William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “This amendment raises a number of concerns. It is a very strange thing, for example, to say in a war that you have to…”

“This amendment raises a number of concerns. It is a very strange thing, for example, to say in a war that you have to know the name, rank, and serial number of the person that you are about to shoot before you can even shoot him. And to put it a little more in this context, the gentleman from Ohio's amendment would say that if we see people making bombs down there that are going to be used against our servicepeople, that we can't do anything about it, that we've just got to watch them. And then even after the bomb explodes, unless we know the identity--which is the language in the amendment--unless we know the name of the person down there, we can't do anything about it, with all of the technology that's available to the United States. And actually, it gets even worse. If we see al Qaeda members shooting at our troops down there, if we don't know the identity or the name of the people doing the shooting, then we can't do anything about it. Surely that carries things far too far. We can't debate in the open House all of the allegations that are made in newspaper articles. What we can do is say what the National Security Adviser or the President has said, that these sorts of capabilities are only used pursuant to law, and they are only used where there is a significant threat to the U.S., where action could mitigate or prevent the threat, and that collateral damage or harm to civilians is absolutely minimal. That helps protect our soldiers and our country.…”