|
||||
Breaking News from America's Progressive Community... Latest Releases
Press releases?
|
||||
| SEPTEMBER
9, 1998 10:40 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Council for a Livable World John Isaacs (202) 543-4100 x. 131 |
||||
| Senate Again Defeats Cochran Missile Defense | ||||
| WASHINGTON
- September 9 - The Senate defeat today of the motion to consider the Cochran missile bill
marked another bitter blow for proponents of immediate deployment of a National Missile
Defense. The Senate voted 59 - 41 vote in favor of a Republican motion to debate the bill; 60 votes were needed. This is the second time this year the Senate fell one vote short of considering the Cochran bill. The vote represents a victory for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Clinton Administration which argued that a premature commitment to deploy would waste many billions of dollars on a technology that has flopped thus far. John Isaacs, president of the pro-arms control organization Council for a Livable World, called the outcome, "a vote for fiscal sanity and rational policy." "Missile defense proponents quest for a new Maginot Line is doomed to failure," continued Isaacs. Thus far, the United States has spent more than $100 billion over the past four decades searching for an anti-missile system that can successfully and consistently hit ballistic missiles fired at this country. Isaacs charged that the limited 45 minute debate permitted by Majority Leader Trent Lott indicated the lack of seriousness with which he pushed the Cochran bill. "Lott was more interested in an election issue," charged Isaacs, "than passing a bill that could be adopted by the House and signed by the President." # # # |
||||
