Political Quotes

“I am here to affirm what the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has stated, what the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations has stated, and the ranking member. This is not the appropriate bill for this type of legislation to be attached to. In the subcommittee dealing with military personnel, which I am the chairman of, we are dealing with this very issue. I will tell the Senator, without going into all the details, because, again, I say to my friend from Iowa, we are right in the midst of the very discussions that he is suggesting should take place, we are having them, both among the Senate conferees and the House conferees, as to whether or not this is an appropriate proposal, and also what the appropriate number should be. I tell the Senator, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Navy, they all support this proposal. In fact, we have a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to Congressman Sonny Montgomery discussing this whole issue. Part of the rationale for this is because of the Goldwater-Nichols joint operation. We have situations where, in joint command, the marines have had to forego their responsibility because they do not have the generals to fulfill that role in that joint command. So we have some legitimate reasons why the marines have asked for this. And you do have, again, the Navy and the Secretary of Defense that support this.”