Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the amendment of Senator Thune would amend the treaty by changing one of the elements of the treaty, which is the number of deployed strategic forces that we have. Under the treaty, the limit, of course, is 700. But the critically important part to our military is that each side would have the ability to change the mix to reach 700 as it suits our respective needs. The amendment of Senator Thune would alter the limit of 700 to 720 deployed SLBMs, heavy bombers equipped with nuclear arms, and ICBMs. These limits, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has just said, were agreed upon only after careful analysis by the U.S. military leadership, particularly General Chilton who is the commander of our U.S. Strategic Command and the man responsible for these strategic systems. Senator Kerry has quoted General Chilton. I want to add one additional quote of his which he testified to before the Armed Services Committee on July 20 of this year. General Chilton stated that the force levels in the treaty meet the current guidance for deterrence for the United States. By the way, that guidance was laid out by President George W. Bush. The options we provided in this process focused on ensuring America's ability to continue to deter potential adversaries, assure our allies, and sustain strategic stability for as long as nuclear weapons exist.…”