Bill Nelson

Our approach is to find the plan and work our way into it, so that we don't get into a situation where, in order to meet the objective, somebody thinks we should close the CVC 2 days a week, or something like that.

In that regard, Ms. Chrisler, probably the act requires you to take certain actions for inspections. It doesn't specify how many or how often or that you have to do it.

And if it needs to be modified, it wouldn't necessarily prohibit self-inspections with oversight.

Could you give us what their recommendations were, or what their conclusions were, with respect to, first, the Russell Senate Office Building stairs.

He has been extremely involved in our community, and later after Mel came to the Senate, Skip came up here and gave 6 months of his life as Mel's general counsel here in the Senate office.

Skip is a native Floridian. He is a graduate with high honors of the University of Florida and the University of Florida Law School.

I want to give some special note to the staff that is seated behind you because they are the ones that go through all of the laborious tasks.

A major argument for the new tanker that has been described is the 1960s vintage KC-135 airframes are wearing out.

The next generation tanker contract has been awarded, and I congratulate you on that.

Let me add my appreciation for your service, and all the men and women wearing the Air Force blue, supporting all the efforts around the world.

I believe right now that President Karzai may actually be in a better position on this than the political leadership in Pakistan.

I don't have any indication of that, but just a general concern that perhaps their security is not sufficient for them to be able to self-govern.

I would hope that we would make that a part of the negotiations because that is what we would have to do.

I would hope that we would do so, recognizing that from that point forward, that we would expect the Iraqi Government to pick up a bigger share of the cost that we would incur.

I have been a strong proponent of benchmarks with metric measurements for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

IMET is a very important part of what I would hope to be our outreach to the world in a way that makes good sense.

But if we are in a position to where we are requested and we make the decision to continue some relationship there, would it be possible to look at that from the standpoint of the budget?

I hope that as we do that, we will continue to find a way to do it, obviously, as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible but not be short on personnel simply because we may end up with fewer pilots.

Hopefully, the NATO support would extend to providing help for the sustainability into the future because until we secure the country, a political solution is going to be very difficult.

If we don't do that, then I am in favor of going back to vaults and paper and the old way of doing things...

We didn't build the firewalls that we would ordinarily build in the transfer and transmittal of information.

It is very clear that our enthusiasm for cyber and for the benefits that we receive from being able to transmit information... has gotten us a little ahead of ourselves.

You will inherit 10 years of war, budget belt-tightening, and two wars winding down, if confirmed.

I think the importance of the role that the Guard has now taken is something that needs to be at the table all the time.

Self-defense and self-governance go hand-in-glove.