Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith as well as Ranking Member Rogers for their leadership to include various measures in the underlying bill that will aid the Department of Defense's effort to prevent and mitigate civilian harm, including establishing a Center of Excellence in Civilian Harm Mitigation and Commission on Civilian Harm. I thank the HASC staff, including Katy Quinn, Phil MacNaughton, and Robert Ikoku for their work on this. It should not be a partisan issue to mitigate civilian harm. My amendment would simply authorize the resources for the Department of Defense to implement these policies of reducing civilian casualties, which Congress already required the Department of Defense to do nearly 4 years ago. My amendment would allow the Department of Defense to spend $5 million per year to implement the requirements of section 936 of the John McCain NDAA for Fiscal Year 2019. Section 936, passed by this body 4 years ago, requires the Department of Defense to establish uniform processes and standards across combatant commands for improving tracking, reporting, analysis, and response to civilian casualties from U.S. military operations. It is appropriately named after the late Senator John McCain, who believed deeply that the United States military should minimize civilian casualties. This is something that everyone in our military believes. Now, the Department of Defense has made extraordinary progress in recent years in preventing civilian harm.…”