the underlying purpose for the surge was to provide a security situation in the capital of Iraq.

Senator, my general belief is I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission.

I want to associate myself with my distinguished colleague's support for the IMET program.

I do hope that you continue to provide strong support for these concepts.

I have found through the years one of the core problems that arises between Congress, which understandably has a need to be very closely advised with regard to the work that you do, given that so much of that work impacts our States.

But as a part of your plan, that is the January 10 plan which you worked on, you do recommend additional forces in al Anbar?

I believe your response to our colleague from Connecticut's question clarified it for my purposes, that there is no diminution;

This is fundamentally a law enforcement and governance role, not a military role.

Clearly, in your testimony today and that of General Petraeus, each of you have distanced yourself from the plan, as announced by the President on January 20.

I believe in the policy that I am implementing, Senator Warner. Did I not believe in it, I would have taken other actions, as you suggested.

We have a magnificent, I think, Secretary of Defense now, in Bob Gates.

This committee had a great deal to do with the establishment of the legislation which created the 55 Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.

All four of those things need to go forward together.

I do not anticipate any change in the policy of nuclear testing. As a matter of fact, I think it's important that we continue to lead as a Nation in terms of the nonproliferation efforts to strengthen that policy.

Again, Mr. Shinn--and I also address this to Mrs. Long because you have jurisdiction over NATO.

My concern is why do we need to put such a heavy emphasis of U.S. forces into Baghdad when we have trained 188,000 Iraqi military?

Was that for the purpose of further diminishing the influence of al Qaeda?

I think you're going to have to tell those field commanders and others, from time to time, 'We don't have them.'

We definitely need to support this government.

the report by the Commission on the roles and missions of the National Guard and Reserve finds that the Commander of NORTHCOM 'does not sufficiently advocate for the full range of civil support requirements affecting the National Guard and…

If they fail to live up to their commitments--and I hope they do not--if they fail to meet the benchmarks of the initial phases of the Baghdad operation, are you prepared to come back to your superiors, indeed the President and the…

the President report to Congress on July 15 with regard to the situation in that AOR, specifically Iraq.

Bottom line, each of these problems is contributing to the loss of American life, and the loss of American limb.

But in the light of the lack of progress with this surge in the minds of many Members of Congress and the American public, and other deficiencies that the chairman and myself pointed out that we see as far as the execution of our policy…

I think it's important.