Political Quotes

“the amendment of Senator Landrieu that is pending is a very simple and a very straightforward amendment, but it is a vital amendment. It will make a major difference in this bill, because if this amendment is adopted, this bill will contain two policy statements. It now contains but one. The policy statement that it currently contains has to do with the deployment of a missile defense system. The policy statement, which the Landrieu amendment will add, is that it is the policy of the United States to seek continued negotiated reductions in Russian nuclear forces. This is a very significant policy statement, and I want to take just a minute and explain why. In my opening comments on this bill, I addressed what I consider to be a number of flaws or omissions in this bill. I talked about the fact that there is no reference here to 'operational effectiveness.' One can look at the word 'effective' in this bill's language and argue, I think reasonably, that operational effectiveness is included in that term 'effectiveness.' Nonetheless, I think the bill would be stronger if that were clearer. That was one of the issues which was raised. It is a very important question to our uniformed military and to the Secretary of Defense, because they want to be sure that before any decision is made to deploy, that we have an operationally effective system, that it works. And those are not just casual words.…”