Curt Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I yield to my friend from Michigan. I would ask him the question: He sat through the State of the Union speech, as we did. Does he recall the President standing at this very podium, and pounding his fist on the table, and saying we will not cut defense spending any further, and in fact, if the gentleman would respond, my recollection is he said he was going to add $25 billion to defense spending. Does the gentleman remember that?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. And what he said though unfortunately is that he is not going do that until after the next Presidential election, which it is convenient for him to make that statement after he runs for reelection. With that I will yield to our good friend from Michigan for whatever comments he would like to make.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Is it not also true, to my colleague who chairs the acquisition subcommittee as I chair the R&D subcommittee, that you were lobbied, as I was lobbied, by the heads of each of the services who told us privately that they desperately needed additional dollars to meet the needs of their troops so that when this President, if he does, and he said this repeatedly, says and makes the claim that we are spending too much on defense, that the Pentagon did not ask for this; the only one in the Pentagon who did not ask for this is his appointee who happens to be his Secretary, but that each of those service chiefs, who are career people who are responsible and whose necks are on the line if our kids are killed and not able to respond, each of them have come to us personally, as I know I have, and I would ask you if you have had the same meetings in your office saying these cuts are way out of line, you know we are not going to be able to meet our needs. Is that true with your role as chairman?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank my colleague for his excellent comments, and, before he leaves, I just want to enter into a brief dialog with him about the--you know we hear on the floor all the time about the state of our economy and how some of the decisions that this Congress is making are putting people out of work. And you are the chairman of the acquisition committee which oversees all the items we procure. Is it not true that, what I read in the Fortune magazine and on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, that we have lost over 600,000 manufacturing jobs in the defense industrial base because of the downsizing, and while you and I both agree, I think, that our priority is not to be a job producer, that is a secondary benefit, that our ultimate goal is to protect the American people and give our troops the best. But you wonder why you never hear these same Members of Congress talking about the only area where we are making such draconian cuts, putting real people out of work, and what is interesting is and which still boggles my mind, most of these people that have lost their jobs are members of the UAW, the machinists' union, the electrical workers. They are all AFL-CIO workers, and where are they? They are out there looking for jobs in southern California, in Pennsylvania, because they have--and Michigan. They have no place to go, people who have lost their jobs paying $40,000 and $50,000 a year where this Government has just said, ``Oh, well,'' and is it not true that those cuts in jobs have been caused directly by our lack of support for procurement? And you might want to comment on how much we have procured in the way of new aircraft compared to some of our allies like some of the--even the Scandinavian countries in Europe for instance.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank our colleague for those very eloquent comments, and I yield to our friend from New York [Mr. Owens].

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I will not take the 60 minutes, but I will be happy to start off, and I am going to talk about the defense bill, I will be happy to start off by yielding to my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Michigan.

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

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank our colleague for joining us and I thank all of our colleagues who have joined with Congressman John Bonior, in his Special Order and the beginning of my Special Order this evening; and I again wanted to thank Mr. Dingell for his tireless efforts in this institution. Mr. Speaker, I will take approximately 20 or so minutes to discuss a piece of legislation that has finally made its way through this body and the other body and is now headed down to the White House for consideration by the President, and that is the 1996 defense authorization bill. Mr. Speaker, earlier this evening the Senate passed this piece of legislation, which is the major authorization bill for our entire military, by a vote of 51 to 43. Last week the House went on record and supported the exact same conference report for this bill with a total amount of almost 270 votes. I think the final vote was 267. The bill, when it originally passed the House, Mr. Speaker, gathered 300 signatures, the largest number of Members in a bipartisan way to support a defense bill, certainly in the 9 years that I have been here, and it is certainly showing a strong bipartisan backing of our defense authorization process. In fact, when the bill left the Committee on National Security of the House, it passed by a vote of 48 to 3, the largest vote we have ever had, at least in my time here, in support of a bill coming out of committee. So this is in fact a good bill, Mr. Speaker. Despite intense lobbying by the White House and by the Secretary asking Members not to support final passage of the conference report, getting almost 270 Members of this body to support a national defense authorization is a major accomplishment. In fact, there are several major items in this legislation that really merit the President to fully consider supporting this; not to do as has been rumored, and that is to veto this legislation. The bill is consistent with the appropriated defense dollars for the next fiscal year. We worked very closely with the appropriators to make sure that our dollar amounts were consistent, that there in fact was not a large disagreement between the dollar amounts for the various items within the budgets, both authorization and appropriation. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the conference report for the defense authorization for the 1996 fiscal year contains major legislation dealing with acquisition reform. This administration and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have repeatedly stated that we need to reform the way that we spend our DOD dollars, that we can save significant amounts of money, that we can buy better equipment and materials for our military and in the end save the taxpayers their tax dollars. That acquisition reform is in this legislation. If President Clinton vetoes this bill, we lose the acquisition reform which is so critical in this year of declining defense dollars. In addition, we have the pay raise authorization. Last week, we had the debate on whether or not to support the troops. The President asked us to support the troops; we supported the troops. Members on both sides of the aisle, depending upon which version of legislation that they supported, were unanimous in one argument on the House floor, and that was to support the troops as they are being deployed to Bosnia. Mr. Speaker, there is no better way to support our troops than to vote for the authorization to give them a pay raise. Contrary to what is being stated here in this body, the military personnel will not receive their full pay increase if we do not have the authorization bill approved by the President and become law. The appropriation bill will not do it alone. Those are major reasons why this President needs to consider supporting this legislation and express the urgency of putting this legislation forward. Mr. Speaker, we have heard some comments that perhaps the reason why the President might want to veto this bill is because of what we have done in the area of missile defense. Mr. Speaker, that is an area that I have worked on this entire year as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Development and have worked to try to turn around the whole debate on protecting the American people from the threat of a missile attack, either an accident or deliberate, by any Nation, not just Russia. In fact, I would agree with my colleagues that what we did in the missile defense area is perhaps one of the single biggest policy changes that we made from the President's stated policy objectives when he came out with his defense request for 1996. It is a tough issue, but Mr. Speaker, we have tried very carefully and very exactly to make sure that what we came out with is a bill that this President can sign into law. We were very careful this year, Mr. Speaker, during the authorization process in the committee and on the House floor; we were careful that in plussing up the funding for theater missile defense, for national missile defense, and for cruise missile defense that we do it in a way that was consistent with what the administration and the Pentagon thought should be our priorities. Mr. Speaker, as I have sat on this floor, many times over the past several months, each of the areas in which we plussed up funding in missile defense were given to us by the administration's point person for missile defense policy. We asked Gen. Mal O'Neill, who heads the BMD office, the missile defense operation for the Pentagon, to tell us where he would put additional dollars if the Congress were to provide those dollars to him. So we followed his advice in plussed-up money for theater missile protection, for a robust national missile program that had been devastated by the President's request, and by a plus-up in the cruise missile area, because of the threat that cruise missile proliferation poses not just to the American people, but to our troops wherever they are deployed, and we did those plus-ups, Mr. Speaker. We fully funded programs in theater missile defense like those that are being tested right now for use in those theaters where our troops are in fact going to be committed in the future. We plussed up national missile defense to give us the ability over a period of 3, 4, or 5 years, to have a system in place much like one the Russians already have. Most American people when you ask them whether or not they believe that we have a system like the Russians have to protect themselves against an accidental launch, they would tell you, oh, sure we have a system like that, obvious. They cannot believe that we today do not have a national missile defense system to protect the American people against a rogue nation launch. Mr. Speaker, we also saw the threat in our hearings of cruise missile proliferation. We saw that 77 nations in the world today have cruise missiles that they are capable of using right now, today. We heard testimony from experts, including the administration, that over 20 nations are today building cruise missiles, some of them very sophisticated, well beyond what we saw with the Scuds, even beyond what we saw with our own capabilities in terms of cruise missiles. We have to put more of our resources in protecting our people and our troops from the threat of a cruise missile situation. Mr. Speaker, we did all of these things and we did them finally in a way that this administration could not stand up and say was in violation of the ABM Treaty. That is a very important point, Mr. Speaker, because some in our Congress and in this institution wanted us to take the treaty head on on the bill. While I have serious reservations about the ABM Treaty, I think in the end the treaty has outlived its usefulness, I think we are dealing in a different world today; I was in agreement that that should be a debate left and a fight left for a different day. This bill, when it left the House last week and when it left the Senate today, by a vote of 51 to 43, in no way violates the ABM Treaty. In fact, it is totally consistent with the ABM Treaty. We in fact now have on the record both the Army and the Air Force telling us that we can deploy a single-sight system which is compliant with the ABM Treaty, as the Russians already have and have upgraded at least two times since they have had that system, that can protect the entire 48 States and Alaska and Hawaii. The Air Force says they can do it using the existing Minuteman system with upgrades costing about $2.5 billion over 4 years. The Army says they can do it using THAAD for a cost of $4 billion to $5 billion over the same time period. Well, we say in our bill that we want a system deployed by the year 2000. We want a system that is not pie-in-the-sky. We want a system where we know that technology is available today that we can afford that will give us no more than what the Russians have. My colleagues on the other side during the debate on the conference bill last week said, well, the Russians' system does not protect the entire nation of Russia. Mr. Speaker, the ABM system that Russia deploys today protects 80 percent of the population of Russia because it was designed when it used to be the Soviet Union. So they already have a system, so that if we were to fire a missile at Russia, they could protect their citizens. If a rogue nation like Iraq or Iran or Libya were to fire a missile, they could, in effect, shoot up their missiles to protect their people. We have no such system today, even though it is totally and completely allowable under the terms of the ABM Treaty. Mr. Speaker, the bill that we send to President Clinton tonight, approved by both bodies of this institution, does not violate any treaty, and if the President says that to the American people tomorrow, he is just not being truthful. Mr. Speaker, that is really an outrage, because we have been extremely careful. In fact, in the negotiations that we were involved in with the Senate, with Senator Thurman and Senator Nunn and with Senator Lott, we were very careful in bringing in the administration's point person on missile defense, Bob Bell. He raised eight specific concerns in the bill with us, issues involving missile defense. We were able to resolve each of those items, and finally it came down to Bob Bell realizing that we were not going to give in on the issue of a date certain for deployment. He found out also, and I know he has called various officials in the administration that would be able to respond to this question, that what we have done in this bill in no way violates the ABM Treaty. So what is really going to come down to the actual decision of the President and whether to veto this bill or not if he does veto it and uses the issue of missile defense, is very simple: It is that this President does not want to provide a system to provide any defensive protection for the American people. Mr. Speaker, that is outrageous because we are not talking about building more offensive weapons. We are beyond that now. We are talking about defending the American people. We are talking about a defensive system that would be able to shoot an incoming missile if it were fired not just from Russia but from China, who we know is developing a CSS-2 system that has tremendous capabilities. We know the North Koreans are about ready to deploy a new system that could eventually reach Hawaii and parts of Alaska. We know that Iraq and Iran want to buy these systems. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I am going to include an article that appeared in the Washington Post on December 15 where the United Nations came out and said they have found documentation of missile parts and state-of- the-art technology to be used for long-range missiles that were bound for Iraq, that were made in Russia. This is not something that came out years ago. This is from the December 15 issue of the Washington Post. I am putting the entire article in the Record, because in the article the United Nations verifies that missile components that can be used by Iraq to develop a long-range missile that we cannot defend ourselves against have now been captured, and even though Russia is denying where they came from, they have no idea, the best guess is that someone within the former Soviet Union has made these parts available in the black market. Mr. Speaker, let me also say that our efforts here are not about sticking a twig in the eye of the Russian nation. This is not about calling the Russian nation an evil empire. As most of my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, I have been a student of the Russian government and people since I graduated from college with my undergraduate degree in Russian studies. I have spoken the language, I have traveled there, I have lived in homes. In the past year alone, I have hosted 120 members of the Russian Duma in my office and here on the Hill. I lead the bipartisan effort in the area of energy cooperation with my colleagues Greg Laughlin and Steny Hoyer and Glenn Poshard. For the last 3 years, we have worked with our energy companies to encourage and follow through on joint energy deals. Just today we learned that the Sakhalin one and two deal had been grandfathered by legislation passed by the Russian Duma. These two projects, when completed, will see the largest western investment of dollars in energy development in the history of Russia and the former Soviet republics. In the area of the environment, working with Nikolay Vorontsov in the Russian Duma, I lead American efforts to work with the Russians on cleaning up their nuclear waste. In January, I will be in St. Petersburg representing America in a major conference on ocean protection. Last week, in the first ever subcommittee of our committee on ocean protection, I brought over Aleksey Yablokov, the leading environmental advocate in Russia, a member of Yeltsin's National Security Council, who testified for an hour before my subcommittee in terms of ways that we can work together to deal with the problem of ocean dumping that he helped expose in his homeland of Russian. We are not about a radical agenda. Mr. Speaker, these efforts are designed to say yes, we want to build a strong relationship with Russian. We want to work with its leadership and its people and its Duma, but we do not want to do it with blinders on and we do not want to walk into a situation where we have some of the former military leaders still thinking that it is the cold war. Some will say, well, that is not true. Mr. Speaker, let me include some other articles in my special order this evening. The first is an article that appeared in Krymskaya Pravda, and I monitor the FBIS reports, the Foreign Information Broadcast Service, every day. Every article that appears in the Russian media that is highlighted there, I go through. This one caught my eye from November 28 of this year. It is an article written by Admiral Baltin, who was commander of the Black Sea fleet, hero of the Soviet Union. Remember, the Russian Navy and the Soviet Navy has had a reputation of being among the best in the world, in many cases able to go toe-to- toe with our Navy. Here we have the commander, the current commander of the Baltic fleet, Admiral Baltin, doing an article in the Russian media about his state of concern for what is happening in his country. I would encourage all of our colleagues to read this article in depth, Mr. Speaker, because in this article Admiral Baltin makes the case that we are in the midst of World War II. He says this is not a war like we have fought in the past. He refers to it, and I will use his direct quote, as a velvet war, a velvet war because the United States has sucked Russia into a process of not being able to defend itself. And what does he advocate? He advocates, and I will quote him directly here, ``World War III is not over.'' The last of the elements that are inaccessible to the West is Russia with its nuclear might. He goes on to say that Russia must not do away with its nuclear arsenal but must reinforce it, that it is the only way to deal with the West. Now, Mr. Speaker, this is not some radical person in the Russian media. This is the commanding officer, a decorated admiral in charge of the Baltic fleet, just recently, Mr. Speaker, on November 28 of this year. Now, I am not saying he speaks for Boris Yeltsin, I am not even saying he speaks for Pavel Grachev, but this is the mindset of some of the military leaders inside Russia that we have to be aware of, that we cannot ignore it. Or, Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps we ought to look at some of the comments made by the fellow I had in America last week before my subcommittee, Aleksey Yablokov. Three articles, again appearing in FBIS, this time on November 21, 1995, a week before he came over here to testify before my subcommittee. The first article quotes Mr. Yablokov in his criticism of the Russian military. He has done this repeatedly in the Russian press. This article appeared in Itar Tass in Moscow. It was an article that ran on their national TV network. Yablokov criticizes the Russian General Staff Chief Kolesnikov in his report that Russia only has 40,000 tons of chemical weapons in its arsenal. Yablokov in this article says that is not true. We know Russia has 100,000 tons of chemical weapons. Mr. Speaker, this is not a Member of Congress saying this. This is not some radical journalist saying this. This is a member of Boris Yeltsin's Security Council in the Russian media telling the Russian people that the military is not being honest, that it is not 40,000 tons of chemical weapons, there are 100,000 tons. In this article he says to the military, ``Tell us what you have done with the other 60,000 tons of chemical weapons. Are they hidden someplace? Have you buried them? Where are they?'' The second article, also quoting Mr. Yablokov, deals with miniature nuclear weapons. Again Mr. Yablokov questions the small nuclear weapons that are portable that Russia has, which they admit they have, that can be used in a battlefield environment. Mr. Yablokov in this case disagrees with the Russian military leadership as to the extent and the potential impact these nuclear weapons could have in a theater of operation, let alone the damage they could cause accidentally. That article appeared, by the way, in Itar Tass, as I mentioned. The third article appeared in English in Interface in Moscow. It deals with decontaminated nuclear submarines. Mr. Yablokov again is quoted. This time he says that as the Russian military is decommissioning its nuclear submarines, 50 of them still contain nuclear fuel that they do not know how to deal with, and that 7 to 10 of these submarines have nuclear fuel that cannot be extracted for technical reasons. He goes on to say, and I quote, ``These submarines are the source of super high danger.'' Mr. Speaker, may point is simple: All of us, and certainly me, want to have a stable relationship with Russia. When I go to Russia in January, besides attending a conference on the oceans in St. Petersburg, I will be in Moscow, and I will be following up on establishing a process, a formal process, with members of the Russian Duma National Security Council for an ongoing dialogue with members of our congressional Committee on National Security. This is an outgrowth of discussions that my good friend and colleague who I am going to yield to in a moment, Duncan Hunter from California, Chairman Floyd Spence and I, along with Congressman and Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations Bob Livingston, had with members of the Russian Duma defense committees for 3 hours behind closed doors last spring. Mr. Speaker, we want stable relations with Russia. Mr. Speaker, I want Russia to succeed economically, and my actions prove that. Mr. Speaker, I want us to help the Russians solve their environmental problems, and my actions prove that. Mr. Speaker, I am reaching out to Duma members every day. If this President, Mr. Speaker, stands up and says that we are somehow radical people who want to distort the balance between our Nation and Russia, then, Mr. Speaker, I have a problem, and I will deal with that problem very vocally and verbally because the President, or whoever would say that, would in fact not be honest with the American people. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask that the President seriously consider supporting the bill. The elections that occurred this past weekend in Russia showed a small, not a really significant gain, but a gain by the Communist party. They garnered 22 percent of the vote. If you couple that with Zhirinovsky's party which pulled 11 percent of the vote or 12 percent of the vote, you have seen some reactionary movements in Russia, but that should not scare us. Mr. Speaker, we want to work with people like Yablokov, we want to work with people like Yeltsin, but we do not want to do it in a vacuum or with blinders on our eyes. We want to protect the American people, and we want to make sure that in the end the people of Russia have the same protection that we have. What is ironic about this whole thing, Mr. Speaker, if President Clinton were to veto this defense bill because we in fact are wanting to establish a national missile defense capability, the irony is that this President wants to give one of our key allies, Israel, a national missile defense largely paid for by the American people, to protect the people of Israel, but does not want that same protection for the people of America. Mr. Speaker, that to me is the ultimate irony. Let me say in closing, before I yield to my friends here, I am a supporter of the ARROW program. It was my friend and colleague Duncan Hunter, who is here tonight, who 7, 8, 9 years ago wrote a letter to the administration and to the Israelis suggesting as their strong friends and allies that instead of pursuing a Leve technology for a Leve fighter plane that they shift to missile defense. The outgrowth that that effort is the ARROW system being developed today with Israel paying a portion of the cost and America paying a portion of the cost. Is it ironic that this President and some people that are recommending bad advice to him in threatening a veto for this bill would want to fund a defensive system for Israel but not one for the United States? It just does not make sense. So I hope the President is listening, and I hope he heeds our warning that this is a good bill and certainly one worthy of his consideration. I will be happy to yield to my friend and colleague from California the chairman of the Procurement and Acquisition Committee who did such a great job in the process of this bill and I am sure he is going to talk about the positive aspects of the bill as they were developed by his subcommittee, Duncan Hunter from California.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding, and I want to join with my friends on both sides of the aisle in paying tribute to an outstanding American leader, John Dingell, although I hate to say, John, when you first started out in this body, I was in grade school, but, like many of us here, we knew you by reputation long before we got here, and, growing up in a State that has many similar problems to the State of Michigan, the State of Pennsylvania, a State that has had the problems associated with what we refer to as the Rust Belt, we in our State saw you fighting for jobs, and economic growth and development years ago. As a former mayor of a small town, an industrial town, and the county commissioner of that county, your reputation for being a fighter on behalf of working people was known throughout our Commonwealth as it has been known throughout the Nation. There also was another reputation that you instilled in many of us on this side, but also on your side, and that is the word ``fear'' because before coming to Congress, as a local official and then getting here as a freshman and sophomore, I know many a bureaucrat who feared having John Dingell, and his committee, and his investigators come in to basically get the facts on a given issue or a given set of circumstances, especially where you had evidence that things perhaps were not operating as they should, and perhaps the taxpayers and the citizens were not being as well served as they should be served by this Government, and so that fear really was out of respect for you and the job that you have established a reputation in doing for the entire time you have been here, as someone who is willing to take on any fight, any battle that you believe in and which warrants the attention of this body. But in the last 3 years I have come to know you in a different capacity, and it has been a very enjoyable one for me. I have had the pleasure of serving as the Republican along with our colleague, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], on the Migratory Bird Commission, a rather obscure commission that only has seven members, two Members of the Senate from each party, two Members of the House, one from each party, and the Secretaries of Agriculture, Interior, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The seven of us meet throughout the year three or four times and basically decide how to spend the moneys that are raised from the sale of duck stamps for hunting licenses and conservation practices and to implement the programs established under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act as well as those administered by the Migratory Bird Commission. Mr. Speaker, it was the legacy of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] following his father to establish that whole effort in this country, and we talk about Federal programs that some would say have been boondoggles. Let me tell you one that is a shining example of something that both parties can point to, and conservatives and liberals can point to, that works amazingly well, the program that John Dingell has kind of like, I guess, been the grandfather of, if you will, because we honored him for 25 years of service in that capacity just this past year. He has protected millions of acres of wetlands in this country for ducks, and for hunting and for wetlands protection, not with a strong arm of Government, not with mandated actions, not with condemning properties, but with the voluntary acquisition of property that our Government has been able to enter into agreements with, all across America, to protect our vital wilderness area and our wetlands, and no one has done more in that regard than John Dingell. Mr. Speaker, for years he was associated with the late Silvio Conte, and the two of them were a dynamic team because they were the two that represented the House in fighting for the support for this very valuable, but ofttimes unheralded, program. But, John, you know people all over this country know that you have been there day in and day out fighting for not just the continuation of this very successful effort, but fighting to make sure, working with conservation groups, working with the Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy, to not just espouse conservation concerns, but also to take a very aggressive--yet in some cases you can argue a very conservative approach to protecting the land of this country through these two commissions, and you have just been a hero in that regard. And I can remember when I first joined the Commission and had the honor of sitting next to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] at the first meeting and said, you know, I am here to learn. He said, ``No, my friend, you are here as my partner,'' and that is a typical attitude of a John Dingell, to have someone who, still wet behind the ears, who is at that point in time a fourth-term Member of congress, sit down next to a veteran who has been through so many battles that I could never begin to name and to consider me an equal partner in the struggle to make sure we continue the fine work established with the tradition of excellence that the Migratory Bird Commission, the North American Wetlands Conservation Program represent. So I join with my colleagues today in saying congratulations and thank you. You are a role model for me. We may not always agree on the issues, but you are always a role model, the way you handle yourself, the way you do your homework, the way you present your facts, the way you fight for your causes, the way that you work with every ounce of energy and body until you accomplish what you set out to achieve. Those are all the traits that all of us can and do admire and respect in you, and I am a better person for having known you and worked with you and look forward to many more years of being a colleague and associate of the Honorable John Dingell. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], for having yielded to me.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank both of my colleagues for their cooperation here and for joining me here in this special order to reiterate to the President and to our colleagues the importance of this bill becoming law. It would be a real tragedy for the American troops and for the American people if this President ignored the authorization process, ignored the acquisition reform, ignored the pay raise, the benefits in terms of housing that were outlined by my friend from California, and the advances we have made in areas like missile defense consistent with his own people in the Pentagon if we would choose to veto this legislation. I would say to my friends and colleagues that we will be there to respond to whatever case this President attempts to make as to why this bill should be vetoed. If it is based on the missile defense, we are going to have an out-and-out war on our hands, because it will have to be filled with untruths, because of the efforts we went to to meet the administration more than halfway in getting a bill finished that he can sign into law. With that, I thank both of the gentleman, I thank our staff and our distinguished Speaker, the scholarly gentleman from the deep South, from Arkansas, Mr. Dickey, for bearing with us this time. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the articles mentioned: [From the Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1995] U.N. Is Said to Find Russian Markings on Iraq-Bound Military Equipment (By R. Jeffrey Smith) United Nations investigators have determined that an Iraq- bound shipment of sophisticated military equipment seized by Jordanian authorities last month was built in Russia and may have been designed for use in long-range, intercontinental missiles, according to informed diplomatic sources. The shipment, which has been valued by the United Nations at more than $25 million, was seized on a western government's tip just days before it was to be shipped to Iraq, the sources said. They said it consisted of about 100 sets of advanced guidance equipment, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, which Iraq may have wanted to use in banned missiles capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads. The equipment was shipped in 30 or so boxes to Jordan's capital Amman in August on flights that originated in Moscow, according to three diplomatic sources. But Washington is uncertain whether the export was secretly sanctioned by part of the Russian government or was the work of criminals who obtained the parts in Russia on the black market, officials said. If the United Nations confirms that the equipment was meant for use in long-range missiles, it would mark the first occasion that such advanced missile technology has been exported from Russia to a country considered hostile to U.S. interests. If the export was approved by Moscow it would be a violation of Russia's pledge to abide by the terms of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a global accord aimed at stopping the spread of missiles capable of carrying nuclear, chemical or biological warheads. It would also violate Russian promises to adhere to the global trade embargo imposed on Iraq by the U.N. Security Council after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. If the Russian export was instead illicit, it suggests that long-standing U.S. fears that such advanced arms technology would eventually leak from Russia are finally being borne out, a U.S. official said on condition he not be named. ``There is a very real . . . possibility that this was provided by black marketeers'' who obtained it directly from the Russian military's stockpile of long-range missile equipment, he said. Although the Clinton administration has not yet raised the matter directly with the Russian government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow issued a statement last week denying any knowledge of the shipment. ``It does not belong to Russia,'' said a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, U.S. and U.N. officials said the denial was not credible, however, because the parts were clearly marked and recognizable. ``These are Russian-made components, definitely,'' one official said. The parts were designed for use in Russian long-range missiles but could be adapted for use in shorter- range missiles. Documents obtained by the United Nations indicate that the missile parts had been ordered by the Karama research center near Baghdad, where Iraq continues to work on missiles with a range of less than 150 kilometers (about 90 miles). Such short-range missiles are allowed by the cease-fire resolutions approved by the United Nations, which sought only to prohibit arms capable of directly threatening Iraq's neighbors. But Iraq has not claimed it was trying to buy the parts to use with such short-range missiles; it instead has sought to pin the blame for the attempted export on any overly enthusiastic Jordanian businessman who it claims tried to sell the banned parts on at least two occasions this year without ever receiving an Iraqi tender offer or negotiating contract. ``The Iraqi industrial facility refused this offer categorically, in compliance with United Nations resolutions,'' the Iraqi News Agency said in a written statement issued in Baghdad last week. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who is visiting the United Nations this week to seek an early lifting of the punitive trade embargo, told U.N. officials on Tuesday that the seller had been arrested by the government pending a full investigation. He also alleged that the incident had resulted from a conspiracy meant to undermine Iraqi cooperation with the United Nations. A knowledgeable diplomatic source identified the businessman as a Palestinian from Gaza and Wiyam Abu Gharbieh, and said his company's name was listed on the shipping manifests for the equipment. ``We have reason to believe the Iraqi account [of official disinterest in the parts] is inaccurate,'' a U.N. official said. U.S. officials said that Iraq may have wanted to use the guidance equipment on banned medium-range missiles, which they suspect remain hidden in Iraq. Alternatively, Iraq may have wanted to stockpile the equipment until it could produce other vital long-range missile components, an effort that would require many years to complete. U.S. intelligence officials said they are confident that any Iraqi attempt to develop, assemble and test such a missile would be detected long in advance. ``We now have tangible proof of our statement'' in October that Iraq was still trying to buy sensitive missile parts from foreign suppliers, said Swedish envoy Rolf Ekeus, who chairs the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq. He added that `'we don't think this [revelation] is the end of the road,'' because Iraq has made other such purchases or attempted purchases.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman because he played a major role as one of our newer Members of this institution, hit the ground running and played a major role in pushing the agenda of acquisition reform that is going to help us save the dwindling defense dollars that we are currently spending. We appreciate your leadership. It is not often that a Member comes in here and makes that kind of a difference, and we on the defense committee--I know the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] shares my feelings--appreciate the leadership of you on the Government Ops Committee who played a key role in getting this added to our defense bill.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report. We have heard three major issues raised here. First of all, we raised the issue of spending money on the military as opposed to jobs. I would ask my colleagues to express that feeling to the 600,000 union workers who have lost their jobs in the last 8 years, primarily in the UAW and the Machinists, because of defense cuts. We have heard about budgetary increases. I would ask my colleagues not to ask the political appointees at the Pentagon but to ask the service chiefs, each one of whom came to us personally and asked for the additional funding that we plused up. But my real concern is the outrage expressed by several of our colleagues over this bill violating treaties. This bill in no way violates any treaty of this country. Period. Not the ABM treaty, not the START Treaty. In fact, we have now boxed the administration into an impossible position for them. Because now, in agreement with Senator Nunn and the administration over the language, we have removed all but one key difference, and that is a date certain for deploying a system, not a system that will violate the ABM treaty but a system in line with what the Russians already have. The Russians have the world's only operational ABM system, and what we have done now is, we have allowed for the deployment of a similar system that the Army and the Air Force have both said on the record they could do from a single site, not in violation of the ABM treaty; in the Air Force case at a cost of $2.25 billion over 4 years, in the Army's case using FAD at a cost of $5 billion over 4 years. The reason the administration is threatening a veto, Mr. Speaker, is very simple and very clear: They are now between a rock and a hard place. We have removed all the rhetoric. There is no more contention that this violates any treaty, because Bob Bell and the administration knows full well it does not. What this bill simply says is, we want to have the same potential to defend the American people that the Russians have within the confines of the ABM treaty. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the President to put up or shut up, and protect the people or veto this bill.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. The Army and the Air Force have both testified they can deploy a single site to protect all 50 States.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 325. As an original cosponsor of this legislation, I am pleased that this noncontroversial measure can be brought before the House today under the Corrections Day Calendar. I grew up in a small oil refinery town just outside of Philadelphia. I can remember vividly the smell of burning oil in the air on a daily basis. Because of this experience, I have always supported strong clean air regulations. I voted for the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 [CAAA] and believe the goal of reducing air pollution should not be abandoned. Over time, however, certain provisions of the Clean Air Act have proven to be unworkable. The implementation of employee trip reduction [ETR] requirements of the CAAA are of great concern to many businesses and employees in the Seventh Congressional District. Due to a single air quality reading in Chester, PA, the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] designated the Philadelphia Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area [AMSA] as a severe nonattainment area under the CAAA. ETR is one of several strict mandates required by the CAAA for regions of the Nation which are classified as severe. Significant scientific concerns have been raised about EPA's air quality monitoring and the single data point from Chester which places the entire Philadelphia CMSA into the severe category. Based on these and other concerns, I wrote to then-Governor Casey asking him to press the EPA to reclassify Philadelphia from severe to serious. Regions classified as serious are required to clean up the air sooner than those classified as severe, but are not required to establish ETR programs. The ETR Program--while never fully implemented--would likely have proven costly to businesses with little real significant reduction in air pollutants. Last Spring, Governor Ridge announced that he would not implement the ETR requirements. The EPA concurred and publicly stated it would not force States to implement the program. The legislation before us today will allow States like Pennsylvania to willingly opt out of the ETR Program without the threat of third party lawsuits based on noncompliance. This legislation is important for areas like Philadelphia where attainment goals are needed for improved air quality but where these goals can be reached without a costly unfunded mandate on businesses in and around the region. I strongly support H.R. 325 and commend Congressman Manzullo for his efforts to bring this bill to the floor today.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, just to add my comments to our friend and colleague from California. I came to the session of the Congress that the gentleman came to and have had the highest respect for him in the 9 years I have known him. The gentleman will leave this body and will leave a great loss to us because he has been a key leader and someone that all of us respect on both sides of the aisle. But he certainly is the gain for the NAACP and those issues which he will lead this country forward on. We look forward to working with the gentleman in his new capacity and pledge the gentleman our full cooperation. He has been a real inspiration to Members on both sides of the aisle. We will miss him, but we look forward to his leadership on an even greater height for all of America.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in anticipation of this body voting on a resolution in regard to the situation in Bosnia sometime before the end of this week. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues in this body, I have expressed grave reservations over the last several months about the possibility of placing our ground troops in the Bosnian theater. I have recorded my vote on at least two occasions in opposition to sending ground troops in, despite having supported the President's use of U.S. forces for air strikes, for the sealift and airlift, and for the command and control and other support necessary for NATO's involvement in that part of the world. While I have opposed the use of ground forces in Bosnia, and while this body has gone on record on at least two occasions in stating its opposition to the use of ground forces, at one time by a vote that gathered in excess of 300 Members of this body in a bipartisan manner, all of us know that in fact the President has made his own decision to deploy troops and, in fact, that deployment is taking place as we speak here this evening. Therefore, it would be my hope that the resolution that we consider this week does not, in fact, send in any way a signal to our troops that we do not support them. Mr. Speaker, I come tonight before our colleagues and I ask them to consider cosponsoring this evening, or tomorrow morning, sometime tomorrow, House Concurrent Resolution 118. This bipartisan legislation was introduced by myself and my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Paul McHale, who is also a member of the Committee on National Security. Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 118 is a sense of the Congress resolution that has had its language mirrored in two other pieces of legislation; one that has since been introduced in the House, and a second that has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Dole, that basically puts this body on record saying that while we have voted against sending ground troops into Bosnia, that in fact the President as Commander in Chief of the military has the authority to do that and has done such. Therefore, while he has taken actions that we have, in fact, expressed our concern with and oppose, it is time now to support the troops as they follow out the requirements laid out by their Commander in Chief, the President of this country. So, Mr. Speaker, our resolution states we in fact support the troops, even though we have opposed the policy. But it goes on to state something even more important, Mr. Speaker, something that I think every Member of this body wants to express their support for. That is, now that we have committed troops to Bosnia, and now that this President as Commander in Chief has spoken, we want to make sure that there is no second guessing of the military requirement to support those troops; that in fact when General Joulwan, who is the theater commander for the entire operation in the Bosnian theater, asks for support, troops, or equipment, that there is not a second guessing of that request; that that request is dealt with immediately and is dealt with in a forthright manner. The reason why it is important for this body to emphasize that support being immediate, Mr. Speaker, is because of what occurred in Somalia, where a similar request came in by the commander in charge of the Somalian theater in August, 1 month before an air fight occurred between American forces and one of the Somali warlords, which caused 18 young Americans to be killed. There are some who have said that if we had given that commanding officer the support he asked for, perhaps we could have saved those 18 lives. So, while we may disagree with the President's policy, but he has the right to do what he has done, and while we want to support our troops, let us also go on record, Mr. Speaker, in a very emphatic way, and say that we want to make sure that the administration knows, that the Pentagon knows, that when the commanding officer in Bosnia asks for additional backup, that he gets immediate consideration. That is perhaps the most important statement that we can make this week. Mr. Speaker, I hope our colleagues will cosponsor House Concurrent Resolution 118 and will also vote for it if given the opportunity to consider its passage when it comes to the House floor. House Concurrent Resolution 118 enjoys broad bipartisan support. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Jack Murtha, one of our leading members of the minority party on defense, is supportive, as is the gentleman from California, Duke Cunningham, as are members of our Committee on National Security, the gentleman from Rhode Island, Patrick Kennedy, and the gentleman from Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, as well as some of our younger Members, the gentleman from Montgomery County, PA, Jon Fox, and others who are joining with us in making this statement. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage our colleagues to join with us tonight and tomorrow in supporting House Concurrent Resolution 118, to send the right message from this body as to where we stand in terms of full support for a decision that many of us oppose, but now must show that the troops will not be shortchanged when it comes to protecting their lives and their well-being.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to address the issue of Bosnia and to outline the text of a resolution that was introduced yesterday by my colleague on the other side, Paul McHale, and I, both members of the House Committee on National Security. Mr. Speaker, I have consistently opposed the President's policy on Bosnia and I oppose it today. I voted for the motions to lift the arms embargo because I felt we were not leveling the playing field in that country. We could have prevented many of the atrocities that have occurred there over the past several years, the ones that President Clinton talked to the American people about just a week ago. I supported the resolution in opposition to the President sending in ground troops. I think it is a grave mistake to put our young people in the midst of this turmoil, and in fact have stated so repeatedly and believe today that we are making a mistake. However, Mr. Speaker, the President is the Commander in Chief, and has the ability to deploy our troops where he sees fit. Unfortunately, this President, despite votes taken in this body and the other body, overwhelmingly bipartisan, objecting to his policy, has already committed our troops to Bosnia. There is not much we can do about that, Mr. Speaker, and that is unfortunate. However, Mr. Speaker, we can in fact do something now, and that is what my resolution and the resolution joined by my friend, Mr. McHale does. Our resolution acknowledges that this Congress has gone on record repeatedly against inserting ground troops. Our resolution also acknowledges that the President is the Commander in Chief and, as such, can send our troops and deploy them where he wants. The resolution does state that we in this Congress overwhelmingly support the sons and daughters of America serving in our military who are going to be deployed to Bosnia. But furthermore and perhaps most significantly, what our resolution says is that now that this President has committed our troops, there will be no political second-guessing of the support necessary for them to complete their mission. The reason why we make this statement, Mr. Speaker, is just a few short years ago when our troops were in Somalia, a request was made by the general in charge of those troops for backup support. We would later find out that that request was denied. When asked why it was denied, the Secretary of Defense at that time, Les Aspin, a friend of mine until he passed away a few short months ago, said that the political climate in Washington was not right to deploy more troops to that theater. Mr. Speaker, we must never again allow a political decision to decide the fate of our troops. In Somalia, 18 young men and women were killed because we did not provide the adequate backup 1 month after a request was made for additional support. That must not happen in this case and will not happen, because my resolution says that whatever General Joulwan wants in the way of backup, whether it be personnel, whether it be heavy artillery, whether it be air support, or whatever that need is, that there be no political second-guessing from the White House. The DOD and the administration must immediately respond to the request determined by the general in charge of the theater who has been given the responsibility to protect the lives of our kids. Mr. Speaker, this is the least that we can do to protect our young Americans who are being assigned by this President to go into a hostile area that most of us agree they should not be going to. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us. We already have bipartisan support. The numbers are growing. We have been joined by Mr. Kennedy on the other side, by Mr. Cunningham on our [[Page H 14212]] side, and by a number of other Members, and I would ask our colleagues to call my office today, or Mr. McHale's office, to sign up as cosponsors so that we can let this President know that while we disagree with him, he is going to give our troops the support that they need, they deserve and they warrant in terms of the operation in the Bosnian theater.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Easy 6,000, probably closer to 7,000. How about air strikes that we provided?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Whatever General Joulwan wants, this Congress and this administration better give it to him. And we will be watching every request that comes over from General Joulwan, who has been given the responsibility to protect our troops and give them the resources we need. And this Congress, and I know the gentleman shares my feelings as chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel and perhaps no one speaks more eloquently for our men and women in the military than the gentleman, and with the experience he has had and with the background he has had, he is the perfect chairman of that subcommittee, but that we will make sure that we will not have a repeat of Somalia in this operation, even though the overwhelming majority of our colleagues disagree with sending ground troops there in the first place.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. R&D subcommittee, which Chairman Spence asked me to chair, took testimony from at least three people whose stories have been corroborated that perhaps there has been some dumbing down of intelligence reports relative to Russian command and control. So the purpose of the hearing tomorrow is not to just look at the environmental problems of Russia and to work with those good people like Dr. Yablokov, who are not afraid to stand up and speak the truth, but also to point up the fact that we in this country who want improved long-term relations with the Russians, and I certainly do as chairman of the Russian-American energy caucus and as a member of the environmental caucus that works with Russian duma member Nikolai Veronsov on environmental issues, that we must never oversee the way that Russia deals with the most potent force that they have, and that is their nuclear arsenal. Dr. Yablokov, who is in our country right now to be present at the press conference and hearing tomorrow is the prime person in all of Russia who has been willing to stand up and question the leadership. Just last week I read the FIBITS reports, as I do everyday, on Russia.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. If the gentleman will yield, I just want to add, I agree, there is the worst administration photo op I have seen. It offends me, not just a photo op like that, and I share my colleague's feelings about that, but that we would in a case of having our troops deployed overseas ever deny adequate backup and support as requested by the on-scene commander. In the 9 years I have been here, that has only happened one time, and that was in Somalia. We in the Congress did not find out about it until after it was over. That led to the resignation of Les Aspin, who was a good friend of both of ours. That is never going to happen again. As I said to Secretary Perry and Christopher and General Shalikashvili, this President, through his chain of command, has put General Joulwan in charge of that theater of operations.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Remember the gift ban.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I will pay you.