Carl Levin

Are we better off with that supplemental before those incremental costs have to be spent?

Well, then why don't we budget for it? This isn't in the middle of combat.

Isn't it reasonably foreseeable that it's going to be at least 110,000, since that's your plan?

That is not a responsible way to support our troops, and it is not responsible budgeting.

I think our responsibility is a heavy one here for the future well-being of this country as well as for any accountability and responsibility in the past.

I would hope that the Secretary of Defense would help us carry out that responsibility with a positive answer.

It seems to me that it is a responsibility of this committee and the similar committee on the House to understand that impact.

Can we check that out?

Just to make sure that they are working 24-7?

It would be much less dramatic if it was individual rotation.

I would be happy to do that.

Do you have an estimate as to what the approximate monthly incremental cost would be to maintain those operations at the current level?

As I indicated in my opening remarks, the budget that is before us does not include funding to pay for the incremental costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secretary Rumsfeld, the President's budget request would increase the funding for new or modified nuclear weapons.

If it is going to be independent, it has to be independent of the President, and that means Congress has to be involved in the selection of that commission and the rules.

We believe on the Democratic side that the Intelligence Committee should look at the use of intelligence by the policymakers, not just at the production and creation by the Intelligence Committee.

I just want to make it clear that the record will be kept open and not just for whatever submission you referred to, but for other submissions and for additional questions, given the short period of time that we have to question the…

Was the Feith operation supposed to look at intelligence through a different prism from the rest of the Intelligence Community?

I just want to let you know that that is not being looked at by any of the investigations that you refer to.

What is not part of any of those investigations...is a review of the policymakers' certainty in their statements.

It was not that there is evidence or that there is belief. It was the statements of great certainty.

The standards which are in the House and the Senate bill, I take it, are adequate as far as you are concerned in the energy bill to achieve the authority that you need to make mandatory these standards, reliability standards?

Can you refuse, then, to certify an RTO?

FERC indicates it is not a clear authority to assure reliability, but the regulations which have been issued, the orders which have been issued by FERC, suggest otherwise.

That would be helpful to us, I believe.