Mark Pryor

I support your nomination very enthusiastically.

I have concerns, as we have discussed previously, about the surge or the augmentation, whatever you want to call it.

Do you think that criticism is justified?

Do you pay for that or do you require the owners of the levees to pay for that?

But it could also be contractors?

I am concerned that our best U.S. military minds are divided on this surge strategy.

What happens if you get in there and the Iraqi forces, whether they be a police unit or a brigade, whatever size it may be, what if they just fail to meet the obligations that they have?

I just had one follow-up question to what Senator Bill Nelson asked a few moments ago.

Yes, there is no purely military solution in Iraq.

I am very concerned that there is insufficient Iraqi buy-in.

This year we're going to try to do our dead level best to pass the amendment to take pensions away from senators and congressmen who have been convicted of public corruption while they're in office.

I'm really glad that the Chairman added the strategic technology reserve in there. I think it's something that the Congress needs to weigh in on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I really want to just really thank the Chairman and his staff for just spending hours, and hours, and hours in trying to get this bill right, trying to take in--everybody's views into consideration.

So, you feel like we don't have the balance in the bill right now that you want to see.

I want to thank you for being here today, and also want to echo what you said about the importance of piracy.

I want to thank you and Senator Lieberman for your leadership on this. It is so important for the Congress that we get this right.

This came as a result of perspiration not inspiration.

I do want to work with you on that this year.

Under the lessons learned category, are you satisfied with Plan Colombia or are there things that we can improve there, can do better in the future?

Secretary Rumsfeld, do we have to wait for the passage of the fiscal year 2005 bills to implement the BMMP?

Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated in an interview with The Washington Post that he might have made a different recommendation on war with Iraq.

Secretary Rumsfeld, how many noncompetitive DOD contracts have been awarded to Halliburton in the last 3 years?

The reason I ask that is because we focus a lot of times just on the troops, but there is this other group of people that are impacted by this and obviously there are U.S. dollars, tax dollars, that follow that.

I want to work with you to ensure that our military is fairly compensated.

I have heard from many constituents concerned about defense contracts to Halliburton.