Political Quotes

“I remind him that a couple of years ago, I think it was 1987, when the Israelis were building the Lavi fighter or embarking on the Lavi fighter program, which was kind of a mid-range fighter aircraft that they thought they needed, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and I and several other members on the Committee on National Security sent a letter to the Israeli leadership saying, if you had an attack by aircraft from a neighboring Arab country, and I think then we were thinking of Syria, you would shoot them all down before they got to Tel Aviv. But if you were attacked by ballistic missiles, Russian-made ballistic missiles coming from a neighboring Arab country, you would not be able to stop a single one. That is the essence of our letter. We urged them to begin the Arrow missile program, the Arrow missile defense program. As a result of that, partly as a result of our letter and the result, I think, of a lot of other factors and also the importance, the realization by the Israeli leadership that they were in the missile age, they realized that even if we do not and they would have to defend against these missiles sooner or later, they began that program, the Arrow missile defense program. And it is going very well. They have had a number of successes.…”