Political Quotes

“this past weekend we had one in a series of tests of our national missile defense program, which is currently under development, and supported both by the White House and by overwhelming support in both the House and the Senate. Unfortunately, this test was not a success, and there are those who are using this test to criticize the overall program and to say that technologically we are not prepared to move forward with missile defense. I want to take a few moments to clarify what did happen and to clarify for the record what occurred in that test, and am offering to Members this week to have a full briefing, both classified and unclassified, on the details of the test that occurred this past weekend. First of all, Mr. Speaker, the hit-to-kill technology that is fundamental to missile defense was not tested. It was not tested because we could not get the separation stage away from the main rocket. Now, that is not new technology. That is not missile defense technology. In fact, Wernher von Braun and other scientists solved this problem 40 years ago. It is a technology necessary to launch every communications satellite into outer space. It is a technology utilized for every space mission that we get involved with. It is not a technology specific to missile defense. However, it failed.”