Kay Bailey Hutchison: “It is clear that the greatest security threat the United States faces today is that we do not have a defense for…”

“It is clear that the greatest security threat the United States faces today is that we do not have a defense for incoming ballistic missiles. In fact, if you look back at the latest war that we have had, the gulf war, the largest number of casualties in that war was from a single ballistic missile attack. We had the Patriot, and the Patriot was actually a missile that was supposed to hit airplanes. We quickly tried to make the Patriot into something that would hit missiles, and, phenomenally, it actually had a 30-percent success rate. But when we have our troops in the field and we have the capability to do better than 30 percent, how could we even think of not going full force to protect our troops in any theater where they might be, anywhere in the world, and to protect the citizens of the United States within the sovereign territory of our country? How could we be sitting on technology without saying this is our highest defense priority?”