to hurt. In fact we had our largest loss of life of American troops in this decade in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, when that low-complexity Scud missile went into that barracks. The point reinforces my notion, Mr. Speaker. While we need to continue to control the amount of defense spending, we need to be prepared for what is happening in the world today. China is spending a larger and larger amount of its money on defense. North Korea has now deployed a medium-range missile that we thought we would not see for 5 years. It is called the No Dong. It now threatens all of Japan. It threatens South Korea, and potentially troops in that theater, and they are working on a longer-range missile that eventually will be able to hit Alaska and Hawaii. The point is that as much as we want to spend more and more money on domestic programs, we cannot do that by sacrificing the strong deterrent that a strong military provides. The reason we have a strong military is not just to fight wars. It is to deter aggression. There has never been a nation that has fallen because it is too strong. And while we do not want to be the bully of the world, we need to understand that strength in our military systems deters regional aggression. And regional aggression is what leads to larger confrontations and eventually world war. Here is a summary, Mr. Speaker, of the budget projections from 1991 to 2001. The blue bar graph is mandatory outlays. They are going to increase by 35 percent during that 10-year period. The green bar graph is domestic discretionary spending. That is going to increase by 15 percent during the 10-year period. The red bar graph is defense spending. It is decreasing by 35 percent during that 10-year time period. We need to be careful, Mr. Speaker, that we do not approach a similar situation to what occurred in the 1970s, because if we allow our military to not modernize, to not provide the support for the morale of the troops, we could begin to see a decay that we will not be able to reverse. Now, why is all of this important and why do I discuss it today? Because the budget problems that I outlined at the beginning of my special order are going to be exacerbated after the turn of the century. This administration has postponed all modernization in our military and, therefore, everything has been slid until the next administration comes into office. This administration looks great. They have been able to balance the budget, they have been able to cut spending. They say they have cut Federal spending. They have only cut defense. That is the only area of the Federal Government where we have had real decline in real terms. But in the process of doing that, they have postponed decisions for new systems until the next century. In the year 2000 and beyond, these are the systems that are currently scheduled by this administration to go into full production: the V-22 for the Marine Corps; the Comanche for the Army; the F-22 for the Air Force; the F/A-18E and F for the Navy; the Joint Strike Fighter for the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps; a new aircraft carrier; new destroyers. The Army after next, an information-controlled Army: missile defense, theater missile defense, national missile defense. All of these programs, Mr. Speaker, are coming on line at the beginning of the next century and none of them can be paid for because of what we are doing to the defense budget today. Now, what have I proposed? I have told the administration, cut more programs. If you are not going to cut environmental costs, if you are not going to reduce deployments, if you cannot close more bases, and if you are not going to give us more money for defense, then cancel more programs. I voted to cancel the B-2, and the President kept the line open one more year during his election year in spite of the fact that we should have canceled it and saved that money. And I told the administration, cancel one of the tactical aviation programs. We cannot build three new TACAIR programs. This year we are spending $2.7 billion on tactical aviation that is buying new fighter planes. The current plans of this administration in building the F-22, the Joint Strike Fighter, and the F/A-18E and F, the GAO and CBO estimate in 10 years would cost us between 14 and 16 billion dollars a year. Where does this President think he is going to get--he is not going to be here. Where does he think the next President is going to get an increase of $10 to $12 billion just for tactical fighters alone? It is not going to happen, Mr. Speaker. That is why I am predicting a major train wreck, a train wreck that could jeopardize security of this country. We have got to be realistic about what the threats are. We have got to be realistic about what our needs are. We have got to be realistic about the way that we prioritize spending. We have got to be honest with the American people. And we have not done this. This administration in the State of the Union speech two months ago mentioned national security out of an 80-minute speech in two sentences. Yet the President is quick to deploy our troops around the world, but does not want to fund the dollars to support those very troops and modernize them. Something has got to give, Mr. Speaker. And I hope this special order tonight will make our colleagues, will make this city, and will make this country understand the dilemma we are facing. I am not here to advocate massive increases in defense spending. I am here to say help us control the amount of money we are currently putting forth, cut where we can, be realistic about what the threats are, and be honest about what our needs are in the 21st century. Because if we do not do that, I think the prospects for the long-term security of this country and the free world get dimmer and dimmer.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Lauren Hough of Agnes Irwin School. Recently, Lauren was named a Distinguished Finalist for the state of Pennsylvania in the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. This nationwide program highlights the achievements of America's most exemplary young people, like Lauren, who volunteer to make a difference in their communities and throughout the world. Miss Hough is being recognized for her work with Operation Smile, an organization dedicated to providing medical assistance and surgical procedures to underprivileged children throughout the world. Last year, Lauren traveled with the organization to Kenya, where she assisted doctors by comforting children who are undergoing surgery for facial deformities. Operation Smile has made a significant impact throughout our nation and in the world. With the help of volunteers like Lauren, Operation Smile has positively influenced over 41,000 children. Lauren Hough should be proud to have been singled out for recognition out of a national pool of over 11,000 students. I applaud the work of Miss Hough in making a difference and aiding the lives of children throughout the world. She has demonstrated a level of commitment and integrity that is exceptional for a student of her age. Lauren's work is a model for other students and adults throughout the nation. Volunteer actions by those like Lauren is what made America great. As a representative of the youth of America, Lauren's vision for volunteerism provides me with an enthusiastic outlook for the future. I thank Lauren and encourage her to continue working to make a difference in the lives of others.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Francis Dyer, a close friend and great man, who recently passed away. A longtime resident of Pennsylvania and the Seventh Congressional District, I have known Francis Dyer for many years and am proud to claim him as a friend. He was a true American hero, a World War II veteran, and a prisoner of war. I will miss him very much and I share the grief felt by his entire family, especially his loving wife, Teresa, his friends and all the people of Upper Darby. Francis E. Dyer, Sr. was born on September 29, 1922. The son of the late Francis W. and Frances P. McFate Dyer, Francis E. Dyer, Sr. graduated in 1940 from Darby High School and entered Temple University on a scholarship that same year. Two years later he enlisted in the Army and was stationed overseas in February 1944 with the 782d bomb squad, 465th bomb group of the 15th Air Force, based in Italy. When flying a mission to Freidrichshafen, Germany on August 3, 1944, his plane was one of eight from the 465th group that was shot down and Francis Dyer was only 1 of 3 survivors of the 10-man crew on his aircraft. He was captured the next day while trying to get to Switzerland and became a German prisoner of war. On February 6, 1945, when the Russian Army was approaching Stalag Luft IV, where he was imprisoned, the camp was evacuated and the prisoners began a march that lasted 86 days. Francis Dyer was liberated by the British Army on May 2, 1945, 6 days before the war in Europe ended on May 8. Upon his return to the United States, Francis was married and subsequently discharged from the Army in October 1945. He returned to Temple University and was graduated in 1948. He never forgot his past, however, and became a great fighting force in veteran affairs. He was a life member and past commander of a number of notable veterans groups such as the Tri-State Chapter of American Ex-Prisoners of War, the Prisoner of War Memorial Post 5999, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Colonel A.J. Campbell Chapter 19, and the Disabled American Veterans. He also belonged to the Delaware County Veterans Council for 12 years and served a year as commander of that unit. Several generations have benefited from his undeniable spirit and compassion. My heart goes out to his 7 children, 2 stepchildren, 19 grandchildren, and 2 stepgrandchildren. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to honor this great man. My district has lost a tremendous human being and a great contributor to veteran's affairs. His life was lived to its fullest and he will be remembered by all who were fortunate to have known him.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Laymen's Retreat League as they celebrate the 75th anniversary of the opening of their retreat center St. Joseph's-in the- Hills in Malvern, PA. Located on 125 wooded acres in beautiful Malvern, PA, St. Joseph's- in-the-Hills is owned and operated by the Laymen's Retreat League and is the United States' oldest and largest lay-owned retreat center. Since its gates first opened 75 years ago, more than one million people--individuals of every race, creed, and walk of life--have visited St. Joseph's-in-the-Hills. With its peaceful and serene woodland shrines, St. Joseph's-in-the- Hills, or Malvern as the retreat house is commonly called, provides a unique atmosphere for spiritual reflection. At a time when an increasing number of Americans are seeking moral guidance, St. Joseph's-in-the-Hills is providing and important service, helping people to renew and strengthen themselves spiritually. This year, more than twenty thousand people will visit Malvern and I know that in the future the Laymen's Retreat League will continue to expand its mission for the American people. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me the congratulating the Laymen's Retreat League as they mark the 75th anniversary of St. Joseph's-in-the-Hills and in extending this fine organization our best wishes for another successful 75 years.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I take out this final special order today before we adjourn for the weekend to call attention to a piece of legislation that I introduced today along with 104 of our colleagues. H.R. 2786, known as Impact '97, is the Iranian Missile Protection Act of 1997, a very important piece of legislation not just for the security of Americans, but for the security of our American allies, for the security of Israel, for the security of 25,000, at least 25,000 of our troops who are currently serving around Iran in various theaters including the Balkans. Mr. Speaker, this bill is strongly bipartisan. In fact, it has 85 Republicans and 20 Democrats. Out of the Committee on National Security's membership, the bill has 29 Republicans who have cosponsored it and 15 Democrats. The cosponsors include the chairman of the Committee on National Security, chairman of the Committee on International Relations, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. It includes members of the leadership. It includes key Democrats who are critical on defense issues, like the ranking Democrat of the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on National Security, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks]. These Members share the same concerns as I and that is that we have a threat that is emerging that could cause serious problems not just for our troops, but for our allies and friends approximately 12 months from now. What is that threat, Mr. Speaker? Why do we need this legislation? Why must it be put on a fast track? Mr. Speaker, we have been told by this administration repeatedly that in the intelligence briefings that have been provided to us in the Congress we have no reason to worry about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially those involving medium and long-range missiles. The intelligence community, just a year ago, issued an upgraded intelligence estimate that basically told Members of Congress and the public that we have no reason to fear a threat for our safety for at least 15 years. That intelligence estimate which we soundly criticized a year ago has now been recognized to have had political overtones placed upon it. We were also told, Mr. Speaker, that we would have no regional threats to the security of our troops in the foreseeable future and that we would, in fact, be able to put into place systems that would be able to respond to those threats that we saw emerging in the near term. All of that changed, Mr. Speaker, this past summer. It changed because the Israeli intelligence community was able to gain information that documented that factions in Russia, the Russian space agency and several Russian constitutes and scientists had, in fact, been working cooperatively with Iranian scientists and technologies to give Iran a missile technology that they can now deploy anywhere beyond 12 months from this date. Which means that even though the intelligence community was telling Members of Congress that we did not expect to see a threat emerge for 4 or 5 or perhaps 10 or 15 years, Israel was able to examine through their intelligence community actually they have copies of contracts that were signed between key Iranian agencies and key Russian agencies that now have indicated to us that Iran can deploy a system within 1 year. Now let us look at what that means in terms of the region, Mr. Speaker. Iran is the red area in the center of this map, which covers all of Europe and most of Asia and part of Africa. Iran currently does not now have a missile system except for the type that was used in Desert Storm, the SCUD missile system. This technology is considered primitive at best, even though it was the cause of the largest loss of life in Desert Storm when that Iraqi SCUD went into that barracks where young Americans were sleeping, killing a number of our young military personnel. That is the sophistication that Iraq and Iran have had up until now in terms of missile technology. And even though it is rather crude and does not have sophisticated guidance systems built into it, it still kills people. The largest loss of life involving American troops was caused by a SCUD missile coming into those barracks because we did not have technology to shoot that missile down during Desert Storm when our backs were against the wall. And when the Israeli people were very fearful of the threats and the missiles that were being lobbed into their country, we deployed a variation of the Patriot system. The Patriot system was not designed to take out the missiles. In fact, it was designed to shoot down aircraft. But because we had no system to put into place, we had to use a varying of the Patriot, put systems in Israel and into countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to try to give us some limited protection against the SCUD missiles that Iraq would launch. We put those systems in place, Mr. Speaker. But as the record shows, the Patriot systems were only partially effective. In fact, some estimations show that the Patriot was only 40 or 50 percent effective in taking out SCUD missiles. So many of those SCUD's got through. But we are not talking about the SCUD missile now, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about a system that Iran has developed or is developing with the cooperation from Russia. Russia has very sophisticated missile systems: long-range, medium-range systems with very capable guidance mechanisms built in. The intelligence data that we now have, which has been declassified because it is being reported in the media in a widespread way and which I am going to refer to. I am not referring to any classified briefings. I am only referring to what is being reported in the media. The intelligence community, as reported by the media now, shows that within 12 months Iran will have a system that will initially have a capability of approximately 800 miles and eventually will have a capacity to go as far as 1,200 miles around Iran in terms of hitting its target. When we look at these areas that are colored in blue and green, we get a sense of the potential impact of these medium-range missiles, which we expect Iran will have as early as 1 year from this date. That means, Mr. Speaker, that parts of Europe now become threatened by Iran. That means now that at least 25,000 of our troops who are stationed in this area now become potential targets of Iranian missiles. That now means that all of our allies in this region in the Middle East and beyond now can become threatened by Iranian medium- range missiles. Why is this so significant, Mr. Speaker? Because having Iran have this kind of capability could potentially upset the balance of power in the Middle East. If Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations who are not our friends think that Iran has a capability that we cannot shoot down, that could upset the balance. Now, how sophisticated are these missiles that Iran is going to be developing? Well, the Russian SS-4 system, which is the technology being transferred to Iran and has been under transfer for the past several years, is a very capable medium-range missile. Now the question becomes, is it accurate? Can it hit the spot where it is intended to go? The point is, it really does not matter. If you are shooting off missiles, it does not matter if you hit this part of the city or that part of the city, you are still going to kill people. But let us look at whether or not the Iranians also have sophistication in terms of guidance. Mr. Speaker, in front of the American people today I hold up two devices. These were manufactured in Russia. These were not manufactured in the United States. This is a gyroscope, Mr. Speaker. And this is an accelerometer. These two devices, which look to be brand new, were taken off of an SS-N-18, which is a very capable missile, medium- to long-range missile, that Russia has thousands of that had been aimed for years at American cities and carried on board their submarines. Where did I get these two devices with the Russian markings on them indicating where they were built and what missile they were taken from? Mr. Speaker, these devices were intercepted by intelligence officials from Israel and Jordan as they were being transferred from Russia to Iraq. These devices were intercepted 2 years ago. I was there January the month after the Washington Post ran the story about the transfer of these guidance systems. Because together they are the guidance system for missiles. They make missiles extremely accurate so they can pinpoint the most populated areas of cities and can do the most destruction when they are launched. When I was in Moscow, I met with our Ambassador, Ambassador Pickering. I said to him a month after the Washington Post story ran, ``Mr. Ambassador, what was the response of Russia when you asked them about the accelerometers and the gyroscopes?'' He said, ``Congressman Weldon, I have not asked them yet.'' I said, ``Why? This happened 6 months ago.'' He said, ``That has to come from Washington.'' I came back to Washington, Mr. Speaker. And at the end of January, I wrote President Clinton and I said, ``Mr. President, why have you not personally asked the Russians about the transfer of these devices? Because that is illegal. It is a violation of an arms control agreement, an agreement called the Missile Technology Control Regime.'' The President wrote back to me in April, Mr. Speaker. And guess what he said. He said, ``Congressman Weldon, we don't have enough evidence that this transfer of technology took place.'' Mr. Speaker, these are the devices. We knew about their existence. We saw their existence. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there were 120 sets of these devices, each of them manufactured in Russia, and all of them transferred into this particular place, to Iraq. Now, the question is not whether they were transferred legally or whether they were transferred illegally. Arms control agreements do not make a difference. A country that is a signatory to an arms control agreement certifies to the other nations in that agreement that they will prevent the transfer of technology. So, in this case, the transfer of these devices was clearly and blatantly a violation of an international arms control agreement. In fact, Mr. Speaker, this was the seventh time Russia violated the missile technology control regime. In each of the seven instances, similar to the transfer of these devices to Iraq, this administration imposed no sanctions on Russia. They either said, we did not have enough information, we could not fully verify it, or we chose not to impose sanctions. Now, we wonder why Iran and Iraq are getting the capability to kill our troops and to kill and injure our friends. It is because of the policy direction of this administration and not being tough enough in enforcing arms control agreements. Mr. Speaker, besides these devices, there were two other transfers of accelerometers and gyroscopes from Russia to Iraq. Iraq tried to hide them in the Tigris River Basin. They were found. And they are a part of the 120 sets that we know now were attempted to be transferred that we, in fact, have physically in the hands of people who are our allies and friends. The point is, Mr. Speaker, if Iraq was able to get these kinds of very sophisticated guidance devices, we can bet our bottom dollar Iran has the same capability. Because, unlike Iraq, we have evidence that Russia and Iran have been cooperating on this new medium-range missile that they are going to deploy 12 to 18 months from now. So that means, Mr. Speaker, that these missiles which will now be able to hit any city in any part of Israel, which now will be able to take out any of the installations where our 25,000 troops are stationed that any of our allies in this region are currently located, that this missile will be able to cause severe destruction. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is a simple one. We will not have a system in place to take out this missile. I repeat, Mr. Speaker. As the chairman of the House National Security Research Committee, which oversees all the funding for defensive systems to protect against this threat, we will have no system to take out these missiles, not 12 months from now and probably not 18 or even 24 months from now. The American people are justified in asking the question: Why, if we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on offensive and defensive military programs, why then 12 months from now will we not have a system that can shoot down these Iranian missiles that were built with Russian and Chinese technology? The answer is, Mr. Speaker, that this administration, while basically putting forth a good public story about its commitment to theater missile defense, has not in fact been aggressive in pushing for deployment of these systems. We have a number of options. We have a Navy option called the Navy upper and lower tier systems, which are under development with Navy and Army, called THAAD, theater high altitude area defense system, under development. We have another system, a variation of the Patriot, called PAC-3, which has more capability than the earlier version of the Patriot that was used in Desert Storm. Israel, likewise, is working on a system entitled the Arrow. The Arrow system is similar to the Patriot and will have a capability but not quite the capability to take out the speed and the length in terms of distance of the Iranian missile that we expect to be deployed as early as 12 months from now. So unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, as we look to meet this threat, the fact is that we will not have a system ready to be deployed 12 months from now. So if Iran does what the media reports that in fact they will be able to do, and that is deploy this system, we will have a window of vulnerability. That window of vulnerability could last 6 months. It could last 12 months. It could last 2 years. We will have a period of time, beginning sometime in late 1998, where Iran will be capable of deploying a system that we will not be able to take out if in fact they should use that system. Now, let us remember back to the largest loss of life in Desert Storm. It was that SCUD missile that Saddam used against our troops in Saudi Arabia, the largest loss of life in Desert Storm. Iran has threatened to use both offensive chemical and biological weapons, as well as nuclear weapons on both Israel and on America. One year from now, under a current estimate that has been established in terms of Iran's program, they could have a medium-range missile that could hit Israel, any of our troops in that theater, or our allies. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that it could well contain either a biological or a chemical weapon and quite possibly, and we have not yet determined this, quite possibly a nuclear weapon. Mr. Speaker, this administration has not done enough. What our bill does is it says that this is a priority that this country has to address today, not 12 months from now, not 16 months from now, but today. If we are going to be prepared to deal with the threat that we see emerging 1 year from now, then the development and deployment has to begin in 1997. What does our bill do? Our bill, Mr. Speaker, takes assets that we now have and increases funding in ways that can give us enhancements and improvements. Let me give my colleagues an example. Our bill takes the Patriot system, which has very serious limitations on what it can defend against. The Patriot system initially in Desert Storm could only impact an area the size of this small green circle, very limited. I cannot give the distance in terms of miles because that is classified, but I can give the approximate detail percentagewise of the impact area. The Patriot itself was very limited in what it could defend against, which is why it was not really successful in Desert Storm. By putting into place immediately additional radar systems, additional early warning systems, and by putting additional batteries and early sensors for the PAC-3 system, we can expand the coverage area by the area in the blue. So that Members can see, Mr. Speaker, that we can take a system that we have available today and we can enhance it and improve its capability significantly, both in terms of distance and in terms of circumference, by putting in additional enhancements now. Our bill provides the dollars to do just that, to allow us to put into place additional radar, additional coordination of interoperability, additional C3I in terms of interactive communications in command and control of these systems, and in doing so we get an enhanced capability that 12 months from now we can deploy. In addition to the Patriot system, we provide additional funding for the THAAD program. Mr. Speaker, THAAD is a system that has still not been proven. It is being developed by the Army. The premise of THAAD is that it is a land-based unit that the Army can take wherever it goes and it can protect those troops in that theater. So if our troops are assigned in the Middle East, we can put a THAAD battery there and it will provide areawide protection for all of our troops so that we never have another barracks loss of life like we had in Saudi Arabia. The problem with THAAD is it is good technology, but we have not yet had an intercept in our test program. We are hoping that this first intercept will take place in the first quarter of 1998. In the bill that I have introduced today, Mr. Speaker, we set aside additional funding so that if and when we have that successful intercept for the THAAD program that we immediately make money available to not just buy one test unit but to buy two demonstration test units. One of the units would be tested here in the United States, as is currently planned. The second battery would be deployed to the Middle East to be a direct support system for our troops that are stationed in that area. So we would have two test batteries of the THAAD system deployed where it in fact in several years could take out an Iranian missile or any other missile fired at our troops. The third option, Mr. Speaker, is called Navy Upper Tier. The Navy Upper Tier system uses our existing Aegis technology, our most sophisticated systems, on our submarines. This technology is several years away from being fully deployed. But by putting additional dollars into radar systems and enhancements, we think we can speed up the deployment of the Navy Upper Tier system by perhaps as much as 1 year, so that by the turn of the century or slightly thereafter, we will be able to use Navy Upper Tier as a major defensive program. The fourth major system that benefits from our bill to provide us additional protection against the Iranian capability is what the Israelis are working on. Israel has been working with our missile defense organization on a program called Arrow. Arrow is a system developed in Israel with American technology help. This system will ultimately give Israel very capable protection against lower level missiles that are not fired from long distances. The problem is that if Iran develops a capability for this medium-range system, as we currently think it is doing, then this Arrow system will not be able to cover all of Israel to take out those missiles if, in fact, they are used. What we want to do, Mr. Speaker, in this legislation is provide additional funds so that Israel can both look at enhancing the Arrow Program as well as providing additional Arrow missiles for test purposes. In this legislation, Mr. Speaker, Impact 97, we have four very specific actions that we take to give us a capability within 12 to 18 months to deal with the threat that we think is going to be in place, a threat that jeopardizes not just our friends but also American troops and American citizens. Now, the President has said repeatedly and the administration has said repeatedly that theater missile defense is its top priority. If that be the case, Mr. Speaker, then we should have no problem in getting the administration to work with us in these systems. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Three weeks ago, I met with Gen. Les Lyles, who heads up the ballistic missile defense organization and who is the point person for the President. He said, ``Congressman Weldon, I want to work with you and I want to provide good solid information on which you can base your bill.'' Three weeks later, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to say I have had no concrete data provided from General Lyles' office. Why? Because the Secretary of Defense and the Budget Office of the Department of Defense does not want to cooperate in giving us in the Congress realistic numbers upon which we can make our suggestions for additional dollar allocations to meet this threat. We have had to go to people in a private way, who are in the administration, who do not want to be named, and we have had to go to former directors in the agency to have them give us the dollar amounts and the direction as to where we should put additional resources to meet this threat. Mr. Speaker, that is just unacceptable. This administration, which has said repeatedly that theater missile defense is our top priority, has again not been supportive of this Congress' attempt in a bipartisan way to deal with the threats that we see emerging. In spite of their lack of cooperation, we have put together a bill that we think is fairly realistic. On Wednesday of next week, Mr. Speaker, I will chair a congressional hearing that will focus on the Iranian threat, that will focus on what Iran is now doing, that will focus on Iran's capabilities but will also look at what our response will be; namely, Impact 97, our bill to protect our people, our troops, and Israel and our friends from the threat of medium-range missiles and the potential devastation that they can cause on America and our friends and our allies. Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that in this process, we will convince the administration to join with us, since this President has said repeatedly that this is, in fact, his highest priority. But unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, time and time again this administration has said one thing while doing the opposite. It was this administration and this President who pounded his fist on the table in front of APAC's national convention and told the Israeli supporters that he was for a program called THEL. What he failed to tell those people was he tried to zero out funding for the testing for THEL for 3 consecutive years. It was the Congress, Democrats and Republicans in the Congress, who kept that program alive.