unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (08/29/89)
SPEECH BY SEC. CHENEY TO VFW CONVENTION
REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BY
THE HONORABLE DICK CHENEY
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
TO VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS
NATIONAL CONVENTION
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1989
Last month the House of Representatives voted for a drastic cut in the
funds we need to modernize America's strategic armed forces. My former
colleagues voted as they did, not because they had a better idea about how
to deter the Soviet threat, but because many of them seemed to think there i
no real threat any more. They have seen some changes and apparent
everything now is just fine. It is as if they had decided
overcoats on the first sunny day in January.
If the House really thinks everything is fine -- if it thinks the threat
is reduced and we do not need to modernize -- then the House ought to say so
directly and return the unspent money to you. But that is not what happened.
Instead, the House diverted your tax money away from critically important
strategic programs and voted to spend it instead to protect jobs in selected
home districts.
The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees probably
had the best descriptions for what happened. House chairman Les Aspin said
that the House "passed a Michael Dukakis defense budget." As Aspin then went
on to say, the House said no to the small road-mobile ICBM or Midgetman, no
to rail garrison for the large, multi-warhead Peacekeeper, and made big outs
in the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI and the B-2" ("Stealth") bomber.
Senate chairman Sam Nunn was even more direct. He called the House decisions
"irrational."
They were both right. And let me tell you something you probably know
already. The senior members of this Administration can still remember the
1988 election. In November, the voters decided, by a landslide, that they
did not want the Dukakis defense budget. If the House-Senate conference
produces a bill like the House bill, you can be sure it will be veto bait.
You have all heard the warm reassurances coming from Soviet leaders. I
wish them well. But I also want to give you what Paul Harvey would call "the
rest of the story."
It would be
wonderful if the premise underlying the House's decisions
were true. I wish I could stand before you and say that the Soviet strategic
threat has been reduced over the past five years. But it has not. If anythin
the United States is facing a more formidable, offensive strategic ars
today than before Mr. Gorbachev took power. That's right: I said mor
able, not less.
In fact, although there has been talk of a 14 percent cut in its defense
average of 3 percent per year in real terms. At the same time our defense
spending has declined in real terms by over 11 percent.
For the past year or so, Soviet leaders have said and done a number of
things to suggest that their military postures and doctrines have undergone a
fundamental change. In certain limited areas -- like the INF agreement on
intermediate-range nuclear forces -- the changes have, in fact, produced posi-
tive results. We are continuing to work hard in other negotiations -- like th
Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START) and the talks on Conventional Forces i
Europe (CFE) -- to see if we can reach further agreements that will increase
stability and reduce the Soviet threat.
But we are not at that point now. Moreover, the changes we have actually
seen are not ones that automatically translate into a more secure strate
environment. Virtually all of the changes and promises so far have had to do
with conventional forces, or with short to intermediat
The strategic picture is radically different.
The Soviet Union has been making major improvements to every leg of its
strategic arsenal. In systems ranging from intercontinental missiles and
bombers to submarines and strategic defense, the Soviet Union is getting
stronger, while our Congress debates and our country treads water.
Let's look at ICBMs as an example. The Soviet Union has been modernizing
all of the elements in its intercontinental missile force. In 1985, it began
deploying the road-mobile SS-25, a single warhead ICBM more or less like our
proposed small ICBM or Midgetman. The Soviet Union already has about 170 of
these road-mobile missiles and is rapidly continuing to deploy more. We have
none. Even if the President's budget prevails, we won't have any for another
eight years.
The Soviet Union also has deployed 58 large SS-24 missiles, each of which
carries ten independently targetable warheads. Eighteen of these SS-24s are
rail-mobile, and the other 4O are in silos.
But the Soviet Union is not satlsfied with modernizing its mobile missile
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