Angus King

I just want to take this occasion to thank you and the people at GPO that go to work every day quietly, do their job in a quality manner serving the public in responsive and creative ways.

I think it's clear from this hearing this morning--and I'm sure you were here for the first panel--that everybody on this committee, one, didn't agree with this piece that was in the budget deal; two, wants to fix it; three, wants to fix…

It's just unacceptable to take 20 years to develop a new weapon system.

It's somewhat out of the scope of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, but I woke up this morning suddenly thinking about what happened in West Virginia, which was an accident.

I believe you have an explicit or implicit contract. People have expectations and that's what's going to make this problem exceedingly difficult to deal with.

Some predictable funding level from year to year is an important part of your being able to meet this challenge?

I can't resist, in closing, pointing out the irony of if we were called upon to come to the aid of one of our allies in that region against an expansionist China, given our terrible financial condition, we would end up borrowing the money…

Force presence matters, and having forces... to be ready to respond immediately to our friends and allies, especially our allies there, matters.

The best opportunity that we have to preclude China's expansionist tendencies in Asia is force presence.

I take it you're suggesting that the campaign in Syria may be also years.

It's going to require troops; is that not correct?

There may be no one singular piece of equipment, but a general reinforcement and strengthening of their capability, whether it's with military hardware, whatever the panoply of weapons that they've looked for, wouldn't that make the…

If you want to prevent an invasion, wouldn't the provision of lethal aid to the Ukrainian military be a way to help to deter that invasion rather than wait until the invasion occurs and then try to fight a rearguard action?

Unfortunately, we now seem to be moving into an era where there is at least a possibility of non-state actors acquiring nuclear weapons who would not necessarily be concerned about their destruction.

This is one of the most important jobs in our country right now and we're taking a guy who really knows how to do it.

I think it's so important for us to develop an effective relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We tend to focus around here on problems. That's what we talk about. That's our job. But my sense is that Secretary Kerry and what happened last weekend was a big deal, and the avoidance of what could have been a disastrous situation.

I think the key lesson is that, after all of the sacrifice and all the accomplishments over the past 13 years, what we need to do is ensure that the transition results in the Afghan forces being sustainable without our presence at some…

The inability for the Afghans to have the operational reach represented by the Mi-17 will seriously deteriorate their ability to take the fight to the enemy.

I think the word you used is, it will be catastrophic if we cut off spare parts.

If the government that is left in place is not broadly representative of the country, if we have learned anything in the last month, it is that that is a crucial element in the stability of the country that we leave behind.

It strikes me that rather than an arbitrary date for leaving Afghanistan, it should be based upon conditions on the field.

I would suggest--and I hope you agree--that one of your missions is to continually assess the readiness and effectiveness of the ANSF.

I believe you indicated in your prior submission that you felt it would be important for our country to accede to the Law of the Sea Treaty.

The Navy has no icebreaker capacity in the Arctic?