Bipartisan Group of Thirty-two Members of Congress Joins Rising Chorus for the ‘AEGIS Option’ on Missile Defense

(Washington, D.C.): On 14 December, thirty-two Republican and Democratic legislators led
by
Rep. David Vitter (R-LA) wrote Secretary of Defense William Cohen urging
that he reject
efforts to “transfer funding from the budget accounts of the U.S. Navy Theater Wide (NTW)
anti-missile program into other programs.” In their letter (see the
attached), Democratic
Members of Congress for the first time formally joined a growing number of Republican
congressional leaders and presidential candidates in calling for a sea-based missile defense
“to provide the needed defense of the American homeland, borders, shores and
airspace.”

Bicameral Support

The House initiative comes on the heels of a similar missive sent on 7 December to Secretary
Cohen by sixteen members of the U.S. Senate, including virtually all of the members of that
chamber’s Republican leadership. The Senators warned that the Congress would oppose on
strategic and legal grounds efforts to rob the Navy Theater Wide program to pay for
the Army’s
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. They reminded their former colleague
that:

We strongly urge you to ensure
adequate funding for both the Navy Theater Wide and THAAD programs, such
that their deployment is constrained only by the pace of their technological
developments.

An Issue for the Presidential Race

Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates — Steve Forbes, George Bush and
John
McCain — have recently endorsed the AEGIS Option. ¹
They clearly appreciate both the
strategic necessity and political salience of using the Navy’s prior investment of over $50 billion
in its 55 AEGIS ships to provide a near-term, commonsensical and cost effective approach to
defending against missile attack. Such a vigorous program would sharply contrast with the
Clinton-Gore Administration’s present unwillingness to commit to deploy any
missile defense
and its preference for doing so, if at all, only after the Russians have given their
approval and in
the most costly and least effective manner (i.e., a single, ground-based deployment of 100
interceptors in Alaska).

The likelihood that the American people will be offered the AEGIS alternative in the coming
election season has been further increased by the importance accorded this program by the most
national security-minded chairman of either political party in many years — Republican
National Committee chair Jim Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson, a decorated Army veteran,
has been
a champion of promptly adapting the Navy’s fleet air defense assets to enable them to intercept
missiles launched at our forces and allies overseas and our people here at home. In a
press
release issued on 2 December, the RNC’s leader sharply criticized the Clinton-Gore attempt to
starve the essential building-block, the Navy Theater Wide program, of the funds it needs even to
reach an initial operating capability by 2007.

The Bottom Line

The truth of the matter is that the United States cannot wait until 2007 to deploy
effective,
flexible sea-based missile defenses. It must, instead, take immediate steps greatly to
accelerate
the point at which such a system becomes operational. A growing number of Republican
leaders
and even some Democratic legislators now appreciate this requirement. If the Clinton-Gore
Administration persists in impeding — to say nothing of trying to eviscerate — the earliest
possible realization of the AEGIS Option, the issue must be put to the American people for their
decision as part of the elections of 2000.

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¹ See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Clinton Dare Not Gut Funding for Sea-Based
Missile Defenses in Light of Strong Senate Support for the ‘AEGIS Option’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_142″>No. 99-D 142, 9
December 1999); The Emerging G.O.P. Alternative on Missile Defense —
Exercising the
‘AEGIS Option’ (No. 99-D 135, 18 November
1999); and Steve Forbes Issues Reaganesque
Call to Help Free China (No. 99-F 31, 12
November 1999).