Curt Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I am going to support this legislation. I think it is extremely important that all of us get behind it, but I want to make a few comments first. First of all, I want to thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, who has been a tireless advocate for the firefighters and emergency responders of this country, and who led the effort to make sure that we got $100 million initially to support the firefighter grant program. Unfortunately, because of the actions of another committee and the Justice Department, money that was supposed to go to those firefighters was circumvented in the form of $175 million to police grants through Justice. Now, I am not against the police, but we give the police departments locally $5 billion a year; $5 billion a year. And to have the Justice Department siphon off $175 million, which would have gone to those 32,000 fire and EMS departments, to me, is outrageous. I would ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), my friend and colleague, if he will commit to work with us to right that wrong when we get to conference.

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

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I want to say one more thing to my colleagues on the other side. This is my 16th year in this body, and I know my colleagues are upset about this rule and about this process. I guess I have seen this before. It was my first term in Congress when Jim Wright was the Speaker, and to accomplish what the then majority wanted, he did something that only God could do. He declared it to be two separate days on one day to get a package through this body. Now, all of my colleagues who were here back then ought to remember that famous day, because we were outraged. Only God could declare a new day. But Speaker Wright supported, and my good friend is shaking his head yes, Speaker Wright actually declared it to be two days in one day so that we could accomplish the will of the majority. So I would say to my colleagues, this bill is important because of the need to support our troops and because of those priorities that we have for this country. Am I happy with everything in it? No. But I would ask my colleagues to get behind this. You have made your point. I hear you. I was just as frustrated back when Jim Wright declared it two days in one day as you are now that we are going to pass an increase in the debt ceiling without ever supposedly voting on it. So I would say to my colleagues, let us get beyond this and work together. Let us get this done. Let us deal with the issues in conference, and let us move on so that we in fact can accomplish what we need to do, which is to pay for those costs associated with the war on terrorism.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I take the time this evening, and thank the Speaker and the staff for bearing with me, to basically perform two functions. First of all, I will respond to those critics of President Bush who have taken unfair shots at him over the 9-11 situation, and will factually refute what people like the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), have said publicly about this President somehow not heeding evidence that was provided to him. I am going to present the true facts of what we could have and should have done prior to September 11 that I think would have allowed us to both understand what was about to occur and to have done something about it. The second action I am going to discuss this evening is an upcoming trip that I will be leading to Russia, Uzbekistan, Beijing, China, as well as Pyongyang, North Korea, the first delegation going into that country, and Seoul, South Korea, at the end of this week. Mr. Speaker, let me start out by saying, first of all, in response to many of the media pundits who have spent the last week or 10 days criticizing President Bush and have publicly said that he had indications that should have alerted him to the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center, nothing could be farther from the truth. The facts are all in. The data the President got were basically individual elements provided by individual agencies about potential acts that might be against our country, nowhere near the immensity of what we actually saw on September 11. They were bits of information, like the CIA saying there might be an attempt to hijack an airplane, but no linkage of that act to an attack on the Trade Center; or the fact that other agencies were looking at pilots that were obtaining licenses and had no intention of landing an airplane. Each of these bits of information, while being provided to the upper levels of our government, in and of themselves would not lead anyone to believe that an imminent attack was about to occur on the Trade Center. But Mr. Speaker, as I said on September 11 on CNN live at 12 noon from the roof of a church across from the Capitol, on that day the government did fail the American people. Now, the President did not fail the American people, but the government failed the American people. I am going to document for our colleagues today, and for the American public and the media, steps that we took in the years prior to September 11 when our agencies and the government did not respond. This started back in the Clinton administration and continued during the Bush administration. In fact, Mr. Speaker, during the late 1990s, I chaired the Committee on Research for our national security, which meant that my job was to oversee about $38 billion a year that we spend on cutting-edge technology for the military. One of those projects that I helped get additional funding for was the Information Dominant Center that the Army was standing up down at Fort Belvoir, technically known as the LIWAC. This Land Information Warfare Assessment Center was designed to monitor on a 24-hour-a-day basis 7 days a week all of our military classified systems, those systems used to run the Army. Each of our services was in the process of standing up an entity like the one that the Army stood up at Fort Belvoir. Back in 1997, as I was supporting increased funding for this capability, I was amazed in two trips that I took to Fort Belvoir that the Army was not just able to maintain security over their information systems, but they were able to use new software tools and high-speed computers to do what is commonly called ``profiling,'' to take vast amounts of information about the classified and unclassified information and process it and analyze it so that a picture could be drawn and a threat could be developed, proliferation could be monitored. Now, this was back in 1997. In fact, I had a chance to use these capabilities and I think this story, more than any other, underscores the inabilities of our agencies on September 11 to really understand the threat that was emerging. As you might recall, back in 1997 we had gotten into a war in Kosovo to remove Milosevic from power. All of Congress was not supportive of that conflict. In fact, I opposed the initial involvement with President Clinton by our troops, not because I have supported Milosevic but because I felt that we did not force Russia or allow Russia to play a more vibrant role in helping us to get Milosevic out of power. Two weeks after the bombing campaign started, I started to receive telephone calls and started to receive e-mails from my Russian colleagues in the State Duma. People who are senior leaders who called me and e-mailed me and said we have a real problem. Your policy of bombing Milosevic and innocent Serbs is causing the Russian people to lose confidence in what America's real intent is, and you are driving Russia further away from our country. And I said what do you want me to do? They said we need you to convince your president that Russia can help play a role in ending the war and getting Milosevic out of office. And the Russians told me that they wanted me to go to Belgrade in the middle of the conflict, that they would arrange a meeting with Milosevic. Well, I told them that that was very much undoable because we were in the middle of a war. We were bombing Serbia at the time. But I asked them to put that request in writing and they did. Within the next few days I got a letter on official Duma stationery where the Russians outlined their desire to take me and a delegation of Members of Congress to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. They outlined who would come from the Russian side and they committed that they would have a meeting with Milosevic personally with a date and time certain. They also agreed to visit a refugee camp of our choosing so we could show them the damage that Milosevic had caused innocent people, and they also agreed to release the three American POWs that were being held hostage. When the letter came, it also included the name of an individual I did not know. His name was Dragomir Kric. The Russians had told me that this individual was very close to Milosevic personally, that the Russians trusted him, and that he was the guy that would get Milosevic to agree to the terms to end the hostilities against the Serbian, Yugoslavian people. The Russian request I then took to the State Department with my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on the other side. We had a 1 hour and 30 minute meeting in the Office of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. We outlined for him what the Russians had requested for us and that we were willing to lead a delegation into Belgrade in spite of the war going on. Strobe Talbott listened and he said, I do not think it is a good idea. He said we cannot guarantee your safety and we do not think Milosevic will do what the Russians say he will do, and we think he will just use you. So my advice is not to go, but as citizens in America you can do what you want. I said that we would not violate the request of our State Department and would not go. But the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) suggested that perhaps we should meet the Russians in a neutral city and he suggested Vienna. Strobe Talbott said that was fine. So I came back to Capitol Hill and I sent a letter to all 435 members of the House outlining for them what the Russians had asked, what the administration response was, and invited every Member of this body to attend a meeting if they were interested in going with us to Vienna. From the meeting that we held 1- Members of Congress, 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, volunteered to go with me to Vienna to meet with our Russian counterparts and Mr. Kric. Now, before we left on that trip I wanted to know something about Kric so I called the CIA director, George Tennant. I said I do not know who this guy is. The Russians are convinced that he can give us information that will allow us to get Milosevic to agree to our terms. Can you tell me something about him as the director of the CIA? He called me back the next day and gave me 2 or 3 sentences about Dragomir Kric and said that they thought he was tied in with the corruption in Russia but did not know much else about him. Without telling anyone, Mr. Speaker, I went back to my friends at the Army Information Dominence Center, and I said can you run me a profile of a Dragomir Kric and tell me something about him. They ran a profile and they came back to me with 8 pages of information about this man, the profile of someone who was very close to Milosevic personally. With that information, we left on a military plane on a Thursday afternoon after votes and flew all night to Vienna, arrived on Friday morning, and began our discussions in the hotel in Vienna with the 11 members of Congress, a State Department representative, the 5 Russians and Dragomir Kric. We worked all through Friday into the night and into Saturday. And by Saturday midday something historic had happened. The Russians had agreed to the terms that we wanted to end the conflict. The Russians had agreed to things they had never agreed to. During the time when we were meeting, Kric was calling back to Belgrade talking to Milosevic on the phone personally. He would come back in the room and he would tell us what Milosevic was happy with and what he was not, but we were not there to negotiate with Milosevic. We were there to get the Russians to agree with us on an end to the conflict. By 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon we reached agreement. It was word for word read by the Russian and American side and we all signed off on an end to the war. It was an historic time for us because we thought we could stop the bombing and stop killing innocent people and get Milosevic out of power. Kric immediately left the room and made a phone call. He came back in the room and said I just talked to Milosevic personally, and he has assured me that if we go down as a group right now to Belgrade, and I will hire the bus, and we all go down together, Milosevic will meet with us, he will agree to this framework which ends his reign. He will agree to accept international peacekeeping force to disarm the Serbs, and he will agree to allowing a U.N. or NATO force to bring stability to this country. And he will also release the 3 POWs that have not been heard from since they were captured by Milosevic. Well, that was pretty historic, Mr. Speaker. So my colleagues on the other side called the White House from Vienna. They get on the White House operation center phone line and talked to John Podesta, the chief of staff for the President. And they said we have something that you have to get to President Clinton immediately. We have negotiated what we think is the end of the Kosovo war with the Russians, with a representative of Milosevic agreeing to the terms. Another representative with us of the State Department called the State Department operations center and he told them what had transpired. So he notified both the White House and the State Department. The State Department said let me talk to Congressman Weldon. So I got on the phone. On the other end of the line was Steven Sestanovich who was at that time in charge of the Russia desk at the State Department. I outlined for him what had occurred. He said, Curt, this is amazing but it is above my pay grade. I cannot tell you what to do. Hold on and I will have someone else call you back. Thirty minutes later, Mr. Speaker, I got a call from Tom Pickering. Tom Pickering was at that time number three in the State Department and had been the ambassador for us to Russia. I had known him in that capacity. He said, Curt, what is going on? And I explained to him that we had met with the Russians and Kric. We had reached agreement, and that Milosovic through Kric was saying that he was prepared to end the war if we went down to Belgrade. So I said to Tom Pickering, what do you think we should do? He said, Curt, first of all, we do not trust Milosevic. We do not think that he will live up to what he is telling you through this guy Kric; and, furthermore, Curt, I do not even know who Kric is. I never heard of this guy and how could you believe that somehow he speaks for Milosevic? I said, Tom, I did not know Kric either before I came here, but I know the Russians. They are my friends, and they have convinced me that he is the person that can get Milosevic to do what we want. He said, I do not think it is a good idea. In fact, let me tell you, the Reverend Jesse Jackson has been in Belgrade for a week. We have been in constant communication with him. In fact, he is coming home today. His delegation has been unsuccessful. They were trying to get the three POWs released, he said, but their mission has failed. What makes you think that you can do something that the Reverend Jesse Jackson could do? I do not know, Tom. All I am telling you is what the Russians are saying based upon Kric's taught discussions with Milosevic. He said I do not think you should go, and I said okay, then we will not, because we are a Nation of laws and not of people. I came back to the room where the Members of Congress were seated with our Russian counterparts. I told them the story, and they immediately became incensed at me. Kric called me a coward for not taking a delegation to Belgrade. He said, You just lost a chance to end the war and bring home your POWs. I had Members of Congress from both parties telling me they were going to go on their own, and I said, Oh no, you are not; we came in a military plane that I acquired; you are going back to America with me. So the 11 Members of Congress and the Russians and our State Department official sat down and discussed how we would implement our plan instead of going to see Milosevic in Belgrade. Kric went out of the room and came back in after making a phone call, and said, You just blew it; Milosevic had said you had a chance to end the war, to get him to publicly accept this agreement and he would release the POWs. We continued to meet. Two hours later, our Navy escort came into the room, and he said to the 11 Members of Congress that CNN has just announced that Milosevic is releasing the POWs to Jesse Jackson's delegation. Kric told us that Milosevic did not want to keep them because he was fearful they would be harmed and we would blame him for their injuries. Even though he did not want to release them to Jesse Jackson, he did. To continue the story and make my point, Mr. Speaker, we all came back home to America. We briefed our colleagues. We briefed the administration. We presented the framework that we negotiated, and 8 days later, or 2 weeks later, that became the basis of the G-8 agreement to end the war. So our work was fruitful, but something interesting happened that applies to September 11. I got a call from the FBI in my office asking my staff to allow two agents to come over for me to brief them, for me to brief them, on a fellow named Dragomir Kric. I said, Fine, set it up for Monday afternoon in my office in the Rayburn Building. I went back to Pennsylvania, and on the Friday before that Monday, my office paged me with a 911 page. I called them and they said, You must call CIA congressional affairs immediately. I did. The CIA said, Congressman, we are going to fly two agents to Philadelphia right now. They will meet you at the airport, they will come to your home, they will come to a hotel, wherever you want to meet them, but they have to talk to you immediately. I said, What is the urgency? They said, We have been tasked by the State Department to brief them on Dragomir Kric and we want you to tell us what you know about him. I said, Well, the FBI already asked for that information, why can't we do it together on Monday afternoon? So that Monday afternoon I had four agents in my office: two CIA agents, one CI person and two FBI agents. For two hours they grilled me with four pages of questions about Kric. I answered all their questions. I told them that there were four Kric brothers, that they were the owners of the largest banking system in the former Yugoslavia; that they employed some 60,000 people; that their bank had tried to finance the sale of an SA-10 from Russia to Milosevic; that their bank had been involved in a $4 billion German bond scam; that one of the brothers had financed Milosevic's election; that the house Milosevic lived in was really their house; that, in fact, Krics' wives were best of friends with Milosevic's wife; and that they were the closest people to this leader. I told them all the information. When I got done, Mr. Speaker, I said, Now, do you want to know where I got my data from? They said, Yeah, you got it from the Russians. I said, No. They said, Well, then you got it from Kric. I said, No. I said, Before I went over there I had the Army's information dominant center run a profile for me of Dragomir Kric. The FBI and the CIA in 1997 said to me, what is the Army's information dominant center? The FBI and the CIA had no knowledge that our military was developing a capability that would be able to do massive data mining of information to allow us to do a profile of a person or an event that was about to happen. We took that model, based on that lesson which infuriated me as a Member of Congress to be asked to brief the CIA and the FBI, and working with people in the intelligence agencies, I developed a plan. This plan was to create a national collaborative center. Back in 1997, Mr. Speaker, the national collaborative center where there were articles written, published in the media, technical media here was called the NOAH, N-O-A-H. It stands for National Operations and Analysis Hub. The function of the NOAH would be to have all 32 Federal agencies that have classified systems have a node of each of those systems in one central location managed by one of their employees, and when tasked by the national command authority, the President or the National Security Council, their data would be entered into a massive computer using new software tools like STARLITE and SPIRES and six others that are used by the private sector to do data mining. In addition to classified information systems, they would also run through massive amounts of unclassified data, newspaper stories, magazine story, TV broadcasts, radio broadcasts. A person cannot do that manually, but they can do it through high-speed computers, as the Army did for me in developing the profile of Kric. We took this plan and we said to the intelligence community, this is what we need to have to be prepared for threats in the 21st century, because the threats we are going to see over the next several decades will not come only from one nation state, they will come from terrorist organizations. We need to be able to pool all this data together and be able to profile it, analyze it and then come back with a true picture of what may be about to occur. Mr. Speaker, this was in 1997. I briefed John Hamre. Dr. John Hamre was then the Deputy Secretary of Defense. I said, John, you have got to go down to Fort Belvoir and see this facility; it is amazing. He went down twice. He called me back and he said, Curt, it is amazing what they are doing there. This profiling worked, and they could do it because unofficially some other secret lines were running through Fort Belvoir that the Army could unofficially access. So it really was an official process. He said, But you know, Curt, I cannot get to where you want to go because the CIA and the FBI will not cooperate and neither will the other agencies. He said, So I have a suggestion for you. Why do you not host a meeting in your office? I will come and you invite my counterparts at the FBI and the CIA. So, Mr. Speaker, in my office, in 1998, I had the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Director of the CIA and the Deputy Director of the FBI, four of us met for 1 hour. We briefed them on the NOAH. We talked about the need for a national collaborative center, national data fusion center; and the response was, We do not need to do that right now, we are doing our own systems in our own agencies; so thank you for your recommendations, and we are trying to share but not the way you want because that is too bold. That is too aggressive. This was 1998, Mr. Speaker. Not satisfied with that, we held hearings. We did briefings for our colleagues; and in two consecutive defense bills, I put language in the bill that basically said the Defense Department and our intelligence agencies had to create a national collaborative center. So it became a part of the law; but Mr. Speaker, the agencies refused. They said we do not need to do that, we do our job very well. Each of them does their job very well, but the problem is the threats in the 21st century will be seen from a number of different sources. It may be information coming from the Customs Department or from the Defense Intelligence Agency or from the NSA or from the CIA or the FBI or Commerce, State and Justice, all of which have classified systems; or it may come from some public statements in articles in other countries. We can only have the capability to understand all of that if we have a national fusion center. We did not have that capability before September 11. That is why I stood up on September 11, at 12 p.m. in the afternoon and said, ``Today our government failed the American people.'' Because, Mr. Speaker, we knew what we should have done. We knew what we could have done. And we did not do it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that if we would have implemented the NOAH, which John Hamre offered to pay for with DOD dollars, back when we first recommended it, I am convinced we could have stopped or known about and prevented September 11 from ever happening. Let me give an example. CIA information on terrorism, combined with what the FBI knew about training pilots and open-source information on remarks by al Qaeda, would have helped the intelligence community and enforcement agencies focus better on the threat. For example, in August of 2000, an al Qaeda member had been interviewed by an Italian newspaper and reported that al Qaeda was training kamikaze pilots. The intelligence community and enforcement agencies, however, do not read open-source information. Yes, they read all the classified stuff, but this interview in 2000 was in an open-source newspaper account in Italy. If we would have had a fusion center, all of that data would have been processed, and in very real quick time, through massive high-speed computers, and we would have seen the linkages between what was occurring. But with each agency doing its own thing, it is impossible to see the linkages. And that is why when President Bush before September 11 got a bit of information from the CIA and a bit from the FBI, and something else, and nothing from open sources, there is no way he could have foretold what was about to occur. If we would have had the NOAH in place, an idea that was developed with the intelligence community, an idea that was briefed to the FBI, briefed to the CIA and briefed to the Defense Department, I think we could have done something to prevent al Qaeda. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is another interesting development that occurred. After the Army showed the capability of the LIWAC model at Ft. Belvoir, other services began to take interest. Special forces command down in Florida contacted the Army and said, hey, we hear you are doing some neat things. We want to build a mini version of what you are doing down at our headquarters. I did not find out about this until October of 2001, after the attack on the trade center. A year before, special forces command developed their own mini version of a data processing or collaborative center with very limited capabilities. But what they did, Mr. Speaker, they did a profile of al Qaeda 1 year before 9-11.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, here is the chart, the unclassified chart of what special forces command had 1 year before 9- 11. Interesting. The entire al Qaeda network is identified in a graphic chart with all the linkages to all the terrorist groups around the world. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I was told by the folks who developed the capability for special forces command that this chart and the briefing that was supposed to be given to General Shelton, Chairman of our Joint Chiefs, had a recommendation to take out 5 cells of bin Laden's network. Mr. Speaker, this was 1 year before 9-11. This was not during President Bush's administration. This occurred in the fall of the remaining term of President Bill Clinton. The key question I have been trying to get at is why was this 3-hour briefing, which I also got, I got General Holland to bring his briefers up from Florida with special forces, I went in the Pentagon, went in the tank, and they gave me the briefing, as much as they could give me, because part of it is being used for our operational plan, why was that 3-hour briefing with the recommendations to take out 5 cells of bin Laden's network condensed down to a 1-hour brief when it was given to General Hugh Shelton in January of 2001? And why were the recommendations to take out 5 cells not followed up on? That is the question we should get answered, Mr. Speaker. Because 1 year before 9-11, the capability that special forces built actually identified to us the network of al Qaeda. And they went beyond that and gave us recommendations where we could take out cells to eliminate their capability. So for those pundits out there sitting in their armchairs criticizing President Bush, they have it all wrong. Facts are a tough thing to refute, and the fact is that back in 1997, we told the administration at that time what to do. In 1998, we briefed the agencies. In 1999, we put language in a defense bill. In 2000, we put language in a defense bill. In 2000, special forces command built another mini version of that capability. And in 2000 they briefed General Shelton telling him to take out 5 cells of bin Laden's network. All of that activity could have prevented or helped to prevent 9-11 from ever occurring. I challenge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to review the facts. I challenge the media to report the truth. We still do not have a national collaborative center. That capability still does not exist. We are getting there, but it has been a long road. I briefed our Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, about 4 months ago. He agreed with us, but he has not yet been able to achieve this new interagency collaborative center, and that is an indictment of our government that the American people deserve to be outraged over. We need this kind of capability in the 21st century, because these bits of pieces of information have to be pieced together, both classified and unclassified, so that our analysts can get the clear picture of what may be about to occur against our people and our friends. So, Mr. Speaker, I seek to clarify the charges against the President and to answer them, and I encourage my colleagues to learn more about the need for a national collaborative center, a national data fusion center or, as I call it, a national operations and analysis hub. Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record the documentation from as far back as 1998, 1999, and 2000 with our recommendations to implement this kind of capability: of an Office of Transformation within the Office of the Secretary of Defense to advise the Secretary on-- (1) development of force transformation strategies to ensure that the military of the future is prepared to dissuade potential military competitors and, if that fails, to fight and win decisively across the spectrum of future conflict; (2) ensuring a continuous and broadly focused transformation process; (3) service and joint acquisition and experimentation efforts, funding for experimentation efforts, promising operational concepts and technologies and other transformation activities, as appropriate; and (4) development of service and joint operational concepts, transformation implementation strategies, and risk management strategies. (c) Sense of Congress of Funding.--It is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Defense should consider providing funding adequate for sponsoring selective prototyping efforts, wargames, and studies and analyses and for appropriate staffing, as recommended by the director of an Office of Transformation as described in subsection (b).

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 133, I was inadvertently not recorded. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank our distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) for yielding me the time, and I want to start off again by thanking our chairman and our ranking member, two of the great patriots of this institution, this country, for their outstanding work in bringing us a defense bill that all of us can get behind. It is not a perfect bill. In fact, there are some amendments that I would like to have seen offered that were not made in order, and that is a part of the process, unfortunately, we go through. I am also not happy with the dollar amount. Our chairman and ranking member made the best possible good faith effort to increase funding, but it is woefully underfunding our modernization. Other Members who have spoken here have talked about too much for defense. Our soldiers today are fighting in tactical fighters that are 17 years old on average. Our Navy that at one time was 555 ships is now 314 ships. Our shipbuilding account is taking us down to a 235-ship Navy. The B-52 bomber will be 70 years old before it is retired. Our Chinook helicopters will be 60 years old. We have underfunded the military consistently in both Democrat and Republican administrations for the past 10 years. This bill begins to correct that, but it does not solve all of those problems. We are asking for some relief in this bill. Nothing out of the ordinary. We want to stop the encroachment that costs us more money that stops our troops from training. This is in no way, shape, or form a rollback of environmental laws. I would not support that, as a Republican proud of my environmental voting record. It does say that when we take 85 percent of Red Beach at Camp Pendleton where our Marines have to train and say 85 percent of that base or that training area, that beach cannot be used because of an endangered species, is a little bit ridiculous, especially when we consider if we look at the numbers of all the Federal agencies that have land, the Pentagon controls the smallest amount of land, yet has the largest number of endangered species of any other Federal agency and, in my opinion, does the most effective job possible in protecting wildlife and protecting endangered species. All we ask for is some limited relief to allow our military personnel to be properly trained; nothing more. This is not an attempt to roll back environmental laws in any way, shape, or form. In the other areas of the bill, I think we make a good faith effort in missile defense, in systems and programs. Again, it is not perfect, but we do provide some great increases in assistance for our troops in the personnel area, and I think we make a good down payment on modernization and research for the future. So I encourage my colleagues to work with us through this process. We will be offering, I think, a very innovative series of amendments on the nuclear posture of this country that will revolutionize our relationship with Russia. I look forward to voting in a positive way on this bill, and I ask our colleagues to vote yes on the final passage and to work with us to get the largest vote possible in showing that our military has the support of Democrats and Republicans. In closing, I want to thank my colleague and ranking member, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). He is one of the most tireless advocates for the Navy in this Congress. He has fought hard and his work has paid off in an additional ship being funded in this bill. I thank my colleagues for their leadership.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, this is a 1980s amendment; Ronald Reagan was President. The term ``Stars Wars'' is again resurrecting itself. It has no relevancy to what we are doing today. This is not a discussion of whether or not we are going to deploy a strategic defense initiative. That discussion is over; it ended in the 1980s and 1990s. There is no national missile defense, so the amendment is not relative. In fact, if we take this amendment, it is so poorly worded, which is why the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) had to get clarification, because even he has concerns, but to get clarification, he is trying to qualify some things. It is so poorly worded we could in fact end the only joint program we have with Russia. Does the gentleman know about the RAMOS program which the Russians proposed that we do, which Carl Levin on the Senate side led the fight to restore? That program is 2 satellites. Under the gentleman's amendment, we cut the funding for the RAMOS program because, heaven forbid, satellites are in space. But wait a minute. What about all of my colleagues here who care about Israel's security? We funded with our money the Arrow program. We spent almost $500 million on Arrow, the most successful missile defense program operating today. Well, guess what? Maybe the gentleman does not know this, but we are now retrofitting Arrow so it can interact with our systems. So what the gentleman wants to say is no more national missile defense. Well, guess what? To Israel, Arrow is their national missile defense, and we funded it. So the fact is that while the gentleman may have wanted to end one specific program, the amendment is so vague that it applies to everything, and it really does not make any sense. It really was designed for a Ronald Reagan-era debate when Stars Wars could be used like Darth Vader, that somehow we were advocating some obscene process to start war in space. That is not the case. We have a very deliberate program that has been supported by Democrats and Republicans because we have confidence, perhaps more than ever, in the director of our Missile Defense Agency. General Kadish is respected by Democrats and Republicans for giving us a thoughtful, interconnected, multi-layered approach to missile defense. There is no more national missile defense. It does not exist. It is no longer a term used in the jargon. To say somehow we are going to end it is a misnomer. In terms of space, if we ended the space assets, whether it is airborne or higher, we would basically end a whole ton of programs that are now under way, and we would deny eventually the ability of Israel to do what she is going to have to do. We cannot have it both ways on this debate. If my colleagues want to defend the people of Israel against the Shahab III missile from Iran, which is there today, Israel cannot shoot that missile down midstream. Because like the Patriot, it will rain on the people. Israel needs to take down that Scud missile when it is launched. We cannot do that without assets that allow us to take it out in the boost phase. That is going to eventually require some type of space-based assets. So we are having a debate for the 1980s. Let us all join hands and sing peace songs and let us all hug each other and say we are all for peace, but this amendment is absolutely outrageous. I encourage my colleagues to vote no, and let us sing Kumbaya together in voting no.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) a leader on these issues in the Congress.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), one of our Ph.D.'s in Congress, who has visited Russia on three or four occasions.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, this side applauds the gentlewoman for her leadership on these issues, and we are happy to accept this amendment in the spirit in which it is offered, and think it will be a productive addition to the bill.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment with the modification I place at the desk as worked out with my colleagues on the other side.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this is a historic day in the House of Representatives as we consider an amendment that is bipartisan, co-sponsored by my colleagues the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). Mr. Chairman, this is a historic amendment and a historic day because this body is rising in a bipartisan voice to support the leadership of the President of the United States and the President of Russia to begin a new era in nuclear cooperation. The amendment before us today has eight specific thrusts in opening up the transparency between the American and the Russian nuclear program. It calls for American scientists to be allowed to visit Novaya Zemlya, the underground test site in Russia, and for Russian scientists to visit our sites in Nevada. It calls for joint cooperation in conferences on ways to monitor our nuclear stockpiles. It calls for joint visits and conferences to discuss the safety and security of our nuclear weapons. It calls for a joint commission on non-proliferation, a joint commission on cooperation on missile defense. This program puts this body on record with a bipartisan vote that we, in fact, support the new vision of President Bush and President Putin. We started this process last fall when one-third of this Congress with my colleagues on the Democratic side and my colleagues on the Republican side joining together in a 45-page document outlining a new relationship with Russia. This amendment calls for the specifics in implementing this new vision. This amendment allows the President and the President of Russia to truly open the doors for strong bilateral cooperation between our nations. It is a historic day. Our nuclear regulatory agencies and our security agency, I talked to General Holland and he totally supports the direction that we are going. We have agreement on the Democrat and Republican sides about the thrust. We also give the President some flexibility in the research area to make sure that we have the ability to do additional research that up until this point in time has been prohibited. I am extremely pleased that we were able to work out a very carefully crafted piece of legislation with my colleagues on the other side that I hope we will vote unanimously or overwhelmingly show that this Congress is behind a new direction in the security relationship between the United States and Russia. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) who has also been a tireless advocate on the nuclear security issues for this country and in the world.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development of the Committee on Armed Services, and a leader on defense issues in this country.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I thank Members on both sides of the aisle for what has become I think one of the most important statements that we will make in this bill about a new era of our security, our security in working together with Russia as partners. Yesterday a group of Members met in the House of Representatives with a Minister of Atomic Energy, Rumyantsev, from Russia, and he told us that Russia is ready for a new era of transparency, that the days of the Cold War are over. This amendment tests that language. This amendment says, Mr. Rumyantsev, we agree with you, and we are ready for a new era. Open up the test facilities, underground test sites, and laboratories for joint cooperation, and we will do the same. It says that America and Russia truly can be, should be, and will be partners; but it does not do it through rose-colored glasses. This amendment says in the new century Russia and America together can be key partners, whether it is solving the war in Kosovo, solving the problem in the Middle East, or dealing with security issues, that Russia can help us accomplish our objectives. Mr. Chairman, I ask Members on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we have made a good-faith effort both in the committee and on this floor to reach bipartisan compromise on issues regarding our nuclear policy. We just completed a vote on a comprehensive program to engage Russia, a program that I think is historic. We just accepted an amendment from the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher). We agreed to a report that she wants to have issued on the size of our nuclear weapon force over the next dozen years. But, Mr. Chairman, this amendment in my opinion is a dangerous amendment. There are certain things we cannot discuss on the House floor. I would think before any Member voted on this amendment, they would want to have had the Code Word level briefing that I arranged for Members of the Committee on Armed Services last week. A number of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle attended that briefing, where at a Code Word level we were given certain information about what appears to be to the Intelligence Community some new movement in the area of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. We cannot discuss that on the floor of the House because we are in open session. So, therefore, even though Members have access to that information, I would say to you that probably no more than 10 Members of this body, maybe 20, have received the security classified briefing on the implications of this amendment. For that reason alone, this amendment should be defeated. But, Mr. Chairman, beyond that, this amendment says that the Secretary of Energy cannot even do a feasibility study for a nuclear earth penetrating weapon. If we look at Afghanistan and the wars and the situation we are involved in, one of our biggest problems are deep underground hardened targets. This amendment says we cannot even do a feasibility study. We are not talking about building a weapon. We are not talking about producing something to drop. We are talking about a feasibility study. This amendment says no feasibility study. Mr. Chairman, this amendment goes way too far. This amendment is more about, I think, a political statement than it is about substance. I would aggressively urge our colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Development.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. I thank our colleagues for working on what I think is a good, bipartisan defense bill. As my colleagues know, I voted against the President's budget on the House floor because I was not satisfied with the level of defense spending because of our inability to meet our resource needs. I give total credit to the chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for working together to get us a portion of that $10 billion to help with the modernization problems we have. The fact is, we took a holiday in the nineties and we are paying for it today. If we look at the shipbuilding account, which the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) has been fighting for, we are building down to a 235-ship Navy with our current funding level. The average age of our tactical fighters is 17 years old. That B-52 bomber will be 7 years old before it is retired. We have cut back across the board and now we are trying to play catch- up, and it is impossible. This bill makes a good downpayment in trying to reverse that, but it is not enough. I want to respond to one of the issues raised by my colleagues on the environment. I will take a back seat to no one on environmental votes. I have been a green Republican, voting and endorsing and cosponsoring the Clean Air Act, clean water, endangered species, wetlands protection. I serve on the Migratory Bird Commission. I voted against the environmental riders. This bill does not gut our environmental laws. There is a need for us to make sure that our military is properly trained. At Camp Pendleton in California, the number one training site for our Marines' amphibious force, they come off of the ships, the landing craft, and they have to board buses to go across an area where some endangered species are. Then they come back on the ground and do their training. These are the same people that we ask to risk their lives. What we are saying in this bill is we need to have some rifle-shot provisions to let this training take place. This is not about any rollback; this is not about going back to the 1930s. This is about a very commonsense, bipartisan approach to let our military and our soldiers, sailors, corpsmen, and Marines be equated to a snail darter. Is a snail darter's life more important than the soldier? The whole issue of migratory birds, cut me a break. Maybe we should buy a duck stamp and put it on our planes, because for a $15 duck stamp we are legally allowed to kill birds; but yet we are saying we should not have an exemption so our military can properly train. Those who say that somehow this bill is rolling back environmental laws in this country are grossly misinformed. I invite them to work with us. We are not about hurting the environment. If we look at the Navy's research budget, more money is spent on oceanographic research by the Navy than any Federal agency in this country. Every oceanographic research school, Scripps, Woods Hole, gets all or a bulk of their money from naval research accounts. We are trying to do the right thing. We are also trying to protect our troops. We are also trying to give some relief so our military personnel can be properly trained and equipped when they are called upon to protect America. Mr. Speaker, it really boggles my mind. When I took a delegation out to California and we flew by helicopter along the coast, the only open area left along California's coast was Camp Pendleton. Where were the State officials? Where were the county commissioners? I used to be a county commissioner in local zoning and planning, to allow every piece of property to be built up so the endangered species had no place to go except for our military base? And now to come back and say somehow the military has to bear the brunt is absolutely outrageous. Yet, that is the fact today. I encourage my colleagues to vote for the rule and to vote for final passage. Again, I commend my leaders for the great job they did with this legislation.