On the recordMay 25, 2011
Even Donald Rumsfeld believes it is time to change this policy. In his recent book, he wrote, ``Of the quarter million troops deployed abroad in 2001, more than 100,000 were in Europe, the vast majority stationed in Germany . . . Those deployments were obviously not taking into account the 21st century reality that Germany was now one of the wealthier nations in Europe . . . I believed our troops had to do more than serve as symbols of security blankets for wealthy allied nations.'' Madam Chair, experts across the ideological spectrum agree that the time is right for these smart cuts that will improve our national security, allow us to fulfill all our obligations to NATO, as well as include the 10,000 to 15,000 troops that experts say are necessary to fully support operations at our current levels in the Middle East and Africa. Again, I express my own personal desire that less is needed in that regard, and it seems to be our direction; but even at those current levels, we would fully support those operations. This is a smart cut, one of the easier ones we could go to. It improves our national security, and I urge a ``yes'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.
