John Tierney: “this particular matter, an amendment, goes to reducing the budget by $121.8 million that is now earmarked for the…”

“this particular matter, an amendment, goes to reducing the budget by $121.8 million that is now earmarked for the construction of five silos at Fort Greely. This does not deal with research but rather the construction. You will remember that earlier in our remarks we talked about the fact that the Department of Operational Testing and Evaluation had come before committees in this Congress to indicate that the national missile defense system, particularly this mid-range system, is nowhere near a point where it had been tested adequately to sufficiently give anybody confidence in its reliability; and, in fact, the experts and director of that department had indicated we should not move forward with construction until we adequately test it. The fact of matter is that is why Congress passed the act setting up the Office of Operational Testing and Evaluation, because we had in the past allowed services to go forward and build weapons systems that were not adequately tested, resulting in enormous losses of money and great losses of time in trying to build the defense of this country.”