Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on the Senate version of the FY2003 National Defense authorization bill. As a former member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former chair of the Seapower Subcommittee, I fully appreciate the hard work and long hours my colleagues in the Senate and their counterparts in the House have dedicated to the completion of the bill. There are many important provisions in this bill. However, there are also some critical defense requirements which were overlooked. And I would like to take a moment to address those concerns. First and foremost, with the enormous increase in the defense budget overall, I am deeply troubled that we would fail to sustain the size of our naval fleet, which has played such a critical role in the war on terror. Admiral Robert J. Natter, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, captured it best when he said "We fight them here, or we can fight them there--it's America's choice." And he continued "I'd prefer to fight them there, because I know we can beat them." Well, we can't fight them there without a Navy. In the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom, our Navy fired over 90 Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at crippling Taliban air defenses. The Navy executed the majority of the air strikes in the land war. Aircraft-carrier based fighter and strike aircraft launched 60 to 80 missions a day dropping thousands of bombs on terrorists and Taliban targets. More than 50 Navy ships participated in the action.”