Pete Sessions: “There are 2 or 3 minutes before the vote, and I will take a brief minute to summarize this matter. The Secretary of…”

“There are 2 or 3 minutes before the vote, and I will take a brief minute to summarize this matter. The Secretary of Defense personally has written us and asked that we allow the Department to go forward with this conventional Trident missile capability saying: Failure to fund this program would delay a capability we need now to respond promptly and precisely to time-sensitive, high-value targets anywhere in the world. This has also been the subject of an op-ed by former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who served under Jimmy Carter, and former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who served under Presidents Nixon and Ford and served in President Carter's Cabinet also. They say we need this now. It would not deploy this system but would allow research and development, and requires, before any more than $30 million is spent-- before any more than $30 million is spent--that the Defense Department and the State Department must complete a study and present that to Congress before we go forward. We do not need to delay. If we wait another year or 2, we will allow another year or 2 or 3 or 4 to go by without the President having the capability within 30 minutes to hit any target on the globe with a nonnuclear weapon. The concern over misinterpretation of the missile launch intent has been dealt with openly and directly by the military. They have talked with foreign nations about it. We will make every effort to ensure that does not happen.…”