I wanted to come down, first, to express my best wishes and congratulations to the two nominees.

If confirmed, I will do my best to continue to strengthen relations between the United States and each of these five countries.

I have spent a great deal of my adult life, as you know, trying to build bridges so that we could move it forward.

A key part of your role as defined by the JADE Act is to consult with regional partners and others to coordinate policy.

Certainly it is the view of the United States that that kind of upstream/downstream communication needs to be enhanced and improved.

I have been among those here who are very concerned about what is happening in the Mekong River Delta.

The thing I learned in politics is, quit while you are ahead.

I think what we want to try to accomplish is to have a base or military presence that makes sense.

it's a matter of real concern when we're trying to figure out what the exact policies are in our executive branch...

We're very, very deeply concerned about transshipment of weapons systems material from North Korea to other parts of the world.

We talk about human rights. 'Human rights' is something of an amorphous term...

I think, frankly, where Burma is today--I mean, ASEAN recognizes that Burma is an outlier, that Burma is somewhat of an embarrassment to the organization.