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80–082 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–486

THE NEW STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK:

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. SECURITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 6, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware, Chairman

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BARBARA BOXER, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

EDWIN K. HALL, Staff Director

PATRICIA A. MCNERNEY, Republican Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, prepared statement .. 30

Helms, Hon. Jesse, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, prepared statement ..... 4

Perry, Hon. William J., former Secretary of Defense, Michael and Barbara

Berberian Professor, Stanford University, Stanford, CA .................................. 8

Weinberger, Hon. Caspar W., former Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC ... 6

(III)

(1)

THE NEW STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK:

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. SECURITY

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m. in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

(chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Biden, Bill Nelson, Lugar, Hagel, and Allen.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I am delighted

today that we have the second of what will be a series of hearings

on the future of American foreign policy, and two of the most distinguished men who served in this town and are still listened to

closely by many.

Just over a decade ago the Soviet Union collapsed and, with that,

the world view that had sustained us for half a century was basically swept away. No longer did any country seek world domination. No longer did we face the threat of totalitarianism, and for

the last 10 years, though, we faced a new, or newly important challenges. That is, managing the transition from the cold war’s nuclear stalemate to the more stable force posture with less reliance

upon nuclear weapons, preventing the spread of weapons of mass

destruction and long-range ballistic missiles, rooting out terrorism

and the conditions that lead to it, and stemming the international

narcotics trade, combating the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, including, I might add, those that might actually be

biological weapons, and reducing the gap between the haves and

the have-nots which might otherwise breed wars, terrorism, and

destabilize population flows.

In a sense, every once in a while I say to the two Secretaries I

yearn for the good old days every once in a while where things

were very dangerous but, in a sense, very stable. Now the world

may be changing again. The attacks of September 11 have made

international terrorism, or at least radical Islamic terrorism, an

enemy that must be defeated. The aspirations of al-Qaeda for

weapons of mass destruction and the anthrax attacks this fall have

made nonproliferation a vital theater in that war on terrorism. Our

world and our thinking are still in transition, and we still have

much to learn about where we are headed.

To help us get some perspective, the Foreign Relations Committee is holding a series of hearings with distinguished witnesses

on, ‘‘securing America’s future.’’ We began with the Secretary of

State yesterday, and tomorrow we hear from Sandy Burger and

2

Bill Kristol and retired general George Joulwan regarding the war

on terrorism. Later hearings will feature Madeleine Albright, Robert Rubin, and many others.

Today’s hearing features two former Secretaries of Defense, very

distinguished men. It was preceded by a briefing for the media and

staff by three Carnegie Endowment staff members, and I want to

thank them for arranging and participating in that event. Professor

William Perry, former Secretary of Defense, is now back at Stanford University, and he has brought unusual clarity to the post of

cold war strategic policy during the first Clinton administration. I

would guess that no Secretary before or since has used a reporter’s

question to explain to the American public what circular area probable, or CAP, actually means.

Then Bill Perry co-authored with Ash Carter a tremendously

thoughtful book on the threats we face entitled, ‘‘Preventive Defense, A New Security Strategy for America.’’ One of the questions,

and generic questions we have to ask today is, does 9/11 warrant

a revised edition of that book, or is it still applicable, and how? Secretary Perry hopefully will shed some light on that for us shortly.

And former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, when a major buildup

of our conventional and nuclear armed forces was followed by renewed emphasis on arms control, leading to the first START treaty. President Reagan stunned the world at Reykjavik when he said,

‘‘we should rid the world of nuclear weapons,’’ but he also popularized the old Russian saying, ‘‘trust but verify.’’ Secretary Weinberger can speak to that decision and how it plays

out today. As long-time CEO of Forbes, Inc., he can also speak to

our nuclear force posture in both strategic and economic terms.

I look forward to hearing our witnesses’ testimony and asking

them some questions that I believe are the difficult questions we

up here face today as part of the process of making policy. What

are the threats that America faces, and how should we deal with

them? Are they different from what they were just on the 10th of

September, and not just how, not just in the short run how we deal

with them, but over the long haul.

What role should nuclear weapons play in meeting those threats?

Russia’s President Putin’s reaction to President Bush’s declaration

of the intent to withdraw from the ABM treaty was muted, even

cooperative. What will it take for that relationship to endure, and

how does it blossom? Does this affect it negatively or positively?

Should we seek further arms reduction treaties, or should we stay

unfettered, even if the price is to leave Russia unfettered and its

nuclear force numbers unverifiable?

Having a ban on the START II treaty, should we still try to get

the Russians and China to do without MIRVd ICBMs, or is crisis

stability now an irrelevant concept in the post cold war? As Secretary of State Powell said yesterday, it does not matter. It is up

to the Russians, whatever they need, whatever they want is fine

by us, and we will decide what we want, so the whole notion of crisis stability, is it still a relevant concept? If we build a national

missile defense, should it be one that threatens China’s nuclear deterrent, or should we choose an architecture that recognizes the impact on China’s nuclear weapons, and if we do not, if it is viewed

3

by the Chinese as threatening them, is it likely to have an impact

on the new arms race in Asia and in the subcontinent?

We do not know the answer to these questions, but I am looking

forward to some insight from our witnesses, and how serious is the

risk of an aberrant reaction by China and then by India, Pakistan,

and other Asian countries in response if we build a national defense that the Chinese feel threatens their deterrent capability?

How should we deal with North Korea? Is the so-called Perry

process dead, or can it be revived, or is it still able to function?

How can we stop Russia and Chinese proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction, or long-range missile materials and technology?

Can we secure Russia’s cooperation with diplomatic and economic

initiatives and, if so, what will the price be? Is it a price worth paying?

As I said, these are tough questions for all of us, but today’s witnesses are men of unusual breadth and experience. Gentlemen, in

this time of both peril and opportunity you have my attention, the

committee’s attention and, I suspect, the Nation’s attention, but

first a word from a man who has already shaped many of the

issues that we will discuss today, the acting chairman for the day,

or acting ranking member for the day, former chairman of this

committee and a person of unusual insight and depth, in my view,

on these issues, the Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar.

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I congratulate you again on the schedule of comprehensive hearings covering most of the major foreign policy issues, and your success in

obtaining such quality witnesses, as evidenced by our two guests

today. Senator Helms is ill, and he has asked me to introduce into

the record, which I would like to do, his statement, without objection.

There are some important parts of Senator Helms’ statement

which I would like to quote, because I think they are a good preface

for the hearing, and Senator Helms in his statement says: ‘‘President Bush’s policy regarding Russia reflects this change and moves

the United States away from a concept of mutually assured destruction, which was based on the identification of one government,

the Soviet Union, as our mortal enemy. That was true then, but

no more. The President’s strategy envisions a new relationship

with Russia, anticipates a broad range of new threats, and proposes to build a force employing a variety of nuclear and conventional capabilities to defer and defend against those foes.’’

Senator Helms progresses on to suggest that: ‘‘The United States

is obliged to treat Russia on the basis of shared goals and interests,

not nuclear arms control, as we already do with France and the

United Kingdom, two other nuclear powers,’’ and he says in ‘‘our

relationship with Russia I think we must move in this direction,’’

but he cautions also that ‘‘Russia must stop its proliferation to

Iran, the human rights abuses in Chechnya, its inclination to claim

new spheres of influence, and move toward the rule of law, and a

flourishing democracy.’’

Now, Senator Helms also would have raised as his first question

a question that I will pose now and ask that it also be inserted in

the record, and perhaps in your testimony.

4

Secretary Weinberger. ‘‘When the Reagan administration negotiated the START I treaty, the Soviet threat determined the United

States’ nuclear force requirements, but that is no longer the case,

and since the United States reductions are not linked to any reciprocal cuts by Moscow, would you agree that it no longer makes

sense to codify our nuclear reductions in the cold war era treaties

with Russia, particularly since they are inherently costly, time-consuming, and adversarial, and would you also agree that it is possible for more transparency and predictability through less formal

arrangements, much like the agreements the United States has

with the OSCE and various multilateral export control regimes?’’

I ask not that you answer that immediately, but obviously that

is one of the arguments that we will have today, and Senator

Helms has posed it in a concise manner.

Let me just say what a pleasure it is to be with these two distinguished Secretaries. I remember so well visiting with Cap Weinberger clear back in the days in which he was involved in local government and state government in California, and then his distinguished career in Washington in so many capacities, and I appreciate that friendship over the years.

And Bill Perry was on the initial flight of the Nunn-Lugar group.

He was then at Stanford, but he joined Sam Nunn and I on a trip

to Russia 10 years ago, and offered great vision and advice. Of

course, we had no idea he would become Secretary of Defense, but

he did.

In Ukraine, he planted sunflowers where hundreds of acres of cables linking up nuclear sites where warheads sat atop intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the United States of America.

Under Secretary Perry’s leadership in the Cooperative Threat Reduction program came into its own with American businesses providing great support and expertise to dismantle weapons that

threatened American security in a transparent way, so that the

American people knew what was being spent and for what. He is

a tremendous leader of the Pentagon and the Nunn-Lugar and I

appreciate that very much, as he knows, but I simply wanted for

the record to make that point clear.

Again, I look forward to hearing from both of you, as do the

members of our committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Senator Helms follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JESSE HELMS

This committee is honored and grateful that Secretaries Weinberger and Perry

have agreed to meet with us this morning to talk about the new relationship between the United States and Russia, and the new strategic framework that should

define it.

Russia today is not the same Russia of the Cold War. The government in Moscow

is no longer a threat to the United States. The evil empire of the Soviet Union—

as President Reagan justifiably called it—no longer exists, and it is often that our

two countries have almost identical interests around the world.

President Bush’s policy regarding Russia reflects this change and moves the

United States away from the concept of ‘‘mutually assured destruction,’’ which was

based on the identification of one government—the Soviet Union—as our mortal

enemy. That was true then, but no more.

The President’s strategy envisions a new relationship with Russia. It anticipates

a broad range of new threats, and it proposes to build a force employing a variety

of nuclear and conventional capabilities to deter and defend against these foes.

5

As such, the President is unquestionably justified in saying that the U.S. and

Russia must move beyond the adversarial diplomacy, outdated strategic concepts,

and cumbersome arms control agreements of the Cold War. This legacy of confrontation and mistrust is sustained through structures and procedures that continue to

hinder, rather than improve, our relations.

That is why the President’s plan to cut nuclear weapons by nearly two-thirds over

the next ten years should not be delayed by lengthy negotiations, formal treaties,

and other activities that keep the U.S. and Russia hog tied in a bygone era.

There are those, of course, who believe that arms control agreements alone are

enough to ensure our security and promote stability. There are voices clamoring

that only through formal treaties and high-level summits can the United States uphold Moscow’s self esteem, ensure stability, prevent arms races, and hold at bay

Russian belligerence.

I don’t agree with that kind of day dreaming. The United States is, I think,

obliged to treat Russia on the basis of shared goals and interests—not nuclear arms

control—much as we already do with France and the United Kingdom, two other

nuclear powers. Our relationship with Russia must, I think, move in this direction.

That is why I was not surprised by Moscow’s relative indifference when President

Bush announced his intention last year to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. Much

to the chagrin of our fine President’s critics, the sky did not fall—and President

Putin made clear that this action would not harm U.S.-Russian relations.

However, and this is important, the hope for more normal relations by the United

States with Russia must not lead us to ignore that serious issues still must be resolved by our two countries.

Russia must stop its proliferation to Iran, its human rights abuses in Chechnya,

and its inclination to claim new spheres of influence.

The health of Russia’s democracy will depend on reinvigorating the rule of law

and permitting an independent media to flourish.

Thanks you, again, gentlemen for being here today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and gentlemen, our biggest problem

today—and I have been here a long time; I am going on my 30th

year sitting here, and Senator Lugar about the same—is we have,

as they said in the old B-movies, ‘‘Smokey and the Bandit,’’ what

we have here is, ‘‘we have ourselves a priority problem,’’ and there

are a number of things we would like to do, and I do not think anyone disagrees with the list that the President has set out and others have added to, but there is a matter of money and there is a

matter of threat perception generally. I would just note that.

Up at Davos in New York I met with the Foreign Minister of

France, Mr. Vedrine for about an hour and a half at his request,

and the point I tried to make to him when he talked about, he did

not understand some of our policies, was that there is a genuine

difference in the perception of what the threat is to each of our

countries. I said, with regard to Iraq, for example, the American

people and I think that Saddam Hussein has essentially painted a

bull’s-eye on the back of America and says, you are my target.

The French do not feel that way. I understand why you do not

feel that way, but understand this is a real threat to us, and I

think the greatest threat to the alliance is how we arrive at determining whether or not our threat perceptions are similar, otherwise our interests will not be the same.

So from cost standpoint and from a foreign policy standpoint, we

have to prioritize much of what we do based upon what we think

the threats are, and how real they are and how urgent they are,

and so I am anxious to hear from both of you on that and anything

else you wish to speak to.

As a matter of protocol, the usual way we do this is, the majority’s witness goes first, and the minority’s witness goes second, but

I do not consider it that way at all. I do not consider you either

6

majority or minority, and so I would rather proceed in terms of seniority here, and so Secretary Weinberger, I would invite you to address the committee first, if you are willing, unless you guys have

worked out a different way you want to do it.

Dr. PERRY. That is very agreeable to me.

STATEMENT OF HON. CASPAR W. WEINBERGER, FORMER

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. WEINBERGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do not

think anybody is senior to me now, at least in age, so you probably

have reached a proper compromise. I appreciate the honor of appearing before the committee, and appreciate also the nice comments that you and Senator Lugar have made.

Senator Lugar and I go back a very long way. I actually used to

be a Young Republican, although it certainly does not look like it

now, and Senator Lugar was one of the people who was willing to

come out all the way to San Francisco and help a struggling party

at that time. He was an even younger Republican.

I thought primarily the hearing was to be mostly of your interest

in the nuclear posture—— The CHAIRMAN. It is.

Mr. WEINBERGER [continuing]. So I have prepared a few very informal notes about that. That was, as you know, a document required by the Congress, which requirement was met by the administration on time, and the Nuclear Posture Review was submitted,

and basically it followed along with many of the points that you,

Mr. Chairman, have made with respect to the changes that have

occurred.

It is important, however, to note that while there is a better relationship, there are still some causes for concern, because first of all

they have many thousands of nuclear warheads, biological, because

of the great lack of funds in Russia to maintain them, and they

have used some of our basically unsupervised, unaudited economic

aid for new weapons, they are constructing and working on new

missiles, and we know that they began working on defensive measures within a very short time after they signed the ABM treaty

agreeing not to do it 30 years go, so there are still some causes for

concern, as, of course, their increasingly warm relationship with

China and their continued opposition to most of the positions we

take in international organizations.

None of this is to detract from the fact that we do have a better

relationship, we want one, and we have to ensure that we do everything we can to achieve that while at the same time being extremely careful to make sure that a sudden worsening of that relationship we would be prepared to deal with.

The other conditions that have changed, I think, is that while the

Russians have fewer nuclear weapons, and they want fewer nuclear weapons because they do not have the money to maintain

what they have, even though they are working to acquire new ones

and frequently using economic aid money to do that. The economic

aid and the aid for carrying out Nunn-Lugar and all of the other

things that are given to them should be audited and should be very

carefully monitored, exactly as we did with the Marshall Plan. The

Marshall Plan was called the most altruistic gesture in history, but

7

every nickel of it was audited, every penny of it was monitored to

make sure that it went precisely for the purposes intended.

We are eager, however, to have nuclear arms reductions. President Bush offered unilaterally to take ours down to somewhere between 1,700 and 2,200 from something well over 6,000, and that

process is basically underway now.

There are a lot of other countries, however, now that have nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, and that is another of the

things that has changed since the end of the cold war. The count

actually is that 12 nations have nuclear weapons programs underway now. And 28 have ballistic missiles on which the nuclear

weapons and biological and chemical can be mounted, of course.

And 13 nations have biological weapons, and 16 have chemical

weapons, so it is a quite different world.

The potential for evil has proliferated, if you like, and we are in

a situation where we need to take into consideration all of the

changes that have occurred, both good and bad. We are at last

freed from the constraints on our ability to defend ourselves. June

14 is the date that I believe will go down in history as a sort of

independence, because that is the day on which, under the 6

months’ notice that President Bush gave sometime ago, we will be

free to begin deploying and developing the strategic defenses, effective strategic defenses as soon as possible.

We can and should do this as quickly as possible, because we

need to make sure that we have the ability to defend ourselves

against a much wider set of contingencies and possibilities than we

faced before. You pointed out correctly, Mr. Chairman, that it was

in some ways simpler with a single enemy, even though that was

a very powerful enemy, an enemy who was intent on world domination, but we now have to deal with other changed circumstances,

one of which is that there are these large number of other nations

that I just listed that are working on many of the same capabilities, and that means that we will face multiple kinds of threats.

One threat, of course, was September 11. There are many others,

and it is essential that we move on a number of different fronts to

modernize the triad, so to speak. The triad when I was there many,

many years ago was simply ground-based and sea-based and airbased missiles that would have the capability of retaliating against

an attack. It was basically considered in those days as an offensive

deterrent. That was all we had. We had three different legs of it.

We wanted to be survivable, and so we kept that degree of redundancy.

Now we need, I think, to bear in mind that we are freed of the

inability to use any defensive systems, will be on June 14, and

from there on we are then able to add a different concept, a different framework to our triad, and that is, defense. We were forbidden to do that before. Now we can do that.

We will also, I think, have to employ advanced conventional

weapons, conventional weapons that are even more accurate and

have basically other capabilities, such as going after differentiated

targets, targets in caves, targets deep underground, targets that

are heavily camouflaged, and in order to do this properly we will

need to improve also, in addition to defense, the intelligence capability, particularly the HUMINT, the human intelligence capability,

8

and our special operations. The special operations forces are made

up of remarkable people who have done an extraordinarily good job

in Afghanistan, and whose function is to pick out targets, to help

the artillery targets be accurately placed, and to gather intelligence

about what the enemy is possibly going to do.

We need more of this, of course, and we need particularly to

know if we can with human intelligence being able to penetrate

and become agents who can become a part of these terrorist organizations who let us know well in advance what it is they are planning. That is the best defense of all, to know where and when they

are planning to attack, and we are sadly not capable of doing very

much of this at this time.

So the new triad, then, would be a triad that included both the

old triad—and I know there are some criticisms, as there constantly are, of course, about almost everything we do, but there is

some criticism that we are abandoning a lot of the elements of the

old triad, and we are not, and we should not. What we are doing

is including them, incorporating them in a new triad which includes the old triad of defense and also greater emphasis on infrastructure, particularly on intelligence, command and control and

communications.

We have also said that we will go to the 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by the year 2012. It is vital, I think, to preserve and keep many of the formerly, of the downloaded warheads

just in case other threats arise, or countries that we were counting

on turn hostile. There is a great deal of improvement—it is a great

deal better, let me put it that way, to be able to revive downloaded

warheads than it is to construct new ones if we should suddenly

need them.

Mr. Chairman, there are, of course, a tremendous number of

other elements, as you indicated. Those are the ones I wanted to

highlight, but based primarily on the Nuclear Posture Review I

would be glad, after my distinguished colleague completes his

statement, to try to take your questions, including the one that

Senator Lugar posed a moment ago.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary Perry.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. PERRY, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, MICHAEL AND BARBARA BERBERIAN

PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, STANFORD, CA

Dr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few years ago, Dr. Ash

Carter and I wrote a book, ‘‘Preventive Defense,’’ which the chairman mentioned in his opening comments. The thesis of this book

was that the end of the cold war marked an end to type A threats

to the United States. Type A we defined as threats to the survival

of the United States.

But it also, we said, marked an increase in type B threats,

threats of regional war, and therefore required maintaining a defense posture which has come to be called 2MRC, or the ability to

deal with two major regional contingencies.

We have to talk about that as a separate issue. The primary

focus of the book was the emergence of what we called type C

threats. Type C are the new threats to the homeland that could reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jun 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 80082 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
9

sult in casualties comparable to those that America has suffered in

major wars. We described several different kinds of type C threats.

The first one was the reemergence of a major adversary and a restart of the cold war. Much of the book was devoted to a description

of how to prevent that unfortunate contingency from developing.

We concluded that a necessary but not sufficient condition was

maintaining positive, constructive relationships with Russia and

China.

A second type C contingency would be the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to hostile regional powers. The fear was

that this could change their calculus of deterrence, or could even

lead them to believe that they could blackmail the United States.

Therefore, we said it was a high national priority to prevent such

proliferation. We talked about ways of doing that through diplomacy with North Korea and Iran. To be sure, this might be coercive diplomacy, but nevertheless diplomacy.

In the case of Iraq, we believed then and believe now that diplomacy will not be sufficient, that with Iraq we must take stronger

action and be prepared to take military action, if necessary, to prevent proliferation.

Now, for success in any of these diplomatic endeavors, even the

course of diplomacy, a necessary but not sufficient condition is

some cooperation of the other nuclear powers, including some cooperation with Russia and China, and I will return to that point

before I finish my introductory remarks.

The third kind of type C threat was a threat of what we called

catastrophic terrorism. The entire chapter 5 in the book was devoted to a discussion of catastrophic terrorism. By that, we did not

mean truck bombs. We meant a terrorist action that could result

in casualties comparable to what Americans suffered in war. That

was our definition of catastrophic terrorism.

In this book we forecast that such an attack would happen in the

United States within a few years, and we prescribed the actions to

prevent such attack—not prevent, that is too strong a word, to minimize the possibility of such an attack.

We also forecast that those actions would not be taken until after

the first major attack occurred. Unfortunately, both of those forecasts have proven to be correct.

The good news is that 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax incident

were a wake-up call both to the public and to the government. The

bad news is that 9/11 is not the worst that the terrorists are planning. We know that the terrorists are trying to get chemical weapons, biological weapons, even nuclear weapons, and if they get

them no one—no one—should doubt that they would use them.

Well, now that we are awake, and now that we understand that

the worst is still ahead of us, what should we do? It seems to me

that our government should make its highest priority, not just a

priority, but the highest priority dealing with the threat of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

What do I mean by dealing with? First of all, doing everything

we can, taking every action we can to prevent the success of their

operations and, second, understanding that that will not always be

successful, being prepared to manage the consequence if the terVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jun 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 80082 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
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rorist operation succeeds. I will talk about both of those, the prevention and the management of the consequences.

First of all, prevention. No. 1 on my list are the antiproliferation

actions we can take, especially antiproliferation of nuclear weapons. That will include investing new capital in antiproliferation

programs, of which the Nunn-Lugar is the most prominent.

Second, investing real political capital in getting serious cooperation from the other nuclear powers in this regard, in particular, serious cooperation from, Russia and China.

And third is, being prepared to take coercive action against

proliferators, and that could include military action. I have in mind

here particularly the possibility of military action against Iraq, if

we cannot prevent them from moving ahead with their programs

to proliferate to nuclear weapons.

The second prevention tactic is to dismember the terrorist bases

and remove the governments that are hosting them. The operation

in Afghanistan is exemplary in that regard. It not only serves the

purpose of greatly diminishing the threat of al-Qaeda, but it also

is a clear lesson to other nations who may be hosting terrorists.

Third is to break up the terrorist cells around the world. This is

a law enforcement function, primarily, but is an international law

enforcement function, and therefore its success requires much

greater cooperation with foreign law enforcement officials than we

have previously had, and there should be a high priority to achieving that cooperation.

Fourth is detecting and preempting terrorist operations before

they occur. This is an intelligence function, and to succeed in it, it

also requires much greater cooperation with foreign intelligence

agencies than we have ever had, and I might say this, to be fully

successful it will include cooperation with the intelligence agencies

of Russia and China. To say the least it is countercultural for our

intelligence agencies to effect such cooperation. Nevertheless it is

very important.

The fifth prevention area is to improve the protection of likely

targets of terrorists. Commercial air is an obvious one. Nuclear reactors is another obvious one. Also, the ventilation system in public

buildings is an important area. We are never going to be able to

make all of these impervious to attack, but we ought to convert

them from soft targets to hard targets.

An example of a hard target in commercial air is the Israeli airline, El Al, which has made itself a hard target. No terrorist has

succeeded in getting into El Al now for more than a decade, so it

can be done.

Incidentally, to the extent we are successful here, this is going

to involve standardizing these approaches to foreign carriers as

well as the United States carriers, because foreign carriers fly into

American airports, Americans fly into foreign airports, so this is

something that is going to also require an international effort.

Now, in the consequence management area, it is especially important for biological and chemical weapons for two reasons. First

of all, because it is so much harder to prevent terrorists from getting biological weapons. There are huge barriers to terrorists getting nuclear weapons. Those barriers do not exist in the case of biological weapons.

11

Also, because good consequence management, fast response to a

biological or chemical attack can dramatically decrease the number

of fatalities that result from that attack.

What are the things we can do in consequence management?

First of all is stockpile antibiotics and vaccines that are necessary,

and in that regard I am pleased to hear the government has decided to stockpile 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine by the end

of the year. I think that is a very important step.

Besides stockpiling vaccines and antibiotics, we should be developing new and more effective antibiotics and vaccines. In that regard, it is very important that we develop cooperation with other

nations, and of the other nations who might cooperate, Russia is

No. 1 on the list. There is every reason to believe that Russia is

more advanced in this field than other nations, including the

United States, for reasons that are not always attractive, but nevertheless important reasons, and therefore we should develop a cooperative program with Russia in this regard. We can benefit from

it.

Second, we should be organizing the pharmaceutical and medical

industries and the first responders to biological or chemical attack.

This can and should be done through the Centers for Disease Control.

And finally, we should be organizing and training our National

Guard, the National Guard in various localities to assist the first

responders if and when the terrorist attack occurs in their region.

I might mention parenthetically that cooperation with Russia on

dealing with biological attacks could also be extended to include cooperation in dealing with other epidemics or pandemics, such as

HIV, to the benefit of both countries.

Now, what I have described here requires many actions on the

part of our government, some of which I am happy to say are already underway. These actions require bold leadership, as we, for

example, have demonstrated already in Afghanistan. These actions

are going to be expensive, but I would say not as expensive as the

9/11 attack.

They will be inconvenient. Anybody who has flown commercial

air as much as I have flown it since 9/11 will understand what inconvenience means, but the point—and here is the point I want to

emphasize. They will require for their success greatly increased cooperation with other nations, including greatly increased cooperation with Russia and with China. We can and we should lead in

this regard, but we cannot go it alone. Whether we are talking

about a military operation in Afghanistan, or a military operation

in Iraq, we need the cooperation and support of other nations if not

for military strength, at least for the bases and logistical support

that are required.

If we are talking about shutting down nuclear proliferators, proliferating material and technology, we need the cooperation of other

nuclear nations, and in particular we need the cooperation, and serious cooperation, of Russia and China.

If we are talking about shutting down terrorist cells, we need cooperation of foreign law enforcement officials.

In detecting and preempting planned terrorist attacks, we need

the cooperation of intelligence agencies of other countries, and in

12

developing the most effective vaccine and antibiotics, we need the

cooperation of other nations, particularly including Russia.

So if we make the highest national priority dealing with terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, then we must make constructive cooperation with other nations the top priority. Certainly

this includes cooperation with our allies, Britain, France, Germany,

Japan, but it also includes cooperation with Russia and China,

which is not always so easy to get; but real cooperation, especially

real cooperation with those two countries will dramatically increase

our security and therefore we should move seriously to efforts to

create joint programs with them.

Now, creating those joint programs may decrease flexibility and

freedom of action we have in other areas. We have to weigh, make

a balance between which of these will increase our security more.

That should be the acid test. Does it increase our security, or does

it not?

On this last point of forming cooperative programs with other nations, I want to close with a quote as I remember it from Winston

Churchill, talking about the importance of coalition, and he was, of

course, referring to the World War II coalition which was critical

to Britain’s success in the war, but he was also talking about the

difficulty of such coalitions, and his statement, as I remember it,

is that coalitions are difficult because even allies sometimes have

ideas of their own. That is the problem we will face in trying to

form these cooperative programs. Our allies, our coalition partners

will have ideas of their own, and we will have to decide when we

have to accommodate those ideas and when we go it alone.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you both very much. With the permission

of my colleagues, since we have a manageable group, could we do

10-minute rounds, if that is OK, and again, thank you both first

of all for being here. I realize it is not convenient. I realize how difficult it is, not just because it is inconvenient to fly, but you both

have busy schedules and it is not easy, and I thank you very much,

and I mean that sincerely.

As usual, Secretary Perry, the professor in you is very much appreciated by me and my colleagues, because you are able to capsulize what I think is the single biggest dilemma we have here,

and as you quoted Churchill, even allies have ideas of their own,

as you both know, the disconnect in our capability and our NATO

allies’ capability, military capability is producing some dilemma.

It is factually the case that without going into detail, and you

both know it better than I, that some of our military folks, when

asked the question in terms of planning particular operations,

those including our NATO assets to greater increase our capability,

in some cases it will degrade our capability in the sense that it

slows us up, so we have had this debate.

We have had this debate—I would say to my friend Senator

Lugar, we have basically been on the same side of this issue. I am

about to say that we had this debate in the Balkans. We had this

debate about, we would come back here and everyone would bemoan the fact that in dealing with Kosovo or Bosnia, we had to

check out with Chirac, or we had to check with Schroeder or whoever happened to be in power among our allies, and how tedious

13

and time-consuming this was, and would it not be better just to

move without them.

But as you point out, there is a price to pay both ways here, and

one of the things I hope we get over is this notion that there is an

easy way, that we either just simply go it alone—and we should

understand the price we pay when we go it alone. We may be able

to solve the immediate problem more rapidly, and more convincingly, but it may create us other problems, and I think we are sort

of—I would argue, Mr. Secretary, that that is one of the changes

that is dawning on policymakers in this town on both sides of the

aisle. They come down different ways.

But this notion that there are tradeoffs, you talked about cooperation with Russia and China and joint programs, but they

would decrease some freedom of action, and at the end of the day

the question I keep coming back to is, whatever action we take, are

we more or less secure? Are we better prepared, or less prepared

to deal with whatever the threat is that we considered, and I would

like to pursue that a little bit with you if I may.

And obviously—and I have questions as well, Secretary Weinberger, for you, but if you want to chime in in any of this, I would

rather this be a freeflowing conversation, and I would invite my

colleagues, at least on my time, if they want to augment anything

I have asked or said, because it is appropriate that moment to interrupt, and please do it.

Mr. Secretary, or Secretary Perry, you laid out what you thought

the single greatest immediate threat was and required the most

immediate attention. Am I correct in assuming that that does not

mean you think we should be doing other things as well, in addition to that? Your prioritizing is not an exclusive list. You think

the single most important problem we face today is what you accurately characterize in your book, and the reason I like your book

so much is, you prioritized, you laid out in clear fashion what you

and Ash thought were the threats, the nature of the threats and

what assets and attention should be directed to them in a timely

fashion in which it should be and today you have amended it—not

amended it, but you have emphasized that this third category, the

category C threats require the most urgent attention. At least, that

is how I understood your comments, and you indicate they will be

expensive, inconvenient, and require cooperation with other nations.

Talk to us for a minute about what kind of cooperation, what

kind of agreements, whatever you want to phrase it, cooperation,

we should be seeking at this moment from Russia and from China

to deal with this proliferation threat, proliferation, as I understand

you, more in the hands of international organizations, terrorist organizations, and in some cases in the hands of heads of state who

are not particularly rational.

What kind of cooperation in specific terms would you be looking

to, and what other actions we are contemplating might be, our freedom to move in that direction might be decreased, and the tradeoffs you are willing to pay in terms of U.S. security interest?

That is very broad, but I hope you understand the thrust of what

I am trying to get at.

14

Dr. PERRY. First on the list is the cooperation which is basically

the extension of the Nunn-Lugar program, where we and Russia

cooperate in reducing the threat that their nuclear weapons and

their nuclear technology and their nuclear know-how will get in the

hands of terrorists.

This has been a goal of the Nunn-Lugar program for 10 years,

and we have had dramatic success in it to this point, but I think

we need more substantial effort along those lines, but that has to

be a cooperative program. We cannot impose that on Russia. It requires their cooperation. Now, since it suits their interest also, it

is relatively easy to get that cooperation in that field.

Another example is the side of commercial nuclear technologies

to other nations. For example, Russia is selling nuclear technology

to Iran. This we are concerned will increase the risk of nuclear proliferation in Iran, the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Russia does

not agree with that assessment. In this case, it does not suit their

interests, because their commercial interests are very much in

favor of making those sales, so that is much harder to get cooperation in that field.

The CHAIRMAN. Can I interrupt at that point? Senator Lugar and

I, among others—it is not unique to us, but the particular program

we do not advertise as a be-all and end-all, is to deal directly with

the Russians, and I have raised this personally with Mr. Putin,

deal directly with the Russians on that economic interest side of

the equation as well as with Iraq.

For example, you have read, and you are aware that the Russians, whether they are able to be executed or not, have some significant contracts with the Iraqis, as well as with the Iranians to

a lesser degree, that they view as a bonanza for them economically.

It is estimated that the contracts theoretically are worth somewhere close to $40 billion over the next several years in Iraq, and

that there is—and I ask Senator Lugar’s staff to correct me, but

I think their balance of trade on the positive side of the equation

with Iran is several billion dollars a year, based upon the only

thing they have to trade.

They do not have many widgets people want to buy, and that

maybe we should be in the business of being a little bit innovative

here, and trading off the debt that is owed us, and even dealing

with, as Senator Lugar has with our German friends and others,

about it is to their benefit to deal with nonproliferation, as well as

going to the Russians now and saying there is a way to work out

a deal. You change your attitude toward Iraq, we will make sure

you are in the mix when that oilfield is developed.

We are not just going to take those contracts and award them

to American companies, because those economic interests seem to

be serious drivers of Soviet policy now, because, and I tend to believe him, as Putin said to me in response to a question, and I will

end with this, he said, don’t you think I understand, Senator, that

a long-range missile developed by Iran is as likely to strike Moscow

as it is to strike the United States, but yet they continue.

So should we be exploring these different avenues that are somewhat unconventional, or is the price too high for that?

Dr. PERRY. In a word, yes. I do not have a formula how to deal

with this problem, but I believe that the beginning of wisdom is unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jun 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 80082 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
15

derstanding that this is an economic issue with the Russians, and

therefore any success will have to be an economic-based approach.

A third area of cooperation which might have some of the same

elements is in the biological field, and Nunn-Lugar has never been

successfully applied to biological weapons, and yet to me, that is

probably as great a threat, if not a greater threat of terrorists getting biological weapons to use in the United States. Here the same

basis for which the Nunn-Lugar program was set up for nuclear

weapons applies to biological weapons.

Two facets of it. First of all, you want cooperation from the Russians in guarding and protecting their biological materials, and

know-how. That is just as important as it is in the nuclear field.

And second, as I mentioned in my testimony, you want cooperation from the Russians in their ways of dealing with biological

weapons where they may be more advanced than we in some respects. So all of those are very practical and important areas of cooperation with the Russians.

I mentioned, incidentally, Russia and other nations’ cooperation

in the law enforcement field and the intelligence field, very important in the protection of terrorists, much greater cooperation than

we have had in the past. I am confident that that can be achieved,

but there might be some prices attached to it.

The CHAIRMAN. Is your sense that they have reached the point,

after September 11, that it is in their interests to cooperate in the

biological and chemical side of the equation? Do you think they

have had that epiphany?

Dr. PERRY. I believe so, but I have not been able to put that personally to a test. I can testify that when I was Secretary of Defense

and tried to elicit cooperation with the Russians in the biological

field, and tried very hard to elicit that cooperation, I was not successful. That is the only major lack of success I can point to in that

field.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Mr. Chairman, I did not want to interrupt the

flow here, but I think it is important to deal with the thing Secretary Perry has been talking about. I think it is also important

to bear in mind that our best intentions may be thwarted by actions that they take that we do not really even know about, or

would not necessarily approve.

Nunn-Lugar involved giving substantial amounts of money to

them for specific purpose of helping to take down their nuclear

weapons and then proliferation and all of that. As I understand it,

they have used either directly, or because the money is fungible,

indirectly, some of those funds at least for the procurement of very

new and advanced weapons systems, including the submarine that

went down, the Kursk, which was a very advanced, modern day

submarine, things that do not necessarily help their economy, but

indicate a continued concern about their need to watch them very

carefully.

All of these things should be done—you spoke about trust and

verify a moment ago, and that in a very broadly applied sense is

something that is vital to do. If we do not do it, I think we are

going to find a lot of our mixed intentions frustrated by elements

of one kind or another within Russia, or within China, using these

16

things that they get for one purpose or another that is directly

antithetical to the things we need.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I would yield to Senator Lugar.

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Weinberger is right money is fungible, but that is why

the Nunn-Lugar contracts with American businesses to implement

the dismantlement operations instead of the Russian Government.

It is also important to recognize that most Nunn-Lugar assistance

takes the form of material and technical assistance, not money. It

is difficult to imagine how a piece of equipment provided by NunnLugar to cut up Russian strategic bombers can be used to modernize the Russian strategic nuclear force. Furthermore, let us not

forget that the budget for the entire Russian Government was

about $50 billion, and the defense budget was $7 or $8 billion, as

opposed to our $379 billion defense budget request. In other words,

fungibility is a viable argument if one believes that Russia was

going to perform the dismantlement in the absence of Nunn-Lugar

funding. Without Nunn-Lugar, I do not believe Russia could have

met its commitments under START I.

It is not an argument against failing to verify. I think most of

us, including Secretary Perry, were aware of this and reported consistently on new developments concerning our intelligence, and followed that closely. I saw an interesting article written by Fred

Kemp of the Wall Street Journal Europe about the Davos conference, and he made the point that whereas it was anticipated

that attendance might be down but as a matter of fact, most of the

lectures were filled with people. Two years ago most of the people

were executives from dot-com firms and electronics firms discussing

the future. This year much of the audience were chief executives

listening to people like the two of you.

Now, one of the persons who spoke was our mutual friend,

Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Kemp quotes Brzezinski as offering some

generalized ideas about how the world is going. Brzezinski believes

the United States will continue to grow in general power and authority in coming years, and the disparity between our power and

authority and other countries’ will become greater.

Therefore, other nations might become increasingly resentful. Regardless of whether a nation is a friend or foe the rich were getting

richer, namely us, and the rest are falling farther behind. He pointed out, like you have, that our threat comes from asymmetrical

threats and not from the nation states that are growing weaker relatively, but subgroups who seek to harm us.

Now, this is coincident with your testimony, because you talked

today, and the chairman has, about how we gain cooperation. If the

Brzezinski theory is correct, and people become more and more resentful as time goes on, we may say, well, we are simply tired of

hearing all of this criticism and carping. You folks have got to pull

your own weight, or we will have to turn to unilateral actions more

often. Most of us would say that will not do, and it appeared to me

when I visited with the NATO Permanent Representatives in Brussels last month that the alliance is not on the same page in terms

of seeing the same threats.

I think Secretary Perry made that point in his testimony: suggest

horribly an airliner flying into the Eiffel Tower, or the House of

17

Commons, or various other types of attacks. People will say, we appreciate the threat.

And they also would suggest that they are less likely to be attacked than we are because of our disproportionately higher interest with regard to the world economic system. But Great Britain,

Germany, France, Italy are all major countries with major economies, major interests, and to the extent that they begin to share

the thought that there really is a problem here, then they are more

likely to begin to think about cooperation with NATO in this case.

But in the case of the Russians or the Chinese, in terms of our

bilateral relationships, it just occurred to me as I listened to the

testimony today that one of the great challenges for our diplomacy,

whether it be at the State Department, Defense, Intelligence, or

wherever, is really to be able to paint these scenarios of why we

do have coincidence of interest, and why cooperation ought to be

possible.

Now, in some cases, as the chairman’s questioning of Secretary

Perry has pointed out, we have disparate interests. Russians may

have a strong commercial interest, whereas we are worried about

proliferation, even though they have a subsidiary interest in that,

too, and we try to narrow the gaps between what seem to be national interests.

And we may not be successful in every respect. That would be

a miraculous thing, that all nations would have national interests

that were coincident, but it just appears to me that we are going

to have to narrow this gap very rapidly or we finally do get into

a situation in which we are acting by ourselves, not because we

wanted to, but because others do not see the threat. They do not

have the resources. They have not been galvanized by the realism

of the threat, and that is a very disturbing prospect.

Just to take the Nunn-Lugar program as an example proliferation has been understood as a threat for a long time, but by and

large most nations have not stepped forward and suggested we

ought to make this a multilateral affair with the United States,

share 25 percent, or 30 percent of the cost, or something of that

variety.

With biological and chemical weapons there is a possibility other

nations will step up. Norway, Germany, Canada and the United

Kingdom have stepped forward and pledged to contribute to chemical weapons elimination. There are other possibilities for nations

to see proliferation of these weapons as a threat, and with terrorists who really might visit their countries with suitcases, or however they deliver them.

Do you have any thoughts as to how we narrow the gap in terms

of our national interest expectations, our sense of mutual threat,

and do you agree with me that this is a promising area of inquiry

with regard to priorities of our diplomacy as to how, in fact, we do

narrow these gaps, because otherwise cooperation will be talked

about frequently, but the parties involved may never come to the

table?

Dr. PERRY. I would be happy to take a stab at that. Let me first

preface it by saying that after the previous conversation, just to

clarify the issue on Nunn-Lugar, since I administered that program

for 4 years, we did not make grants or write checks to the Russian

18

Government. That is not the way the Nunn-Lugar money was

spent.

What we did, we spent the money with contracts made to corporations, typically American corporations such as Bechtel, for example, which Secretary Weinberger is very familiar with, and that

those contracts, as the Secretary rightly pointed out, were all audited contracts, and so the money was audited. It typically went to

American contractors, and I want to emphasize, they were not

grants and writing checks to the Russian Government.

Now, on the question of the asymmetrical threat, and the disparity between the allies and the Americans on how to do it, I

agree completely with your assessment that they do not see the

same threat that we see, and that that is a real problem in developing cooperation with them, but I point out that before 9/11, those

same threats were unthinkable in the United States as well, and

it is now part of our consciousness, so how do we deal with the

problem with our allies? First of all we jawbone. We explain as well

as we can why we believe what we believe, but we will still fall

somewhat short.

I think this problem, however, is unfortunately going to be a relatively short-term problem, because I believe that sooner or later

there will be a 9/11 in Germany or France or the United Kingdom,

and therefore it will be in their consciousness as well as our consciousness. In the meantime, we do the best we can in dealing with

them.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I think, Mr. Chairman and Senator Lugar, one

of the problems is that throughout all democracies and all of the

friends we have identified are democracies, there is a great dislike

of spending money on the military, including the United States,

and it takes a great deal of advocacy and a great deal of persuasion

to bring that up. One example, the $48 billion increase which President Bush recommended this year is more than the entire defense budget of Germany, and when you talk about the fact that Russia is only spending perhaps $8 billion for their defense budget, we always have difficulty using the comparable terms, because the Russians are able

to get a great deal more at far lower labor costs than we are, so

that comparisons are difficult.

There is no doubt, however, that the unhappiness with large defense expenditures translates itself into a minimizing of the threat,

and that can happen not so easily after September 11, and it did

not happen easily, and that is the reason NATO was so successful,

was that that threat there from the Soviets was ever-present, was

right there next to them, and it gave them a much greater incentive to meet the NATO contributions and so on.

So it is going to be a difficult job. I think that it does require a

great deal of advocacy and a great deal of emphasis on the kinds

of threats that they face, even though the United States is there,

and one of the reasons they do not feel it really necessary to spend

all that themselves is because we do it and we do it very well, and

we should do it. It is in our interests to do it. It is in our interests

to have coalitions and to have alliances, but we need to work unceasingly at trying to persuade them that the alliances work best

when both sides contribute.

19

Senator LUGAR. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. We have had Senator Baker and White House

Counsel Cutler here for a most engaging discussion, and I would

like to have the value of your opinion. Do you think the present

administration is doing enough to implement the Baker-Cutler report?

Mr. WEINBERGER. Oh, I think, as the chairman pointed out,

along with a number of very large priorities, the answer would be

yes. There are a lot of other things to do, and there are resources

that are not totally unlimited, but when you look at all the things

we have to do and all the new things we have to do, I think the

answer to your question is yes.

Dr. PERRY. I have a different view on that. I think the BakerCutler report made some very positive and constructive recommendations, and I think we should do more to support those recommendations.

Senator NELSON. In 1992, I had the good fortune of being a Fellow at the Kennedy School and met Ash Carter there, and at the

time asked him, was he convinced that we were not in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that we were not allowing materials

to get out into dastardly hands, and he opined that yes, he thought

that we were, but I have never been convinced of that, and now it

is 10 years after I asked that question. I would like to have your

sense about the proliferation out of the old Soviet Union of weapons or materials.

Dr. PERRY. I believe that against all odds we have been successful in keeping weapons, nuclear weapons proliferating out of Russia

or the other nations of the former Soviet Union, but to the extent

we have succeeded it has been because of programs like NunnLugar which not only allowed us to work cooperatively with the

Russian Government and the Ukrainian Government and so on,

but most importantly, it performed programs which safeguarded

those materials to a higher level of standards than they otherwise

would have been.

Having said that, though, I must say that we can never be complacent in this regard. The situation is still worrisome, and there

could be a break. There could be a breach tomorrow, and it is something I always worry about.

Probably one of my highest worries in terms of threats to the

United States is, a nuclear weapon gets out somehow, gets out of

Russia and into the hands of terrorists, so that is a worry, but I

think we have been remarkably successful to this date. We cannot

say with 100 percent confidence but with relatively high confidence

I do not believe that any of those weapons have gotten into the

hands of terrorists.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I would agree, we cannot be 100 percent certain. I have worries about Russia’s proclivities to sell things to

Iran, and I think probably also to Iraq and to China, and it is one

of the reasons that I advocated in my remarks a few moments ago

that we be particularly careful in the various agreements we have

made with Mr. Putin, and that it might well be a good idea to condition those a lot more on some kind of restraints on the sales that

20

they make to countries which are, I think, not only potentially but

actually hostile.

Senator NELSON. Would your opinion be the same that we have

had the success in the escape of brain power, i.e., the scientists as

well?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, I believe so, and also I would point out the

Nunn-Lugar program has made substantial contributions to setting

up science programs within Russia that involve nuclear scientists,

nuclear technicians in nonnuclear weapon programs, and therefore

kept them gainfully employed in-country. I think in the absence of

that program there would have been a hemorrhaging of intellectual

talent and probably out of Russia into other undesirable countries.

Senator NELSON. How do we get the leadership in today’s Russia

to understand that it is not in their self-interest to sell weapons

and know-how to a country like Iran?

Dr. PERRY. I think they understand that, Senator Nelson, but I

think they have rationalized that they can sell commercial nuclear

technology and that there will not be any consequences from doing

that. I do not agree with their assessment of that, but I think they

rationalize themselves into believing that.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I think that is a very kind way of phrasing it,

but I think the simplest way to phrase it is, they do not understand

dual use, or they pretend not to.

I think also the problem is that there are a number of different

elements within Russia that have dominance in particular fields,

and I think certainly the commercial and trade elements would be

able to prevail in any kind of internal argument over the idea that

it would be much better in their overall national interest not to

sell, because they continue to sell, and that is the worst of it of all.

Senator NELSON. It kind of reminds me of some of the dominance

of our commercial elements——

Mr. WEINBERGER. There are plenty of them here.

Senator NELSON [continuing]. In selling when it is not in the interest of the United States.

Mr. WEINBERGER. They do, and I think we need to look at the

provisions that we have for licensing and authorizing transfers. If

the transfer is done against American lives. I think you will find

it substantially reduced, particularly in these days.

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is large part because of what I am learning and what I have learned about these

questions that I have asked that I favor much more the granting

of commercial licenses here in the United States from the State Department and from the Defense Department, instead of from the

Commerce Department, for exactly the concerns of the transfer of

technology to hostile hands.

Mr. WEINBERGER. It has been 25 years since I dealt with those

problems, but I would agree with you fully. The views of the Department of Defense were not always adhered to, and we had many

long and distressing arguments with Commerce and others who

wanted to sell anything to anybody anytime.

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Allen.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank

these two outstanding witnesses. It has been wonderful listening to

21

you all. I do not know Secretary Perry that well, but I do know Secretary Weinberger, who has been a great help to me from the days

I was a member of the House of Delegates in Mr. Jefferson’s district to while I was Governor, and I just want to say for everyone

that Secretary Weinberger, you are one of my heroes.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Thank you, sir.

Senator ALLEN. I always have enjoyed listening to you.

I would say to Secretary Perry that some of your remarks on bioterrorism were very apt yesterday in the Commerce Committee. I

am the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, and looking at how we can use research from

our universities, the private sector also working in a team effort

with local, state, law enforcement, Federal law enforcement obviously, the hospitals and all the rest. It was very apt, and thank you

for your testimony.

Now, there was a comment made earlier by one of my colleagues

in giving the impression that we need to narrow the gap between

our country and other countries. To me, that is I suppose like a

race, and you have a race for certain distance, and we are ahead

by 10 paces, and so everyone is moving toward the finish line, but

we want to narrow it.

I always like to run like you are half a lap behind. It makes you

run harder, and I think we need to, as Americans, always be looking at ways that we allow the people of our country to compete and

succeed against anyone in the world, and so I am not worried about

narrowing gaps.

I want to make sure that Americans—it is not because we have

a strong military, it is because we have a strong economy. That is

how you pay for a strong military, but more importantly, as we advance in technological capabilities of our armaments and our equipment for our men and women in uniform so that it can be more

precise, whether it is in our intelligence detections, or whether that

is in our armaments for their safety, I think it is important that

our economy continues to get stronger and not worry about others,

or wanting them to catch up.

I think that when you look at threats around the world, or competition, there are tremendous opportunities in Latin America,

Central and South America and Central Europe and Southeast

Asia. You look at the People’s Republic of China, great opportunities there, only because their government is making some improvements as far as commerce, but the only thing holding back a lot

of these countries is allowing people to have initiative, and allowing people to believe as they want, and private property rights.

So we are only going to remain strong and have good quality of

life and security if we continue what I would call Jeffersonian type

principles of trusting to free people and free enterprise, and the

way I look at the advancement, some of our foreign policy obviously

helps advance not only our interest and our security and jobs in

our country, and there are a lot of people who worry about international competition, especially in the textile industries, and only

those who have the most advanced technology for manufacturing

are the ones that are keeping those jobs going, in that they have

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22

ters. The same with communications services, and there is great

opportunities in biotechnology for life sciences and health.

Now, one area that is going to come up later this year is an expansion of NATO, and to me, NATO is clearly—and I am sure you

would agree—primarily a defense military organization and alliance but it also signifies a commonality and understanding basic

freedoms, individual freedoms, and with it comes commercial, or

quality of life economic freedoms, and I would like to ask both Secretaries what are your views, whether you believe NATO should be

enlarged—there will be that meeting in Prague later this year in

November—and if so, what standards would you set for new membership in NATO?

Mr. WEINBERGER. I definitely believe it should be enlarged. I

think that NATO is one of our most important alliances. I think

it has performed extraordinarily well, and that while we certainly

may have made major contributions to it, and should, they were

very well-rewarded, so I would agree that NATO should be enlarged.

I was distressed by the fact that we kept three nations waiting

about 3 years because we seemed to be worried about whether it

would offend Russia or not. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are valuable members. They have been under the thumb of

the Soviet Warsaw Pact for a long time. They wanted to join the

West, and I thought they should be encouraged, and I think many

of the newer applicants are in somewhat the same category.

I do not think the enlargement of NATO should be viewed as a

threat by anybody, unless that person or that country has hostile

intentions in mind, because NATO is a defensive alliance, and it

was with the greatest of difficulty that we ever persuaded any of

the NATO countries to permit any operations out of the NATO

area, and so they are not an offensive operation. They should not

be viewed as a threat. They are an addition to the defense of the

United States, and to the defense of freedom in the world, so my

answer is unequivocally yes, I think they should be expanded.

As far as conditions are concerned, again I think we should be

very careful about setting very rigid or difficult conditions to make.

It is far better to have countries in the alliance and work up to

being able to make the kind of contributions that are needed than

it is to put some kind of very strict entry bars and entrance fees

and all the rest in front of them, and so I would minimize the requirements, and maximize the encouragement.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you. Secretary Perry.

Dr. PERRY. I have a nuanced difference in my answer to that. I

think NATO should be opened to enlargement, which is a somewhat different statement than Secretary Weinberger made, and the

qualifications, and it should be open, then, to qualified nations.

What do I mean by qualified? Well, when I was Secretary, I told

other nations what I thought the qualifications for membership

were. First of all, they must be a democratic nation. Second, it has

to have a free market economy. Third, not involved in major border

disputes with its neighbors.

Senator ALLEN. Say that again.

Dr. PERRY. Not involved in major border disputes with its neighbors, and by the way, that was very critical in getting Hungary and

23

Czechoslovakia to resolve the border dispute they had underway at

the time.

And finally, the ability to contribute to the NATO military.

NATO is not an old warrior society. It is not a fraternity. It is a

military coalition. Therefore, there has to be some minimum ability

of a nation to contribute to that military capability.

Those are the criteria I would put for membership.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I would very briefly say that I think the more

restrictions or restraints or rules you have for admitting into

NATO, the more you overlook the desirability of having NATO

large and strong, and capable of defense, and at the beginning we

did not put any restrictions on anybody. We were delighted to welcome them.

In fact, we begged Spain for years to come in without any conditions and finally they did, but if you put these restrictions on you

are preventing the admission and potential improvement of a great

many countries that we need, and if you had those restrictions in

the past, neither Greece nor Turkey would have qualified.

Senator ALLEN. For the countries we are considering, generally

the Baltics and a few others, they seem to be democratic. They

seem to be relatively free market. I am not sure about all the border disputes. The ability to contribute militarily, some of it is just

a logistical matter. Some may have some ports, obviously, some can

contribute a certain amount. We do not expect smaller countries to

contribute as much as would, say, Great Britain, the wealthier or

stronger economic countries. Do you see any of those that are being

considered to have any of your conditions, Secretary Perry, as impediments?

Dr. PERRY. I think the countries you mentioned meet these tests,

in my judgment.

Senator ALLEN. Secretary Weinberger mentioned Russia, and

saying Russia should not be worried about this. Do you think that

Russia should be involved in in any way determining or discussing

who should be joining the NATO alliance?

Dr. PERRY. No.

Mr. WEINBERGER. No, I certainly do not.

Dr. PERRY. Some people have suggested that Russia and Ukraine

might have actually become members. I would point out they do

not meet the requirements I have pointed out at this time.

Senator ALLEN. You are saying Russia and the Ukraine would

not? Neither of you are suggesting that Russia join NATO?

Dr. PERRY. No. We may have different reasons. My reason is,

they do not meet the criteria which I have indicated.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Just a simple no is enough.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both, gentlemen, for all of your many years of service to our country and the

cause of freedom. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. One of the advantages of being chairman is you

get to set the agenda and you get to turn the lights out, but I

would like to, if I could, just for another few minutes trespass on

your time a little bit more if I may, and would either of you like

a cup of coffee or a drink? I would like to keep you for another 20

minutes or so, until 12. Is that OK? Is that possible?

Mr. WEINBERGER. How long, Mr. Chairman?

24

The CHAIRMAN. Until 12.

Mr. WEINBERGER. That is fine.

The CHAIRMAN. There are so many areas I would like your input

on, and if I could begin with the Nuclear Posture Review that was

mentioned earlier.

In early January, the administration released the results of the

Nuclear Posture Review, including the target reductions of 1,700 to

2,200 operationally deployed U.S. nuclear warheads by 2012. Pentagon officials talked about this as the end of the so-called threatbased nuclear posture, sized in the past to meet a Russian threat,

and adopted instead what they called the capabilities-based approach, sized to meet any possible threat in the decades to come,

but as I look at this review it is more notable for its absence of any

real change.

The goal of 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed U.S. warheads

is lower than President Clinton’s objective for START III only because we basically changed the counting rules. In any case, administration officials emphasize that this goal can shift any time, and

defense officials indicate that we will maintain a sizable number of

warheads in, quote, active reserve to respond to future contingencies, and only Russia has a nuclear force large enough to require us to maintain 2,000 operationally deployed warheads, let

alone hundreds or thousands more.

So the review, as I look at it, does not change the fact that the

U.S. nuclear arsenal will be continued to be sized to respond to potential Russian strikes, and if we maintain a sizable reserve of

warheads Russia is likely to retain similar but perhaps less secure

reserves, or stated another way, you say we are going to go down

to 1,700 and 2,200 in the next 10 years, but we will have anywhere

from 100 to several thousand operationally ready warheads able to

be deployed, and nobody suggests that I am aware of at the Pentagon that you need that many to deal with contingent threats,

other than Russia, around.

So it seems to me, based upon counting rules, we still have a

Russian-threat-based system here, and what concerns me is, if the

Russians attempt to maintain a similar stockpile of operational nuclear warheads, which they would be entitled to do, is there a concern about, or should we be concerned about the notion of how secure they are, and what foreseeable contingencies over the next 10

years require us to maintain what is likely to be a very large reserve of operational warheads able to be deployed very quickly?

That is really the question. Either or both.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Well, basically we used to size the force on the

number of targets that were apparent to us, and were reported to

us, targets that had the capability of destroying our own deterrent

capabilities, and targets that were of military value.

The CHAIRMAN. So called SIOP?

Mr. WEINBERGER. Yes. These were in the Soviet Union, because

the Soviet Union was the enemy, as you pointed out, so the Soviet

Union is gone. That is not to say that there are not other potential

enemies or actual enemies, so I do not know the basis on which the

Nuclear Posture Review was calculated, but I think it was calculated on the basis of the capabilities that we had, as opposed to

the idea of a specific number of targets we had to hit.

25

Part of those capabilities are deterring other nations from even

thinking they could try. Part of those capabilities are designed to

ensure that if there was an accidental launch, or a temporary gaining control by terrorists or some rogue elements, that there was a

launch of three or four, or something of that kind, that we have an

ability to go back immediately and stop that from ever happening

again.

There are all different kinds of ways of counting these things,

but the simple fact of the matter is that we now have a great many

more potential targets that are not just in Russia, and are coming

from areas like Iraq, and I think your description, Mr. Chairman,

is a very apt one, that they painted a large bull’s-eye on the back

of the United States, and I see Libya in the same basic category,

and Iran, and North Korea, so that all of these are elements that

have to be considered in any sizing number.

I would assume the various factors that went into calculating

these things were all taken into account by the people who drew

up the Nuclear Posture Review. It seems to me a very substantial

reduction from the 6,000 to 7,000 we have now, and that the idea

of keeping a ready reserve—and I do not know what the size of

that would be, but I do not think it is several thousand.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know, either.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I think it would be very few, but it is important to have a reserve in any kind of combat. You do not want to

commit everything you have got and have nothing left, depending

on how the tide of battle would change, or how it would flow, so

all of these things are reasons why I think it is important to have

some kind of ready reserve and some kind of capability, rather

than building new ones or acquiring more warheads should we

need them.

The CHAIRMAN. Secretary Perry.

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I favor the reduction that is postulated in the policy review. I prefer it at the lower end of the range

rather than the upper end of the range, but more importantly, I

prefer that we dismantle those weapons, not put them in reserve.

We have weapons in reserve already, but we are talking about additional weapons in reserve.

But my statement about dismantle is, I want to dismantle the

Russians’ as well as ours. I want to emphasize that point. I am not

in favor of dismantling ours unless the Russians dismantle as well.

That means, then, that we need some agreement by which we codify their reduction and our reduction, and some way that there is

a commitment to both governments that that reduction takes place

and is verifiable.

And finally I prefer, greatly prefer that any weapons we have in

reserve be well-secured, and that means my concern here is primarily about the Russians, because I believe ours are well-secured.

Now, the contingency, you raise the question, what contingency

would we need? The weapons that are going to be put, or additional

weapons put in reserve, or dismantled, the only conceivable contingency I can think of is, we need to deal with some major change

in government in Russia which leads them to want to reconstitute

their nuclear weapons. But since we cannot do anything about or

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tendant to their reconstituting their nuclear weapons. That is why

I get back to the point that if we are going to destroy our nuclear

weapons, we need to destroy or dismantle theirs as well, so the key

here is the Russian dismantlement as well as the American dismantlement.

The CHAIRMAN. If I can keep you on that line, if I may, without

rehashing whether we should or should not have walked away from

the ABM treaty, or formally noticed our getting out of it, one of the

impacts of that was that Russia had ratified SALT II with the caveat that if we walk away from ABM they walk away from SALT,

or START II, excuse me. I have been here too long—START II— and one of the things we spent a lot of time, I think justifiably giving credit to the Bush administration for Bush it was that START

II required the Russians to destroy the one weapon we heard the

most about, or I heard the most about in my career here, the SS– 18 and other mobile warhead weapons, and the rationale, for the

record—and I know you both know it better than I.

The rationale was that it related to crisis stability. If we know

they have one weapon with 10 independently targeted warheads

that has a capacity, each one of those warheads, that far exceeds

the capacity of the combined effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

then that has to be a target for us when we look at targeting.

The other side knows it is a target. Therefore the other side

knows, in a moment of crisis, if they do not use it, quote, they lose

it. At least that has been the operational theory we have worked

on, those of us who have tried to master strategic doctrine for

sometime.

Now, with that abandonment of ABM and with evidence from the

National Intelligence Estimate that we have gotten here, on the

ballistic missile threat to the United States, the reports are that

Russia has begun a life extension program on those aging multiple

warhead missiles, and so is—and when I ask, and Secretary Rumsfeld as well as the Secretary of State yesterday have basically

said—and I will not quote them, because I have it and I cannot

find it—basically said, well, so be it, that is not our problem. That

is not a problem.

Now, does the goal of eliminating, Secretary Perry, multiple warhead ICBMs no longer matter, or should we try—notwithstanding

the fact there is no formal agreement now, should we try to maintain or achieve the goals set out in START II with the Russians

as we enter this new relationship with the President and President

Putin having agreed to move down to levels of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads?

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman in short I believe the crisis stability

still should be a goal of the United States, and I believe the landbased MIRVs, like the SS–18, aggravate the problem of crisis stability, therefore it should be a goal to get rid of those weapons.

Having said that, let me say that I believe the situation with

Russia today is very, very different from the situation with Russia

or the Soviet Union during the cold war, and the reasons, the ways

of looking at crisis stability are very different. Nevertheless, I think

we still have to have a concern for crisis stability, and we have to

be concerned with the fact that the government in Russia could

change a year from now, 5 years from now. In the meantime, the

27

weapons still persist, so I do believe that this is an issue that

should have our attention and concern.

The CHAIRMAN. Secretary Weinberger, you mentioned before, and

just stated by Secretary Perry, that there could be a change in Russian attitude or the Russian Government and the need to, as we

are talking about the Nunn-Lugar kind of initiatives, to be able to

verify. Do you think we should be able to verify nuclear agreements

that we have with the Russians? Should they be verifiable, or is

it sufficient that we just unilaterally say, and they say, this is what

we are going to do, but without any verification regime tied to it?

Mr. WEINBERGER. There are two or three answers to that, Mr.

Chairman. One is that the verification regime itself has to be airtight, and it is almost impossible to construct an airtight

verification regime, because they simply can deny access, as Iraq

has done repeatedly, or they can use other facilities to construct

other things and so on.

Your earlier linkage of the abandonment of the ABM treaty to

their extension programs and all the rest brings to my mind a

question as to, if the ABM treaty was so instrumental in preventing proliferation, why do we have this enormous expansion of

nuclear weapons and attempts to get nuclear weapons all the time

the ABM treaty has been in effect?

My own feeling has been that if you tell a country and you tell

the world that there is one class of weapons that is never going to

be defended against, that is going to encourage all of the hostile

elements everywhere to try to get that class of weapons, so I think

the greatest factor for proliferation is keeping a defenseless regime,

which is what the ABM treaty guaranteed, and so I think the

abandonment of the ABM concept, and the ABM treaty, is not only

a very beneficial but a very wise thing to have done, and I hope

we will proceed with the second half, which is to acquire the capable effective defenses as quickly as possible.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, in the interests of time, as I indicated in

my statement, without talking about the merits or demerits of the

decision, I was anxious to see what the attitude was about this notion of crisis stability, but let me move on in the interest of time

here.

Secretary Perry, obviously, things have changed a bit in terms,

at least attitudinally, between the United States and North Korea

over the last year or so, and I suspect they have changed even

more, arguably, possibly better. I do not think so, though.

In terms of the President’s State of the Union Address, what

would you be doing now to try to promote a more sensible North

Korean policy on long range missile production, not production but

development on proliferation and on North Korea’s relations with

South Korea? Where would you be trying to take this now, in light

of where we are at the moment?

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I would start off by saying that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea I think is a danger, an

unacceptable danger to the United States, and we should take

every reasonable action to try to keep that from happening.

During the time I was Secretary, the actions we were considering

taking included the threat of military action, and we were very

close to military confrontation with North Korea over the nuclear

28

weapon program in 1994. Happily, that did not lead to military action. It was resolved, finally, by a diplomatic action. To be sure, a

coercive diplomatic action, but nevertheless, a diplomatic action,

and so that was a satisfactory resolution to what otherwise could

have been a very dangerous situation, and so that is No. 1 on my

priority.

Adding their development of a long-range missile program simply

adds to the concern there, but I wanted to hasten to say the missile

itself is not a problem unless they have a nuclear warhead for it,

and the nuclear warhead is a problem even if they do not have the

long-range missiles, because there are other ways of delivering nuclear warheads, so my emphasis has always been on the nuclear

weapon and less on the missile.

If they were to develop missiles, there are a variety of ways of

defending against them. We have talked about midcourse defense

system, we have talked about boost phase defense system. My own

favorite is pre-boost phase defense systems.

The CHAIRMAN. That is mine as well, preemptive.

Dr. PERRY. I think if I had any influence on the policy today, I

would be first of all stressing a robust diplomatic program to get

the North Koreans to voluntarily give up their long-range missile

as well as their nuclear program, and I thought a little over a year

ago we were within a hair of having such an agreement, and could

still get such an agreement, I think. Second, if that were unsuccessful, and they persisted in moving forward with long-range missiles that threaten the United States, and ICBMs, I would favor a

pre-boost phase defense system, which I think would be very effective.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Mr. Chairman, just a very short comment. I do

understand the time, but the problem is that I think it would be

extremely easy to get an agreement with North Korea, and I think

it would be absolutely worthless.

I do not think it is a government you can trust, and I do not

think anything they promise can be expected to be kept, and I do

not think there is any verification that is going to work with them.

I think the change of the regime is the only solution, and that is

a pre-boost phase arrangement, so perhaps I am in agreement with

Secretary Perry on that, although I rather doubt it, although I

think that changing the government is the only solution to a government like North Korea.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, speaking only for myself, I hope the President’s reference was merely to a pre-boost phase rationale, rather

than to another, but time will tell that.

If I may ask and explore one more area, even if I miss this vote,

and that is, over the past years President Bush and other officials

have sought to reassure China that our missile defense will be intended to defend against rogue states rather than China, and they

constantly say this is not about China. The fact remains that the

defense intended to defend against rogue states could have, at least

for the present structure of the Chinese nuclear deterrent, could

have a nuclear deterrent effect. At least if you are sitting in Beijing

you might think that.

Now, what concrete steps could the United States take as it develops this nuclear defense architecture to respond to or to emphaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jun 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 80082 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
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size or to make clear that our assertions meet our actions, that

they should not be threatened, and No. 2, should we be concerned

about the impact that the reciprocal action taken by China, what

impact they might have on the nuclear architecture in Asia?

If they go into a massive new effort, and arguably they are already doing some of that anyway, are you concerned about the reactions in India or Pakistan or Japan, for that matter, in terms of

relying upon our nuclear umbrella, if you will, and so the first

question is, what can we do, or should we do, if anything, to reassure the Chinese that our architecture for national missile defense

is what we say it is, not directed at them, because that is what

President Bush keeps saying?

Mr. WEINBERGER. Mr. Chairman, a missile defense program is

not directed against anybody. A missile defense program is only directed toward protecting the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Then let me amend what I said. President Bush

has said he has attempted to reassure the Chinese that any missile

defense system we have would not impact on their nuclear deterrent capability. He has gone further than saying it is not intended.

He has gone on to say, to be reassuring them that it would not affect their deterrent capability.

Mr. WEINBERGER. A missile defense program can only be opposed

by somebody who has an offensive intention in mind. If you have

no offensive intention in mind, the fact that we are building a defense should not be of alarm to anybody.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that sounds good, but what happens if

overnight, and it is not realistic at all, but if all of a sudden Russia

or China developed a system that could defend against all of our

nuclear weapons, I think we might change our mind about whether

or not—and we have no offensive intention, but if we knew that

there was no possibility of us being able to respond to an attack

by them with nuclear weapons, I suspect it might change the way

we view the world.

Mr. WEINBERGER. That is a hypothetical which I am really not

prepared to follow.

The CHAIRMAN. For us it is a hypothetical. For them, it is a realistic possibility, but in any event, Secretary Perry, would you be

kind enough to respond?

Dr. PERRY. Any national missile defense system that is being seriously considered, if it is effective, would be effective against the

Chinese missiles. The only system I can conceive of that would

offer some level of defense for the United States without affecting

the Chinese system would be a ground-based boost-phase system.

I do not advocate that because a ground-based boost-phase system

unfortunately is ineffective against other systems you want it to be

effective against, because it cannot reach many of the targets we

are concerned with, so that would be my answer to the question.

Mr. WEINBERGER. Mr. Chairman, again, it is exactly the dilemma, if you build something that is of no concern to and does not

worry the Russians and does not trouble the Chinese, you are

building an ineffective system.

The CHAIRMAN. Why, then, Mr. Secretary, does the President and

Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State keep telling the ChiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jun 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 80082 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
30

nese, do not worry, this will not affect you? I guess they do not

mean it, right?

Mr. WEINBERGER. They are in power. They have the ability to set

policy. I am an individual who is 20 years out of any cycle, so they

are the people you should listen to if you want the administration

policy.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a very accurate comment, and I do appreciate it. I am sorry that—and I am sure you all are not, because

we have kept you so long, but I am sorry you have not had a

chance to get to a number of other issues that I would like to discuss with you, gentlemen, including outer space and the

weaponization of outer space, and the nuclear test ban treaty and

whether it has any relevance any more, but maybe if you are willing, if I could just send you one or two questions, without burdening you with more than one or two, I would appreciate it if you

would be wiling to answer them.

Mr. WEINBERGER. I would be delighted to try.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you both very, very much. I consider it

an honor to have you both before us, and I thank you for your time,

and we are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the committee adjourned.]

STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this important hearing. The horrific events

of September 11 brought into sharp focus that the threats of the 21st century are

far different from the threats of the last century. During the 20th century, our adversaries were easily named and contained within defined national borders. The adversaries that our men and women in uniform are currently fighting belong to mobile, well-financed terrorist cells that do not have a centralized structure and exist

in the shadows around the world, and even in our own country. This new kind of

enemy challenges our conception of traditional warfare and demands a different

kind of response, and a different strategic framework.

While we should allow our strategic framework to evolve to meet the challenges

of the 21st century, we should be careful not to undermine the foundation of carefully structured arms control agreements that supports our strategic relationship

with the rest of the world.

I am concerned that unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile

Treaty could seriously weaken the United States’ ability to pursue our most urgent

foreign policy priorities. This unilateral action could dramatically alter our strategic

relationship with Russia, and gut the underpinnings of the global arms control regime. And it is all the more troubling that the President announced his intention

to withdraw the United States from this important treaty without seeking support

from the Senate.

At a time when our global strategic relationships are of paramount importance,

we should do nothing that could risk undermining the strength and staying power

of the global coalition against terrorism.

In addition, we should take further steps to combat the proliferation of weapons

of mass destruction and to thwart the attempts of terrorists and states of concern

to acquire nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the means to deliver them.

We should ensure that our export control regime prevents sensitive dual-use technologies from being exported to countries of concern, and we should urge our allies

to do the same.

Finally, we should proceed cautiously with the planned national missile defense

system. While I have not opposed legislation authorizing development of a missile

defense system, I have serious concerns about the Bush Administration’s aggressive

proposal. We should not close the door on options for defending the United States

against a possible missile attack, but we must ensure that the system that we eventually choose is cost-effective and will actually work, I will continue to scrutinize

31

carefully the progress of this system and the price that taxpayers will be asked to

pay for it.

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