IV 
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 82
Expressing the sense of the Congress on commemorating the 20th Anniversary 
of President Ronald Reagan’s vision for protecting the United States 
against ballistic missile attack and commending President George W. 
Bush’s commitment to a multi-layered ballistic missile defense system 
to protect the homeland of the United States from ballistic missile 
attack. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 6, 2003
Mr. HOSTETTLER (for himself, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. YOUNG of Alaska, Mr. 
BARTLETT of Maryland, and Mr. THORNBERRY) submitted the following 
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed 
Services, and in addition to the Committee on International Relations, for 
a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the Congress on commemorating 
the 20th Anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s vi-
sion for protecting the United States against ballistic 
missile attack and commending President George W. 
Bush’s commitment to a multi-layered ballistic missile 
defense system to protect the homeland of the United 
States from ballistic missile attack.
Whereas in the midst of the Cold War, the former Soviet 
Union began deploying a ballistic missile defense system
•HCON 82 IH 
near Moscow in 1966, which became operational in 1968, 
has since evolved, and remains under the operational con-
trol of the Russian Federation today; 
Whereas the United States decided not to exercise its author-
ity under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 
1972 to deploy two limited anti-ballistic missile systems 
and instead in 1976 discontinued deployment of a single 
very limited ballistic missile defense system potentially 
capable of protecting parts of the United States from bal-
listic missile attack; 
Whereas President Reagan challenged the concept of mutu-
ally assured destruction (MAD) as the reality of the 
United States’ nuclear deterrent posture with the Soviet 
Union, and asked the people of the United States in a 
nationally televised speech on March 23, 1983, ‘‘What if 
free people could live secure in the knowledge that their 
security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. re-
taliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept 
and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they 
reached our own soil or that of our allies?’’; 
Whereas President Ronald Reagan delivered a vision to the 
people of the United States that called for a comprehen-
sive, long-term research and development program to de-
velop the capability to defend the United States and its 
interests from the threat posed by strategic ballistic mis-
siles; 
Whereas President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative led 
to a substantial research and development effort that 
greatly advanced the technologies related to and capabili-
ties of missile defense systems;
•HCON 82 IH 
Whereas the 106th Congress overwhelmingly passed with a 
bipartisan majority H.R. 4, the National Missile Defense 
Act of 1999, a bill to declare that it is the policy of the 
United States ‘‘to deploy as soon as is technologically 
possible an effective National Missile Defense [NMD] 
system capable of defending the territory of the United 
States against limited ballistic missile attack’’; 
Whereas on July 22, 1999, President William Jefferson Clin-
ton signed into law H.R. 4, the National Missile Defense 
Act of 1999; 
Whereas the United States officially withdrew from the Anti-
Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 on June 13, 
2002, consistent with the terms in Article XV of the 
ABM Treaty; 
Whereas the unclassified summary of a December 2001 Na-
tional Intelligence Estimate (NIE) entitled ‘‘Foreign Mis-
sile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat 
Through 2015 ’’ indicates that the United States remains 
subject to a grave and growing threat from ballistic mis-
sile attack; 
Whereas the same National Intelligence Estimate made the 
key judgment that ‘‘Most Intelligence Community agen-
cies project that before 2015 the United States most like-
ly will face ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran, 
and possibly from Iraq—barring significant changes in 
their political orientations’’; and 
Whereas United States Director of Central Intelligence 
George J. Tenet testified to the Congress in February 
2003 that North Korea already possesses a ballistic mis-
sile capable of reaching portions of the western conti-
nental United States: Now, therefore, be it