Political Quotes

“I would like to make one closing point that I think should be made regarding the nature of the threat that exists now from other nations that are rapidly increasing both the range and sophistication of their missile systems. I talked about Iraq, our experience in the Persian Gulf war, what we have known about the capability which they developed very quickly after the purchase of systems from North Korea. We talked about Iran and the medium-range Shahab-3 and -4 systems that they are developing. We talked about Pakistan's testing last month a 1,500-kilometer-range missile, when 6 months ago the Defense Department's report on proliferation around the world said that Pakistan had only a 300-kilometer-range missile and a shorter-range missile in their arsenal. No mention was made of any longer-range missile. But I have neglected to point out what is happening, and what we know has happened, in North Korea, which has led to an assessment that they are developing missiles with much greater ranges than that. There is under development the Taepo-Dong 2 missile with a 6,000-kilometer intercontinental capacity, which would put within its range portions of Alaska and Hawaii. These are facts. These are reports that have been made public. We know that they have already deployed systems that are of shorter range than that, creating a very unstable and stressful situation because of the missile threat in that region of the world.”