Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Which of these actions would be the act of a strong and powerful nation led by men and women of vision and foresight: a…”

“Which of these actions would be the act of a strong and powerful nation led by men and women of vision and foresight: a nation that constantly reassesses its security threats and tailors its defense to meet those threats, or a nation that sits back and says let's see what the threat is, then we will assess it and then we will address it? Mr. President, it was the latter thinking that caused us to go to a hollow military after World War II, and we paid the price with thousands of lives in the Korean war--lives of our men and women, because we hadn't planned for the future. Mr. President, we have gotten the wake-up call. It is the Rumsfeld report that Congress commissioned, which said that we have failed to estimate how long it would take rogue nations to develop ballistic missiles. That is the wake-up call. Are we going to meet the security threats of this country? The greatest security threat we have is incoming ballistic missiles. If we put our mind to the technology, we can prioritize our defense spending to say to the American people that we will protect you from incoming ballistic missiles to our shores, or to any theater where our Armed Forces are present. I urge your support for the Cochran visionary amendment that would protect our country at the earliest opportunity.”