John Kerry: “If I can answer the distinguished Senator, and I know the Senator from Illinois will talk about it more, the truth is…”

“If I can answer the distinguished Senator, and I know the Senator from Illinois will talk about it more, the truth is, if you read the Senator's amendment in full, the Senator is very precise about those kinds of tests that he thinks the Congress ought to guarantee take place. The Secretary of Defense is a friend of mine, too. I went to meet with him 3 weeks ago on this very subject to spend some time talking it through with him, but I find nothing inappropriate, nor do I think he would as a former Member of this Chamber, in this Chamber expressing its will in requiring a certain set of tests with respect to a system. This is not the first time we will have required the Secretary of Defense to do something. In point of fact, when we pass the DOD authorization bill, we have literally hundreds of directives for the Secretary of Defense with respect to housing, treatment of deployments, recruitments--there are countless numbers of ways we direct him to do things. It is entirely appropriate we direct him----”