8 May 2001
Source: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Congressional Record: May 2, 2001 (House)]
[Page H1842-H1848]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr02my01-94]


                     DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S HOMELAND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Capito). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon
of Pennsylvania) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to focus on
an issue that is dominating the front page of every newspaper in
America today and that is the defense of America's homeland. President
Bush gave a major speech yesterday where he outlined a commitment to
pursuit of a national missile defense and provide a protection for this
Nation from the bully pulpit leadership that he can provide, which has
not been there for the past 8 years.
  Tonight I will talk about that issue in depth. I will talk about the
objections that are being raised by some; why we need this kind of
capability; what the current system capability is that we are
developing. And I am going to respond to criticisms that this will
start a new arms race.
  But let me also start by saying that we have had some absolutely
overwhelming success, Madam Speaker, in a program that actually you
helped us put forward this year to provide support for our domestic
defenders in America, our Nation's fire and EMS personnel. For the last
220-some years in America we have not done anything in Washington to
support those brave men and women in 32,000 departments across this
country, 1.2 million men and women, 85 percent of whom are volunteers,
who protect our towns and cities.
  As Madam Speaker knows, last year the defense authorization bill, and
she lobbied for this as a candidate in West Virginia, and I appreciate
that leadership, we in fact were able to successfully put in place a
program that provides grants for these individual emergency response
departments nationwide on a competitive basis. The time period for
applying for the grants was 30 days, and it ended today.
  Now, some said there would not be much in the way of requests because
there is not much need. The preliminary results at FEMA are in. Madam
Speaker, over 20,000 grant application requests were received in 30
days, and the requests will total in excess of $2 billion. There is a
significant need out there for America to respond to help for our first
responders, especially as it relates to homeland defense. We only have
$100 million to allocate this year, but it is my hope that with the
support of Members on both sides of the aisle we can continue to
increase that funding availability.
  Madam Speaker, my real topic tonight is to focus on the missile
defense speech that President Bush presented yesterday at the National
Defense University. He said that we need to change the basic parameters
which we live under and deal with in our relations with Russia and
other countries relative to the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty, which was
negotiated in 1972, allows both the United States and the former Soviet
Union to rely on deterrence so that neither country would attack the
other for fear of retaliation.
  In addition, that treaty says that each country can have one missile
defense system, one ABM system. The Russians chose to deploy such a
system around Moscow, which protects about 75 percent of their
population. America chose not to pursue any system, because it was
politically impossible in America to choose one city over another and
leave the rest of America vulnerable.
  Today, Madam Speaker, America is totally vulnerable. If an accidental
launch occurred of one missile from Russia, from North Korea, which we
know now has the long-range capability, or from China, we have no
capability to respond.
  Now, is that such a far-fetched idea or notion? Well, Madam Speaker,
let me document for our colleagues what occurred in January of 1995. As
we know, the Russians have hundreds of missile launchers, all of which
can reach any city in America within 25 minutes, and all of which have
nuclear warheads on top of them.

  Now, there is a very sophisticated command and control system on
those missiles, as there are on our missiles; but a significant number
of Russia's missiles are on mobile launchers. They are called SS-25s.
If my colleagues saw a photograph of one, it would look like it is on
the back of a tractor-trailer truck. But that missile, even though it
can be transported any place over an open road area, can travel the
necessary distance to hit any city in America and devastate that city.
Each of those SS-25s are controlled locally, even though they have to
have the command authorization of the central Russian Government.
  Let us look at what happened in January of 1995. Norway was going to
launch a rocket into the atmosphere to sample weather conditions. So
Norway contacted Russia and told the Russian Government not to worry
when we launch this three-stage rocket; it is simply for us to gather
more information about weather conditions affecting our country. Now,
because Russia's military has been in a state of disarray, they have
not been able to invest and reinvest in improving their conventional
alert systems and their intelligence collection systems. So that when
Norway launched that three-stage rocket, the Russian intelligence
agencies misread it as an attack from an American nuclear submarine.
  Boris Yeltsin acknowledged the week after that incident that Russia
had, in fact, for one of only three times that we know of, put their
entire offensive

[[Page H1843]]

ICBM system on alert, which meant, Madam Speaker, that Russia was
within 15 minutes of launching an ICBM with a nuclear warhead against
an American city. With 7 minutes left, Boris Yeltsin overruled the
other two holders of what we call the black boxes, or the chegets, in
the Russian command and control structure, the general in charge of
their command staff and the defense minister, Paval Grachev and General
Kolesnikov. With 7 minutes, left Boris Yeltsin overruled them and
called off the response against an American city.
  Now, Madam Speaker, for just one moment let us imagine that one of
those missiles is accidentally launched, which are preprogrammed to hit
a certain spot in America, and all of their missiles are preprogrammed,
as ours are preprogrammed. What if that occurred and what if President
Putin then realized Russia had made a grave mistake; that they
accidentally allowed, either because of a lack of control of a command
unit, who may have gotten the launch codes, or because of some other
glitch, Russia accidentally launched one missile against America? What
would the phone conversation be like between President Putin and
President Bush?
  Well, it might go something like this: ``President Bush, I am sorry
to tell you we have made a tragic mistake. We have accidentally
launched a missile against one of your cities. We did not mean to do
it, but our command and control system failed.'' What would be
President Bush's response? Would he then call a national press
conference and tell the people of that target city that they have 25
minutes to move? Because, Madam Speaker, we have no defense today
against a ballistic missile launch against America. We have no defense
system in place.
  For the past 6 years, Madam Speaker, I have chaired the research and
development committee for national security. I have been on the
security committee for 15 years. So I work these issues. The
possibility of an accidental launch is not very high, but it does
exist.

                              {time}  1830

  And the fact is that today America has no defense against such a
launch. There is no system we can put into space, there is no plane we
can send up that can shoot down an incoming ICBM at the speed it would
be traveling.
  The same thing occurred in 1991 when in Desert Storm Saddam Hussein
decided that he wanted to harm American soldiers. He could have put a
bomb on a truck, and he could have had it driven into Saudi Arabia
where our troops were headquartered. But he did not do that. Saddam
Hussein chose the weapon of choice, a low-complexity Scud missile with
a conventional bomb on top of it and fired that missile into an
American barracks in Saudi Arabia. We could not defend against that
missile, much like we cannot defend against a missile that would be
launched against an American city.
  As a result of the launch of that Scud missile by Saddam Hussein, 28
Americans came home in body bags because we let them down. America had
no system in place to defend against that kind of a missile attack,
even in a small area the distance between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
  The sad part, Madam Speaker, is that 9, 10 years later we still do
not have a highly effective system for missile defense to protect our
troops and allies and our Nation. Part of the reason is because
President Clinton and Vice President Gore consistently opposed missile
defense, and consistently found ways to avoid America moving forward in
developing successful and reliable systems.
  So the first reason we need missile defense is to protect us against
an accidental or deliberate launch. The CIA has now documented that
North Korea, an unstable nation, in August of 1998 test-launched a
three-stage Taepo Dong II rocket that traversed into the atmosphere. It
did not complete its line of flight, but the CIA estimated if it had,
it would have been able to reach American soil, the West Coast of
California, parts of Alaska and parts of Hawaii.
  That allowed the CIA to say publicly that North Korea has the ability
to launch from its soil a long-range, three-stage missile that could
deliver a light payload against an American city. That missile might
not be very accurate, they might aim for Los Angeles and hit San
Francisco, but if you are a resident of San Francisco, it does not
matter where they aimed.
  The point is, North Korea has a capability that they never had.
Unlike when the ABM Treaty was developed, you only had two major
countries with this kind of ability, the Soviet Union and the United
States, and we could respectfully agree that neither would attempt to
attack the other for fear of retaliation. Also, when the Soviet Union
was in fact a coherent country prior to 1992 before the breakup, the
Soviet military was well-paid and well-fed. They had discipline. They
were well-respected in Russia. Today, there are severe internal
problems and stability problems within the Russian military.
  Therefore, because of those problems, there is a greater likelihood
of a problem potentially occurring, as there is with the possibility of
North Korea or China threatening a launch against the U.S.
  Madam Speaker, it is not just whether or not they would launch a
missile against us, because the opponents of missile defense will say,
wait a minute. Does anybody really believe that North Korea is going to
fire a missile against the United States? We would wipe them out. We
would wipe China out. That is not the issue, Madam Speaker.
  The problem is that we now know North Korea has the capability. We
also know that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon, if they do
not already have one, which could be placed on a missile.
  Let us take a scenario for a moment. Let us suppose that North Korea
would invade South Korea, which they have talked about off and on for
years. The U.S. would, because of our relationship, probably come to
the aid of South Korea. And what if North Korea's leadership then, and
they have certainly indicated unstable decision-making processes in the
past, suppose they said to America, If you do not pull your troops out
of South Korea, we are going to launch our long-range missile at one of
your cities.
  Now, unlike in the past, we know North Korea has that kind of very
rudimentary capability. Do we then attack North Korea preemptively? Do
we wipe out any capability they might have? Do we bomb their cities?
  Madam Speaker, we cannot allow a rogue state to have the potential
for causing problems in the decision-making process of our President
and command officers because of the potential for a launch, illogical
launch as it might be, against our sovereign Nation or our allies.
  The idea of a missile defense system under George Bush is not what
Ronald Reagan proposed, and there will be some in this country who say,
there goes George Bush trying to restart the Cold War, trying to bring
back Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative.
  That is not what President Bush was talking about yesterday. No one
is proposing that we attempt to build a shield over America that could
stop Russia if they wanted to attack us with all of their missiles.
That is not the idea being discussed. And most experts agree that would
be technically and financially impossible to achieve. We are only
talking about a limited capability, a system that would give us the
ability to defend against a small number of missiles, an accidental
launch or a deliberate launch of perhaps 1 to 10 missiles, that we
could defend against. This does not destabilize our relationship with
Russia because Russia knows full well that they could launch hundreds
of missiles at America and very easily overcome the kind of system that
President Bush is talking about.
  For these reasons, Madam Speaker, it is important that America
provide a defense for our people.
  The interesting thing is that some of the opponents of missile
defense have consistently opposed all research in this area. And I
would say to our colleagues, as I did several years ago when we voted
on H.R. 4, my missile defense bill in the House, and we pulled more
Democrats with us than President Clinton did, 103 Democrats voted in
favor of H.R. 4, 102 Democrats voted against it and all but two
Republicans voted in favor of that bill, giving us a veto-proof margin.
Our goal is to give us the capability that every nation in the world is
now pursuing.

[[Page H1844]]

  Israel is one of our key allies. Israel needs missile defense to
protect her people from the missile technology that Iran, Iraq, Syria
and Libya now possess. We are working with Israel helping to fund the
Arrow program and the theater high-energy laser program, giving Israel
a capability they did not have in Desert Storm.
  The Patriot program was not designed to shoot down missiles in Desert
Storm. It was a system developed by our Department of Defense to shoot
down airplanes. But when we knew that Desert Storm was going to take
place, and we knew that Saddam Hussein had missiles, we had to help
Israel defend herself, and so we gave her a system designed to shoot
down airplanes, and we asked the contractor in this country to provide
a more robust engine to make that missile move more quickly.
  It was not the answer, and it was not successful. Only 40 percent of
the attempted launches or the successful launches of the Scud missiles
by Saddam Hussein were stopped by the Patriot systems. We need to do
better, and that is why for the past 10 years we have used our tax
dollars in cooperation with Israel to help her build missile defense
systems.
  We have also helped the Europeans. We are working on a program called
MEADS, the Medium Extended Air Defense System, which is a cooperative
program between the United States, between Italy and Germany. The
program is designed to give those countries a missile defense
capability in all of Europe. We do want to cooperate with our allies.
This is not just about protecting America.
  In fact, we proposed the same kind of assistance to our friends in
the Far East, and we have also proposed to cooperate in the same way
with our Arab friends in the Middle East. The goal that President Bush
laid out for the world is that we need to change the dimension. It
should no longer be a policy of mutually assured destruction.
  Now, to me as a teacher, it is outrageous that we would base our
foreign policy with Russia on mutually assured destruction. You attack
us, we will annihilate you. We attack you, you will annihilate us. That
is a crazy way to have a world order, especially when you have other
nations that are not in any way, shape or form anywhere near as
reliable as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War, and we did not
have the instability that we now have inside of Russia with the
problems, internal with their military and the command and control and
alerting problems that they have in reading what is happening in terms
of rocket launches around the world.
  So for all of these reasons, President Bush has proposed a new
dynamic. I call it asymmetric deterrence, and that means that we
continue to negotiate with our allies and friends and countries like
Russia, and we continue to rely on deterrence as the ultimate threat to
an attack on our homeland, but we now begin to allow missile defense
systems.
  Now, the question is, why would America pursue missile defense, it is
only going to back Russia into a corner. That is not true. The fact is
that Russia believes in missile defense, as does America. They believe
in deterrence, as does America. The Soviet Union developed the only
operational ABM system around Moscow. That system has been upgraded
four times, and it still exists today.
  When I have been in negotiations with my Russia friends, and I have
gone to Russia 23 teams, I speak the language, I formed and I chair the
Interparliamentary Commission with the Russia Duma and the Federation
Council. When I travel to Moscow and meet with my Russian friends and
we talk about missile defense, I candidly ask them, If you really
believe in deterrence alone, take down your ABM system. Be as
vulnerable as America is, and have no system and rely on deterrence.
  They look at me and smile and laugh and say, You know we will never
do that.
  The point is that the Russians believe in missile defense. They have
aggressive and very capable theater missile defense systems. They have
the SA-10, the SA-12, the S-300, the S-400. They have now been trying
to sell a system to both Greece and Israel called the Anti-2500 system.
It is a very capable, mobile system that can be used by any Nation to
defend against missile attack.
  In fact, Russia's systems are comparable to systems that we are
building. So it is not a case of America pursuing missile defense and
embarrassing Russia because they do not have any systems; they have
some of the best systems in the world available today.
  Why then, Madam Speaker, would Russia not trust us? Why then would
the Russian leader publicly express his concerns about the President's
speech? Why would Russian leaders and European leaders express concern
about moving forward with missile defense?
  Let me say this, Madam Speaker. If I were a Russian today and if I
had witnessed what the Clinton administration did in terms of
cooperation with Russia, I would not trust America in the area of
missile defense either.

                              {time}  1845

  Let me give you the reasons why I say that, Madam Speaker. We have
sent mixed signals to Russia for the past 10 years. The first one came
in 1993. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin challenged George Bush, Sr. to work
together on missile defense, to have Russian scientists and American
scientists cooperate and explore ways that we could work together.
George Bush, Sr. accepted that challenge. The two Presidents of the two
countries involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia with the
State Department in the U.S.
  Two high ranking officials were empowered by our two governments to
negotiate and look at ways that we could cooperate together in missile
defense in 1992. Those meetings, entitled the Ross-Mamedov talks took
place on an ongoing basis. In 1993, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore came
into office, they had opposed missile defense. Without consulting with
the Russian government, they abruptly canceled the Ross-Mamedov talks.
We sent the first signal to the Russians that we do not want to
cooperate with you on missile defense. We do not want to be your
partner in looking at ways to change the dynamic of our relationship.
  The second signal was sent to the Russians in 1996 and 1997. We had
in fact funded one joint program between our Defense Department and the
Russian defense department in the missile defense area called Ramos.
Ramos was designed to build two satellites, one controlled by Russia,
one controlled by the U.S., identical in operation, so that each
country would get the same identical information when a rocket was
launched someplace on the surface of the Earth, so we would have the
same alert mechanism. It also was designed to build trust between our
countries in the area of missile defense. The program was supported
aggressively by the Congress. In fact, as the chairman of the Research
Committee, I put Ramos in as a line item in the defense budget. In 1996
and 1997 with no advance notice to the Russians nor to the Congress,
the Clinton administration decided to cancel the Ramos program. When
the Russians found out about this, they were livid. I got three phone
calls and faxes and e-mails at my office from senior Russian leaders.
  They said, ``Congressman Weldon, what is going on? We thought America
wanted to work with us in finding ways to cooperate.'' I said, ``Well,
that was our thought and that was our idea.'' I then called Deputy
Secretary of Defense John Hamre and I called Leon Fuerth, Vice
President Gore's defense adviser. I said, ``What is going on here? What
you are doing by canceling this program is you are undermining
confidence in Russia that we are trying to build.'' I then went over to
the Senate and enlisted the support of Democrat Senator Carl Levin who
agreed with me as the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee in
the Senate. He and I worked vigilantly with our colleagues, and we
overturned the administration's decision. The program is still funded
today. But the damage was done. Because for the second time, the
Clinton administration told the Russians, ``We do not want to cooperate
with you.''
  The third time occurred in 1997. At a time when most people in the
world and in this country were acknowledging that the ABM treaty had
outlived its usefulness because we were no longer in a bipolar world
with two countries, the Soviet Union and America. We now had other
countries with

[[Page H1845]]

long-range missile capability, China and North Korea and Iran moving in
that direction. At a time when most in this country were saying, let us
provide some flexibility in the way this treaty is being interpreted,
what did the Clinton administration do? They sent our U.S. negotiators
to Geneva where we were in ongoing discussions with the Russians over
the ABM treaty.
  Instead of trying to find ways to make the ABM treaty more flexible,
the Clinton administration was negotiating a tightening up of the ABM
treaty, contrary to the thought of almost everyone in this country. I
for the life of me could not understand what the Clinton administration
was doing. When I read about these discussions with the Russians, I
heard about this plan to multilateralize the treaty, bring other
countries in, even though they did not have long range missiles, and I
heard about this artificial demarcation, differentiating between
theater and national missile defense, Madam Speaker, I did something
that no other Member of Congress did.
  I went to Geneva. I got the approval of our State Department, and we
set up a negotiating session. The chief U.S. negotiator was on my side,
Stanley Rivales and the chief Russian negotiator was sitting across
from me, General Koltunov. We talked for 2\1/2\ hours about the
administration's negotiations for these two ideas of tightening up the
ABM treaty. So I inquired of General Koltunov, ``General, why do you in
Russia want to bring more countries in as signatories to the ABM
treaty?'' Only two nations were the original signatories, the Soviet
Union and the U.S. Why did you pick three former Soviet states,
Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, to become equal partners to the U.S.
and Russia? That will make it more difficult to amend the treaty. And
none of those three countries have long range missiles. They have all
been returned to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

  General Koltunov looked at me and he said, ``Congressman Weldon, you
are asking that question of the wrong person. We didn't propose to
multilateralize the treaty. The person sitting next to you did.''
Meaning that our government was trying to push the Russian government
into expanding the treaty to include three former Soviet states. Why
would you do that especially when none of those three countries had
long range missiles, unless your purpose was to make the ABM treaty
more difficult to modify?
  The second question dealt with demarcation. I could not understand
how we could negotiate with the Russians an artificial differentiation
between a theater missile defense system for a given area and a
national missile defense with longer range. So I said to the chief
Russian negotiator, General Koltunov, ``General, explain to me, how did
you arrive at these numbers of interceptor speed and range?'' If I am
in a small country like Israel, a theater program like THAAD is a
national program to Israel because it can cover their entire territory.
In America, a program like THAAD would not be a national missile
defense because it could not cover all of our territory. ``How did you
determine the difference?''
  General Koltunov told me, after thinking for a few moments, ``Well,
Congressman, there were serious negotiations between our scientists and
your scientists, and they arrived at these numbers.'' But he did not
give me any justification. Well, I was not satisfied. I came back to
the United States. We concluded those negotiations in Geneva. President
Clinton sent the signal to Russia that America was supportive of
tightening up the ABM treaty. So the Russians again for the third time
took us at our word. But the Clinton administration knew, Madam
Speaker, they could not get either of those two changes to the treaty
through the U.S. Senate, even though the U.S. Constitution requires any
substantive change to any treaty to be submitted to the Senate for
advice and consent.
  For 3 years, from 1997 to the year 2000, actually to the year 2001
because that is today, until the end of the Clinton administration, the
administration failed to submit either of those two changes to the ABM
treaty to the Senate as required by our Constitution so the Senate
could debate them. I am convinced the reason the administration did not
do that was because they knew that neither one of them would pass the
Senate. They could not even get a majority of Democrats in the Senate
to support those two changes. They were not in America's best
interests. So for 3 years, the Russians had been convinced by Clinton
that we were supportive of tightening up the ABM treaty, even though
the administration knew the Senate and the American people would not
support those changes.
  Last May, when the Russian Duma was considering ratification of the
START II treaty, a treaty which our Senate had already passed years
ago, the Clinton administration, I am convinced, convinced the Russian
leadership to have the Duma add those two changes to the ABM treaty
onto the back of the START II treaty. Why would they do that? Because
they knew the START II treaty had already been ratified by the Senate
and because they knew they could not get those two ABM changes through
the Senate, so they said if the Russians add them on, then the Senate
will have to accept them when the treaty comes back to us for re-
ratification. So when the state Duma in Russia ratified the START II
treaty last spring, they added those two Geneva protocols on the START
II treaty, it then came back to the U.S., and what did our Senate say?
``No way are we going to pass the START II treaty.''
  So the Russians for the third time saw America going back on what
they thought was our word. Three times in 8 years we sent mixed signals
to Russia about missile defense. It is no wonder that the Russians do
not understand what America's real intentions are in terms of missile
defense. Now, they understand my intentions, because I have a good
solid relationship with them. They know that I want us to be involved
with Russia. The Russians know that we want to be partners with them.
We want to find common ground.
  In fact, the weekend before our vote on H.R. 4 which this House
passed overwhelmingly, I invited Don Rumsfeld, our current defense
secretary, who was chairman of the Rumsfeld Commission; Jim Woolsey,
who was Bill Clinton's CIA director; and Bill Schneider, a Deputy
Secretary of State, to travel with me to Moscow. I took several Members
of Congress from both parties along. We went to Moscow before the vote
here so that we could reassure the Russians that our intent in moving
forward in missile defense was not to back the Russians into a corner.
We did not see Russia as the enemy. We were not doing this to try to
create an advantage over Russia. And that we wanted to work together
with Russia.

  Madam Speaker, I am convinced through my contact with Russian leaders
that they can and will understand that America's intent on missile
defense is not to create an arms race. The Russians believe in missile
defense because they know the threats are real. We believe in missile
defense because the threats are real. For those who say the threats are
not real, I say, tell that to the families of those 28 young Americans
who were buried in this country because we could not defend against
that missile attack in 1991 in Saudi Arabia.
  Madam Speaker, with the Russian leaders that I work with, people like
Dr. Yevghenie Velakof who heads up the Kurchatov Institute understand
what we are trying to accomplish. In fact Dr. Velakof and I coauthored
an op-ed 3 years ago that was entitled ``From Mutually Assured
Destruction to Mutually Assured Protection.'' Dr. Velakof understands
what George Bush is trying to do. When Russians understand that we are
serious and want them involved and that we are not playing games, they
will cooperate with us.
  But, Madam Speaker, I have to tell you, there is one other group in
this country who is causing the feeling of instability in Russia. There
is one other group in this country who will be vigorously against
missile defense, who are actually causing more unrest among the Russian
people than the missile defense idea itself. Who are those people,
Madam Speaker? They are some of the very arms control organizations in
this city that claim to be for peace, that claim to be for stable
relations.
  Why do I say that, Madam Speaker? Let me tell you what Yevghenie
Velakof told me 2 years ago. At the

[[Page H1846]]

height of our bill being passed by the House and the Senate, Yevghenie
Velakof came in for one of his regular meetings at my office. He
brought with him a Time magazine edition, I believe it was February 25,
I believe it was in 1998.
  There was a two-page feature in Time magazine on missile defense. It
was written about the new plan being pushed by the Congress to give
America the protection that George Bush outlined yesterday. They called
the plan Star Wars II, or sequel to what Reagan had done, which is a
misnomer. But the idea was to lay out for the American people the idea
of what we are talking about with a limited missile defense system. In
one corner of that article, taking up almost one-half of one page was
the chart I am going to present that I have had blown up. In a story
about missile defense and how America was trying to pursue protection
for our people was this chart. Let me read the top and the bottom
opening sentences.
  ``Destroying Russia. Arms control advocates map the Pentagon's top
secret plan for waging war. 1200 warheads hit 800 targets.'' This is a
map of Russia. They have got locations where we supposedly have a top
secret plan to destroy Russia. Across the bottom is the following
statement. ``Killing zones. The vast spread of radiation will wipe out
more than 20 million people in Russia.'' Dr. Velakof said to me,
``Curt, I know what your intention is with missile defense. It is to
protect your people. But this is what the Russian people will see.''
They will see an article in Time magazine with a chart produced by the
Natural Resources Defense Council, an arms control group, that is
trying to say that our real intent is to kill 20 million Russian
people.

                              {time}  1900

  That is why the Russians are concerned about missile defense. It is
not because of the system. It is because of an inconsistent,
incoherent, roller coaster foreign policy where three times in 8 years
we sent mixed signals to Moscow on missile defense. It is because of
the arms control crowd that tries to scare the Russian people into
thinking that somehow our real intent is to wipe them out and dominate
them. That has to be dealt with in this debate that began yesterday.
  We have to put the facts on the table. Our goal is not to wipe out
Russia. Our goal is not to kill 20 million Russian people. In fact, our
goal is to work with Russia; it is to work NATO; it is to work with
Ukraine; it is to work with Canada; with the European countries to
develop something we have not had before, an ability to shoot down
offensive missiles.
  Mr. Speaker, over 70 nations today in the world have missiles that
they control. Countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, India, Pakistan,
North Korea and a whole host of other countries all have missiles. Some
have conventional weapons on them. Some have the potential to put a
chemical or a biological agent on them, but they all have missiles and
they all have launchers.
  Mr. Speaker, today in the world over 22 nations can build missiles
and are building them, and they are selling them to other nations.
Missiles are out of control. We did not expect this threat to come from
unstable nations for another 15 to 20 years, but over the past 10 years
we have lost control of proliferation. Because of Russia's instability
and because of China's lack of compliance, Russia and China have
allowed technology to flow to unstable nations which then have given
those nations abilities in missile technology that we did not think
they would have for at least 15 years.
  Let me talk about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker, because that has a
direct bearing on why President Bush yesterday said we have to have
missile defense now, because the threats are here today. Iran now has a
Shahab III system they are working on. The Shahab IV and Shahab V,
which are medium-range missile systems, can kill tons of people all
throughout Europe and can hit Israel directly. We know Iraq has
missiles. We know all these countries have missiles.
  How did they get this technology, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately, because
of America's lack of enforcement of arms control agreements.
  Two years ago, I asked the Congressional Research Service, an
independent, bipartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, it is
not partisan, all of our colleagues use it, I asked them to do a study
for me of how many instances of arms control violations had occurred in
the 1990s. I put that report in the Congressional Record last year.
  The answer is that up until 1998, we had evidence that Russia and
China had illegally transferred technology, much of it missile
technology, to unstable nations in violation of arms control agreements
38 times; 20 times by the Chinese, 18 times by the Russians. The arms
control agreements are supposed to have sanctions applied when we catch
other countries in violation. Much like if we catch an American company
illegally selling technology to a foreign nation that they should
noting selling to, we arrest their officers. We fine them and, if
necessary, we put them in jail. Thirty-eight times we caught the
Russians and Chinese illegally giving technology to our enemies. Only
two times out of 38 did we impose the required sanctions when we caught
the Chinese transferring M-11 missiles to Pakistan, when we caught the
Chinese transferring ring magnets for their nuclear program to
Pakistan. The other 36 times we turned our head.
  Let me give a real example, Mr. Speaker, for our colleagues to
remember. I was in Moscow in January of 1996. The Washington Post had
just reported in December a front page story, above the fold: ``U.S.
Catches Russia Transferring Guidance Systems to Iraq.'' That was the
headline. I was in Moscow, so I went to our embassy and I met with
Ambassador Pickering, who most recently was the number three person in
the State Department under Bill Clinton.
  I said, Mr. Ambassador, what was the Russian response when you asked
the Russians about the illegal transfer of technology to Iraq?
  He said, Congressman Weldon, I have not asked them yet.
  I said, why would you not ask them? That is a violation of the
missile technology control regime, an arms control agreement between us
and them and other countries.
  He said that has to come from Washington. It has to come from the
White House or the Secretary of State.
  So I came back to America, and I wrote President Clinton a letter, a
3-page letter, asking him to respond to the allegation. In March of
that year, President Clinton sent me a letter, which I still have; and
in the letter he said, Congressman Weldon, I share your concern about
the allegation that Russia may have transferred guidance systems to
Iraq that would improve their missile systems; and I can say if it
occurred and we can prove it, we will take aggressive action. But,
Congressman Weldon, we do not have any evidence. Yes, we have
allegations, but we cannot prove that Russia transferred guidance
systems to Iraq.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I brought the proof today. For the past year, Mr.
Speaker, I have taken these devices around the country with me. This is
an accelerometer, a very high-priced device that controls the speed of
a missile. This is a gyroscope. This system locks into a satellite GPS
mechanism to control the accuracy of where the missile is going. When
one puts these two devices in a missile, they make that missile very
accurate.
  Iraq cannot build these devices. They are too sophisticated. Only the
U.S., Russia and China, because they got the technology from us over
the past 5 years, can build these devices. It is illegal to give these
devices to unstable nations.
  These devices have Soviet markings on them. These devices were
clipped off of SSN-19 long-range Soviet missiles. These devices used to
be in missiles in Russian submarines aimed at U.S. cities, but because
of treaties, when Russia discarded these old missiles they were
supposed to destroy these, but they did not do it. We caught the
Russians three times transferring not one set of these devices, but
over 100 set of these devices to Iraq.
  What would Iraq want with them? Iraq would want them to put in their
missiles like the one they sent into Desert Storm that killed 28 young
Americans to make their missile more accurate. We allowed the
technology to flow, and we did nothing about it.
  Here is the evidence, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say where I got them, but
I can

[[Page H1847]]

say agencies of our Government have over 100 sets of these devices. And
let me say, my guess is there are probably thousands of these devices
that were illegally sent from Russian entities to Iraq and Iran.
  Now, do I blame the Russian Government? Not necessarily. It is caused
by instability in Russia, but we in America had an obligation to
enforce arms control agreements. Now, why would President Clinton not
want to enforce an arms control agreement? We caught them red handed.
We have the evidence.
  The answer, Mr. Speaker, lies in the fact that the Clinton foreign
policy for 8 years was a personal friendship between Bill Clinton and
Boris Yeltsin. As long as those two people were friendly and in power,
President Clinton assumed that our relationship with Russia would be
stable.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I wanted Yeltsin to succeed as much as President
Clinton; but our goal in Russia should not have been to support a man.
It should have been to support institutions: the institution of the
presidency, whoever that might be; the institution of a free parliament
and Duma, whoever they might elect; the institution of a legal system,
of an economic framework.
  We should have been supporting institutions of democracy as opposed
to a personality, because as Boris Yeltsin lost the vigor that he first
brought to his job, he began to surround himself with corrupt
individuals. In fact, he named the oligarchs that ended up running
Russia's banks. These Russian oligarchs, many of whom were crooks and
thieves, were ending up taking billions of dollars of foreign money,
IMF and World Bank money, that was supposed to help the Russians
rebuild their economy, rebuild their schools, their roads and their
communities. But instead, the friends of Boris who controlled the
economic institutions in Russia diverted that money to illegal
operations, to Swiss bank accounts, to U.S. real estate investments. In
fact, our Justice Department issued indictments against five Bank of
New York officials just 2 years ago.

  The allegation is that they were involved in corruption with Boris
Yeltsin's friends in diverting up to $5 billion of money that was
supposed to help the Russian people.
  What did we do? We went like this and like this. Just as we did with
the arms control violations, we pretended we did not see them. We
pretended we did not have evidence. We knew 5 years ago that there were
corrupt Russians working with corrupt Americans, stealing money to
benefit the Russian people. Do we wonder why now the Russian people do
not trust our intentions?
  When Yeltsin was about to leave office, his popularity in Moscow was
2 percent. Ninety-eight percent of the Russian people felt he was
corrupt and had become a drunk, but there we were still supporting
Boris Yeltsin. We wonder why the Russian people do not trust our
intentions. If I were a Russian then, I would not trust our intentions
either. We blew it to some extent, Mr. Speaker.
  The visual image Americans had in 1992 was Boris Yeltsin standing on
a tank outside the Russian White House, openly defying Communism,
20,000 people around him. As he stood on the tank and said Communism is
dead, the Soviet Union is over, we are in a new strategic alliance,
Russia and America together, that was 1992. 1999, what was the visual
picture on CNN in the fall of 1999? Ten thousand, 15,000 young Russians
outside the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, clogging the
street, throwing paint at our embassy, firing handguns at our embassy
and burning the American flag, because we had been supporting corrupt
institutions and people in Russia. We had been denying reality, and the
Russian people lost faith and confidence in what America was really all
about.
  In fact, it was about that time I had a Russian Duma member over
here. He did a national press conference and this is what he said to
the American people on national TV. He said, you know, the Soviet
Communist Party spent tens of billions of dollars over 70 years to
convince the Russian people that America was evil and Americans were
evil, and they failed. Your government has managed to do in a few short
years and months what the Russian Soviet Communist Party could not
achieve in 70 years.
  The last formal request of Boris Yeltsin, before he left office for
his hand-picked successor, was a commitment he received from President
Putin to pardon him and his family. The first official action of
President Putin, when he took office, was to pardon Boris Yeltsin and
his family, including his daughter Tatyana, from crimes committed
against the Russian people, that America knew about and pretended we
did not see. That is why the Russians do not trust our intentions.
  The biggest challenge for President Bush is rebuilding the trust of
the Russian people and its leadership that America wants to be a stable
trading partner with Russia. We will not tolerate proliferation. We
will not tolerate giving foreign unstable nations illegal technology,
but we want Russia to succeed. We want to help them create a mortgage
program for their people, which is my number one priority. We want to
help their defense industry get back on its feet and produce other
products. We want to engage their military with our military. We want
to help them solve the problem of nuclear contamination in the Arctic,
a big issue for the Russians. We want to help Russia succeed and become
a trading partner of the U.S.

                              {time}  1915

  Missile defense is not the reason that Russia is concerned, it is the
lack of trust and confidence in what America really wants that has the
Russian leadership and the Russian people concerned.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to move forward with missile defense in
cooperation with the Russians and the rest of the peace-loving people
in the world. I cannot, for the life of me, as a teacher, understand
how those in this country still want to rely on offensive weapons to
kill each other, as opposed to defensive weapons to protect our people.
That does not make sense to me.
  We can achieve what President Bush wants.
  Now, it is a tough task, because you are talking about hitting a
bullet with a bullet, stopping a projectile in the atmosphere that is
moving very quickly, and stopping it with another bullet. And you
cannot hit that projectile when it is on the way down or it will rain
terror on the people in that country, in this case our people.
  That happened in Israel when those Scud missiles kept landing. Even
though the Patriot system may have hit it, the debris kept coming down
on the Israeli people. We need technology, as President Bush rightly
outlined, to hit the missile in the ascent phase, as it is on the way
up. It is called boost-phase intercept. The reason why that is
important is, you knock that missile out on the way up, and the only
people harmed are the people who launched the missile against someone
else.
  What President Bush is saying is, we need to develop a new
capability, using technology with our allies, to give us that kind of
protection; and he has proposed for the first time in the last 10 years
that he will use the bully pulpit to move the technology forward.
  Are we prepared today? No. There still is additional testing. Have we
had success? Absolutely. Out of 31 attempts, we have been successful in
over half of them. Our THAAD program has had intercepts, successful
ones. Our PAC-3 program has had five successful intercepts. Our
National Missile Defense program has had one successful intercept. We
know the technology is achievable. It is an engineering problem to
integrate the systems, and that is the challenge that we have to help
the President overcome.
  I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that those of our colleagues in this
body and the other body who supported missile defense last year and the
year before will again come back and support President Bush. This is
not a partisan issue. The battle for missile defense in America was not
a Republican battle; it was won by a bipartisan effort with Democrats
and Republicans coming together, understanding that threats were
emerging quicker than we thought they would emerge.
  We need to work together to give the President the kind of support he
has outlined in his vision for a new world order, one where we focus
cooperative efforts together. The Europeans can cooperate with us, as
they are already doing. In fact, I am hoping right now to establish a
meeting, an unofficial

[[Page H1848]]

meeting, in one of the Arab countries, where I will plan to invite the
Israelis and the Russians to sit down and have a conversation about how
we can jointly pursue missile defense cooperation in the Middle East,
with Jews and allies working together, with Americans and Russians.
  On Friday of this week, Mr. Speaker, I will travel to New York City,
where I will give a major foreign policy speech at the World Russian
Forum, and I will tell the leaders of Russia, I will tell the business
leaders in Russia, that we want to work together, George Bush wants
Russia to be our friend and partner. There is no reason why we cannot
achieve that.
  I will then come back to Washington and next week will sponsor with
the Free Congress Foundation, with Paul Weyrich, a bipartisan
conference on the Hill with Russian leaders. The chairman of the
International Affairs Committee for the Russian Duma, Dmitrii Rogozin,
will be here, and he and I and others will come together and talk about
cooperation. We will then travel to Moscow and we will have a
conference in Moscow on missile defense cooperation. We will work
together to find common ground, to build confidence among both
countries to move forward together.
  We need to put away the arguments and the petty wars of the Cold War
era. Relying on mutually assured destruction is not the answer. Working
together for peaceful protection of our friends, our allies and our
neighbors, is the solution of the 21st century. That is what George
Bush outlined for us yesterday. He is on the right track. He did not
say we have all the answers, because we do not, but he did say,
together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
  I was a young kid in school when John Kennedy made a very famous
speech in 1960. He said ``I challenge America to land a man on the moon
within this decade.'' I can tell you, people laughed at him. They
thought, this guy is crazy. Here is President Kennedy saying we are
going to land on the moon? We cannot even get our planes to fly totally
safe in the atmosphere. How are we going to land on the moon? He
challenged America to land on the moon, to explore outer space
technology.

  You know what happened, Mr. Speaker. Nine years later, in July of
1969, we landed the first human being on the moon. It was an historic
event that showed that America can accomplish anything.
  There are those who will say, there are a few of them, who will say
this is not technologically possible. Mr. Speaker, that is hogwash. In
fact, to counter those, we have put together a task force of
professors. None of the professors we have on this ad hoc committee are
working for any contractor. They are all professors.
  I am going to be inviting all of my colleagues in Congress to ask
those professors, one at a time or as a group, to come into your
offices. They are not doing any contract work with defense contractors.
They are not on the Pentagon's payroll. They are from universities,
like Texas A&M, like some of our major engineering schools, who
understand the physics is achievable.
  They will be available as we begin this debate to counter those who
will simply try to use their doctorate titles to convince us that
somehow we cannot accomplish this.
  I asked the head of the Boeing program in a hearing last year, a
fellow by the name of Dr. Teller, how difficult it was to achieve the
result of missile defense for America and its people. He said,
``Congressman Weldon, I have been assigned to this all my life.'' He
said managing the Space Station was a tougher challenge than building
missile defense.
  Together, Republicans and Democrats, allies and our own people, we
can create a new world, a safe world, where all of our people can be
protected from what happened to those 28 Americans in 1991.

                          ____________________

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Congressional Record: January 31, 2001 (House)]
[Page H155-H158]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr31ja01-107]


                         THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I will not take the entire
hour, but I did want to rise and summarize a trip that I took last week
to Colombia and Ecuador to inform our colleagues and our constituents
about the progress being made in the war against drugs.
  To be honest, Mr. Speaker, last year I was concerned when the
President and the administration requested $1.3 billion to be used in
the war against drugs in Colombia and South America. I was concerned
because I was not sure that it was the right approach for us to be
taking; that perhaps it would send the wrong signals, and that perhaps
this should not be an issue in which the American military is involved.
  Mr. Speaker, I went to Ecuador and Colombia to see firsthand what is
happening with those dollars, what is happening with our effort to
interact with the leadership of Ecuador and Colombia to see what role
we are playing and what role they are playing in solving this problem.
I came back, Mr. Speaker, convinced that we made the right decision.
  I come to the floor this afternoon to encourage our colleagues to get
more information about what is happening in Latin America, to better
understand the type of threat that exists there, to understand the
importance of what we are doing in Latin America in the war against
drugs, and to understand that there will be additional requests for
dollars this year in the President's budget and the requests coming to
this Congress to continue this fight for at least a 5-year period.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. Speaker, I started my trip in Ecuador in Quito, the capitol,
where I met with and had a briefing with our Ambassador, Ambassador
Gwen Clare, and with her in-country team, including the military. I had
a full briefing on the impact in Ecuador of the activities involved
with Plan Colombia. I heard from the Ecuadoran leadership that while
Ecuador did receive some support from this program, approximately $20
million, there is simply a greater need, both in terms of supporting
their military efforts and the economic efforts, particularly along the
northern rim of Ecuador, in dealing with the overflow of the drug
cartels in Colombia.
  I also discussed with the Ecuadoran leaders, the issue of the
Galapagos and the Environmental Damage being caused by the ship, that
just a few days earlier, had crashed off of the coast of the Galapagos,
and what we in America could do to assist Ecuador.
  In fact, in coming away from that trip, I was convinced that Ecuador,
being the key ally that it has been with America is, in fact, a country
that we should renew our focus on. In meetings both before my trip and
today, I met with the Ecuadoran ambassador to the United States, and I
can tell you that she appreciates the effort that America has put
forward and is willing to work with us on additional initiatives to
cause further integration with the efforts of Ecuador in solving the
drug problem and America in solving the drug problem.
  In Colombia, Mr. Speaker, I met again where our in-country team,
including our Ambassador, Ann Patterson, a very capable lady under very
difficult circumstances. I met with our leadership, military
leadership. I met with our CINC, our commanding officer for that
region. I met with our military leaders from all the services.
  I spent an hour meeting with the Defense Minister from Colombia, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the senior leaders of their
military.
  I also met with the general in charge of their police force that
comes under the military, and then they flew me out to one of the base
camps about an hour from Bogota near the FARC demilitarized zone, and I
spent a half a day observing the training being provided by our troops
to the Colombian military.
  Let me give you some impressions, Mr. Speaker, for our colleagues.
First of all, American troops are not being used in any combat mission
whatsoever. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we imposed a limitation of 500
American troops in Latin America, in Colombia for the specifics of
carrying out this plan, not one of our military is involved in any type
of hostile action.
  They are not involved in any kind of overt action against Colombia.
They are simply there providing training. They are doing training for
the Colombian military in terms of going out and running exploratory
patrols of how to take apart these precursor labs. They are running
training in how to guard the helicopters and the planes that are
spraying the coca fields.
  I can tell my colleagues, I was overwhelmingly impressed with our
military. They are doing, as they always

[[Page H156]]

do, an outstanding job. All of our special forces and our military
personnel there speak fluent Spanish. And I can tell my colleagues the
relationship they have established at the one base I visited in
Larandia was absolutely exemplary.
  The training that was going on was a reality training and the kinds
of successes that the Colombian military is having, I think, is
directly responsive to the efforts of the American military officers
and enlisted personnel who are on the scene throughout Colombia.
  We have a dangerous situation, Mr. Speaker, in that part of the
world. Our focus in Washington from an national security standpoint has
traditionally been on the former Soviet Union and the 15 republics of
that nation, China, the Middle East, and the threats posed by countries
like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. But, Mr. Speaker, I came
away from my trip and my meetings convinced that one of the most
troublesome threats that we faced right now in America is the huge
amount of cocaine coming into our country, primarily from Colombia.
  It is estimated that between 60 percent and 80 percent of all the
cocaine used in America is produced in Colombia. On hundreds of
thousands of acres of farmland that used to grow crops, used to grow
coffee, used to grow the kinds of fruits and vegetables that Colombia
and Latin America are famous for. When the FARC began its operations
and the terrorists revolutionaries began their operations, they began
to acquire a large area in Colombia, specifically, do grow initially
marijuana, and then poppies, and now they are into coca, which is
converted in local labs into cocaine, which is then sent back here to
the States.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now a multibillion dollar industry in Colombia. In
fact, the estimates are the FARC is receiving perhaps as much as $6
billion to $7 billion a year in income, which has allowed the FARC,
which has its own zone inside of Colombia that is absolutely isolated
from the rest of the country. It has allowed the FARC to produce a
military that has in excess of $20,000 armed troops.

  This military is well-trained. They have the latest in terms of
communication systems, and they have an elaborate network in place to
send that cocaine through whatever means possible to America, and they
are doing that.
  In fact, just a few weeks before I arrived in Colombia, we were able
to confiscate, or the Colombians were able to confiscate a submarine
that had been built with the assistance of Russian scientists that the
FARC was going to use to move cocaine from Colombia to America.
  Mr. Speaker, the FARC has become a major force that provides a threat
to America's homeland defense. Now, I have worked for the 14 years I
have been in Congress on issues involving the security threats coming
from Russia. I was a member of the Cox committee that investigated the
transfer of technology to China.
  I was on the speaker's advisory group on North Korea. I have spent
hours and hours focusing on the threats coming from those nations
providing technology to unstable nations and to unstable groups. But I
can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I am now convinced that one of the greatest
threats that we face in the 21st century is the threat to our society
from the continued growth of the cocaine industry in America,
especially when this cocaine industry is supporting a major military
establishment in Latin America, a destabilizing military establishment.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, the FARC and the revolutionary groups are
creating serious instability in the areas in Colombia where they, in
fact, are secure. And they are now spilling over into north Ecuador, as
well as having an impact in other Latin American countries.
  The day before I arrived at the base camp at Larandia, there was
intelligence that a FARC exploratory group was going to move into a
small town, which is a typical operation for them. When they moved into
that small town, they would burn the local police station, and they
would hunt out the police officers and either intimidate them until
they complied with the FARC or until they killed them.
  Mr. Speaker, 3,000 individuals per year on average are kidnapped in
Colombia. Many of them are police officers at the local level trying to
provide protection for the people of the towns. The FARC and the
revolutionaries have been going into small towns and villages wrecking
havoc on the quality of life in those communities.
  They have been taking peaceful farmers and forcing them to stop
growing legitimate crops and instead produce the coca that the FARC
then buys and uses at their precursor labs to produce cocaine, which is
then shipped to America. And if the local farmers do not cooperate,
they, too, are harassed.
  Their buildings are burned. Their vehicles are trashed and burned,
and in the end, the people themselves are tortured. But the FARC is
doing far worse than that, Mr. Speaker, and so is the result of the
narcotrafficking trade in Colombia.
  The day before I arrived at Larandia, there was a confrontation. The
military units of the Colombian base where I lived, Larandia, were sent
out, because they had intelligence that indicated the FARC was going to
raid a local community and take over its police department.
  The Colombian military met the FARC unit on a small road outside the
village. A firefight ensued. The FARC was equipped with AK47s, the
latest weapons available for a military anyplace in the world today,
bought with those billions of dollars of money, most of it coming from
wealthy Americans wanting to have their coke, at the same time they are
proclaiming that somehow they are concerned about the drug problem in
America.
  Mr. Speaker, the confrontation that ensued resulted in the death of 3
FARC uniform personnel. One of the uniform personnel, Mr. Speaker, was
a 12-year-old girl. The second FARC soldier that was killed was a 14-
year-old boy, and the third FARC military person that was killed was a
17-year-old boy. And the mode of operation was the same as it always is
with the FARC.
  When they get into a confrontation with the Colombian military, which
may occur, 100 yards or 200 yards away so the soldiers cannot see who
they are up against, the FARC pushes young kids in uniform out in the
front so they are the first to be killed. They are the first to die.
  Mr. Speaker, this has happened time and time again throughout
Colombia. In fact, with all of our concerns about the crimes of Saddam
Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, it is amazing to me that there is not
an outcry in this country for a war crimes tribunal against the gross
human atrocities being caused by the FARC and the revolutionary groups
in Colombia and Latin America.
  Because what is occurring there? The hundreds of deaths, the
slaughtering of young children, the slaughtering of families, the
forcing of farmers to grow these illegal crops and the devastation of
local villages, is a gross kind of human rights abuse that I do not
think we have seen the likes of since Saddam Hussein was in his prime
back in Iraq before the invasion.
  Mr. Speaker, we have no choice but to support the Colombians in this
struggle and they are winning. They are making progress. The training
is working.
  Mr. Speaker, I insert for the Record a summary of counternarcotics
operations in Putumayo, which is the hot bed of this activity in
Colombia. This was prepared at my request by our Ambassador. I submit
this for the Record for all of our colleagues to review and for all
Americans to understand the success that is occurring in Colombia as we
begin to eradicate hopefully 100 percent of the coca production in that
country which has led to the huge proliferation of cocaine into
America.

 Summary of Counternarcotics Operations in Putumayo, December 19, 2000-
                            January 28, 2001

               (Prepared for Representative Curt Weldon)

                            I. Introduction

       The first six weeks of counternarcotics operations in
     Putumayo Department in southern Colombia (the initial
     geographical focus under Plan Colombia) have seen many
     positive results. Two social pacts supported by the U.S.
     Agency for International Development, which provide for
     voluntary manual eradication and alternative crop
     development, have been signed by over 1400 families in Puerto
     Asis municipality, and six more are expected to be signed
     before the end of March. Aerial coca eradication and ground
     interdiction activities have taken place in south-central and
     southwestern Putumayo. As of January 28, 2001, over 24,000
     hectares

[[Page H157]]

     have been sprayed in Putumayo, the most densely cultivated
     area in the world. There has been an unprecedented level of
     cooperation between the Colombian Army Counterdrug Brigade
     and the Antinarcotics Directorate of the Colombian National
     Police. The operations have proceeded with relatively few
     incidents of armed clashes or ground fire directed at spray
     aircraft.

                         II. Aerial Eradication

       Although estimates vary, coca cultivation in Putumayo could
     be as high as 90,000 hectares (about 225,000 acres). The most
     dense areas of cultivation are located in southwestern
     Putumayo. Aerial eradication in Putumayo began in that area
     on December 22, 2000. As of January 28, 2001, a total of
     24,123 hectares has been sprayed--22,332 hectares in
     southwestern Putumayo (mostly in paramilitary-dominated
     zones) and 1,791 hectares in south-central Putumayo. Spraying
     is currently taking place in southwestern Putumayo. There
     have been eight spray planes and/or escort helicopters hit by
     hostile ground fire (in six incidents) since commencement of
     spraying in Putumayo--fewer than expected, given the high
     presence of illegal armed groups operating in Putumayo. None
     resulted in any injury or serious damage to aircraft.

                   III. Colombian Military Operations

       As of January 28, 2001 there are approximately 3,000
     Colombian Army troops deployed in Putumayo, including troops
     from the First and Second Counterdrug Battalions of the
     Counterdrug Brigade. The ground troops support aerial
     eradication activities and conduct lab interdictions. Since
     the start of operations in mid-December 2000, Colombian
     military forces have attacked 40 targets in Putumayo,
     including coca base labs, cocaine hydrochloride labs, and
     weapons storage facilities.
       There have been five incidents of armed clashes between
     Colombian military forces and illegal groups since the start
     of Putumayo operations, one involving paramiltaries and three
     involving FARC. These clashes resulted in the deaths of two
     12th Brigade soldiers, 11 FARC, and one paramilitary. The
     fifth incident was the firing (by unknown persons) of a
     rocket-propelled grenade at an embassy-contracted fuel plane
     (carrying Colombian National Police officers) departing Tres
     Esquinas.
       The level of cooperation between Colombian military forces
     and antinarcotics police during the Putumayo operation has
     been unprecedented, given the historic rivalries between the
     various armed forces and police. The forces have shared USG-
     supplied helicopters to move troops and police in and out of
     the spray/interdiction areas. The Deputy Commander of the
     Counterdrug Brigade now attends the daily briefings for the
     spray pilots, hence is better able to deploy his troops into
     the most effective areas and to alert the pilots to suspected
     locations of hostile elements.

     iv. u.s.-supported alternative development/manual eradication

       A key aspect of the multifaceted Plan Colombia projects
     targeted for Putumayo (and, later, other parts of the
     country) is to encourage small coca growers to sign
     agreements to voluntarily eliminate their illicit crops in
     exchange for government assistance with alternative crop
     development The U.S. Agency for International Development is
     working closely with the Government of Colombia's National
     Plan for Alternative Development (PLANTE), to put such
     agreements into place. Two agreements have been signed to
     date by a total of 1453 families in Puerto Asis municipality,
     providing for the voluntary elimination of nearly 3000
     hectares of coca. Six more agreements are expected to be
     signed before the end of March 2001. The target is to enter
     agreements with a total of 5500 families for the elimination
     of approximately 10,500 hectares of coca. The signing of even
     two elimination agreements has had a positive effect, in that
     many more families are interested in signing them now that
     they are perceived as a reality. The signings appear to have
     lessened some local officials' opposition to aerial
     eradication as well. While in the past they often complained
     that government efforts were focused on the ``stick'' of
     spraying but not the ``carrot'' of alternative development,
     at least one Putumayo mayor has stated that the government
     now apparently intends to keep its word to combine the two
     efforts.

                            v. human rights

       Since the first Counterdrug Battalion was formed in April
     1999, we have had no human rights complaints against the
     Counterdrug Brigade, nor have we received any since joint
     operations were launched in December 2000. There has been
     minimal displacement, with some 20-30 people displaced since
     spray operations began in mid-December. In contrast,
     thousands of people were displaced in the area between
     September-December 2000 as a result of the FARC's armed seige
     of Putumayo.
       As required under the Leahy amendment, the Embassy vets all
     military and police units which receive USG assistance by
     reviewing the unit's human rights record and regular reports
     from the Colombian Ministry of Defense on any units or
     members of units which are undergoing formal investigation
     for human rights violations. The 24th Brigade, a member of
     the Joint Task Force-South under General Mario Montoya's
     command, is currently the only element of the Joint Task
     Force-South which is not approved to receive USG assistance.

                             vi. conclusion

       While the government of Colombia has achieved significant
     success in the first phase of U.S.-supported counternarcotics
     operations in Putumayo, much more remains to be done. Embassy
     is encouraging the Colombian Army and Antinarcotics Police to
     pursue more joint operations, and is encouraging the
     Colombian Presidency to explain Plan Colombia more clearly to
     its citizens. The Government of Colombia has shown the
     political will to maintain its commitment to the aerial
     eradication and interdiction aspects of Plan Colombia, even
     if violence escalates (as is likely to be the case). Public
     support for antinarcotics aid is strong, but continued close
     engagement at all levels will be required to maintain the
     GOC's resolve.

  Mr. Speaker, in this two-page summary, our colleagues will find a
detailed assessment of the successes that we are achieving, of the
cooperation of the Colombian military, of the brave efforts being put
forth by military leaders and police leaders who everyday are being
intimidated and whose families are being threatened by the FARC and the
terrorist groups throughout Colombia.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to also assure my colleagues one of the major
concerns we have in any country is that there not be human rights
abuses by the military or the police of that country. In the training
that I witnessed at the Larandia operation, a major part of our
training program for the Colombian military deals with human rights,
showing the soldiers on the ground in Colombia that while they are
there, to weed out the corrupt narcoterrorists activity.
  They must adhere to strict human rights concerns that we have. They
must comply with international norms. They must not abuse innocent
people. And while there are still incidents as there are even in our
own military, from time to time, of concerns relative to human rights.
I can assure our colleagues that the Colombian military, the Colombian
police department have made overwhelming positive strides in stopping
human rights abuses from those who are enforcing the laws and from
those who are going after the narcotics traffickers.
  Mr. Speaker, our military again is rising to the occasion and doing
an outstanding job. The Colombian soldier on the ground understands the
importance of maintaining human rights and dignity, even when they are
dealing with thugs involved, with growing and selling off cocaine
eventually for America's soil.
  This summary gives a glimpse of the kind of successes that we are
having in each of these areas; the efforts at cleaning up the drug
labs, the efforts at spraying the crops, the efforts at protecting the
human rights, the efforts at helping to rebuild the economy of these
areas that have been devastated by drug trafficking.

                              {time}  1600

  The role of America is not just training. We are also providing
resources. Of the $1.3 million that we are placing into Plan Colombia,
only a small portion is actually going to our military. Significant
parts of the money are going into nonmilitary activities, such as the
Department of State. Other parts are going into activities involving
economic readjustment.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have a series of charts that I will be
providing for every Member of the House that give an assessment as to
where the $1.3 million is going, the kinds of equipment that we are
buying, helicopters to do spraying, and helicopters to accompany the
helicopters and the planes that are doing the spraying of the crops.
  So the effort in Plan Colombia is not just about helping the
military. It is about providing a broad strategy. It is about building
democratic institutions. It is about helping local mayors and local
councils have better control over their communities. It is involving
ourselves through Colombia in creating additional economic activities
for farmers who no longer are going to produce these drugs.
  Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that we must stay the course in Latin
America. One of the concerns that I had when I traveled to Ecuador and
Colombia was that we in America do not know enough about our southern
partners. I am very pleased that our new President has made statements
that he wants to reach south. He has already reached out to Mexico. I
know that he

[[Page H158]]

wants to reach out to Central and South America.
  I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that many of us, including myself, have
not paid attention to our closest neighbors. We have not taken the
opportunity to reach out to them as equal partners in terms of economic
development, environmental cooperation, cooperation in health and human
services, and also dealing with problems like the oil spill off the
Galapagos or the drug problem in Colombia.
  That is why, Mr. Speaker, I had discussions in both countries and I
am now suggesting to my colleagues, especially those on the Committee
on International Relations chaired by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Hyde), that we look at the putting together an initiative, kind of a
mini-Marshall Plan that would bring a special focus on the seven
contiguous countries around Colombia, to let these countries know that
Americans up north are not just in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and
Panama, that we are not just there because of the drug problem, that we
want to establish a new relationship, one that encourages more economic
investment and encourages real environmental cooperation, one that
shows that we will assist them in improving their quality of life in
health care and education; and in the end, a strong component that will
support the rule of law and support the continued effort to help the
Colombian people and the other nations rid themselves of this terrible
narcotrafficking and production that has been occurring there over the
past several years.
  I would hope that one of our objectives in this session of Congress
would be to establish this mini-Marshall Plan to show our friends in
South America that America wants to be true and close partners of
theirs. Ecuador has been one of the closest allies to our country for
years. It is time to let the people of Ecuador know that we appreciate
that support and that we want to engage with Ecuador in a more
aggressive way.
  I would hope that our colleagues on the Committee of International
Relations led by such great people as the gentleman from North Carolina
(Mr. Ballenger), who has traveled to that part of the world more than
any of our colleagues, who along with his wife has a better grasp of
the situation in Central and South America than many of our people who
serve in State Department positions, that we reach out and work with
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and his subcommittee
and work to shape a new policy, a proactive policy that has a military
component but also shows the people of South America that we want to be
their true friends and trading partners.
  I came away also, Mr. Speaker, from my trip with one additional piece
of information dealing with a very controversial subject that will
again be taken up by this Congress this year, and that is the School of
the Americas. Every year, Mr. Speaker, when we bring up the defense
authorization bill on the floor, there are several Members of Congress
who offer an amendment to basically do away with the School of the
Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia; and they use the argument that some
of the graduates of that school have committed atrocities and have been
involved in gross human rights abuses, particularly in Central and
South America.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not challenging the fact that out of the thousands
of people that have gone through the School of the Americas there have
been some bad apples, just as I would acknowledge that you can take
Harvard University or Yale or Princeton and find one or two graduates
who have ended up in jail because of white collar crimes or because of
things that they have done that are against our society.

  But I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, when I ask the question of the
Colombians and the Ecuadorians and our leaders and our two ambassadors
in those countries how important is the School of the Americas to your
success, the answer was unanimous. The answer was unanimous from
everyone I talked to, that the School of the Americas played an
absolutely essential role in teaching South and Central American
leaders that the military responds to the civilian part of society,
that human rights is a part of what a military leader must consider
every day he or she is doing their job, that the School of the Americas
has trained young military leaders to understand the same types of
leadership skills that our military has that are so frequently brought
to their attention in serving in our services.
  So an additional point that our colleagues need to ask as they travel
and deal with the situation in Latin America is how important is this
institution to the continued success that we are having in cooperating
with the militaries of the South American countries. Are they perfect?
The answer is, no. Is our military perfect? The answer is, no. But we
are both moving in the same direction, addressing the concerns of human
rights and dignity as we enforce laws and as we deal with tyrants and
dictators and thugs such as those involved with the FARC and the
revolutionary groups that currently are running rampant in Colombia and
other parts of South America.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, the news is good. The success is documented,
and I rise as someone who was not a big fan of this initiative 6 months
ago.
  I was a skeptic. I am now convinced we are doing the right thing. Our
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, are going to be asked this year to provide a
second sum of money to continue this operation. Our colleagues need to
get the facts. Our colleagues need to travel to Latin America.
  To this end, Mr. Speaker, I will again be organizing a delegation
sometime in the mid to latter part of 2001. I have already received a
commitment that Members of Congress will be able to stay overnight in a
base camp so they can see firsthand and observe themselves the kind of
training, the kind of interaction, can talk to the villagers, and can
talk to people who are in the Colombian military to see the success
firsthand that we are having.
  In Ecuador, we will meet with the leadership. We will also talk about
environmental cooperation with pristine areas like the Galapagos. In
Colombia and the other countries we visit, we will begin to focus on
the success that we are having.
  I encourage our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, prior to the vote on these
additional funds, to travel to that part of the world. The gentleman
from North Carolina (Chairman Ballenger) takes trips to Central and
South America on a regular basis. If our colleagues cannot join the
delegation that I organize, they can contact the gentleman from North
Carolina (Chairman Ballenger), and I am sure he will organize an
appropriate visit as well this year.
  I think in the year 2001, under the leadership of our new President,
George Bush, Latin America is the key area of focus; that we must renew
old friendships. We must show these people in Central and South America
that we are not the ugly gringos of the north, that we want to be their
friends. We want to be their trading partners. We want to help them
solve their environmental problems. We want to help them in their
effort to weed out corruption, to deal with human rights abuses, and to
help them provide a solid well-trained military and police force to
maintain the basic elements of democracy.
  In doing all of that, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced America will be
better, our homeland defense will be more secure, and we will have a
better relationship with those people who inhabit both Central and
South America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the remaining time and thank the Speaker
and the staff for sticking through this Special Order.

                          ____________________