Political Quotes

“We are blazing along on the timeline of nuclear weapons and missile development where we had a missile that was last placed in the ground in 1973 during Richard Nixon's second term, after he was elected to a second term. We now have a 1980 Jimmy Carter- era warhead. The analogy of the B-52 doesn't apply to this technology. The B-52 is a plane that has been in continuous flight. We are not talking about a plane that has been put in a hangar since Jimmy Carter. These are items that we don't use. Nuclear weapons are there as a deterrent to deter our adversaries. The only way we can deter our adversaries is to have them believe that any aggression against us would be matched with such overwhelming force that it would be at their great risk. To the extent that we allow our nuclear deterrent to degrade, which we have with Nixon-era missiles and Carter-era weapons, we lessen our overall security. Now, this is--again, it sounds like just a study. It is not really a study. It is a study of a study of a restudy of a restudy. This has been studied so much, in fact, it is on a bipartisan basis that this W-84 warhead needs to be refurbished, needs to be redone. Even the Obama administration had an analysis of all alternatives and concluded that the air-launched cruise missile and its warhead could not be sustained and had already experienced reduced survivability. Even the Obama administration said, Don't do this. They said, Move forward.…”