A post-Star Wars bid to force the Clinton administration to deploy a missile system got a bipartisan boost Wednesday in preparation for a likely House vote in the fall.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and other key House Republicans showed up with Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, a leading Democrat on defense issues, at a news conference supporting a one-sentence bill declaring "the policy of the United States to deploy a national missile defense."
Standing in front of a grim poster declaring, "410,000 dead" in an attack on Philadelphia, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., mocked President Clinton's assurances that Americans can sleep without fear of missile assaults.
Weldon noted Iran tested a missile after the intelligence community estimated a year ago that such a test was a decade away.
He also underscored the findings of a commission headed by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that Iran and North Korea could have the missile capability to strike the United States within five years.
The bill, which has 40 cosponsors from both parties, will be voted on "before we go home," Weldon said.
It does not call for any particular system, but rather states a new policy for the nation, he said. A similar measure is before the Senate.
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