Curt Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, the numbers are in, and the results are overwhelming. This Congress for the first time in the history of America last year authorized and appropriated $100 million for the American fire and emergency services community to meet their local needs. It was an historic action. Within a 30-day time period, from April 1 until May 2, the 32,000 fire and EMS departments across this country had the opportunity of applying for matching funds to meet their local needs and to meet the national responsibilities being placed on them in our effort to prepare for an incident involving a weapon of mass destruction. Within that 30-day time period, there were 30,000 requests for funds from over 20,000 departments, from the smallest rural department in rural America, to the largest department in our largest city. They requested funds for breathing apparatus, for training, for new technology, for communication systems, for fire apparatus. The resultant 20,000 requests totaling 30,000 specific applications asked for $3 billion of assistance. We only appropriated $100 million. Madam Speaker, there will be a lot of very unhappy and disappointed fire and emergency services departments. But we have made an historic beginning, and I would encourage our colleagues to join together and request that we increase the funding for that grant program to $300 million in this year's appropriation process so that we can continue to meet the need of our domestic defenders. Some would say this is too much money. Madam Speaker, local law enforcement officials across this country receive $4 billion a year from the Federal Government. While I support our local law enforcement, our fire and EMS personnel should certainly receive no less. $100 million is a long way from $4 billion. So I say to our colleagues today as we understand the need that has now been documented for the first time, $3 billion in requests from every congressional district in this country. I would ask our colleagues in the House and the other body to join together and request the appropriators to exceed the President's request of $100 million and fully fund the authorized amount which this fiscal year is $300 million. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to contact the appropriators and make the request to our good chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who was a tireless advocate last session, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the subcommittee chair, to include the fully authorized amount in the appropriation process.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the second annual Roll Call of Honor In Remembrance Ceremony that occurred on May 27, 2001 at the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Virginia and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii. This celebration honors the sacrifices of thousands of Pacific Americans who have served our nation in our Armed Forces. What was once a veil of silence surrounding the contributions, courage, loyalty and dedication of our Pacific American veterans to our nation has now been lifted. By honoring our Pacific American veterans, and those who continue to serve our nation, we honor also all our veterans who call the Pacific their `aina. Their names are being placed on scrolls that will serve to remind us their loyalty, courage, leadership and compassion. On August 7, 1999 the Board of Directors of the Pacific American Foundation, a national organization dedicated to improving the lives of all Pacific Americans wherever they live, concurred with the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct the first ever Roll Call of Honor in Remembrance Ceremony to recognize the dedicated service and outstanding contributions of Pacific American veterans--American Samoans, Chamorros, Fijians, Hawaiians, Maoris, Tahitians, Tongas--and those veterans who call the Pacific their `aina, to our nation. The Pacific American Foundation, in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Kaumakapili Church, Veterans Affairs Regional Office Center Hawaii, veteran organizations in the Pacific and families of our veterans is proud to continue to host the annual Roll Call of Honor in Remembrance Ceremony. Already research has revealed that Pacific Americans had served on the Confederate ship Shenandoah and fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. All our veterans are special, and by honoring our Pacific American veterans I salute all of America's men and women who answered the call to duty. The names of our Pacific American veterans on these scrolls will remind us forever of our nation's debt to their sacrifices. This celebration could not have happened without the leadership of the Pacific American Foundation's Leadership Fellows, Troy Asao Kaleolani Cooper and Michael K. Naho'opp'i and their colleagues, Pacific Americans who represent the future for our nation. I wish to commend their leadership that is being felt by millions of Americans today. It is this very type of selfless service that is lifting the shoulders and chins of the families whose loved ones gave their lives in defense of our freedoms, and it is certainly helping the millions of our military members and their families to know that we care. We can never forget.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, ``It hasn't happened in 18 years, But it's the NBA Finals and the Sixers are here. It's been a long time since Moses and Dr. J., But the Sixers are playing like the good old days. Shooting and defense, both ends of the floor, They've shown every team in the East the door. First we took out the Pacers, without breaking a sweat, Then we clubbed the Raptors, and cut down the net. The Bucks from Milwaukee took us the full seven, But the final game was a rout, and we're in hoops heaven. We have the Answer, Alan Iverson, the league MVP, The best little scorer you ever did see. No one can guard him, he's just too quick, No team of five can do the trick. We have the Coach of the Year, the great Larry Brown, A man who has been around many a town. A strategist, a motivator, a leader of men, He's the best coach since . . . I don't know when. Big Dikembe Motumbo is the Defensive Player of the Year, His swats in the paint make grown men fear. Aaron McKie, the league's best super sub, Has joined the NBA's Best Sixth Man Club. Short-handed, banged-up, backs against the wall, The Sixers bandwagon refuses to stall. Owner Pat Croce is on the edge of the seat, Waiting to hand the Lakers a monumental defeat. The Lakers await, after their sweep, But they can put away the brooms and get ready to weep. They played well, blowing through the West, But they will need every minute of their long 10-day rest. Shaq and Kobe can play with the best, But we will not be denied in our championship quest. The Staples Center will be the place, Just as in the Presidential race. The Dems crowned Al Gore there, While George W. was nominated, do you remember where? That race turned out exactly right, So when the day turns into night, The Sixers will turn out the lights, And it won't be from a rolling blackout, But rather from the Philadelphia Sixers knockout.'' Go Sixers.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Frelinghuysen, in introducing the National Defense Features Program Enhancement Act of 2001, a bill we intend to push to enactment if the Government of Japan, the Japanese vehicle manufactures, and the Japanese carriers continue to undermine our efforts to breathe life into the National Defense Features program. We created the NDF program because we believed it would be the most cost-effective way to augment the substantial investment that is being made in new ships by the Navy. Having seen one very attractive proposal by which vessels would be built to carry cars from Japan to the United States and refrigerated products on the return leg, we authorized and appropriated funds in the mid-1990s to jump start the program. Since then, we have continued to look for ways to make the program as attractive as possible to companies to build ships in the United States for operation in the United States-Japan and other trades. Last year, for example, Congress approved as part of the National Defense Authorization Bill for FY 2001 a provision that would expand the Secretary of Defense's authority to finance appropriate projects under the NDF program. In authorizing this program, we had hoped that the Government of Japan in particular would find mutual defense benefits in promoting it. We have written the Prime Minister, we have met with the Ambassador, we have received expressions of support from the Vice President of the United States and our Secretary of Defense in the prior Administration, and yet nothing seems to have come of our efforts so far. Unfortunately, we have regularly heard the same response. The Government of Japan insists that the decision to employ NDF tonnage is strictly a matter for the vehicle manufacturers and shipping companies to make since it involves a commercial matter. They in turn have argued that, since the program focuses on mutual defense, the Government should take the lead. As so often happens, no one has been willing to step forward to take the initiative. As our colleagues can no doubt appreciate, our patience is beginning to wear thin. I understand our able Deputy Secretary of State, Rich Armitage, has recently indicated the importance of mutual defense burden sharing. Perhaps we will finally see some movement. If not, the time to legislate will have arrived. Our bill is designed to create the necessary incentives for the Government of Japan and the vehicle and shipping interests to promote the NDF program. If the Federal Maritime Commission finds that vessels that would be built in the United States under the NDF program are not employed in the particular sector of a trade route in the foreign commerce of the United States for which they are designed to operate and if that sector of the trade route has been dominated historically by citizens of an allied nation, then the Commission shall take action to counteract the restrictive trade practices that have led to this situation. We trust all concerned appreciate our determination to bring the NDF program to life.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for taking out this special order to a great American and a great friend to all of us. My favorite quote from Joe Moakley was a statement he made in 1989. It summarizes Joe Moakley, I think, to the inner soul of his body. He said, ``As soon as we're born in Massachusetts, we're baptized into the Catholic church, we're sworn into the Democrat party, and we're given union cards.'' That was Joe Moakley's legacy. But Joe Moakley, in the 15 years I have been here, has been the most tolerant person I have ever met. When I went through some health problems 5 or 6 years ago, it was Joe Moakley who was the first to approach me, not only to ask me how I was but, on a continual basis throughout that year, would prod me to continue to control my weight, to watch what I was eating, and to exercise. He was concerned about me. And as Joe developed problems and I knew he had become sick, he would still ask me every day about how I was feeling or how I was doing. Joe Moakley could disagree with you on an issue and be as far on the opposite side of the spectrum as you could get, but he was always a friend. I had a particular relationship with Joe in dealing with our Nation's firefighters. I have a special fondness for them all over the country and so did Joe Moakley. Joe Moakley was a firefighter's friend. He was concerned about the Boston firefighters, he was concerned about the volunteers in rural America, and he was always willing to step up and make sure we did the right thing to pay respect to these brave heroes, and that truly was Joe Moakley. He was a role model. When you come to Congress, you look to certain people that set role models for how you should act and how you should conduct yourself. You could not find a better example of that kind of person than Joe Moakley. He was someone that was always there as a friend, always had a smile on his face, always willing to reach out and shake a hand. And any time another colleague had some request, Joe Moakley was always prepared to try to assist. Mr. Speaker, we come to this body as politicians from across America; and some of us leave this body in different forms. Joe Moakley left this institution as a statesman.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, on May 31st Darby Township will be seeing the last of Leonard ``Lenny'' McDevitt as their district justice. He will be retiring after many years of faithful service on the bench, but will no doubt remain involved in the community he loves so much. District Justice Leonard M. McDevitt has been an indispensable part of the justice system in Darby Township since 1974. Justice McDevitt has shown outstanding service and dedication to his community for almost three decades. For example, while Justice McDevitt had the choice of rotating nights with other justices, he voluntarily worked from 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. for the last 27 years. His dedication and selflessness made life easier for dozens of his colleagues on the bench. A man who has shown such dedication to his community deserves the respect of all who know him. His good work has impacted more people than he could ever realize. Replacing a man like Justice McDevitt will be difficult indeed. I salute Justice McDevitt for being a man of faithful dedication and as someone who truly helped the community he resides in. He is someone to be admired and respected for the dedication that he has shown over the past 27 years. I am proud to represent Leonard McDevitt in Congress, and prouder still to have known him and worked with him on issues of concern to our local communities. The 7th district is a better place because of Justice McDevitt.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. No, I will not yield. This is my time. You had your time. You get your own special order.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I would ask for regular order.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being here. He is one of the most tireless advocates for the men and women who wear the uniform. And he is one of the most respected members of our Committee on Armed Services. He represents his district well, but, more importantly, he represents America's needs extremely well. My colleague is absolutely right. We are in a crisis situation right now. Now some might ask, well, how did we get to this situation? Why do we not have enough money to finish out the rest of this year to pay for the training and steaming and flying hours that our military needs? Part of the problem, Mr. Speaker, is that we have overextended our military. Over the past 10 years, we have seen our troops deployed 36 times. None of those deployments, except for one, was paid for in advance. Every time the President would assert our troops into Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, into East Timor, Macedonia, South America, all of those deployments, when our troops were put in, had to be paid for by the Congress finding other monies to reimburse those accounts to pay for the steaming and the flying and the airlift and sea lift costs that were associated with various deployments. As a result, having raided those procurement and R&D accounts, we do not have enough money for readiness for allowing our troops to be prepared, by providing the proper training, the proper flying time, the proper steaming time and training time on the ground to go into harm's way, and as a result, this year's budget is woefully inadequate. We have to have relief. We know there is money available, both the President and the leadership in the Congress have acknowledged that there are short-term dollars available to fix the shortchange of funding this year. And we, as a Congress, have to know what that number is. Mr. Speaker, in closing in this part of my special order, I would implore the Secretary of Defense, who I have the highest regard for, an outstanding leader and a perfect person to lead our military in today's environment, and I would implore the President and the Vice President, two outstanding leaders, to come forward and give us a number. Mr. Speaker, I talked to the staff director of the Committee on Appropriations just a few short minutes ago on the floor of the House and I talked to the chairmen and ranking members on the Committee on Appropriations who are very talented individuals. They think that perhaps they could turn around a supplemental within a month. We cannot wait through the entire month of June and then go into July and August or we are going to face an extremely serious, even more serious situation as our military has to take drastic actions and shut down training operations. I will say this, Mr. Speaker, as a loyal supporter of the President and a loyal member of his party, I will not hesitate as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness to speak out when those stop budgets start to occur; and I am not doing that to embarrass anyone, but our men and women in uniform deserve better. They deserve to have the funding they need and that dollar amount that they need to replenish those accounts needs to be given to us within the next week. So I ask my colleagues to continue to urge the White House and the Secretary of Defense to give us that number so that we can respond. Mr. Speaker, the second topic of my defense special order tonight I briefly discussed last week in part of a 5-minute speech, and I want to elaborate on that. It deals with another of President Bush's top priorities, and that is national missile defense. When President Bush came out with his major speech and when we came out with our bill that passed in the last session of Congress making it our national policy to deploy missile defense, there were those on the left who began to criticize the decision that the Congress made and, more recently, the decision that President Bush made to defend America. Now, last year in the height of the debate of the Presidential campaign, even though President Clinton reversed himself politically and came out in support of our missile defense initiative, there were those in the Congress who were opposed to missile defense. They largely based their opposition on the findings of one person. That one person is a scientist at MIT, one person who has consistently opposed America's efforts to defend herself from the standpoint of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile. That individual was given prime air time on national TV by Dan Rather as he focused for 20 minutes on one professor's opposition to missile defense and one professor's public accusations that the missile defense organization leaders, General Kadish and our other top brass, as well as the Secretary of Defense were lying, were involved in a massive cover-up, were involved in giving the American people false information, were hiding information from the American people, were denying America's innocent citizens the right to know all the facts. This individual on national TV and also in national print media who gave him prime exposure went on to say, this is a massive cover-up. It is fraud against the American people. It is outrageous what is happening. All of these statements were made last year in the height and the midst of a Presidential election. Mr. Speaker, a few of our colleagues got together and decided even though they were the same ones who opposed our missile defense bill, even though it passed with a veto-proof margin earlier in the session, they came together as a group and signed a letter to the head of the FBI demanding a criminal investigation of the Department of Defense, of the ballistic missile defense organization, of General Kadish and of the contractors working on missile defense. They had a special order. They had a press conference out in the Triangle. They were on national TV. They were on talk radio and fed this story of one professor around the country saying that America was having this massive fraud committed against it, and that no one should support missile defense until the FBI had conducted a complete and thorough investigation of the allegations made by this professor. That was what occurred last year, Mr. Speaker. Like so many other issues the media focuses on, the American people were sold a bill of goods. Now, amazingly, Mr. Speaker, with all of this rhetoric that spewed out of this city, claiming that there was fraud and abuse and lies and criminal activity, even in denying the facts, in fact, the professor cited a former TRW employee who claims they had hard evidence that one company was falsifying data, that one company was dumbing down the tests, that one company was, in fact, committing criminal activity. What has been amazing, Mr. Speaker, is that we are now into the middle of May. The silence since the end of February has been deafening, because we just found out within the last 2 weeks that, on February 26 of this year, the FBI concluded its investigation. The Department of Justice issued a statement. Now, we did not hear that professor go back on the Dan Rather show. We did not hear Dan Rather call for an update for the American people. We did not hear my colleagues on the other side stand up and present the statement. So, Mr. Speaker, I took the time tonight to go over what the FBI said in their memo dated February 26, 2001. Mr. Speaker, I include the FBI memo for the Record as follows: National Missile Defense System Fraud Against the Government-- Department of Defense In a June 15, 2000, letter to Director Freeh, Dennis J. Kucinich, U.S. House of representatives, and 52 other members of Congress requested an FBI investigation into allegations that the Department of Defense (DOD) covered up fraud relevant to the experimental failure of testing involving the National Missile Defense System. This anti-missile defense system is designed to defeat nuclear warheads launched at the United States by inexperienced nuclear powers such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea by intercepting the warhead carrying missiles in the air. Specifically the Congressional letter detailed allegations by anti-missile critic Dr. Theodore Postol, a respected scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that not only is the $50 billion National Missile Defense System incapable of distinguishing between warheads of incoming missiles and decoys, but the DOD and its contractors have altered data to hide the failure. Dr. Postol also contended that his letter to the White House, its attachments, and all the information and data he used to draw his conclusions of fraud and coverup, were derived from unclassified material and were subsequently classified by the DOD in an effort to conceal the fraud and wrongdoing. The Washington Field Office (WFO) of the FBI opened a preliminary inquiry into allegations of fraud in the National Missile Defense System to specifically address the following items: (1) Coordinate with Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and obtain copies of material alleging fraud and coverup prepared by Dr. Postol; (2) address DOD's justification for classifying Dr. Postol's information and (3) obtain details of a DCIS Qui Tam inquiry that precipitated Dr. Postol's criticism of the National Missile Defense System. WFO opened up a preliminary inquiry into allegations of fraud in the National Missile Defense System on July 25, 2000. Contact was made with the DCIS who agreed to work jointly with the FBI in conducting the preliminary inquiry. WFO obtained a copy of Dr. Theodore Postol's letter to the White House from Philip Coyle, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, at the Pentagon. Postol had sent Coyle a copy of his letter to the White House. The Director of Security for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) requested a line by line review of Postol's package when it was suggested that classified material may be attached to Postol's letter. This line by line review revealed that four pages of Attachment B to Postol's letter contained previously classified data, and Attachment D contained 12 previously classified figures and one classified table. All this material had been previously classified and was not newly classified. Postol had obtained this information from other individuals involved in a Qui Tam law suit against TRW. Those involved in the Qui Tam suit believed that the information they had was unclassified. A good faith effort had been made by a DCIS investigator to declassify a report that had been previously classified. In the process, certain classified information was inadvertently left in the report. Postol used this information believing it to be unclassified. Postol's information was based on data he received from Dr. Nira Schwartz, a scientist and former employee of TRW, a defense contractor involved with BMDO. Schwartz had filed a Qui Tam action in the Western District of California alleging wrongful termination and false claims on the part of TRW. Dr. Schwartz's allegations were scientific in nature and concerned false claims made by TRW regarding the data obtained from the first test flight, IFT-1A. Postol expanded Schwartz's allegations to include criminal conduct. Investigation revealed that Postol's claim that data had been altered was unfounded. As to Postol's claim that the system is incapable of distinguishing between warheads and decoys, there is a dispute among scientists about the ability of the system to discriminate based on scientific grounds. This is a scientific dispute and Postol's attempt to raise it to the level of criminal conduct had no basis in fact. A Department of Justice civil attorney and an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, both advised that during the Qui Tam investigation, there was no indication of fraud or criminal activity. The joint FBI/DCIS investigation failed to disclose evidence that a federal violation has been committed. Since all logical investigation has been completed, this matter is being closed. The title of the FBI memo, dated February 26, Washington, D.C., is ``National Missile Defense System, Fraud Against the Government, Department of Defense.'' In the text of the FBI memo, they mention a June 15, 2000, letter directed to Director Freeh, signed by 53 Members of Congress, alleging that the Department of Defense covered up fraud relevant to experimental failure of testing involving the National Missile Defense System. Specifically, the letter detailed allegations by an antimissile critic from MIT, a scientist from MIT, that this entire process was ripe with fraud and that the DoD and its contractors had altered data to hide the failure. The professor was invited to submit all of his documents and all of his claims, as was anyone else, relative to fraud and cover-up. That data was both classified and unclassified. The FBI memo, it goes on to say, the Washington field office opened the preliminary inquiry, and they came to certain conclusions. The conclusions were that there were no criminal activities by anyone; that, in fact, there was no fraud committed against the people of America. In fact, I will quote from the report: ``Investigation revealed that the professor's claim that data had been altered was unfounded.'' Is Dan Rather listening out there? Because, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the national media has a tremendous ability to affect what the American people think. When they have 20 minutes of totally controlled air time, that leaves a lasting impression on the American people. Now, why am I singling out one man, Dan Rather? It is because Dan Rather called my office and asked if he could interview me about national missile defense. As the author of the legislation, I said sure, I will be happy to talk about anything you want to talk about. He proposed, through his producer, to me that it would be a fair and unbiased analysis of national missile defense. Mr. Rather came into my office last fall and spent over 2 hours interviewing me on videotape. When I was into about 15 minutes of the interview, I knew then and there he had already written his story. He was just looking to get a quote from me that would further the fraud he was going to commit on the American people based on the allegations by one MIT professor. But I went on for 2 hours. When Mr. Rather ran his story, which was 20 minutes in length, the total amount of time that I appeared on that story was 30 seconds. The professor from MIT was on repeatedly for probably half the show. The report was totally biased, was totally ripe with allegations by one man that the Federal Government, in this case the Department of Defense, was committing fraud. I will repeat the statement that I take from the text of the FBI document: ``Investigation revealed that the professor's claim that data had been altered was unfounded.'' When people make allegations in today's society and are allowed access to our national media that affects the public's understanding of what we are doing here, I think there is a responsibility for the media and the people who push that allegation to come out when the investigation is complete and give the American people the results. The final paragraph of the FBI memo says: ``The joint FBI/DCIS investigation failed to disclose evidence that a Federal violation has been committed. Since all logical investigation has been completed, this matter is being closed.'' The silence has been deafening since February 26 because no one has acknowledged that the FBI finished its investigation of the charges made by one professor which resulted in 53 of our colleagues asking for a criminal investigation of individuals and leaders in our Department of Defense. Now, I could read some of the quotes from my colleagues and from others who spoke out in support of this professor; but, Mr. Speaker, I would rather insert into the Record a news article dated May 4 relative to the allegations and the actual results of the findings of the investigation. Mr. Speaker, I include the article as follows: [From the Forbes CFO Forum, May 16-18, 2001] FBI Clears TRW Inc. of Fraud Charge in Missile Defense Test (By Tony Capaccio) Washington.--The Federal Bureau of Investigation cleared TRW Inc. of allegations it manipulated the test results in a program for the U.S. missile defense system, according to a government document. It's the second time the allegation has been dismissed. A 1999 review by the Justice and Defense departments in a separate whistleblower lawsuit dealing with the same charge also found no basis for fraud in TRW's testing. Last June, 53 members of the U.S. Congress asked the FBI to investigate charges by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol that TRW and Pentagon officials committed ``fraud and cover-up,'' by tampering with the results of program's first test flight to conceal that company's warhead can't distinguish between decoys and the real thing. Postol and another antimissile critic, Dr. Nira Schwartz, alleged that TRW and the Pentagon manipulated the results of a June 1997 flight test. Military and TRW officials said the company's warhead succeeded. Postol and Schwartz claimed the data was manipulated to indicate success after the test failed. The test was conducted in a competition between TRW and Raytheon Co., which TRW eventually lost. Their charges were aired in March and June 2000 front page New York Times articles that became the basis for the congressional request and fodder for arms control critics. The FBI closed the case in late February, saying Postol's charges were ``a scientific dispute and Postol's attempts to raise it to the level of criminal conduct had no basis in fact.'' The FBI's action removes a cloud over the missile defense program just as the Bush administration presses ahead with plans to expand it. A spokesman for TRW said the company hadn't been told of the finding and is ``delighted'' if it's true. Both Postol and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who organized the congressional opposition, said they too were unaware. trw's role TRW is a top subcontractor on the National Missile Defense program managed by Boeing Co. TRW provides the command and control system, or electronic brains, that receive and process target information to missile interceptors carrying Raytheon Co. hit-to-kill warheads. The TRW system has performed well in the three missile intercept tests to date, though two of them ended in failure after glitches in technology unrelated to the basic system. Postol argues the Pentagon's system is fundamentally flawed and is incapable of distinguishing decoys from real warheads. He alleged the Pentagon watered down its decoy testing, substituting simpler and fewer decoys that were easier for the warhead to recognize. The Pentagon has acknowledged shortcomings in its decoy testing and says it plans improvements. The program needs to ensure the ability of the system to deal with likely countermeasures,'' Pentagon program manager Army Gen. Willie Nance wrote in an April 12 review. `no federal violation' ``The investigation failed to disclose evidence that a federal violation has been committed,'' the FBI said in a February 26 memo to the Justice Department. ``Since all logical investigation has been completed, this matter is being closed.'' The allegation was first made by Schwartz in an April 1996 False Claims Act whistleblower suit. Schwartz was a senior staff engineer who worked on the project for 40 hours, according to TRW. The federal government declined to join her lawsuit after determining there was no evidence to support criminal charges. The case is pending. Schwartz would received a monetary award if TRW was found guilty. Schwartz alleged that TRW ``knowingly and falsely certified'' as effective discrimination technology that was ``incapable of performing its intended purpose.'' ``Dr. Schwartz's allegations were scientific in nature and concerned false claims made by TRW regarding the data obtained from the first test flight,'' said the FBI memo. ``Postol expanded Schwartz's allegations to include criminal conduct. Investigation revealed that Postol's claim that data has been altered was unfounded.'' gao review Postol said in an interview he was surprised by the FBI's decision because he was under the impression that the Bureau would wait to wrap up its review until the General Accounting Office completed a separate non-criminal technical review of the charges. The GAO review, which was requested by two Democrats, Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Howard Berman of California, won't be finished until later this year. ``I am amazed the FBI would have done this without checking with the GAO,'' Postol said. ``It looks to me that the FBI was simply not interested in doing anything except covering its back.'' Kucinich, who organized the June letter that prompted the FBI inquiry, said he hadn't heard of the FBI's conclusion. ``It is interesting that the day after the president announced plans to spend billions more dollars on a missile defense system, it's revealed that the FBI had terminated its fraud investigation of the missile defense program--despite plain proof this technology doesn't work and substantial evidence suggesting that the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization covered it up,'' he said in a statement. Kucinich was referring to President George W. Bush's May 1 speech outlining his plans for a missile defense shield that will likely include the ground-based system. TRW spokesman Darryl Fraser in a statement said ``if this report is accurate, we are delighted to hear that the FBI has vindicated TRW for the years of hard work.'' Mr. Speaker, I would hope my colleagues would look at the evidence provided by the FBI that there was no fraud and get back to facts when discussing, as we will this year, whether or not to support the President's missile defense request. My third national security issue, Mr. Speaker, is of grave concern to me. I also raised this briefly in a 5-minute Special Order last week. All our colleagues need to pay attention to what has been happening with the Departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce, and the CIA. Mr. Speaker, I was one of nine Members assigned to the Cox committee, five Republicans and four Democrats, who spent 7 months of our lives behind closed doors, in some cases 6 days a week, through the holidays, working with the FBI and the CIA and our Defense Department, to answer a simple question for our colleagues in the Congress who had passed legislation creating our commission. The question that we were asked to provide an answer for to our colleagues was: Was America's national security harmed by the transfer of technology to China? Mr. Speaker, after the 7 months of deliberations, we came to a unanimous verdict. The vote was not five to four. It was not seven to two. It was nine to zero that America's security was harmed by the transfer of technology to China. Now, the spin by the administration at that time was that somehow China had stole the technology. That may have been true in a few isolated cases; but, Mr. Speaker, by and large, we gave the technology to China. We gave the technology to China. In fact, Janet Reno assigned one of her top prosecutors, Charles LaBella, to investigate in response to the Cox committee why that technology was transferred. He wrote a 94-page memorandum called the LaBella Memo back to her suggesting she should empower a special prosecutor. She chose to ignore his advice, and the American people will never know the full story as to why that technology was transferred to China. I have some strong suspicions. But one of the areas that we looked at was China's acquisition of high-performance computers. In fact, Dr. Steve Bryen, who was the first director of DTSA, the Defense Technology Support Agency, testified before the Cox committee that up until 1995 and 1996, China had zero high-performance computers, in the range above eight to 10,000 MTOPS, which is considered a high-performance computer, even by today's standard. Up until 1996, China had none. China wanted these computers desperately, and we looked at that issue in the Cox committee but were not given access to an individual who now has come forward as a lifetime, long-term Dealy employee. This employee by the name of Stillwell had access to China's nuclear program, in fact, traveled back and forth regularly to China, was able to gain the confidence of the Chinese leadership so that he could get access to information about China's nuclear program that was very helpful to America's military leadership and our security leadership in terms of where China was going with its nuclear program. Mr. Stillwell kept detailed notes of his trip to China. He has now reported that he knew the Chinese were desperate to acquire high- performance computers. Because he has reported to us, Mr. Speaker, that Chinese nuclear leaders told him they did not have the ability to miniaturize their nuclear weapons, to do simulated nuclear testing for one reason; and that reason was that China lacked high-performance computers to do the significant calculations required to simulate nuclear testing and to miniaturize nuclear weapons. This was in the 1990, 1992 and 1993 time frame. The reason why this is so critical, Mr. Speaker, is that we now have someone, an American citizen, a recognized expert on China's nuclear program, perhaps more an expert than anyone else in this country, who has come forward and who has tried to publish a book where he documents China's wanting and desire to obtain high-performance computers. Why is that so critically important? Because in 1996, in the middle of a Presidential reelection campaign, for reasons that are yet unknown, our administration unilaterally changed the policy and, in 1996, allowed American firms that, up until then had been prohibited from selling high-performance computers, to sell those high-performance computers to China. Now, the reasons why those computers were allowed to be sold would make for an interesting investigation as to why the President all of a sudden unilaterally decided to reverse a policy decision that previous administrations had had in limiting high-performance computers to China. Now, piecing the facts together, if we get the comments from Mr. Stillwell, who now tells us that China was desperately in need of high- performance computers and could not get them in the early 1990s, and then, 1996, we see a decision by the U.S. administration to lower the threshold and allow China to acquire something that they had been prohibited from acquiring up until that year. In fact, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Steve Bryen when he testified said, up until 1996, only two countries had companies manufacturing such high- performance computers, Japan and the U.S. There was an unwritten understanding between the two countries that neither of us would sell high-performance computers to certain countries that might use them for questionable purposes. Dr. Bryen told us that we did not even consult with Japan. We simply changed the threshold in 1996 and allowed those companies to sell the high-performance computers to China. So, Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask my colleagues to join with me in letters that I am sending to the Department of Defense, the Departments of Energy and Commerce, and to the CIA asking specifically for the following information and demanding that this information be made available to Members of Congress and to the American people. From the period of time from January 1, 1994, to January 1, 1999, we demand the following information: Number one. Records of all license applications for computers that the U.S. Department of Commerce approved, suspended, denied, or returned without action for export to China, including Hong Kong. Number two. Information for each application showing the applicant, the case number, the date received, the final date, the consignee or end user, the ECCN number, the value, and the statement of end use. Number three. Information showing the Federal agencies to which each license application was referred for review, and each agency's recommendation on the application referred. In addition to the above, we want any information possessed by these agencies on the acquisition by China, including Hong Kong, of any computer operating at more than 500 MTOPS during the above period, whether such acquisition was made pursuant to an export license or not, and whether from the United States or some other country. And we need to demand this information, Mr. Speaker, immediately. I am going to ask my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to join with me in demanding that we get some accountability because the American people deserve to know what happened. Mr. Speaker, today, China is working on simulation of nuclear testing. They are miniaturizing nuclear weapons. They are using American high performance computers in that process. When Dr. Bryen testified before the Cox Committee, he said up until 1996, China had zero high performance computers. Within 2 years after we lowered the threshold, China had acquired between 400 and 600 high performance computers, all from the United States of America. When those in this Chamber rail against spending more money on defense, I ask them to join with me, because if China had not acquired those high performance computers, they would not be where they are in developing their nuclear technology, in miniaturizing their nuclear capabilities, in designing new weapon systems. Mr. Speaker, my fear is that the bulk, if not all, of those high performance computers are not at Chinese universities doing academic research; they are not affiliated with technical institutions studying the weather of China; but, in fact, those American-sold high- performance computers are being used to design the next generation of weapons that we are now going to have to defend against. To me, Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve some answers. And so all of us in this Chamber, I would hope, would join together in demanding that this administration give us access to answer the questions that I have posed relative to the transfer of high- performance computers to China, the applications for those transfers, the agencies' recommendations, and the number of those computers in place today and who controls them. Mr. Speaker, the letter I referred to follows: To: the Departments of Defense, Energy and Commerce, and to the CIA Please provide, for the period from January 1, 1994 to the January 1, 1999, the following information: Records of all license applications for computers that the U.S. Department of Commerce approved, suspended, denied or returned without action for export to China, including Hong Kong; Information for each application showing the applicant, the case number, the date received, the final date, the consignee or end user, the ECCN number, the value, and the statement of end use; Information showing the federal agencies to which each license application was referred for review, and each agency's recommendation on the application referred. In addition, please provide all information that you possess on the acquisition by China, including Hong Kong, of any computer operating at more than 500 MTOPS during the above period, whether such acquisition was made pursuant to an export license or not, and whether from the United States or some other country. Please submit this information in both electronic and hard- copy form no later than. Sincerely yours,

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I will not yield.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I would not have spoken on this issue, but for my colleague to get up here on the floor and rant and rave about the administration and what they have not done in 5 months in office and talking about not giving them the hose to put out the fire, well, it was the California liberal establishment that was throwing gasoline on the fire, throwing gasoline and accelerants to burn down the State of California's economy. Now for those from California to say that somehow George Bush and Dick Cheney are responsible is utter hogwash. I, too, want to work with my colleagues from that State, but I am not going to sit here and listen to rhetoric coming out from one Member's mouth that somehow lays the blame at the feet of George Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. So I make those comments to my colleagues, even though my major topic tonight is national security. In a way, it ties into national security, because we have not had a national energy policy for the past 9 years. We had an energy policy under Ronald Reagan. It was a very defined energy policy. We had no energy policy under President Clinton or Al Gore. We did not allow offshore drilling. We did not allow drilling in Alaska. We did not stop the incessant controls of the oil and gas industry. We did not permit new nuclear power plants. We did not license new refining operations. And we wonder why today certain States, where they were aggressively excessive in their regulations, we wonder why today they have energy problems. Mr. Speaker, this President and this Vice President have taken the lead. They have developed a detailed comprehensive energy strategy that just does not address the concerns of the oil and gas industry. They have addressed the need to look at lowering the amount of usage by sport utility vehicles. They have addressed cafe standards. They have addressed the need to encourage conservation to encourage alternative energy supplies and tax credits for those alternative energy resources, and I applaud them for that. But for one of our colleagues to come on the floor in a 5-minute unchallenged speech and rant and rave about how California's problem today is George Bush and Dick Cheney's problem is an absolute travesty, and I could not help but stand up and refute what the gentleman said. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), a friend and colleague.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I will not yield, and I will ask the Speaker to enforce the rules of the House.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I come from Pennsylvania, and we are having the same concerns that the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) has, but our State is doing fine. Perhaps, the State of California should have had its act together before this administration came in. It is too bad that my colleagues are shedding crocodile tears today.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about national security, but I cannot help but respond to the plea of the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), my colleague, that the State of California is the suffering State. I wonder why the rest of our States are not having the same level of problems. Perhaps our colleagues from California, when they were rah- rahing tough environmental regulations, when they were rah-rahing limitations on offshore drilling, when they were rah-rahing the overwhelming control of the nuclear industry, perhaps now they are paying a price for that.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), my colleague, for joining me. He brings up a topic that I was going to start off this special order with tonight, which is our national security. Energy is a part of that, but I was not planning on discussing energy, per se, but rather three other issues. The gentleman has highlighted my first concern, which is the absolute need for an emergency supplemental. As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness, and as my distinguished friend and colleague knows, he heard it today from the mouths of the Marine Corps general in charge of Marine Aviation, General McCorkle, the Navy admiral in charge of all Navy aviation, Admiral Dyer, and our special operations leadership, we are at a crisis situation right now. This administration, which I have just supported in terms of coming out with an aggressive energy policy and which I have supported, I know my colleague does as well, their plan to provide a comprehensive review of our national security needs, is failing to come to this Congress with a definitive short-term plan to fund the readiness shortfall that we are now experiencing. We have been told, Mr. Speaker, both my colleague, myself, the members of the Committee on Appropriations, the Armed Services Committees in both bodies have been told that unless this Congress responds with an emergency supplemental by June, we will have as of July 1 Navy units that will stop sailing, Air Force units that will stop flying, Army units that will stop training, because we will have run out of money. It is absolutely outrageous that we are facing a crisis situation. Even though we all respect the fact that Don Rumsfeld and President Bush are working on looking at reforms which I support, we have to deal with the needs that we know are going to be there. Those needs have to be addressed with an emergency supplemental. Our colleagues on the other side have recognized this. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) has made this plea time and again. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) has made this plea. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) has made this plea. Members of this body from all sides have said very publicly we have to have an emergency supplemental. So my colleague is right on the mark. He represents one of the largest military unit bases in the country. He knows better than any of us the impact, and perhaps he would like to elaborate on that impact in his own home installation in North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues two items of concern relative to our national security. First of all, about this time last year, we heard a lot of ranting and raving in this Chamber and on national TV, allegations of massive fraud in our missile testing program. In fact, Mr. Speaker, 53 of our colleagues signed a letter to the FBI demanding an investigation of a fraud that was alleged by an MIT professor. The MIT professor said there was abuse, there was waste, that the Defense Department deliberately lied and so did TRW. We said let us get to the bottom because the investigation of this issue was done before. We have not heard anything from those 53 of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, but a front page story in Bloomberg Press by Tony Capaccio cites the FBI in February throwing the whole thing out, saying it was nothing but a bunch of hogwash. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the Bloomberg news story, ``FBI Clears TRW of Fraud Charge in Missile Defense Test,'' and the actual FBI document. The Department of Defense has been completely exonerated. For those 53 colleagues and for Ted Postol, I think you owe the Department of Defense an apology. [From Bloomberg.com: Top Financial News, May 2001] FBI Clears TRW Inc. of Fraud Charge in Missile Defense Test (By Tony Capaccio) Washington, May 4, (Bloomberg)--The Federal Bureau of Investigation cleared TRW Inc., of allegations it manipulated the test results in a program for the U.S. missile defense system, according to a government document. It's the second time the allegation has been dismissed. A 1999 review by the Justice and Defense departments in a separate whistleblower lawsuit dealing with the same charge also found no basis for fraud in TRW's testing. Last June, 53 members of the U.S. Congress asked the FBI to investigate charges by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol that TRW and Pentagon officials committed ``fraud and cover-up,'' by tampering with the results of program's first test flight to conceal that company's warhead can't distinguish between decoys and the real thing. Postol and another antimissile critic, Dr. Nira Schwartz, alleged that TRW and the Pentagon manipulated the results of a June 1997 flight test. Military and TRW officials said the company's warhead succeeded. Postol and Schwartz claimed the data was manipulated to indicate success after the test failed. The test was conducted in a competition between TRW and Raytheon Co., which TRW eventually lost. Their charges were aired in March and June 2000 front page New York Times articles that became the basis for the congressional request and fodder for arms control critics. The FBI closed the case in late February, saying Postol's charges were ``a scientific dispute and Postol's attempts to raise it to the level of criminal conduct had no basis in fact.'' The FBI's action removes a cloud over the missile defense program just as the Bush administration presses ahead with plans to expand it. A spokesman for TRW said the company hadn't been told of the finding and is ``delighted'' if it's true. Both Postol and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who organized the congressional opposition, said they too were unaware. trw's role TRW is a top subcontractor on the National Missile Defense program managed by Boeing Co. TRW provides the command and control system, or electronic brains, that receive and process target information to missile interceptors carrying Raytheon Co. hit-to-kill warheads. The TRW system has performed well in the three missile intercept tests to date, though two of them ended in failure after glitches in technology unrelated to the basic system. Postol argues the Pentagon's system is fundamentally flawed and is incapable of distinguishing decoys from real warheads. He alleged the Pentagon watered down its decoy testing, substituting simpler and fewer decoys that were easier for the warhead to recognize. The Pentagon has acknowledged shortcomings in its decoy testing and says it plans improvements. ``The program needs to ensure the ability of the system to deal with likely countermeasures,'' Pentagon program manager Army Gen. Willie Nance wrote in an April 12 review. `No Federal Violation' ``The investigation failed to disclose evidence that a federal violation has been committed,'' the FBI said in a February 26 memo to the Justice Department, ``Since all logical investigation has been completed, this matter is being closed.'' The allegation was first made by Schwartz in an April 1996 False Claims Act whistleblower suit. Schwartz was a senior staff engineer who worked on the project for 40 hours, according to TRW. The federal government declined to join her lawsuit after determining there was no evidence to support criminal charges. The case is pending. Schwartz would received a monetary award if TRW was found guilty. Schwartz alleged that TRW ``knowingly and falsely certified'' as effective discrimination technology that was ``incapable of performing its intended purpose.'' ``Dr. Schwartz's allegations were scientific in nature and concerned false claims made by TRW regarding the data obtained from the first test flight,'' said the FBI memo. ``Postol expanded Schwartz's allegations to include criminal conduct. Investigation revealed that Postol's claim that data had been altered was unfounded.'' GAO Review Postol said in an interview he was surprised by the FBI's decision because he was under the impression that the Bureau would wait to wrap up its review until the General Accounting Office completed a separate non-criminal technical review of the charges. The GAO review, which was requested by two Democrats, Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Howard Berman of California, won't be finished until later this year. I am amazed the FBI would have done this without checking with the GAO,'' Postol said. ``It looks to me that the FBI was simply not interested in doing anything except covering its back.'' Kucinich, who organized the June letter that prompted the FBI inquiry, said he hadn't heard of the FBI's conclusion. ``It is interesting that the day after the president announced plans to spend billions more dollars on a missile defense system, it's revealed that the FBI had terminated its fraud investigation of the missile defense program--despite plain proof this technology doesn't work and substantial evidence suggesting that the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization covered it up,'' he said in a statement. Kucinich was referring to President George W. Bush's May 1 speech outlining his plans for a missile defense shield that will likely include the ground-based system. TRW spokesman Darryl Fraser in a statement said ``if this report is accurate, we are delighted to hear that the FBI has vindicated TRW for the years of hard work.''

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to focus on an issue that is dominating the front page of every newspaper in America today and that is the defense of America's homeland. President Bush gave a major speech yesterday where he outlined a commitment to pursuit of a national missile defense and provide a protection for this Nation from the bully pulpit leadership that he can provide, which has not been there for the past 8 years. Tonight I will talk about that issue in depth. I will talk about the objections that are being raised by some; why we need this kind of capability; what the current system capability is that we are developing. And I am going to respond to criticisms that this will start a new arms race. But let me also start by saying that we have had some absolutely overwhelming success, Madam Speaker, in a program that actually you helped us put forward this year to provide support for our domestic defenders in America, our Nation's fire and EMS personnel. For the last 220-some years in America we have not done anything in Washington to support those brave men and women in 32,000 departments across this country, 1.2 million men and women, 85 percent of whom are volunteers, who protect our towns and cities. As Madam Speaker knows, last year the defense authorization bill, and she lobbied for this as a candidate in West Virginia, and I appreciate that leadership, we in fact were able to successfully put in place a program that provides grants for these individual emergency response departments nationwide on a competitive basis. The time period for applying for the grants was 30 days, and it ended today. Now, some said there would not be much in the way of requests because there is not much need. The preliminary results at FEMA are in. Madam Speaker, over 20,000 grant application requests were received in 30 days, and the requests will total in excess of $2 billion. There is a significant need out there for America to respond to help for our first responders, especially as it relates to homeland defense. We only have $100 million to allocate this year, but it is my hope that with the support of Members on both sides of the aisle we can continue to increase that funding availability. Madam Speaker, my real topic tonight is to focus on the missile defense speech that President Bush presented yesterday at the National Defense University. He said that we need to change the basic parameters which we live under and deal with in our relations with Russia and other countries relative to the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty, which was negotiated in 1972, allows both the United States and the former Soviet Union to rely on deterrence so that neither country would attack the other for fear of retaliation. In addition, that treaty says that each country can have one missile defense system, one ABM system. The Russians chose to deploy such a system around Moscow, which protects about 75 percent of their population. America chose not to pursue any system, because it was politically impossible in America to choose one city over another and leave the rest of America vulnerable. Today, Madam Speaker, America is totally vulnerable. If an accidental launch occurred of one missile from Russia, from North Korea, which we know now has the long-range capability, or from China, we have no capability to respond. Now, is that such a far-fetched idea or notion? Well, Madam Speaker, let me document for our colleagues what occurred in January of 1995. As we know, the Russians have hundreds of missile launchers, all of which can reach any city in America within 25 minutes, and all of which have nuclear warheads on top of them. Now, there is a very sophisticated command and control system on those missiles, as there are on our missiles; but a significant number of Russia's missiles are on mobile launchers. They are called SS-25s. If my colleagues saw a photograph of one, it would look like it is on the back of a tractor-trailer truck. But that missile, even though it can be transported any place over an open road area, can travel the necessary distance to hit any city in America and devastate that city. Each of those SS-25s are controlled locally, even though they have to have the command authorization of the central Russian Government. Let us look at what happened in January of 1995. Norway was going to launch a rocket into the atmosphere to sample weather conditions. So Norway contacted Russia and told the Russian Government not to worry when we launch this three-stage rocket; it is simply for us to gather more information about weather conditions affecting our country. Now, because Russia's military has been in a state of disarray, they have not been able to invest and reinvest in improving their conventional alert systems and their intelligence collection systems. So that when Norway launched that three-stage rocket, the Russian intelligence agencies misread it as an attack from an American nuclear submarine. Boris Yeltsin acknowledged the week after that incident that Russia had, in fact, for one of only three times that we know of, put their entire offensive ICBM system on alert, which meant, Madam Speaker, that Russia was within 15 minutes of launching an ICBM with a nuclear warhead against an American city. With 7 minutes left, Boris Yeltsin overruled the other two holders of what we call the black boxes, or the chegets, in the Russian command and control structure, the general in charge of their command staff and the defense minister, Paval Grachev and General Kolesnikov. With 7 minutes, left Boris Yeltsin overruled them and called off the response against an American city. Now, Madam Speaker, for just one moment let us imagine that one of those missiles is accidentally launched, which are preprogrammed to hit a certain spot in America, and all of their missiles are preprogrammed, as ours are preprogrammed. What if that occurred and what if President Putin then realized Russia had made a grave mistake; that they accidentally allowed, either because of a lack of control of a command unit, who may have gotten the launch codes, or because of some other glitch, Russia accidentally launched one missile against America? What would the phone conversation be like between President Putin and President Bush? Well, it might go something like this: ``President Bush, I am sorry to tell you we have made a tragic mistake. We have accidentally launched a missile against one of your cities. We did not mean to do it, but our command and control system failed.'' What would be President Bush's response? Would he then call a national press conference and tell the people of that target city that they have 25 minutes to move? Because, Madam Speaker, we have no defense today against a ballistic missile launch against America. We have no defense system in place. For the past 6 years, Madam Speaker, I have chaired the research and development committee for national security. I have been on the security committee for 15 years. So I work these issues. The possibility of an accidental launch is not very high, but it does exist. And the fact is that today America has no defense against such a launch. There is no system we can put into space, there is no plane we can send up that can shoot down an incoming ICBM at the speed it would be traveling. The same thing occurred in 1991 when in Desert Storm Saddam Hussein decided that he wanted to harm American soldiers. He could have put a bomb on a truck, and he could have had it driven into Saudi Arabia where our troops were headquartered. But he did not do that. Saddam Hussein chose the weapon of choice, a low-complexity Scud missile with a conventional bomb on top of it and fired that missile into an American barracks in Saudi Arabia. We could not defend against that missile, much like we cannot defend against a missile that would be launched against an American city. As a result of the launch of that Scud missile by Saddam Hussein, 28 Americans came home in body bags because we let them down. America had no system in place to defend against that kind of a missile attack, even in a small area the distance between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The sad part, Madam Speaker, is that 9, 10 years later we still do not have a highly effective system for missile defense to protect our troops and allies and our Nation. Part of the reason is because President Clinton and Vice President Gore consistently opposed missile defense, and consistently found ways to avoid America moving forward in developing successful and reliable systems. So the first reason we need missile defense is to protect us against an accidental or deliberate launch. The CIA has now documented that North Korea, an unstable nation, in August of 1998 test-launched a three-stage Taepo Dong II rocket that traversed into the atmosphere. It did not complete its line of flight, but the CIA estimated if it had, it would have been able to reach American soil, the West Coast of California, parts of Alaska and parts of Hawaii. That allowed the CIA to say publicly that North Korea has the ability to launch from its soil a long-range, three-stage missile that could deliver a light payload against an American city. That missile might not be very accurate, they might aim for Los Angeles and hit San Francisco, but if you are a resident of San Francisco, it does not matter where they aimed. The point is, North Korea has a capability that they never had. Unlike when the ABM Treaty was developed, you only had two major countries with this kind of ability, the Soviet Union and the United States, and we could respectfully agree that neither would attempt to attack the other for fear of retaliation. Also, when the Soviet Union was in fact a coherent country prior to 1992 before the breakup, the Soviet military was well-paid and well-fed. They had discipline. They were well-respected in Russia. Today, there are severe internal problems and stability problems within the Russian military. Therefore, because of those problems, there is a greater likelihood of a problem potentially occurring, as there is with the possibility of North Korea or China threatening a launch against the U.S. Madam Speaker, it is not just whether or not they would launch a missile against us, because the opponents of missile defense will say, wait a minute. Does anybody really believe that North Korea is going to fire a missile against the United States? We would wipe them out. We would wipe China out. That is not the issue, Madam Speaker. The problem is that we now know North Korea has the capability. We also know that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon, if they do not already have one, which could be placed on a missile. Let us take a scenario for a moment. Let us suppose that North Korea would invade South Korea, which they have talked about off and on for years. The U.S. would, because of our relationship, probably come to the aid of South Korea. And what if North Korea's leadership then, and they have certainly indicated unstable decision-making processes in the past, suppose they said to America, If you do not pull your troops out of South Korea, we are going to launch our long-range missile at one of your cities. Now, unlike in the past, we know North Korea has that kind of very rudimentary capability. Do we then attack North Korea preemptively? Do we wipe out any capability they might have? Do we bomb their cities? Madam Speaker, we cannot allow a rogue state to have the potential for causing problems in the decision-making process of our President and command officers because of the potential for a launch, illogical launch as it might be, against our sovereign Nation or our allies. The idea of a missile defense system under George Bush is not what Ronald Reagan proposed, and there will be some in this country who say, there goes George Bush trying to restart the Cold War, trying to bring back Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative. That is not what President Bush was talking about yesterday. No one is proposing that we attempt to build a shield over America that could stop Russia if they wanted to attack us with all of their missiles. That is not the idea being discussed. And most experts agree that would be technically and financially impossible to achieve. We are only talking about a limited capability, a system that would give us the ability to defend against a small number of missiles, an accidental launch or a deliberate launch of perhaps 1 to 10 missiles, that we could defend against. This does not destabilize our relationship with Russia because Russia knows full well that they could launch hundreds of missiles at America and very easily overcome the kind of system that President Bush is talking about. For these reasons, Madam Speaker, it is important that America provide a defense for our people. The interesting thing is that some of the opponents of missile defense have consistently opposed all research in this area. And I would say to our colleagues, as I did several years ago when we voted on H.R. 4, my missile defense bill in the House, and we pulled more Democrats with us than President Clinton did, 103 Democrats voted in favor of H.R. 4, 102 Democrats voted against it and all but two Republicans voted in favor of that bill, giving us a veto-proof margin. Our goal is to give us the capability that every nation in the world is now pursuing. Israel is one of our key allies. Israel needs missile defense to protect her people from the missile technology that Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya now possess. We are working with Israel helping to fund the Arrow program and the theater high-energy laser program, giving Israel a capability they did not have in Desert Storm. The Patriot program was not designed to shoot down missiles in Desert Storm. It was a system developed by our Department of Defense to shoot down airplanes. But when we knew that Desert Storm was going to take place, and we knew that Saddam Hussein had missiles, we had to help Israel defend herself, and so we gave her a system designed to shoot down airplanes, and we asked the contractor in this country to provide a more robust engine to make that missile move more quickly. It was not the answer, and it was not successful. Only 40 percent of the attempted launches or the successful launches of the Scud missiles by Saddam Hussein were stopped by the Patriot systems. We need to do better, and that is why for the past 10 years we have used our tax dollars in cooperation with Israel to help her build missile defense systems. We have also helped the Europeans. We are working on a program called MEADS, the Medium Extended Air Defense System, which is a cooperative program between the United States, between Italy and Germany. The program is designed to give those countries a missile defense capability in all of Europe. We do want to cooperate with our allies. This is not just about protecting America. In fact, we proposed the same kind of assistance to our friends in the Far East, and we have also proposed to cooperate in the same way with our Arab friends in the Middle East. The goal that President Bush laid out for the world is that we need to change the dimension. It should no longer be a policy of mutually assured destruction. Now, to me as a teacher, it is outrageous that we would base our foreign policy with Russia on mutually assured destruction. You attack us, we will annihilate you. We attack you, you will annihilate us. That is a crazy way to have a world order, especially when you have other nations that are not in any way, shape or form anywhere near as reliable as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War, and we did not have the instability that we now have inside of Russia with the problems, internal with their military and the command and control and alerting problems that they have in reading what is happening in terms of rocket launches around the world. So for all of these reasons, President Bush has proposed a new dynamic. I call it asymmetric deterrence, and that means that we continue to negotiate with our allies and friends and countries like Russia, and we continue to rely on deterrence as the ultimate threat to an attack on our homeland, but we now begin to allow missile defense systems. Now, the question is, why would America pursue missile defense, it is only going to back Russia into a corner. That is not true. The fact is that Russia believes in missile defense, as does America. They believe in deterrence, as does America. The Soviet Union developed the only operational ABM system around Moscow. That system has been upgraded four times, and it still exists today. When I have been in negotiations with my Russia friends, and I have gone to Russia 23 teams, I speak the language, I formed and I chair the Interparliamentary Commission with the Russia Duma and the Federation Council. When I travel to Moscow and meet with my Russian friends and we talk about missile defense, I candidly ask them, If you really believe in deterrence alone, take down your ABM system. Be as vulnerable as America is, and have no system and rely on deterrence. They look at me and smile and laugh and say, You know we will never do that. The point is that the Russians believe in missile defense. They have aggressive and very capable theater missile defense systems. They have the SA-10, the SA-12, the S-300, the S-400. They have now been trying to sell a system to both Greece and Israel called the Anti-2500 system. It is a very capable, mobile system that can be used by any Nation to defend against missile attack. In fact, Russia's systems are comparable to systems that we are building. So it is not a case of America pursuing missile defense and embarrassing Russia because they do not have any systems; they have some of the best systems in the world available today. Why then, Madam Speaker, would Russia not trust us? Why then would the Russian leader publicly express his concerns about the President's speech? Why would Russian leaders and European leaders express concern about moving forward with missile defense? Let me say this, Madam Speaker. If I were a Russian today and if I had witnessed what the Clinton administration did in terms of cooperation with Russia, I would not trust America in the area of missile defense either. Let me give you the reasons why I say that, Madam Speaker. We have sent mixed signals to Russia for the past 10 years. The first one came in 1993. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin challenged George Bush, Sr. to work together on missile defense, to have Russian scientists and American scientists cooperate and explore ways that we could work together. George Bush, Sr. accepted that challenge. The two Presidents of the two countries involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia with the State Department in the U.S. Two high ranking officials were empowered by our two governments to negotiate and look at ways that we could cooperate together in missile defense in 1992. Those meetings, entitled the Ross-Mamedov talks took place on an ongoing basis. In 1993, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore came into office, they had opposed missile defense. Without consulting with the Russian government, they abruptly canceled the Ross-Mamedov talks. We sent the first signal to the Russians that we do not want to cooperate with you on missile defense. We do not want to be your partner in looking at ways to change the dynamic of our relationship. The second signal was sent to the Russians in 1996 and 1997. We had in fact funded one joint program between our Defense Department and the Russian defense department in the missile defense area called Ramos. Ramos was designed to build two satellites, one controlled by Russia, one controlled by the U.S., identical in operation, so that each country would get the same identical information when a rocket was launched someplace on the surface of the Earth, so we would have the same alert mechanism. It also was designed to build trust between our countries in the area of missile defense. The program was supported aggressively by the Congress. In fact, as the chairman of the Research Committee, I put Ramos in as a line item in the defense budget. In 1996 and 1997 with no advance notice to the Russians nor to the Congress, the Clinton administration decided to cancel the Ramos program. When the Russians found out about this, they were livid. I got three phone calls and faxes and e-mails at my office from senior Russian leaders. They said, ``Congressman Weldon, what is going on? We thought America wanted to work with us in finding ways to cooperate.'' I said, ``Well, that was our thought and that was our idea.'' I then called Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre and I called Leon Fuerth, Vice President Gore's defense adviser. I said, ``What is going on here? What you are doing by canceling this program is you are undermining confidence in Russia that we are trying to build.'' I then went over to the Senate and enlisted the support of Democrat Senator Carl Levin who agreed with me as the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. He and I worked vigilantly with our colleagues, and we overturned the administration's decision. The program is still funded today. But the damage was done. Because for the second time, the Clinton administration told the Russians, ``We do not want to cooperate with you.'' The third time occurred in 1997. At a time when most people in the world and in this country were acknowledging that the ABM treaty had outlived its usefulness because we were no longer in a bipolar world with two countries, the Soviet Union and America. We now had other countries with long-range missile capability, China and North Korea and Iran moving in that direction. At a time when most in this country were saying, let us provide some flexibility in the way this treaty is being interpreted, what did the Clinton administration do? They sent our U.S. negotiators to Geneva where we were in ongoing discussions with the Russians over the ABM treaty. Instead of trying to find ways to make the ABM treaty more flexible, the Clinton administration was negotiating a tightening up of the ABM treaty, contrary to the thought of almost everyone in this country. I for the life of me could not understand what the Clinton administration was doing. When I read about these discussions with the Russians, I heard about this plan to multilateralize the treaty, bring other countries in, even though they did not have long range missiles, and I heard about this artificial demarcation, differentiating between theater and national missile defense, Madam Speaker, I did something that no other Member of Congress did. I went to Geneva. I got the approval of our State Department, and we set up a negotiating session. The chief U.S. negotiator was on my side, Stanley Rivales and the chief Russian negotiator was sitting across from me, General Koltunov. We talked for 2\1/2\ hours about the administration's negotiations for these two ideas of tightening up the ABM treaty. So I inquired of General Koltunov, ``General, why do you in Russia want to bring more countries in as signatories to the ABM treaty?'' Only two nations were the original signatories, the Soviet Union and the U.S. Why did you pick three former Soviet states, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, to become equal partners to the U.S. and Russia? That will make it more difficult to amend the treaty. And none of those three countries have long range missiles. They have all been returned to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. General Koltunov looked at me and he said, ``Congressman Weldon, you are asking that question of the wrong person. We didn't propose to multilateralize the treaty. The person sitting next to you did.'' Meaning that our government was trying to push the Russian government into expanding the treaty to include three former Soviet states. Why would you do that especially when none of those three countries had long range missiles, unless your purpose was to make the ABM treaty more difficult to modify? The second question dealt with demarcation. I could not understand how we could negotiate with the Russians an artificial differentiation between a theater missile defense system for a given area and a national missile defense with longer range. So I said to the chief Russian negotiator, General Koltunov, ``General, explain to me, how did you arrive at these numbers of interceptor speed and range?'' If I am in a small country like Israel, a theater program like THAAD is a national program to Israel because it can cover their entire territory. In America, a program like THAAD would not be a national missile defense because it could not cover all of our territory. ``How did you determine the difference?'' General Koltunov told me, after thinking for a few moments, ``Well, Congressman, there were serious negotiations between our scientists and your scientists, and they arrived at these numbers.'' But he did not give me any justification. Well, I was not satisfied. I came back to the United States. We concluded those negotiations in Geneva. President Clinton sent the signal to Russia that America was supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty. So the Russians again for the third time took us at our word. But the Clinton administration knew, Madam Speaker, they could not get either of those two changes to the treaty through the U.S. Senate, even though the U.S. Constitution requires any substantive change to any treaty to be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent. For 3 years, from 1997 to the year 2000, actually to the year 2001 because that is today, until the end of the Clinton administration, the administration failed to submit either of those two changes to the ABM treaty to the Senate as required by our Constitution so the Senate could debate them. I am convinced the reason the administration did not do that was because they knew that neither one of them would pass the Senate. They could not even get a majority of Democrats in the Senate to support those two changes. They were not in America's best interests. So for 3 years, the Russians had been convinced by Clinton that we were supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty, even though the administration knew the Senate and the American people would not support those changes. Last May, when the Russian Duma was considering ratification of the START II treaty, a treaty which our Senate had already passed years ago, the Clinton administration, I am convinced, convinced the Russian leadership to have the Duma add those two changes to the ABM treaty onto the back of the START II treaty. Why would they do that? Because they knew the START II treaty had already been ratified by the Senate and because they knew they could not get those two ABM changes through the Senate, so they said if the Russians add them on, then the Senate will have to accept them when the treaty comes back to us for re- ratification. So when the state Duma in Russia ratified the START II treaty last spring, they added those two Geneva protocols on the START II treaty, it then came back to the U.S., and what did our Senate say? ``No way are we going to pass the START II treaty.'' So the Russians for the third time saw America going back on what they thought was our word. Three times in 8 years we sent mixed signals to Russia about missile defense. It is no wonder that the Russians do not understand what America's real intentions are in terms of missile defense. Now, they understand my intentions, because I have a good solid relationship with them. They know that I want us to be involved with Russia. The Russians know that we want to be partners with them. We want to find common ground. In fact, the weekend before our vote on H.R. 4 which this House passed overwhelmingly, I invited Don Rumsfeld, our current defense secretary, who was chairman of the Rumsfeld Commission; Jim Woolsey, who was Bill Clinton's CIA director; and Bill Schneider, a Deputy Secretary of State, to travel with me to Moscow. I took several Members of Congress from both parties along. We went to Moscow before the vote here so that we could reassure the Russians that our intent in moving forward in missile defense was not to back the Russians into a corner. We did not see Russia as the enemy. We were not doing this to try to create an advantage over Russia. And that we wanted to work together with Russia. Madam Speaker, I am convinced through my contact with Russian leaders that they can and will understand that America's intent on missile defense is not to create an arms race. The Russians believe in missile defense because they know the threats are real. We believe in missile defense because the threats are real. For those who say the threats are not real, I say, tell that to the families of those 28 young Americans who were buried in this country because we could not defend against that missile attack in 1991 in Saudi Arabia. Madam Speaker, with the Russian leaders that I work with, people like Dr. Yevghenie Velakof who heads up the Kurchatov Institute understand what we are trying to accomplish. In fact Dr. Velakof and I coauthored an op-ed 3 years ago that was entitled ``From Mutually Assured Destruction to Mutually Assured Protection.'' Dr. Velakof understands what George Bush is trying to do. When Russians understand that we are serious and want them involved and that we are not playing games, they will cooperate with us. But, Madam Speaker, I have to tell you, there is one other group in this country who is causing the feeling of instability in Russia. There is one other group in this country who will be vigorously against missile defense, who are actually causing more unrest among the Russian people than the missile defense idea itself. Who are those people, Madam Speaker? They are some of the very arms control organizations in this city that claim to be for peace, that claim to be for stable relations. Why do I say that, Madam Speaker? Let me tell you what Yevghenie Velakof told me 2 years ago. At the height of our bill being passed by the House and the Senate, Yevghenie Velakof came in for one of his regular meetings at my office. He brought with him a Time magazine edition, I believe it was February 25, I believe it was in 1998. There was a two-page feature in Time magazine on missile defense. It was written about the new plan being pushed by the Congress to give America the protection that George Bush outlined yesterday. They called the plan Star Wars II, or sequel to what Reagan had done, which is a misnomer. But the idea was to lay out for the American people the idea of what we are talking about with a limited missile defense system. In one corner of that article, taking up almost one-half of one page was the chart I am going to present that I have had blown up. In a story about missile defense and how America was trying to pursue protection for our people was this chart. Let me read the top and the bottom opening sentences. ``Destroying Russia. Arms control advocates map the Pentagon's top secret plan for waging war. 1200 warheads hit 800 targets.'' This is a map of Russia. They have got locations where we supposedly have a top secret plan to destroy Russia. Across the bottom is the following statement. ``Killing zones. The vast spread of radiation will wipe out more than 20 million people in Russia.'' Dr. Velakof said to me, ``Curt, I know what your intention is with missile defense. It is to protect your people. But this is what the Russian people will see.'' They will see an article in Time magazine with a chart produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an arms control group, that is trying to say that our real intent is to kill 20 million Russian people. That is why the Russians are concerned about missile defense. It is not because of the system. It is because of an inconsistent, incoherent, roller coaster foreign policy where three times in 8 years we sent mixed signals to Moscow on missile defense. It is because of the arms control crowd that tries to scare the Russian people into thinking that somehow our real intent is to wipe them out and dominate them. That has to be dealt with in this debate that began yesterday. We have to put the facts on the table. Our goal is not to wipe out Russia. Our goal is not to kill 20 million Russian people. In fact, our goal is to work with Russia; it is to work NATO; it is to work with Ukraine; it is to work with Canada; with the European countries to develop something we have not had before, an ability to shoot down offensive missiles. Mr. Speaker, over 70 nations today in the world have missiles that they control. Countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, India, Pakistan, North Korea and a whole host of other countries all have missiles. Some have conventional weapons on them. Some have the potential to put a chemical or a biological agent on them, but they all have missiles and they all have launchers. Mr. Speaker, today in the world over 22 nations can build missiles and are building them, and they are selling them to other nations. Missiles are out of control. We did not expect this threat to come from unstable nations for another 15 to 20 years, but over the past 10 years we have lost control of proliferation. Because of Russia's instability and because of China's lack of compliance, Russia and China have allowed technology to flow to unstable nations which then have given those nations abilities in missile technology that we did not think they would have for at least 15 years. Let me talk about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker, because that has a direct bearing on why President Bush yesterday said we have to have missile defense now, because the threats are here today. Iran now has a Shahab III system they are working on. The Shahab IV and Shahab V, which are medium-range missile systems, can kill tons of people all throughout Europe and can hit Israel directly. We know Iraq has missiles. We know all these countries have missiles. How did they get this technology, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately, because of America's lack of enforcement of arms control agreements. Two years ago, I asked the Congressional Research Service, an independent, bipartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, it is not partisan, all of our colleagues use it, I asked them to do a study for me of how many instances of arms control violations had occurred in the 1990s. I put that report in the Congressional Record last year. The answer is that up until 1998, we had evidence that Russia and China had illegally transferred technology, much of it missile technology, to unstable nations in violation of arms control agreements 38 times; 20 times by the Chinese, 18 times by the Russians. The arms control agreements are supposed to have sanctions applied when we catch other countries in violation. Much like if we catch an American company illegally selling technology to a foreign nation that they should noting selling to, we arrest their officers. We fine them and, if necessary, we put them in jail. Thirty-eight times we caught the Russians and Chinese illegally giving technology to our enemies. Only two times out of 38 did we impose the required sanctions when we caught the Chinese transferring M-11 missiles to Pakistan, when we caught the Chinese transferring ring magnets for their nuclear program to Pakistan. The other 36 times we turned our head. Let me give a real example, Mr. Speaker, for our colleagues to remember. I was in Moscow in January of 1996. The Washington Post had just reported in December a front page story, above the fold: ``U.S. Catches Russia Transferring Guidance Systems to Iraq.'' That was the headline. I was in Moscow, so I went to our embassy and I met with Ambassador Pickering, who most recently was the number three person in the State Department under Bill Clinton. I said, Mr. Ambassador, what was the Russian response when you asked the Russians about the illegal transfer of technology to Iraq? He said, Congressman Weldon, I have not asked them yet. I said, why would you not ask them? That is a violation of the missile technology control regime, an arms control agreement between us and them and other countries. He said that has to come from Washington. It has to come from the White House or the Secretary of State. So I came back to America, and I wrote President Clinton a letter, a 3-page letter, asking him to respond to the allegation. In March of that year, President Clinton sent me a letter, which I still have; and in the letter he said, Congressman Weldon, I share your concern about the allegation that Russia may have transferred guidance systems to Iraq that would improve their missile systems; and I can say if it occurred and we can prove it, we will take aggressive action. But, Congressman Weldon, we do not have any evidence. Yes, we have allegations, but we cannot prove that Russia transferred guidance systems to Iraq. So, Mr. Speaker, I brought the proof today. For the past year, Mr. Speaker, I have taken these devices around the country with me. This is an accelerometer, a very high-priced device that controls the speed of a missile. This is a gyroscope. This system locks into a satellite GPS mechanism to control the accuracy of where the missile is going. When one puts these two devices in a missile, they make that missile very accurate. Iraq cannot build these devices. They are too sophisticated. Only the U.S., Russia and China, because they got the technology from us over the past 5 years, can build these devices. It is illegal to give these devices to unstable nations. These devices have Soviet markings on them. These devices were clipped off of SSN-19 long-range Soviet missiles. These devices used to be in missiles in Russian submarines aimed at U.S. cities, but because of treaties, when Russia discarded these old missiles they were supposed to destroy these, but they did not do it. We caught the Russians three times transferring not one set of these devices, but over 100 set of these devices to Iraq. What would Iraq want with them? Iraq would want them to put in their missiles like the one they sent into Desert Storm that killed 28 young Americans to make their missile more accurate. We allowed the technology to flow, and we did nothing about it. Here is the evidence, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say where I got them, but I can say agencies of our Government have over 100 sets of these devices. And let me say, my guess is there are probably thousands of these devices that were illegally sent from Russian entities to Iraq and Iran. Now, do I blame the Russian Government? Not necessarily. It is caused by instability in Russia, but we in America had an obligation to enforce arms control agreements. Now, why would President Clinton not want to enforce an arms control agreement? We caught them red handed. We have the evidence. The answer, Mr. Speaker, lies in the fact that the Clinton foreign policy for 8 years was a personal friendship between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. As long as those two people were friendly and in power, President Clinton assumed that our relationship with Russia would be stable. Now, Mr. Speaker, I wanted Yeltsin to succeed as much as President Clinton; but our goal in Russia should not have been to support a man. It should have been to support institutions: the institution of the presidency, whoever that might be; the institution of a free parliament and Duma, whoever they might elect; the institution of a legal system, of an economic framework. We should have been supporting institutions of democracy as opposed to a personality, because as Boris Yeltsin lost the vigor that he first brought to his job, he began to surround himself with corrupt individuals. In fact, he named the oligarchs that ended up running Russia's banks. These Russian oligarchs, many of whom were crooks and thieves, were ending up taking billions of dollars of foreign money, IMF and World Bank money, that was supposed to help the Russians rebuild their economy, rebuild their schools, their roads and their communities. But instead, the friends of Boris who controlled the economic institutions in Russia diverted that money to illegal operations, to Swiss bank accounts, to U.S. real estate investments. In fact, our Justice Department issued indictments against five Bank of New York officials just 2 years ago. The allegation is that they were involved in corruption with Boris Yeltsin's friends in diverting up to $5 billion of money that was supposed to help the Russian people. What did we do? We went like this and like this. Just as we did with the arms control violations, we pretended we did not see them. We pretended we did not have evidence. We knew 5 years ago that there were corrupt Russians working with corrupt Americans, stealing money to benefit the Russian people. Do we wonder why now the Russian people do not trust our intentions? When Yeltsin was about to leave office, his popularity in Moscow was 2 percent. Ninety-eight percent of the Russian people felt he was corrupt and had become a drunk, but there we were still supporting Boris Yeltsin. We wonder why the Russian people do not trust our intentions. If I were a Russian then, I would not trust our intentions either. We blew it to some extent, Mr. Speaker. The visual image Americans had in 1992 was Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank outside the Russian White House, openly defying Communism, 20,000 people around him. As he stood on the tank and said Communism is dead, the Soviet Union is over, we are in a new strategic alliance, Russia and America together, that was 1992. 1999, what was the visual picture on CNN in the fall of 1999? Ten thousand, 15,000 young Russians outside the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, clogging the street, throwing paint at our embassy, firing handguns at our embassy and burning the American flag, because we had been supporting corrupt institutions and people in Russia. We had been denying reality, and the Russian people lost faith and confidence in what America was really all about. In fact, it was about that time I had a Russian Duma member over here. He did a national press conference and this is what he said to the American people on national TV. He said, you know, the Soviet Communist Party spent tens of billions of dollars over 70 years to convince the Russian people that America was evil and Americans were evil, and they failed. Your government has managed to do in a few short years and months what the Russian Soviet Communist Party could not achieve in 70 years. The last formal request of Boris Yeltsin, before he left office for his hand-picked successor, was a commitment he received from President Putin to pardon him and his family. The first official action of President Putin, when he took office, was to pardon Boris Yeltsin and his family, including his daughter Tatyana, from crimes committed against the Russian people, that America knew about and pretended we did not see. That is why the Russians do not trust our intentions. The biggest challenge for President Bush is rebuilding the trust of the Russian people and its leadership that America wants to be a stable trading partner with Russia. We will not tolerate proliferation. We will not tolerate giving foreign unstable nations illegal technology, but we want Russia to succeed. We want to help them create a mortgage program for their people, which is my number one priority. We want to help their defense industry get back on its feet and produce other products. We want to engage their military with our military. We want to help them solve the problem of nuclear contamination in the Arctic, a big issue for the Russians. We want to help Russia succeed and become a trading partner of the U.S. Missile defense is not the reason that Russia is concerned, it is the lack of trust and confidence in what America really wants that has the Russian leadership and the Russian people concerned. Mr. Speaker, we need to move forward with missile defense in cooperation with the Russians and the rest of the peace-loving people in the world. I cannot, for the life of me, as a teacher, understand how those in this country still want to rely on offensive weapons to kill each other, as opposed to defensive weapons to protect our people. That does not make sense to me. We can achieve what President Bush wants. Now, it is a tough task, because you are talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet, stopping a projectile in the atmosphere that is moving very quickly, and stopping it with another bullet. And you cannot hit that projectile when it is on the way down or it will rain terror on the people in that country, in this case our people. That happened in Israel when those Scud missiles kept landing. Even though the Patriot system may have hit it, the debris kept coming down on the Israeli people. We need technology, as President Bush rightly outlined, to hit the missile in the ascent phase, as it is on the way up. It is called boost-phase intercept. The reason why that is important is, you knock that missile out on the way up, and the only people harmed are the people who launched the missile against someone else. What President Bush is saying is, we need to develop a new capability, using technology with our allies, to give us that kind of protection; and he has proposed for the first time in the last 10 years that he will use the bully pulpit to move the technology forward. Are we prepared today? No. There still is additional testing. Have we had success? Absolutely. Out of 31 attempts, we have been successful in over half of them. Our THAAD program has had intercepts, successful ones. Our PAC-3 program has had five successful intercepts. Our National Missile Defense program has had one successful intercept. We know the technology is achievable. It is an engineering problem to integrate the systems, and that is the challenge that we have to help the President overcome. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that those of our colleagues in this body and the other body who supported missile defense last year and the year before will again come back and support President Bush. This is not a partisan issue. The battle for missile defense in America was not a Republican battle; it was won by a bipartisan effort with Democrats and Republicans coming together, understanding that threats were emerging quicker than we thought they would emerge. We need to work together to give the President the kind of support he has outlined in his vision for a new world order, one where we focus cooperative efforts together. The Europeans can cooperate with us, as they are already doing. In fact, I am hoping right now to establish a meeting, an unofficial meeting, in one of the Arab countries, where I will plan to invite the Israelis and the Russians to sit down and have a conversation about how we can jointly pursue missile defense cooperation in the Middle East, with Jews and allies working together, with Americans and Russians. On Friday of this week, Mr. Speaker, I will travel to New York City, where I will give a major foreign policy speech at the World Russian Forum, and I will tell the leaders of Russia, I will tell the business leaders in Russia, that we want to work together, George Bush wants Russia to be our friend and partner. There is no reason why we cannot achieve that. I will then come back to Washington and next week will sponsor with the Free Congress Foundation, with Paul Weyrich, a bipartisan conference on the Hill with Russian leaders. The chairman of the International Affairs Committee for the Russian Duma, Dmitrii Rogozin, will be here, and he and I and others will come together and talk about cooperation. We will then travel to Moscow and we will have a conference in Moscow on missile defense cooperation. We will work together to find common ground, to build confidence among both countries to move forward together. We need to put away the arguments and the petty wars of the Cold War era. Relying on mutually assured destruction is not the answer. Working together for peaceful protection of our friends, our allies and our neighbors, is the solution of the 21st century. That is what George Bush outlined for us yesterday. He is on the right track. He did not say we have all the answers, because we do not, but he did say, together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. I was a young kid in school when John Kennedy made a very famous speech in 1960. He said ``I challenge America to land a man on the moon within this decade.'' I can tell you, people laughed at him. They thought, this guy is crazy. Here is President Kennedy saying we are going to land on the moon? We cannot even get our planes to fly totally safe in the atmosphere. How are we going to land on the moon? He challenged America to land on the moon, to explore outer space technology. You know what happened, Mr. Speaker. Nine years later, in July of 1969, we landed the first human being on the moon. It was an historic event that showed that America can accomplish anything. There are those who will say, there are a few of them, who will say this is not technologically possible. Mr. Speaker, that is hogwash. In fact, to counter those, we have put together a task force of professors. None of the professors we have on this ad hoc committee are working for any contractor. They are all professors. I am going to be inviting all of my colleagues in Congress to ask those professors, one at a time or as a group, to come into your offices. They are not doing any contract work with defense contractors. They are not on the Pentagon's payroll. They are from universities, like Texas A&M, like some of our major engineering schools, who understand the physics is achievable. They will be available as we begin this debate to counter those who will simply try to use their doctorate titles to convince us that somehow we cannot accomplish this. I asked the head of the Boeing program in a hearing last year, a fellow by the name of Dr. Teller, how difficult it was to achieve the result of missile defense for America and its people. He said, ``Congressman Weldon, I have been assigned to this all my life.'' He said managing the Space Station was a tougher challenge than building missile defense. Together, Republicans and Democrats, allies and our own people, we can create a new world, a safe world, where all of our people can be protected from what happened to those 28 Americans in 1991.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the President's announced speech to move forward with missile defense for this country. It is outrageous to me, and it should be to our colleagues, Madam Speaker, that 10 years after 28 young Americans came home in body bags from Desert Storm, that we still do not have a highly effective theater missile defense system to protect our troops. We have made some progress. We have pushed the PAC3 system, to the extent now where it is about to be deployed. We have made progress on the THAAD program, having had successful intercepts three times. We have had success in our Navy areawide program. The Israelis have had success with the Arrow program. We are now moving together with them on the theater high energy laser program, which offers promising potential for us. We are working with the Europeans, particularly the Germans and Italians on the Medium Extended Area Defense System, or MEADs. We are making progress, but we still have not had the success that we need. I am convinced that part of that is because for the past 8 years we had no consensus and leadership from the White House pushing this country on military defense as John Kennedy challenged America to land on the moon in 1960, and 9 years later we did it. Madam Speaker, all of that is changing today, as the highest elected official in our country comes out solidly in favor of missile defense as a resource for defending our people. Now, some would say, well, why do we worry about missiles when a terrorist can take a truck bomb and do the same thing? Well, we are concerned about terrorists activities. In fact, that is why in our committee we have plussed up funding for work-related to chemical and biological terrorism significantly over the past several years; but the fact is the weapon of choice by Saddam Hussein to kill 28 young Americans was not a truck bomb. It was, in fact, a low-complexity SCUD missile that sent those young Americans, half of them from my State, back home in body bags to be buried by their families. Some say we cannot rush to judgment on national missile defense, and I can tell my colleagues what the President is going to offer is a layers approach, much like we have advocated, where we deploy those quickest possible technologies that are proven and tested to give us some short-term capability. I say it is about time that we begin deploying technologies that can assist us. Some of our colleagues will say, wait a minute, the Russians will be backed into a corner. I say that is hogwash. Yes, the Russians do not trust us today. Madam Speaker, I would say if I were a Russian today, I would not trust America either on missile defense, because three times in the last 10 years, we have publicly rebuked Russia on cooperation of missile defense. The first was after Boris Yeltsin in 1992 accepted George Bush's challenge to work together, and we began the Ross-Mamedov between our State Department and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1993, when Bill Clinton came into office, he abruptly canceled those talks. That sent a signal to Russia, we do not want you involved. The second time was in 1996, when the only cooperative missile defense program between this country and Russia, the Ramos project, was canceled by the Clinton administration. It was only because Carl Levin, people like the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) went to war with the White House that we were able to reinvigorate the Ramos program and keep it alive, but the signal was sent to Russia we do not want to work with you. The third example was in 1997, at a time where almost everyone says the ABM treaty needed to be flexible. The administration sent its negotiators to Geneva to negotiate two outrageous protocols that would actually tighten up the ABM treaty. One would create demarcation between theater and national missile defense artificial differentiation, the other would be multilateralization of the treaty. The administration knew that neither the House or the Senate, especially the Senate would ratify those protocols, but they convinced the Russians that that was our position. Even though the Constitution requires the administration to submit those kinds of changes to the Senate for their advice and the consent for 3 years, the administration never did that, because they knew the Senate would not ratify them. The Russians for the third time were tricked in their mind, tricked into believing that America really was serious about cooperating with them. When the Duma included those two protocols, the part of START II ratification last spring, all of a sudden our Senate said no way are we now going to pass START II, because the Duma did what the administration did not do. They attached the protocols to the ABM treaty, as additions to the START II treaty, something that we would never accept in this country. It is no wonder the Russians do not trust us. If I were in Russia today, I would not trust America's intentions in missile defense either. It is time to get beyond that. We can, in fact, rebuild a trust that we have lost and let the Russians know that missile defense is not about backing them into a corner. Missile defense is for Americans, for Europeans, for Russians, and for all peaceloving people on the face of the Earth.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, fifteen years ago today, the small town of Chernobyl, Ukraine was the scene of the world's greatest nuclear accident in history. The aftermath of Chernobyl brought untold devastation to thousands of families in northern Ukraine. Radiation from blowing winds was spread as far away as the Scandinavian countries, even to coastal areas of southern Alaska and northern California. Even by most conservative experts, Chernobyl unleashed more radiation than 90 Hiroshima-sized bombs. Most of this fallout blanketed heavily populated areas of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. Studies have shown thyroid cancer has skyrocketed among children exposed to the radiation. Stillbirths and birth defects in Ukraine have doubled, while the rate of infant mortality is twice the European average. Unfortunately, the effects of radiation exposure, including latent cancers, do not emerge in the body until ten to twenty years later. In effect, the next five to ten years will be crucial as humanitarian efforts mount to respond to the devastation inflicted over a decade ago. Although all Chernobyl nuclear reactors have been closed, the community is still suffering. Let us not forget the silent disease affecting the citizens of Ukraine.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Judge Joseph Battle, Jr., a loyal public servant and a close personal friend, who passed away on March 11, 2001. Joseph Battle was a man who led by example and was a true bright spot in his hometown of Chester. The grandson of Irish immigrants and son of a roofer, Joseph Battle was a lifelong resident of the City of Chester. Joseph graduated from Notre Dame with honors and received his law degree in 1962 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the recipient of the prestigious American Jurisprudence Award for Excellence in Local Government. Joseph served his country bravely as an officer in the U.S. Army in Korea. Joseph's outstanding duty was recognized when he was awarded the Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service. With strong academic record and proven service to his country, Joseph could have taken his life experiences anywhere he wanted to. However, Joseph returned home to the City of Chester where he continued to serve his community. In 1980, Joseph was elected Mayor of Chester, a position he held until 1986. An honest and caring man, Judge Battle had a joke and made everyone feel at ease. As Mayor of Chester, he helped clean up a city that was marred with a reputation of corruption. Today, Chester is undergoing a renaissance after years of hard times. Many of the improvements we see today can be traced back to changes he made two decades ago. Joe worked tirelessly to repair the name of the city he loved to serve. Joe did not stop there, he continued to serve his community and Delaware County. Joe ran for county sheriff in 1985 and won by a huge margin. He served in that office until 1987 when he was appointed to the Common Pleas Court port by the late Gov. Robert Casey. Judge Battle leaves us at the young age of 63. At the time of his passing, he was serving as the President Judge of Delaware County, a port he held with pride and honor. Joseph was a kind and compassionate man, he as also a man of his word. One example makes the point. As a young man, Joseph promised to take care of his mother, a promise that he kept long after the death of his father. This Weekend, My Congressional District lost a leader. The City of Chester lost a loyal champion. I lost a friend. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in a tribute to Joseph Battle for his selfless dedication to his community and his country.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special recognition to my friend and constituent Charles P. Sexton Jr. Charlie Sexton is celebrating his 25th year as an outstanding community leader in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Charlie Sexton, son of Bernice and Charles Sr., was born March 1st in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. After serving his country valiantly in the United States Marine Corps, Charlie Sexton Jr. followed in his father's footsteps served for seven years as a police officer with the Lower Merion Police Department. Always a strong law and order man, he served with distinction and honor as a uniformed patrol officer. As a police officer, Charlie gained experience in surveillance, investigation and personal and property protection. In 1975 he took this knowledge to the private sector and founded a family-run business. Since its founding, Foulke Associates has provided its clients with outstanding service and a clear commitment to quality. Today it is one of Delaware County's finest family businesses. While building his business and raising his family, Charlie found it difficult to ignore his strong political convictions. Tapped early on as a rising star, Charlie was hired as an Administrative Assistant to one of my predecessors, Congressman Larry Williams. While serving with Congressman Williams, Charlie developed a keen sense of the local political process. He learned the issues that impact our local communities, and he learned how to communicate our vision and ideals to middle-class working families. After gaining the respect of his neighbors and friends, he was chosen to lead the Republican Party in Springfield Township, a position that he holds to this day. Today, Charlie is one of the most respected political minds in our great state. Much of what I have learned in my career in public life, I learned from Charlie Sexton. As a breeder of Champion Bloodhounds, Charlie has always maintained an incredible level of commitment and passion. Clearly, a quality that has filtered down to every endeavor he has undertaken. Charlie Sexton's commitment to his community is not only felt in political circles, but also at two important institutions in my district. For the last 8 years, Charlie has been an outspoken member of the Delaware County Prison Board. He also sits on the Board of Directors at one of the premier hospitals in Pennsylvania, Riddle Memorial Hospital in Media. Both of these institutions are better--and life in our community has improved--because of Charlie's involvement. Charlie resides in Springfield with his wife Inger. He is father to Annette and Kenneth, and he is a caring grandfather of five grandchildren--Kenneth, Michelle, Sean, Matthew and Christine. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring a man who has always stood up for what he believes in. Let us applaud this dedicated, passionate and hard working American, Charles P. Sexton Jr.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to continue the efforts started by my colleagues here this afternoon regarding the situation in Ukraine. I just had the pleasure of leading a delegation to Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova, where our primary purpose was to reestablish strong ties with the people of those three countries; to announce, specifically in Ukraine, the establishment of a new interparliamentary dialogue between the Rada and the American Congress. While meeting in Ukraine, we were scheduled to have a 30-minute meeting with the President of that country, President Kuchma. The meeting lasted for 2 hours and 15 minutes because of the current turmoil in Ukraine relative to the murder and the atrocities committed against a reporter, and the evidence that some have put forth indicating a tape with supposedly or allegedly President Kuchma's voice ordering the assassination of the reporter. In our meeting with President Kuchma, we pleaded with him that Ukraine had to abide by the rule of law and had to maintain the freedom of the press in this investigative process. We offered the support of our Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Ukrainian government to fully investigate this incident, so that everyone in the world would know the facts about this particular incident. President Kuchma accepted that offer of the cooperation of our FBI. We stressed with President Kuchma the need to maintain the rule of law, as well as protect the freedom of those to speak out who were in disagreement with his government. He reaffirmed the commitment to those principles with the seven- member delegation that was a part of this trip. Today we find out, Mr. Speaker, that the Ukrainian government has shut down the basic first amendment rights of the people of that country to speak out. There had been a peaceful protest set up in downtown Kiev, where people from all walks of life in Ukraine were protesting what they felt was inadequate response by the government to this incident. While we reaffirmed to President Kuchma that we were not there to try to impose our will on the people of Ukraine, it was absolutely essential that the rights guaranteed by any democracy under a Constitution such as that which Ukraine is now under be held up and be maintained. It is absolutely devastating that today we hear that Ukraine has taken a step in the wrong direction. Mr. Speaker, this is not good news for America. It is not good news for Ukraine, nor the Ukrainian people. I call upon President Kuchma and the Ukrainian government as friends of Ukraine wanting to support more enhanced cooperation to reestablish the basic principles of a free democracy, to reestablish the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, to reestablish the principle of the rule of law, to have a full and complete investigation of the murder of Mr. Gongadze wherever it might lead. Unfortunately, if these steps are not taken, my prediction is that this Congress will act to send a signal to Ukraine that we are not happy with the steps that are being taken to reverse the progress that Ukraine has achieved over the past several years. Mr. Speaker, as a friend of Ukraine and a friend of the Ukrainian people, I plead with President Kuchma to live up to the standards that he affirmed to the seven-member congressional delegation for his country, because the word received today does not coincide with what President Kuchma told us he would do as the leader of that great Nation.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take the 1- hour Special Order to highlight a congressional delegation trip that transpired last week traveling to Moscow, Russia; Kiev, Ukraine; and Kishinev, Moldova. One of the areas that perhaps presents the greatest challenge to us over the next several years is our relationship with those critical countries. The delegation that traveled to those countries was a bipartisan delegation. In fact, I was outnumbered. There were four Democrats and three Republicans. But it was a solid bipartisan effort. We had no disagreements and we had, I think, one of the most exciting series of meetings that any delegation has had in that part of the world. It was a delegation that hit the ground running. We were hosted by the chairman of President Putin's political party in Moscow, the Unity Party, Boris Gryzlov. Even though our plane was late because of problems with the weather, we left on Saturday, we were hoping to arrive Sunday afternoon, we arrived in our hotel in Moscow at 12:30 a.m.; and there waiting for us was the Deputy Minister for Housing and Construction in Moscow. So we had our first meeting at 12:30 in the morning until 1:30 in the morning. So those who say Members of Congress do not work, I would say this delegation worked. That was to set the tone for the trip. That was the first of 41 meetings that occurred during 5 days in the capital cities of Moscow, Kiev and Kishinev. It was a very historically significant time because each of those countries are going through some very difficult turmoil. As we all know, Russia has been drifting away from the West. In fact, while we were there, we got an update on a new strategic partnership that Russia is now aligning itself with China. In the Ukraine, we were there in the midst of a crisis as the President of that country, President Kuchma, was under severe criticism for having allegedly been taped in ordering the assassination of a prominent journalist in Ukraine. The people in many regards were demanding, not just free press, but were demanding that President Kuchma be held accountable and be removed from office. In Moldova, the meetings were equally significant because, 2 days after we were in Moldova, they had their parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Communists won control of the Moldovan parliament with 71 percent of the vote, a major shift in that country, a very strategically important country, a major shift away from the democratic reforms that have been occurring in Moldova over the past 8 years. So that underscores the importance of the reason why our trip was significant. I want to go through the trip in a great amount of detail, but I would like to call on my colleagues while they are here to make whatever comments they would like to make. The cochair of the delegation is someone who I have the highest admiration for in this institution. He and I worked together on a number of issues, Russia being one of them. Seven years ago, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and I were able to convince our leadership, then Speaker Gingrich and Minority Leader Gephardt, that we should institutionalize the relationship between the Russian Duma, their parliament, and our Congress. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and I have co-chaired that initiative for the past 7 years, and we have had dozens of meetings in America and in Russia trying to build a closer sense of cooperation with the parliamentarians in the Russian Duma in all fashions. The gentleman from Maryland also is the first vice president of the Committee for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and so he represents our country on issues affecting the European community as it relates to Russia and other Nations. He also is the former chairman of the Helsinki Commission, so he has worked tirelessly for human rights throughout the world. So it was a real pleasure to have the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on this trip. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my good friend and colleague, for his own summation of our trip.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague. The people of Florida have sent us a great one. He is going to be a star in this body. We can already see it in the way he handled himself and the way he conducted himself in meeting with these foreign leaders. I thank the gentleman for his great leadership, and for what I know is going to be a very effective role in this Congress during his long tenure here. Mr. Speaker, there it is, a summary of our trip. We are proud of what we did. We have no apologies to make: 41 meetings in five days in three different States, a number of cities, visits with the people on collective farms, in hospitals, going out and having dinner with ordinary people and future and emerging leaders, all of it designed to build better relations between America and the emerging former Soviet states. I want to close, Mr. Speaker, with a brief outline of a meeting that I had with General Kavshnin. General Kavshnin is the equivalent to our General Shelton. The meeting was supposed to last for 30 minutes. He had all of his generals lined up there together across the table. We sat there for over 2 hours, a very animated discussion about where Russia is, the strength of the Russian military, the recent military exercise they were involved in, and what his vision of an American- Russian relationship will be in the future. I will be candid, it was not the most warm discussion of our trip, but it was a candid discussion of Russia's concerns. We reassured him that America is not trying to drive Russia into the corner. To the contrary, we do not want Russia aligned more closely with China against us. We challenged General Kavshnin, based on discussions I had before going on the trip with Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, who I have the highest respect for, and the general in charge of our missile defense organization, General Kadish, who I have equal praise for. Their challenge from me to the Russians was: We are waiting for your response, Russia, to work together. That was the message we carried throughout our trip: We are waiting for you, Russia, to come back and tell us how we can work together on defending our people, the European people, and the Russian people from the threat of rogue states, states that do not abide by the norms. In that meeting with General Kavshnin, we opened the door for further dialogue. Finally, Mr. Speaker, we were disappointed with one aspect of the trip: We did not get to meet President Putin. We had had a commitment before we left that we would meet with him. We were told when we arrived that, because of the bombing of Iraq, he would not meet with us. It was disappointing, because I had been on Air Force One the previous Tuesday, I had told President Bush of our trip to Russia, and he said to me, Congressman, make sure you tell President Putin and the Russians that we want to be their friends. We have no quarrel with the Russians. We want to work together. That was the message, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to deliver to Mr. Putin personally with our delegation. We were not able to do that. Otherwise, the trip was a resounding success. I thank my colleagues for participating.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio. We all have a very valued possession in this Congress with the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who is an outstanding leader, commands respect wherever she goes, and always presents a nonpartisan view in terms of improving relations. The gentlewoman's leadership as a senior member of the Committee on Appropriations, a specialist on agriculture issues, on economic development and empowerment issues, is known throughout the world, especially in Ukraine and now in Russia. We appreciate that. I look forward to working with the gentlewoman and our good friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), in helping Ukraine become a key ally of the U.S. over the next several years. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), our freshman member of the delegation, an outstanding Member. He was involved, engaged, and he played a very vital role. We look to him to provide that freshman leadership in showing other colleagues of ours that are new to Congress that they can play a very constructive role in helping to make the world a safer place.