CLINTON’S VETO OF MISSILE DEFENSE LEGISLATION MUST SET THE STAGE FOR A REDOUBLED EFFORT TO DEFEND AMERICA

(Washington, D.C.): Leading congressional
proponents of U.S. missile defenses last week reluctantly
agreed to accommodate President Clinton’s opposition to
protecting the American people against missile attack. As
a result, a revised Fiscal Year 1996 Defense
authorization bill — bereft of its statutory direction
to put such protection in place by the year 2003 — is
expected to be taken up shortly.

Whether this action represents a bitter, and possibly
long-standing, defeat for the cause of defending America
or a mere tactical repositioning by those determined to
accomplish that goal — Mr. Clinton’s objections
notwithstanding — will depend on what happens next.
In short, the supporters of missile defenses must
redouble their efforts to correct the Nation’s present
vulnerability to ballistic missile attack by:

• holding early, intensive and wide-ranging
  hearings in the armed services and foreign
  affairs committees on the growing threat
  posed by ballistic missiles and weapons of mass
  destruction and the options available for
  defending against that threat;
• defining a strategic and programmatic approach
  to deploying missile defenses that will allow
  militarily and cost-effective systems to be
  deployed as quickly as possible;
• formulating and proceeding with formal
  consideration of legislation implementing the
  chosen approach.

If taken, such steps will help further catalyze
the missile defense issue — giving it public prominence
and political import. Already, several Presidential
candidates (notably, Steve Forbes, Phil Gramm and Bob
Dole) have expressed strong disagreement with the Clinton
veto of the Defense authorization bill’s commitment to
defending America. The electorate should be allowed also
to learn whether those who seek to represent them in
Congress are clearly committed to defending this country
against ballistic missile attack or remain determined not
to do so.

Needed: ‘A Clean Slate’ Approach

The Center for Security Policy believes that, in
following this multi-step game-plan, Congress should
adopt a “clean-slate” approach: Clearly,
earlier efforts to frame congressional missile defense
issues in a way consistent with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and its allowance of only a single
ground-based defensive site at Grand Forks, North Dakota have
not worked. There is no reason to believe that such
efforts will prove more fruitful in the future.

Consequently, the time has come to consider
alternatives that meet a higher test than treaty
compliance — namely, that make common sense and that are
technically feasible, highly effective, affordable and
swiftly available. One alternative warranting careful
consideration is called for in the “Defend
America Act” (H.R. 2483) introduced last year by
Reps. Martin Hoke, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde, Chris Cox
and others. This legislation directs the President to
exercise the U.S. right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty
in light of the threats to “supreme national
interests” posed by the proliferation of ballistic
missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Another
would be to create a global missile defense capability
by evolving the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air defense system.
In 1995, a distinguished panel of experts commissioned by
the Heritage Foundation and dubbed “Team B”
strongly endorsed this “Upper Tier” concept as
the optimal focus for near-term U.S. anti-missile
efforts.

Kudos to Chairman Spence

It is heartening that Rep. Floyd Spence, chairman of
the House National Security Committee and a strong
advocate for defending America against missile attack,
last week signaled his intention to redouble the campaign
to secure effective anti-missile protection. In a press
statement issued on 19 January, Chairman Spence decried
the President’s veto as “unfortunate and
unjustified.” He noted that it did:

“…However, help to further highlight the
stark differences between the Congress and our
support for the deployment of a national missile
defense system and the President’s unequivocal
opposition to providing a defense of this country
against ballistic missile attack…The battle will
continue even more aggressively on the questions of
ballistic missile defenses and the ABM Treaty as we
move into the fiscal year 1997 budget cycle.”

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy urges Rep. Spence and
like-minded colleagues to make the most of the
opportunity afforded by President Clinton’s veto of the
Defense authorization bill. It looks forward to
collaborating with such thoughtful legislators to set the
stage, at last, for putting into place the sort of
anti-missile defenses so clearly needed by this country,
its forces overseas and its allies.