Jeremiah Smith: “Yesterday, India conducted three underground nuclear tests, further destabilizing relations among Pakistan, India, and…”

“Yesterday, India conducted three underground nuclear tests, further destabilizing relations among Pakistan, India, and China. Today, two more tests were conducted. The whole world was caught by surprise--including the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton administration. In fact, administration officials were quoted in the Washington Times yesterday saying that, ``Our overhead [satellites] saw nothing, and we had zero warning.'' The most ominous response came from Pakistan, which recently tested its newest ballistic missile, with a range of 1,500 kilometers, and now says it may conduct a nuclear test of its own. It is against this very stark backdrop that we are today, this week, considering the American Missile Protection Act of 1998. I want to commend my colleague, Senator Cochran, for his long-time leadership on this issue. He deserves a lot of credit. It is a very timely situation, I must say. S. 1873 would establish a U.S. policy of deploying a national missile defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against a limited ballistic missile attack as soon as is technologically possible. How could anyone be opposed to that? It is irresponsible to be opposed to it. The current administration plan for ``3+3'' means that an NMD system will be developed for 3 years. And when a threat is acknowledged, this system will be deployed in 3 years. It is a naive plan.”