Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will speak only for about 1 minute and then give the rest of my time to Senator Feinstein who wishes to speak to the question of the covers. I do not want to speak to the technicalities that have been raised, but I want to make two points in response to Senator Kyl's concern about verification. We should all be concerned about the fact that right now we have no inspectors on the ground. We have no way to verify what is going on in Russia. Anything that delays our ability to get that intelligence back on the ground in Russia adds to the urgency of the situation. That is a very important point. The other issue he raised was relative to why do we need to do this now. The fact is, as Senator Kerry pointed out, we received a letter from ADM Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, yesterday that said the sooner we ratify the treaty, the better. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, said about New START the earlier, the sooner, the better we get this done. There is a lot of reason to believe we need to act on this treaty and need to do it now. I yield to the Senator from California. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.”