Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I urge my colleagues to support the Nadler-Garamendi-Polis amendment to eliminate additional funding for a new, costly, unproven, and unnecessary missile defense site. Our amendment would cut $70 million that was added by the Appropriations Committee for an east coast missile defense system that the Pentagon says it does not want or need. In a June 10 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency and Lieutenant General Richard Formica, Commander, Joint Functional Command for Integrated Missile Defense, unequivocally stated: There is no validated military requirement to deploy an east coast missile defense site. Admiral Syring told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year that he would not be able to use additional funds for an east coast site this year because the Pentagon has only begun to study the concept. And the Pentagon already has the funding it needs for this study in FY 2014. Furthermore, the technology is still unproven at this time. There have been no successful intercept tests for the past 5 years of the system that might be deployed on the east coast. The recent test failure of the ground-based mid-course system that would be deployed on the east coast is another reason not to rush forward with deployment.…”