Political Quotes

“I take out this final special order today before we adjourn for the weekend to call attention to a piece of legislation that I introduced today along with 104 of our colleagues. H.R. 2786, known as Impact '97, is the Iranian Missile Protection Act of 1997, a very important piece of legislation not just for the security of Americans, but for the security of our American allies, for the security of Israel, for the security of 25,000, at least 25,000 of our troops who are currently serving around Iran in various theaters including the Balkans. Mr. Speaker, this bill is strongly bipartisan. In fact, it has 85 Republicans and 20 Democrats. Out of the Committee on National Security's membership, the bill has 29 Republicans who have cosponsored it and 15 Democrats. The cosponsors include the chairman of the Committee on National Security, chairman of the Committee on International Relations, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. It includes members of the leadership. It includes key Democrats who are critical on defense issues, like the ranking Democrat of the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on National Security, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks]. These Members share the same concerns as I and that is that we have a threat that is emerging that could cause serious problems not just for our troops, but for our allies and friends approximately 12 months from now.”