Norman D. Dicks: “I yield myself my remaining minute and a half. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] just stepped on a…”

“I yield myself my remaining minute and a half. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] just stepped on a landmine. What he forgot to tell us with the standoff cruise missile is that it costs $1.2 million a copy. That is a lot of money compared to $20,000 for the JDAMS. Second, a standoff cruise missile has no capability against mobile targets. Rand did a study. Three B-2s interdicting Saddam's division moving into Kuwait with the sensor-fused weapon, a smart submunition, knocked out 46 percent of the mechanized vehicles in that division. The B-2 also, with the block 30 upgrade, will have an ability to go after the launchers for the Scud missiles. We might have been able to prevent the war, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] said. Conventional deterrence is in our grasp if we have an adequate number of B-2's. Every expert, Rand, Colin Powell, Jasper Welch, say the right number is somewhere between 40 and 60. Let us not end this program now. The line is open. We should buy these bombers. We can get 20 additional B-2's for $15.3 billion. We can retire other planes in order to make room for life-cycle costs. The B-2 is the right weapons system for the future. It will have American lives. Our kids will not get shot down like Captain O'Grady got shot down, and this is the most important issue. To kill this program I think would be a tragedy for the American people and a tragedy for our future military capability.…”