Political Quotes

“First, to my distinguished colleague from Ohio where he quotes General Clapper. There are two fallacies in that argument I say. One, it is predicated on a startup within a country to build it all the way up. But there are open bids on the free market in this world today from many countries, primarily Iran, Iraq, and others, that would buy a Chinese system which could hit the United States within that lesser period than 10 years. Also, it will take us 10 years to build the very system we are debating here at this point in time. So there is a convergence, Mr. President, in time and need for this system. Shifting to another argument from the distinguished Senator from Louisiana, who said it is madness. Well, let me tell you, Mr. President, a little story of madness. The distinguished Senator from Georgia; myself; the distinguished Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye]; and the distinguished Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens] were in Tel Aviv on February 18, 1991. I remember it very well. It happened, coincidentally, to have been my birthday. We were there in the Defense Ministry when a Scud alert was sounded and in a very calm way we participated with the others in putting on our gas masks. The Scud fell some 2 or 3 miles away. We were not in danger. May I say to my colleagues, when we went out the next morning to visit the community that was struck and to talk to the people, that was madness.”