Ehrlich on Washington column, March 15, 1999

NEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland 1 407 York Road, Suite 304 3 1 5 Cannon House Office Building Lutherville, Maryland 21093 Washington, D.C. 205 1 5 EHRLICH ON WASHINGTON Week of March 15, 1999 By Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. WE CAN NO LONGER WAIT TO DEFEND AMERICA Today in America, we have the ability to travel virtually anywhere guided by a U.S. owned satellite 22,000 miles away, all the while, talking to our spouses on the cell phone. Our children can access information about the Olympics in Australia, e-mail their homework, and even talk to astronauts on the Space Shuttle while eating an afternoon snack with the family dog sleeping on their lap. With all of these comforts and technological advances, it is astonishing to learn that we are incredibly vulnerable. Currently, certain aggressive foreign countries have missiles aimed at us, and, more importantly, the U.S. currently cannot do anything to protect itself if any country decides to launch a missile attack. Despite having the best military force in the world, the United States of America is defenseless from space. In a startling report issued in 1998, the Rumsfeld Commission, an independent panel of intelligence experts appointed by Congressional leaders, concluded that the missile threat to the United States is real and evolving more rapidly than had been previously estimated. The Commission predicted that aggressive foreign countries could have long range missile capability within five years, if not sooner. Unfortunately, more than 20 Third World countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea, already have defied the Commission’s predictions with their current development programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. For example, on August 31, 1998, North Korea tested a missile, the Taepo-Dong 1, a three-stage missile, which can reach Americans living in Alaska and Hawaii easily and with slight modifications even the continental United States. c