Political Quotes

“If I can interrupt, I will first respond, and then I would appreciate it if we could continue. I am fully aware of the Patriot system. As a matter of fact, I am the chairman of the subcommittee, and my distinguished colleague from Michigan is the ranking member and, indeed, we work on that together. We recognize that those short-range systems, the Patriot, have to be deployed to the region. Theoretically, they cannot run all over the United States. So a rogue attack, if it could be mounted, with a short-range theater missile somehow against the continental units of the United States is dependent on the ability to quickly deploy from what few locations we have in that system to some other part of the United States. To me, that is highly impractical. That is theoretical. Putting that aside, let us agree, I hope, that the United States does not have any indigenous ability to defend against an intercontinental missile, albeit fired by mistake, fired by a terrorist organization, or perhaps intentionally, against Alaska or Hawaii, from say, Russia or China. Am I not correct on that?”