Political Quotes

“I rise today to oppose the Dodd amendment and in support of the Milstar Program. I do not oppose increasing Federal funding for special education programs. In fact, in the past I have voted in favor of resolutions calling on Congress to increase the Federal contribution to educating children with disabilities. However, I do not think that this increase in funding should come at the expense of the Milstar Program and U.S. national security. And, Defense Secretary Perry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff also agree that Milstar is important to U.S. national security and strongly support the program. Let me read a quote from Secretary Perry. Some people consider Milstar a cold war relic. We have totally, beginning already with the Bush Administration and continuing under this Administration, completely reconfigured that system so that many of the factors which made it so expensive--which is the ability to withstand nuclear blasts and so on--those features no longer exist in Milstar. What does exist in Milstar is the ability to connect our tactical units worldwide with high quality, high resolution, digital data, so they can pass demands back and forth, they can pass targeting data, they can pass intelligence information, and it does it in such a way which is highly resistant to interference, such as jamming. So, Milstar is no longer a cold war relic that was designed to meet strategic threats, such as a nuclear war.”