Dear Members and Friends,

Today, 26 foreign countries around the world have deployed ballistic missiles,

Armenia
Bahrain
Belarus
China
Egypt
France
Georgia
India
Iran
Israel
Kazakhstan
Libya
North Korea
Pakistan
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Slovakia
Syria
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Vietnam
Yemen

Last year, over 120 foreign ballistic missiles were launched. Nine of these twenty-seven countries have nuclear weapons, nineteen have chemical weapons and eight have biological weapons (Congressional Research Service Report on Proliferation Trends, 2/20/08). North Korea has nuclear weapons and Iran is currently installing 9,000 centrifuges for Uranium enrichment. Also, North Korea has deployed 600 to 800 short range and medium missiles while Iran has deployed several hundred short range and medium range missiles.

Our nation, which has soldiers, citizens, friends and allies in close proximity to all of these twenty-seven countries, has little if any, deployed missile defense systems to protect all of these lives. Today, to protect the millions of lives at risk, our country has deployed 24 Long-Range Interceptors, 46 Medium-Range Interceptors and 546 Short-Range Interceptors. This is clearly not enough capability to ensure our public safety and protection of our armed forces and allies today, let alone next year or five years from now.

In this current threat environment as well as the endorsement of the 26 countries in NATO for the deployment of missile defense in Europe, the United States House of Representatives Armed Services Committee (HASC) is cutting $719 million from the Department of Defense’s request for Missile Defense and withdrawing authorization for funding of the European Missile Defense site in 2009. This is in direct contrast to the same committee in the United States Senate, which earlier this month authorized full funding of the European Missile Defense site.

Missile Defense is one of the few weapon systems in the United States Department of Defense budget that is developed not to kill, injure or harm human life. At 1.8% of the Department of Defense’s budget, Missile Defense protects, reduces threats and stabilizes crisis regions, allowing our country to have other options rather than military action or war. In addition, 83% of the American Public wants the United States to have a missile defense system (2007 Poll by the Opinion Research Corporation).

The best defense is the best defense, and today’s technology and innovation is putting in place the best defense. This has been proven by the recent satellite shoot-down in February and the recent testing successes of the U.S. missile defense systems, which have had 26 out of 27 successful intercepts since September of 2005.

We Need It, We Want it, and We Want More of It.