Steven Holt: “I thank the Chair, and I thank the Rules Committee and the leadership of the Armed Services Committee for making this…”

“I thank the Chair, and I thank the Rules Committee and the leadership of the Armed Services Committee for making this amendment in order. Mr. Chairman, the amendment's purpose is simple: to eliminate the missile defense-related portions of the bill with the exception of the relatively successful Iron Dome program. As some of you may know, I have been involved with arms control issues for decades, since I was a part of the U.S. Geneva delegation sent to investigate the then-Soviet phased array radar in Krasnoyarsk in the early 1980s. My training as a physicist, as well as the decades I've spent dealing with these issues, long ago led me to conclude a couple of things: effective strategic ballistic missile defense systems have not been and are not likely to be technically feasible; and, second, attempting to build them only fuels the international arms race. If you don't believe the latter point, let me quote from a Russian Television story on June 8 of this year: Russia's Strategic Missile Forces have reported a successful launch of a next-generation ICBM that can supposedly pierce any antiballistic missile system. The test came after the U.S. announced it would resume its ABM program in Europe. That is a description of the arms race that should have ended years ago. The article goes on to quote Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin who says that the new Russian ICBM was a ``missile defense killer.…”