Mike Levin: “this is more of an ``NMC'' bill than an NMD. This is a ``Never Mind the Consequence'' bill. General Shelton, our top…”

“this is more of an ``NMC'' bill than an NMD. This is a ``Never Mind the Consequence'' bill. General Shelton, our top military leader in the uniform of this country, has said he cannot support this bill for a number of reasons. The question has been asked, ``How can anybody oppose this bill?'' A lot of people oppose this bill for a lot of reasons. But the people who support this bill ought to ask themselves, ``How is it that our top military leadership oppose it?'' And General Shelton, for many reasons, says he cannot support it. And one of the reasons is the one that Senator Conrad just read. And I want to repeat it. Any bill should ``consider affordability [and] the impact a deployment would have on arms control agreements and nuclear arms reductions.'' When you commit to deploy a system which will breach in almost dead certainty a treaty between us and the Russians, and cause them to quit cutting the number of nuclear weapons and to start increasing again, we are jeopardizing the security of this Nation and contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That is one of the big problems of this bill. That is why our top military leadership do not support this bill.”