Political Quotes

“I have looked over this amendment very carefully. We will have to oppose it for a number of reasons. There may be some parts of it on which we could have a meeting of the minds. I would like to walk through the amendment with my good friend and ask him a few questions about this amendment. Let's go to the title: Prohibitions on the Use of Contractors for Certain Department of Defense Activities. (A) Prohibition on Use of Contractors in Interrogation of Prisoners and Combat Operations. That and combat operations poses a dilemma. For example, as the distinguished Senator knows, in his State are a number of our submarines. At any one time, those submarines have a board of contractors who are working on the equipment, training of sailors, taking an aircraft carrier. At any one time, you have maybe several hundred contractors aboard an aircraft carrier. On a moment's notice, either of those vessels could be given a tactical order to go into harm's way. The way this amendment is drawn--so broadly--I think the Senator had better look at it again. I could not in any way support an amendment that says contractors are prohibited from going into harm's way, because they are forward-deployed with our units; they are aboard our vessels. At any time, on a moment's notice, they could be put into a position of being in harm's way.”