which you can get a copy from the committee's records, that lowers the price of the Army variant, treaty compliant, by the way, from $5 billion to $3.5 billion. Each of these two systems can be deployed within 4 to 5 years. They-the only technology that needs to be developed with them is the kill vehicle, which we have we assume there are no show-stoppers with, and that can be developed-and that can be deployed on either of the systems. They are very thin-layer systems. In fact, let me put a quote in here. And this quote is, "A ground-based system to defend against a relatively thin attack could be built for perhaps $5 billion." Guess who said that? Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, January 27, 1995. Mr. MICA. So you would say, sir, then, that the Constitution basically says one of our primary responsibilities is to provide for the national defense? Mr. WELDON. Absolutely. Mr. MICA. The second question is the cost, and as I said, since I have been here we have spent at least $12 billion on these different engagements, and you are talking about less than 50 percent of that cost. So the next thing is the cost, I guess, in that. Then I guess the third element, as I would see it is there a threat? Now, you showed me that calendar, and I have also been aware of probably the greatest arms sale in the history of mankind that has taken place since the fall of the former Soviet Union as we know it. Is that correct, too? Mr. WELDON. Yes. Mr. MICA. I was asking the staff, I heard the other day how many submarines Iran bought. Was it? Mr. WELDON. Three. Mr. MICA. Three, three submarines. And you talked about the Russian decision of April 1996 to sell the SS-18 TAC ICBM. Mr. WELDON. Well, they are denying that publicly, but we have information intelligence-wise that there have been discussions. Mr. MICA. But we also have North Korea. We have Libya. We have Iran. We have Iraq, China. So is the potential out there for threat, or is this just a Mr. WELDON. It's there. It's real, and it's now. It's not 10 years. And the way they contrive the NIE-if you want to talk about the NIE, that's another whole story in itself, the politicization of the intelligence process. I mean, they talk about no threat in 15 years. You know what they very carefully did-and talk about outragethey very carefully put to the contiguous 48 States. Can you imagine a threat assessment ignoring Alaska and Hawaii? What are they, aliens from outer space? They are not American citizens? But the administration, when they-when they generalized their statement, said, oh, there is no threat for 10 to 15 years. But the threat assessment says 48 States. That is because they didn't want to talk about the threat to Alaska and Hawaii. Mr. MICA. So we have the responsibility, we have the cost, and you are saying we have the threat through the arms sale. It's kind of-it's not humorous, but someone told me that they were in the Soviet Union and literally a cab driver offered to sell them a nuclear some type of nuclear material, or material. I don't know if it's real or not. You showed us the glossy advertising and the calendar. I just wondered, I got one of these free Arch Deluxe with a purchase of large fries and a medium soft drink. I know there's a McDonalds in Moscow. Are they having a special where I could get another coupon? Mr. WELDON. Sure. It's a huge one. Now they have drive-in over there, too. Mr. MICA. So with my Arch Deluxe I could get some ingredients or technology maybe in a special meal deal that's going on this week. Mr. WELDON. Mr. Mica, your point is well made. And let me just add one other thing. You talk about cost. What's so ironic is we have an administration that doesn't want us to have a national missile defense system, but has agreed to spend our total commitment right now, which I support, for Israel, for the Arab program, is about half a billion dollars. Now that's going to give Israel the first national missile defense system in the world that the United States basically helped develop. And here is an administration where the President went before APAC several weeks ago and gave a big speech and talked about how we are going to deploy the new Nautilus system. It's going to give them another protection, laser system. For the past 3 years this President zeroed out funding for the high energy laser program each year. If we had listened to him, we would have had no money for the high energy laser program and no money for Nautilus, and he wouldn't have been able to make his speech. But he made it, and he is able to do that because we in the Congress put the money in for the high energy laser program. Mr. MICA. My final point, and I know my time has expired, is that it's, what, 5 short years ago that Israel had pretty primitive SCUD missiles being aimed at their cities and towns. If we had even one-the American public knew there was the potential of one missile, and that capability and threat you are saying exists, it seems like this expenditure would be is almost minutia in the total scheme of the money we spend here. Mr. WELDON. It is. You will get others who will say, well, this is not really the biggest threat. The biggest threat is terrorism. For the record, Mr. Chairman, let me point out, before your other witnesses might come up Mr. EHRLICH. Actually, we have one 5-minute. I am going to give Karen another 5-minute. Mr. WELDON. The terrorism-we plussed up each other-our budget pluses up funding for terrorism because this administration wasn't putting enough money in for chem-bio defense and for dealing with the threat of a terrorist act coming into our ports or coming into our airports. We in our defense bill have plussed it up each year. So if someone comes in and says that that's the real threat, we are also aware of that, and we are dealing with that as well. Mr. EHRLICH. Curt, in order to get to our panelists, I just have two quick followups. I will get the first one out of the way. This Surikov document, I am going to make that part of the record. Without objection, so ordered. [The information referred to follows:] Institute of Defense Studies INSTITUTE OF DEFENSE STUDIES INOBIS "APPROVED" GENERAL DIRECTOR, INOBIS DOCTOR OF TECHNICAL SCIENCES PROFESSOR /s/ V. M. SURIKOV CONCEPTUAL PROVISIONS OF A STRATEGY FOR COUNTERING THE MAIN EXTERNAL THREATS TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION NATIONAL SECURITY Institute of Defense Studies There is a significant number of external threats to Russian Federation [RF] national security at present which are difficult to classify. At the same time, several of the main threats of this kind are rather obvious. An analysis shows that above all States:is the main exten se potentially capable of creating a threat to RF military security and to Russia's economic and political interests abroad and of exerting substantial influence on the economic and political situation within Russia and on Russia's mutual relations with former USSR republics. As a rule, the United States implements its policy in the Russian direction in coordination with other Western countries, Israel, and Japan. "Assistance to processes of democratization and of transition to a market economy with the help of the West and in close, equal partnership and cooperation with it" is declared to be the West's official policy with respect to Russia. At the same time, experience of recent years demonstrates that the West puts its own interpretation into all of the above terms. In particular, the term "/ rstood to mean «Westerpolloy in the downtunarment in the direction of US international arena. And the West's "help" to Russia is extremely limited in nature and determined by the fulfillment of a whole series of preconditions. On the whole, it appears the principal mission of U.S. and Western policy with respect to clasepsit from turning into an economically, politicana and crtigstefiorentintforen ar stransferm.post-Soviet space into an económic and political appendage and raw materials Rolony of the West. Because of this, it is the United States and its allies that are the sources of PERUUSIA'S LANational security, and they should be considered the 1. Nature of main threats to Russia's national security caused by the effect of external factors. a. The line of the United States and its allies toward intervening in Russia's internal affairs to impose on it paths of development in a direction favorable to the West represents the greatest danger. The comprador model of building the economy suggested to Russia by the International Monetary Fund (IMF] and World Bank consists of orienting Institute of Defense Studies Russia toward exporting raw materials and importing everything else, encouraging default on the debt to Russia by CIS countries, as well as encouraging outflows of capital from Russia to the West and, in parallel, pational industry, science, and agriculture. Attempts at high teek potentialet national industry, andenb kalla ofour pintary-moustrial complex by not admitting Bussia to world markets of arms and of space, missile, aviation, and nuclear technologies and nuclear materials are most obvious at the present time. Protectionist measures against Russian exports of fuel for nuclear power stations, opposition to the and the hysteria over cryogenic rocket engine deliveries from Russia to are examples of such attempts. On the whole, the economic model being realized threatens to degrade the country's economic potential and eliminate the unified domestic market, which in turn can become a basis for regional separatism and for raw materials regions and maritime regions to fall away from Moscow, thereby hand? Strepentury borders. It should be noted that in following that line, the West finds support among part of the Russian elite and relies above all on Russian comprador business, which has become especially entrenched in speculative-finance banking structures and export-oriented raw materials sectors of the economy. The West is least interested in the growth of internal accumulations of any kind whatsoever in Russia, otherwise such accumulations could be used for modernizing the national processing industry and agriculture, for conversion and rescue of high technologies of the militaryindustrial complex, and for maintaining Armed Forces combat power and solving their social problems. A so-called hogy LAHKKI85@nilaianmung dermaterial and financial resources are being pumped out of the aöumý is being implemented to prevent this. And although Dudayev's Chechnya has been the most well-known "black hole," it is far from the only one on the country's territory. The comprador-oriented export policy being effected within the framework of the described gas indwetry nonferrous and in part ferrous metallurgy, the timber industry and production of mineral fertilizers is leading to of the country's national wealth in favor of a narrow group of people--the socalled "new Russians." |