Political Quotes

“I would be happy to tell the gentleman that when you are forced to use your money for the peacekeeping operations, if that is what the gentleman is talking about, these new missions the President gives you--for example, when our marines came back from Bosnia, my understanding is they were given 12 days with their families after being away for many months, and sent immediately into the Haiti theater. When that happens, and when the military has to use its money for operations, that means that they have to stop training exercises in many cases. That is why three Army divisions, three of our top Army divisions, were given C ratings that were less than combat ready. That means that they do not have enough money for training. That means that they do not have ammunition for training, perhaps. That means that their equipment is not kept up to speed. Last year we did about 64 percent of what we required in terms of depot-level maintenance. That means our big equipment that we needed to take into the shop and get fixed so we could take it out on the next operation, we only did about 64 percent of what we had to do. That means that some equipment was 64 percent ready, and that means, in shorthand, if you had 100 tanks, you fixed 64 of them, not 100 of them. What it does is make our military less ready to be able to respond to a national emergency. That is bad. Does that answer the gentleman's question?”