Political Quotes

“Thank you. I compliment Senator Shaheen and all those involved in trying to get to yes. The people who had concerns about your amendment, I understand their concerns. You are able to find a way to accommodate those concerns. This is sort of how the legislative process works. You get to yes when you can. But why this is important to America and particularly to me--Senator Sullivan served some time in Afghanistan as a marine working in the Embassy dealing with detainee operations. I did about 140 days on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly in Afghanistan, as a Reservist. I did my Reserve duty, 1 week, 2 weeks at a time, with Task Force 435 that was in charge of detainee operations at Bagram prison. That unit's job was to advise the commanders about who to put in Bagram, what requirements there were to hold somebody in Bagram prison under U.S. custody, and also to build up the rule of law, where the rule-of-law field forces would go out to different parts of Afghanistan and work with the police and the judiciary to try to build capacity. During my experience in Afghanistan, I learned something that is, quite frankly, overwhelming to this day, how brave some people in Afghanistan are to change their country. There was one interpreter--and I am certainly not going to use his name--who was there the entire time I did my Reserve duty. I retired last year. This man was invaluable. It is not just interpreting the language and repeating what we said.…”