But my question is about their air force. Their air force would not fly long and it would not fly far; do you agree with that, in a fight with the United States?

I just find that hard to believe. The U-2 is a great platform and great crews and maintainers, but I just can't believe that a manned aircraft can do all the things that these drones are capable of doing for the next 25 or 30 years.

I guess my concern is that the lessons learned from the last 10 years is you can't go to war without the Guard and Reserve.

Maybe we should be thinking about are these requirements too severe, given the threats that we face and all the good programs are at risk.

the United States needs to build a more normal defense relationship with Georgia, including defensive arms sales in coordination with our NATO allies.

I would just say to our Afghan partners and friends that if you do not get the Strategic Partnership Agreement, then the other things are not going to happen.

So you would agree with the concept that post-2014 if we had a configuration of American forces with adequate air power to assist the Afghan security forces, plus a Special Forces component, the Taliban days are over in terms of military…

We have a window of time here to engage both countries, and it is in our national security interest to provide the assistance.

I think what they are doing with drones has been very, very helpful.

It's hard to ask those who've done the most to secure our freedom to give more, but I'm willing to do it.

If we leave Afghanistan and the issue is in doubt about the future of the Taliban, we will regret it.

Is it fair to say from the Air Force side if you were asked to take the Iranian air force down, that it is well within our capabilities?

Shouldn't we have a hearing one day, Mr. Chairman, about how a system competitively bid could be so overrun with costs and find out where the problem lies?

I feel like what he did was in the best interest of our troops.

Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this colloquy. As cochairman of the Guard Caucus, which obviously has the Air National Guard Component, Senator Leahy has been a real pleasure to work with. The bottom line is…

The Senator is absolutely right. When we look at the utilization of the Guard and Reserve since 9/11, it has been at World War II levels. When we go into the combat theater, we can't tell the difference between Guard, Reserve or…

I look forward to working with Senator Leahy and others to bring about what he indicated to make it a reality. The bottom line of this whole discussion is that the Cold War is over. We are very proud of our standing military, our Army…

What I am about to provide to the body, I think we need to absorb and be aware of. This study that Senator Leahy is talking about, an analysis of the effectiveness and cost, is an ongoing endeavor. I would like to know more about what the…