*EPF307 05/02/01
Text: Senator Dorgan Criticizes Bush's Missile Defense Plan
(Sen. Byron Dorgan's April 30 speech on missile defense) (1840)

Proponents of missile defense should be aware of the limitations of such a system, according to the chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.

Senator Byron Dorgan (Democrat of North Dakota), a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, issued that cautionary note in an April 30 speech before the Senate.

"I would like to urge my colleagues and President Bush to try to develop a balanced view of all of this and understand that there are consequences to all of it," Dorgan said.

"We have a range of threats," Dorgan said. "Let's deal with that range of threats."

Dorgan said he supports research and development for missile defense but does not support deployment of a system "we have not yet demonstrated to be workable."

"The threat it is supposed to counter is one of the least likely threats this country faces," he said.

What people need to understand, Dorgan said, is that "the national missile defense program that is being discussed by the administration, and that was discussed by past administrations, is not a national missile defense program that would safeguard this country against, for example, a nuclear missile attack by Russia or China."

In fact, he continued, it is "a system that is very narrow, which, if it worked, would provide a kind of catcher's mitt against an attack by a rogue nation of one or two or three or four missiles."

A rogue nation or a terrorist leader who gains access to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and wants to launch that ICBM would, in theory, "confront an American national missile defense program that would be able to go up and catch that missile as it came in and explode it," Dorgan said.

"It has never been an approach that has been advertised to protect us against a more robust attack by just one submarine launching missiles from all of its tubes coming from Russia. It would not defend us against that," he said.

"People should understand what is being talked about here," Dorgan said. "Despite the fact that we don't have a system that works, we have people saying we ought to deploy it immediately."

Following is the text of Dorgan's remarks from the Congressional Record:

(begin text)

MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM
Senate
April 30, 2001

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, tomorrow President Bush will make a speech on the subject of national missile defense. I want to comment briefly about that.

A national missile defense sounds perfectly plausible to a good many people. In fact, we have colleagues in this Chamber who believe very strongly that we ought to begin deploying a national missile defense immediately, despite the fact, of course, that we don't have a national missile defense that works. The last time we did a test of the system was last summer. In that test, we sent up a missile with a target warhead. We knew what the target was, we knew where it was going to be, and we knew when it was going to be there. Despite that, we could not hit it with our interceptor.

These are very simple, rudimentary tests, and we have not been able to demonstrate through those tests that we have a national missile defense system that works.

Some say: Well, but shouldn't we have a national missile defense system in the event that someone launches missiles at this country?

What they need to understand is that the national missile defense program that is being discussed by the administration, and that was discussed by past administrations, is not a national missile defense program that would safeguard this country against, for example, a nuclear missile attack by Russia or China. No. It is in fact a system that is very narrow, which, if it worked, would provide a kind of catcher's mitt against an attack by a rogue nation of one or two or three or four missiles.

A rogue nation or a terrorist leader getting access to an ICBM, as improbable as that might be, and wanting to launch that ICBM would confront an American national missile defense program that would be able to go up and catch that missile as it came in and explode it. That is the theory. It has never been an approach that has been advertised to protect us against a more robust attack by just one submarine launching missiles from all of its tubes coming from Russia. It would not defend us against that.

So people should understand what is being talked about here. Despite the fact that we don't have a system that works, we have people saying we ought to deploy it immediately. Deploy what? What kind of a system? The last test failed. Ought not we have a system that is demonstrated to have worked before we talk about deploying it?

Second, there are other problems. In order to deploy a national missile defense program--some call it Star Wars, and others have other names for it--in order to deploy that with the time of deployment that is envisioned, we would have to violate the ABM Treaty.

That ABM Treaty has been the centerpiece of our arms reduction efforts. Our arms reduction efforts with the old Soviet Union and now Russia have been quite successful. We have far fewer nuclear weapons than we used to--far too many, but far fewer than we used to have, and fewer delivery vehicles as well.

The centerpiece of those reductions in nuclear arms has been the ABM Treaty. Some say this treaty is obsolete, let's get rid of it. If we do that, we will have, in my judgment, dealt a significant blow to the future of arms reductions.

If we get rid of the ABM Treaty, as President Bush suggests and as some of my colleagues suggest, in my judgment, we will retreat back to a situation where Russia and China and other countries will build more offensive weapons even as we try to build this limited national missile defense system.

In addition to the issue of the ABM Treaty and the violation of that treaty by building a national missile defense system, we also are encountering vigorous opposition from virtually all of our allies who are very concerned that if we build a new national missile defense program it will ignite a new arms race, especially with Russia and with the Chinese. That is a very real and valid concern.

I would like to urge my colleagues and President Bush to try to develop a balanced view of all of this and understand that there are consequences to all of it. We have a range of threats. Yes, let's deal with that range of threats. I happen to support research and development for our national missile defense system. I do not support deployment of a system we have not yet demonstrated to be workable. The threat it is supposed to counter is one of the least likely threats this country faces.

By far the most likely threat we face is for a terrorist or a rogue nation to get ahold of a suitcase-size nuclear bomb and put it in the trunk of an old rusty Desoto car and park it on a dock somewhere in New York or Chicago. That is by far a much more likely scenario of a terrorist act. Or instead of a suitcase bomb, perhaps someone will use a deadly vial of chemical or biological agents that can kill millions of people. That is a much more likely scenario--a much more likely weapon of mass destruction to be used by a rogue nation or a terrorist state.

We ought to deal with all of those issues. We ought to be concerned about all of them.

As a country that is as free and open as this country, we need to be very concerned about terrorism and about rogue nations. But we also need to be concerned about continuing the effort to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I mentioned that we have done some of that. I would like to ask, by consent, to be able to show a couple of pieces that resulted from the efforts in the Senate.

The Nunn-Lugar Program is the program that most people probably won't recognize. It is a program to spend money funding certain activities that reduce the threat to this country. One of those activities is to cut up Russian bombers.

This piece in my hand is from a wing strut on a Backfire bomber. This bomber used to fly around carrying nuclear weapons that would have threatened this country. But now this is not a wing strut on a Russian bomber, it is a piece of metal that is in my desk here in the Senate. Do you know how I got this wing strut? No, we didn't shoot this bomber down. The wing was sawed off this bomber as a result of arms control reductions--arms reductions that were negotiated between the United States and the old Soviet Union, and which are continuing to be carried on by us and the Russians. We saw the wings off bombers, we dismantle nuclear submarines, and we take missiles out of their silos, separate them from their warheads. That way we reduce the number of nuclear weapons on their side and our side. It has happened, and it has worked. It is the reason I am able to hold up a piece of a Russian bomber that we didn't shoot down, but we paid money to destroy it.

This is ground-up copper from a Russian submarine. We didn't sink that submarine. It was dismantled under terms of an arms control agreement with the Russians.

Does it make sense for us to continue agreements by which we reduce the number of nuclear weapons on both sides? You bet it does. Does it make sense for us to say to the Russians: Look, the treaties under which we have reduced nuclear weapons are now no longer very important to us. We are going to violate the ABM Treaty. It doesn't matter what you think of it, we are going to produce a national missile defense system that has not yet been demonstrated to work--at the risk of backing away from the ABM Treaty, and having both Russia and China build more offensive weapons? That does not seem like much of a bargain to me.

I hope, as President Bush discusses these issues tomorrow, he will understand that the Nunn-Lugar Program and the arms control agreements that we have had with Russia and the old Soviet Union have worked to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. His appreciation for those facts would be a step in the right direction, in my judgment.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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