William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “there are a number of important issues in this bill that will not be discussed adequately. One of them is how we can…”

“there are a number of important issues in this bill that will not be discussed adequately. One of them is how we can transform our military to deal with the challenges of the future. In last year's bill, we required a science board study to look at that question, and they came back and unanimously agreed there are compelling reasons for aggressive, urgent transformation instead of strategic pause. The task force found that ``change or die'' is a more suitable statement for the current strategic environment. This bill moves us ahead in some significant ways. It requires us to take a closer look at the use of space. It is essential for the operations going on in Kosovo, but we have got to look beyond that. Operations in space and from space have to be studied. We put more money into joint experimentation, which is also going to be essential if we make the most out of the resources that we have available. We also require an immediate assessment of innovative use of resources such as whether we should take old Trident submarines and convert them for more conventional purposes. Those are just some of the ways that in this bill we tried to move ahead, making sure that we are able to meet the challenges that confront us in the future. I commend the chairman and ranking member on the bill.”