Congressman John Shimkus of Illinois joins Secure Freedom Radio

Rep. Shimkus is fresh off co-sponsoring a bill that will finally allow Military personnel to be armed at recruiting centers. His insight on this and the threat of an Iranian EMP attack are the topics of the day here at Secure Freedom Radio.

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FRANK GAFFNEY: Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. I’m very pleased to say joined again by a man we have had the privilege of speaking with from time to time. He is Congressman John Shimkus. He represents with great distinction the people of the fifteenth congressional district from Illinois. He is an army veteran, a graduate of West Point, the US military academy. He served for some 28 years, both in active duty and reserves forces, rising to the rank, and retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. Colonel, if I may, welcome back to Secure Freedom Radio, glad to have you with us.

Rep. John Shimkus: It’s great to be with you, thanks for having me.

FG: Always a pleasure. Listen you have been in the thick of so many fights and we won’t have time to do justice to practically any of them, but let me start with the topic that we’ve been dwelling on a lot lately for obvious reasons, the Iran deal, what I call the ‘ObamaBomb’ deal. You took an early position that was very critical, I think properly so. Has any thing that has transpired in the intervening couple of weeks since this deal was unveiled persuaded you well ‘no actually it is a good thing for us to do’, including General Dempsey’s claim that pragmatically he can support it?

JS: Absolutely not. It’s just based upon the premise that Iran is a good actor and by allowing them into the international community, and being part of the non proliferation folks as they say, that they will be changed. If that’s a promise, then it’s not based upon past record or current facts. First of all, it gives them money to continue to support radicals and destabilize the region. It allows them to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles; it then allows them to develop a nuclear weapon. So I’m really frustrated, and that’s not even including whatever may be occurring on the side deals, which we still have to smoke out.

FG: You’ve really touched on several of the key points here, again as a guy with hard experience in the United States military, it would seem to me that the notion that we are going to provide billions of dollars and the opportunity, potentially quite quickly not five years from now but perhaps even quicker, for these guys to buy advanced conventional weapons, let alone proceed with their nuclear program, would seem an invitation to killing an awful lot more Americans, and they’ve done a fair amount of it already.

JS: The advanced conventional weapons that they can provide to their agents throughout the region to destabilize Lebanon, causing additional problems in Iraq and Syria. When I talk to my constituents, they understand that an agreement with another country, if you can’t get them to release illegally held prisoners, and you can get them to just not say ‘death to America’, how do you cut a deal with them?

FG: (Laughing) The prospects aren’t good for better behavior in the future. Let me ask you about something specifically, because Congressman John Shimkus is among other things a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Both by virtue of your service on the Energy Power Subcommittee and your engineering degree from West Point, you and I have talked in the past about the vulnerability of our electric grid as a potentially, well, a kill shot conceivably for a country like Iran, that seems determined, doctrinally and in terms of the capabilities they’ve put into place, to use an electromagnetic pulse attack against us, or perhaps cyber warfare, or some combination of the two. How serious a problem do you consider this vulnerability to be Congressman Shimkus, and what should we be doing to remedy it?

JS: Well, I do think it’s a threat and I don’t think anyone has done what you’ve done, which is just connect some dots between a nuclear armed Iran, I mentioned their ability to get intercontinental ballistic missile technology, but a nuclear airburst would fry our electronics systems and throw North America into a panic, which would be what Islamic radicals would love to see.

FG: A world without America I’m afraid in short order as they say.

JS: So you’ve got Chairman Upton and Chairman Murkowski, on the Senate side, moving energy bills that are the premises, not pick up big things that cause strife between the parties, but the transmission grid is something that there’s some agreement on. I’m just not sure we’re going far enough to put into place the protections we need. On a side thing, I’m worried about, you hear a lot about smart metering and smart technology that’s all based upon a premise of energy efficiency, but when you get smart technology, that means you have smart electronics, which means an electro magnetic pulse could fry that stuff. Verses conventional wires and switches.

FG: As I’m fond of saying, Congressman Shimkus, ‘you could end up with a stupider grid making it all that smarter if you’re not careful’. I’ve very heartened by what you say, I think your right, we’re not going far enough. There is a Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would at least require the Department of Homeland Security to develop a strategy for doing something along these lines, but of course your committee is the one that could actually make that happen, and I look forward to your leadership in that regard. May I turn to one other place where you were exercising considerable leadership, and that is, again as a former military man you appreciate the absurdity of the situation in which our men and women in uniform in this country are not allow to be armed, as they are off and overseas, especially when they’re in harms way. They are under assault now, we’ve seen again and again, from jihadists of various stripes. Talk about the bill you’re trying to pass and how that would perhaps remedy that situation.

JS: Well, there’s a couple bills out there. I think I joined on the bill sponsored by Congressman Duncan Hunter from San Diego area that allows our recruiters to be armed. They are trained, they are professionals, and they are targeted. Every state now has some form of conceal carry, even the state of Illinois, which was the last state to do so. I think it’s an easy move to let these folks be armed. We shouldn’t have to have our law enforcement professionals arriving late carrying weapons, when we have trained military people who can defend themselves.

FG: And who are being targeted, as we know by the Islamic State among others. This would seemingly be something that is amenable to just being directed by the Secretary of Defense, and I know you’ve written a letter to that affect, I hope he’ll do that and obviate the need for legislation, but if not, you’ll get that done. Listen, one last thing Congressman before I have to let you go. You have been working on the Internet domain name system, and protecting our continued benign control of that. Would you talk a little about what’s at stake there, and what you’re trying to do about that?

JS: It’s a very difficult process to talk to briefly, but a lot of the internet today is really controlled by a multistate coder agreement and a company, a not for profit company, called ICANN. The domain name systems which can connects the IP address is one part of the IANA functions from ICANN, and that’s where we still have oversight over it, because the United States has a contractual arrangement with ICANN to making sure the IP address go straight. Now we know China and Russia would like to balkanize the market, control the information flow and deprive their citizens of free access to information. And so we got to be very, very careful as the world internet community wants to police and have control of this last vestige of the development of the world wide web by the United States, and we’re just saying trust and verify, let’s watch this closely. To do that, we have to extend the contract. My Dot Com Act requires the federal government to extend the contract with ICANN so we can have oversight, so when they come to the final agreement, we get a chance to look at it.

FG: This is so important, and it’s just not really understood by most Americas as you say, it’s one of those classical examples it seems to me Congressman, of you won’t know what you’ve got or had, until it is gone. The potential for mayhem to be wrought by China, by Russia, by others, who seek to control unfortunately not just their own citizens’ access to the internet and information, but I think mess up ours, is really a terribly, terribly serious problem. We appreciate your leadership on this with the Dot Com Act, as you say and in so many other areas. Congressman, thanks for taking some time with us as well as your service to our country, both in uniform and in congress is really appreciated. Keep it up have a good working recess, district work period as they call it, come back to us tanned, rested and ready to fight this Iran deal if you would.