Jack Reed: “this amendment that is offered by myself and Senator Bayh would add $64.7 million to continue an accelerated acquisition…”

“this amendment that is offered by myself and Senator Bayh would add $64.7 million to continue an accelerated acquisition of Predator. These are unmanned aerial vehicles that are critical to our war on terror. They were instrumental in the detection and the ultimate destruction of Zarqawi and other terrorists. They are the chief tool of our special operations forces in terms of going after, seeking, finding, and destroying terrorists and terrorist networks. There was a plan to accelerate the deployment of these UAVs. That plan was disrupted, if you will, because of decisions previously made. But I think today we can send a uniform and unanimous message that we need to acquire these six additional UAVs to create ultimately a squadron of UAVs for our special operations command. With these weapons systems, we can continue to deal effective and decisive blows against terrorists. I urge unanimous passage of this legislation adding $64.5 million. I commend Senator Bayh because he really was a leader in this effort in terms of drawing the attention of the committee to this shortfall in funding and requesting that it be added with this amendment. I reserve the balance of any time remaining. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?”