Mr. Chair, I want to cite further from one of the e-mails that I received in my office today in anticipation of tonight's debate. It goes as follows:
While Minister Pratt has dismissed the issue of the weaponization of space... President Bush has presented a budget to the U.S. Congress that specifically funds the space-based portion of BMD. The Pentagon's Fiscal Year 2004 budget request contains substantial funding in three space-based mission areas: Force projection and space control... Space-based elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System... and Space-based command, control, and intelligence.... Taken together, the budget request seeks almost $3 billion in 2004 for strategic war fighting from space, and more than $30 billion over the [next five-year] timeframe.
I wonder if the minister could explain the contradiction between his insistence that the NMD is not about the weaponization of space yet we see that there are three space based components that are without a doubt tied in with the 20-20 vision already set out by the Bush administration to move to the weaponization of space.