Congressman Doug Lamborn Talks Grid Vulnerability with Secure Freedom Radio

Rep. Doug Lamborn proudly represents the people of the 5th congressional district of Colorado. On top of this and many other responsibilities, Rep. Lamborn is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Frank Gaffney, host of Secure Freedom Radio was able to catch Rep. Lamborn during the August recess to get his analysis of the various threats we face today. Click here for audio.

FG: Welcome back, we’re joined by Representative Doug Lamborn. He represents the people of the fifth congressional district of Colorado and serves in the House as a member of the House Armed Services Committee and also on the House Committee on Natural Resources. He chairs its Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and maybe we’re going to have to talk about the president’s coal initiative on that score too. But Congressman, welcome back to Secure Freedom Radio, always good to have you with us.

DL: Likewise Frank, you do a great job for our country.

FG: Well thank you. I’m interested first I guess in sounding you out like I did with your colleague Congressman Marino earlier about the Iran Deal. How it looks to you as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, especially as a member whose has been very concerned about missile threats to this country and this phenomenon of electromagnetic pulse and the possibility that may be what the Iranians have in mind for us in the future.

DL: Well Frank the more we look at it, the worse it looks. One of the latest outrages is that the disclosure of secret protocols between the IAEA out of Vienna and Iran, are not going to be disclosed to members of Congress, the people’s representatives and the administration was suppose to make sure every single facet of this agreement, including all side agreements were at least reviewed if not made public. So there’s no transparency here and that’s very troubling because part of those secret protocols had to do with previous military activity on the part of Iran and you have to know what the baseline is. If you don’t know what’s gone on in the past, you don’t know how to moderate properly for what’s happening in the future. So for so many reasons, it’s looking worse and worse Frank and I hope the American people do pressure their Senators and Representatives to reject this dangerous deal.

FG: Well and this is the window to do that. Many of them are like yourself home in their districts or states in this August recess period. It is primetime as you know Congressman for interacting with your constituents, getting their views on various issues and factoring those of course into your representation of them. To the extent you have been a member of the EMP Caucus in the House Congressman, as well as the Missile Defense Caucus, you must be as concerned as I am that what we’ve seen the administration doing with this deal, in terms of the billions of dollars they’re going to have flowed to Iran and the relieving of sanctions on their ballistic missile program and other assistance we’re giving them in their nuclear program as well as protecting it, that we’re really setting ourselves up for disaster if they in fact opt for this kind of capability. How serious of a threat do you regard that to be and how important should it be to us that we make our grid more resilient against it?

DL: Frank it’s very serious. We know they’re developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capability and they say they want to wipe out Israel. Well Israel does not need to be reached by intercontinental ballistic missiles from Iran, theater missiles will do the job there unfortunately. So, it’s us that they’re coming after when they talk about intercontinental ballistic missiles and we know that they have the desire to capitalize on things like electromagnetic pulse and nuclear weapons to put those kinds of mass weapons of destruction on ballistic missiles and so for this administration, to put no curbs at the negotiating table on this kind of dangerous program, is just yet one more of the many flaws in this dangerous, dangerous negotiated deal.

FG: And the fact that Congress is going to be given a limited ability to consider it makes it all the more important as you say Congressman Doug Lamborn, the voice of the American people during this next couple of weeks. Congressman, one of the things, just as a Segway, that is featured in the National Defense Authorization Act that you and your colleagues put together in the House of Representatives is a provision calling for the reconstitution of the EMP Commission, a very important expert body to advise and sort of monitor what’s being done in this area to protect Americans against these various threats. What’s the prospect, as you see it now, for that bill? I know that the president has threatened to veto it over some of the budget authorities that you’ve given the Pentagon. If you could make book how it’s going to proceed, what’s you bet?

DL: Well, I think that the President will actually sign it. He’s made that threat but signed bills like this in the past. I think the bigger threat though is with the Senate. The Senate lead by John McCain have dug their heels in on making some cuts to personnel and benefits for personnel like the basic allowance for housing or pharmacy or commissaries, and those are the kinds of things in an all volunteer force that we do need for retention and to keep people who are highly trained there in the future so we can take advantage of their great training and expertise. So, there really is a difference right now on benefits between the House and the Senate, a little bit more on Guantanamo Bay but benefits is the biggest holding up point up roight now and there’s so many good things in the bill like you said, the EMP Commission, we need to get it passed.

FG: This comes of course, these cuts to personnel and their benefits, when the administration of course is as we talked about earlier with Bishop E.W. Jackson, Congressman Lamborn, engaged in all kinds of social engineering of the military but also just simply reducing its combat capability by some forty thousand personnel in the Army alone just recently. How would you characterize the condition of the military, the moral, the readiness, and our ability to train and support these folks who we’re going to need more than ever in the near future I’m afraid.

DL: Well unfortunately, we have a president who for some seven years has been cutting defense because he has a view that American military strength is provocative and somehow negative and causes problems. I have the Ronald Reagan view and many others as well who say’ we should have peace through strength’. Yet this president’s dangerous policies of cutting capability, cutting the numbers in our forces, cutting programs that are on the drawing board that otherwise we would have had in the future, cutting the most advanced programs like the F-22. He’s kicking the can down the road Frank in ways that a successor in the White House is going to have to deal, with all the mess that’s being created. You look at ISIS, you look at Russia on the march, there’s so many things. We left Iraq without any negotiated soft standing force, which gave rise to ISIS. There’s so many things that this president has done wrong, he’s kicking the can down the road. Iran is another huge example of that. That we’re going to have messes to clean up many years into the future.

FG: Your colleague Congressman Marino made a similar point. My only concern, I must tell you Doug Lamborn, is that these messes may metastasize on what’s left of this president’s watch. If I were any of our adversaries, I would I think try to take advantage of having this president in the White House rather than a successor who hopefully will have a very different foreign and national security policy approach. Let me ask you a final question. Congressman, you’ve been one of the leaders on space-related issues, particularly the national security aspects thereof. Talk if you would for a moment about the space threats that you’re perceiving and what we ought to be doing to counter them as well as what’s happening here on the ground.

DL: Well Frank some of the threats we can’t talk about it in an open setting unfortunately but we do know for sure that our near-peers, Russia and China and others would love to take advantage of this. They don’t have quite the capability. They’re aware that we have an asymmetrical advantage with our satellites and our dominance of space and they know that by taking out military communications, GPS, some of our ISR assets, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; that they can really cripple the advantage we currently have in space. We don’t have that many military satellites. The ones that we do have do a tremendous amount of work and have a tremendous capability but those are slow and expensive to get up into space and our adversaries know that and that’s what they would like to go after. So, we have to be one step ahead of them, which is expensive and we have people, like in the White House, that don’t want to make that investment.

FG: And who perhaps, will allow that vulnerability as with the terrestrial one of our Grid persist, if they have their own way. Congressman Doug Lamborn you’re leadership on this issue and so many others is really appreciated, on the House Armed Services Committee also on the Natural Resources Committee. We’ve run out of time to talk about the coal decision but I hope you’ll come back to us again in the near future to discuss that as well. In the mean time, keep up the good work sir and enjoy your recess, well deserved.