Jim Inhofe: “I averaged about seven events a day throughout the State of Oklahoma, and during that time I did not let an opportunity…”

“I averaged about seven events a day throughout the State of Oklahoma, and during that time I did not let an opportunity go by without letting the people of Oklahoma know how serious the threat of missile attack will be to the United States within just a very few years, probably as early as the year 2000. I also let them know that we do not have a national missile defense system, and probably the most significant thing we will do is to keep this system going so that when we have a friendlier environment in the White House we can have this system ready to be deployed by the year 2000 or 2001. We know the threat that exists from North Korea right now. We know the threats that were articulated by Jim Woolsey, the chief security adviser to the President, when he said that we know of between 20 and 25 nations that are working on weapons of mass destruction and the missile means of delivering those weapons. I intend to support the missile defense portion of this bill, but I think when we used the words that we want to deploy a national missile defense system and they changed it to 'develop for deployment,' that is too weak.”