We're entering a period where DOD, and I think the people at this table understand it--other people in DOD have to realize that these budgets are going to get a lot tighter, these programs are going to have to be justified.

Stability is one issue. But being mandatorily committed to coming to the defense of a country...is very troublesome.

If you cannot clearly articulate when the commitment will be ended, then we tend to move sort of in an ad hoc way.

You don't see--and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth--from what I'm hearing, you would not analogize the situation in Iraq to, for instance, the basing system that we have in Korea.

I would hope that in this process, we can end up with a clearly articulated end-point.

NATO expansion originally started out as being very much about creating a Europe that's whole and free.

I regretfully say I think that the Army really failed the Tillman family.

I think the key thing is to implement the SOFA, and to reduce our role and our numbers there.

You have written in the past, that you believe that there should be a residual force in Iraq of approximately 60,000 American military, do you still believe that?

As a maritime nation, we should improve the quality and strength of our seapower.

In our current strategic environment, these commitments can affect force structure in the short-term but really not play out to our national advantage in the long-term.

But, also a national army is a component of a viable national government.

I really mean that. You did mention other notable Americans who died of friendly-fire incidents on the battlefield.

I have some real concerns about what has happened to the NATO Alliance, not with respect to Afghanistan, but I guess the only phrase you can really use is international sprawl.

We have, on the one hand, I think, become a much more unilateral guarantor among the NATO countries for security issues.

We are at our best, we are at our strongest when we draw from all over the country.

Anything that would diminish that status is something we have to guard against.

We all feel very strongly that, as much as possible, our military should represent America, but we also, all of us I think, feel very strongly that should occur with demonstrable standards of fairness.