Angus King

I share the Secretary of Defense's and Chairman's comments on this, that right now I think it is in our interest.

That certainly would not contribute to--if the Iranians had a nuclear weapon, we would have two rogue states with nuclear weapons on our hands instead of one.

Theoretically they would be able to do that.

I think it is absolutely essential that we stay engaged in this for them.

So the principal argument against this move to limit or cut off that aid is if we do, the Saudi conduct might be worse.

The influence that we derive with them is by working with them to demonstrate how we do our targeting process.

What would be the implications and the impact if the United States stopped providing the aerial refueling, the intelligence, and the advice to the Saudi forces?

Would it be advantageous to our country for us to ratify the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea?

I think it's actually Russia who doesn't want it to move forward.

It's still a hot war.

We have to think about it that way, and begin to come together to protect the values and our way of life.

It's important today that we not take for granted the importance of these values.

Our strength is our freedom and our First Amendment and our free press and our open society.

What we're seeing before our eyes is a kind of deunification of Europe.

I think that's one of the things that's lacking--prior administration, current administration. Let's just get it done.

We are not adequately prepared. We need a doctrine. We need it to be publicly available.

What's it going to take? Is it going to take the destruction of the electric grid or the financial system in order for us to finally get to the point of taking this seriously?

The problem is right now they may have a benign intent or a lack of malicious intent. I would put it that way. But they are building up the capability which requires that we have to be alert.

I am not attacking you. I am attacking the failure of our structure to adequately get at a problem when we have it right in front of us.

Hopefully we have just passed a 2-year budget authorization. Hopefully again we will have the final numbers within the next two or three weeks, and then we will be able to move forward.

Can you commit to me that you will move this to the highest level of priority and kick some behinds and take some names in this interagency cooperation?

This is simply a question of allocation of resources. This is the most serious public health problem this country faces.

I cannot believe we are having the same conversation today that I remember having with General Kelly 2 or 3 years ago.

It is very important to make that point to the public because sometimes people just look at the number and say this is a huge number.

I would think in your position it would be helpful to us who have to justify this budget to our constituents to break that down a bit to say, okay, what is it that is current operations and what is it that is paying past due bills in…