Political Quotes

“I do not know, but I do not think that any Member of Congress has a son or a daughter actually serving in Iraq. If they do, I hope we hear about it. But if we did, I trust that our fatherly love would trump our political loyalties. But even though we may not have children, it is we who are responsible for sending the children of our constituents, the young men and women of America, to fight our wars. And we have to determine how much we spend on their protection and on their fighting capability. In a recent trip by the members of the Subcommittee on Defense of the House Committee on Appropriations, they found that there was a shortfall of protective body armor for 40,000 troops in theater. That has been reduced subsequently, but there are still tens of thousands. The supplies of portable jammers used to defeat land mines and other radio-detonated bombs are woefully short. The division patrolling the most dangerous area in the Sunni Triangle had only nine where 86 were required. In the First Armored Division which is responsible for that most dangerous area, a third of the division's Bradley vehicles had been sidelined due to a lack of spare track. In that same division, 40 percent of the Humvee vehicles were out of commission due to a lack of spare parts.”