On the recordFebruary 12, 2015
I commend the chairman for his very clear and thoughtful conduct of these hearings with respect to Dr. Carter. The reason we are here today on the verge of a very strong vote for Dr. Carter to be the next Secretary of Defense is due to the contribution that Chairman McCain has made to this process, which was extremely thoughtful and bipartisan. I thank him again for that. Mr. President, I join Senator McCain, and I not only commend him for his leadership but I also wish to express my strong support for the nomination of Dr. Ashton Carter to be the 25th Secretary of Defense. Dr. Carter is uniquely qualified to lead the Department of Defense at a time when--as Henry Kissinger recently said in a hearing before the Armed Services Committee--``the United States has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War.'' Dr. Carter was born and raised in Philadelphia. He received a bachelor's degree in physics and medieval history from Yale and a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. During his career, Dr. Carter has already held three critical positions in the Department of Defense: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global and Strategic Affairs in the Clinton administration; Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics from 2009 to 2011; and most recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013.…





