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Committee
News
October 8, 2004
Statement on Expected Passage of H.R. 4200, The
National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2005 (pdf)
"This bill makes clear our dedication to the
men and women who wear America's uniform. We
owe them our gratitude for defending our freedom.
The bill ensures that we protect our troops on the
battlefield while supporting their needs at home."
October 8, 2004
Statement on Passage of H.R. 10, The 9/11
Recommendations Implementation Act (pdf)
"Access to real-time intelligence for our
troops is as important as the weapons they use in
the battlefield. If the military is stripped of
their ability to control their own intelligence
lines, it can prove to be a deadly mistake. The
Senate-passed legislation endangers this
intelligence lifeline, but the House stood firm in
its commitment to our troops by passing H.R. 10."
October 8, 2004
Conferees Approve 2005 Defense Authorization
Act (pdf)
"This legislation is for the troops. We owe them our
gratitude for defending our freedom. The bill
ensures that we protect our troops on the
battlefield while supporting their needs at home."
October 5, 2004
Statement on the Rejection of the Military
Draft Bill (pdf)
“This overwhelming defeat will hopefully stifle
those who seek to spread deliberately false
information of an impending draft. We simply do not
need a draft. The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines
are meeting their recruitment goals and are still
attracting and retaining the people we need to fill
all ranks. Our military today is highly qualified
because it is comprised of an all volunteer force.
“The President and the Secretary of Defense once
again today expressed their opposition to
reinstating a draft in any form. The President said
that if he were presented with this bill, he would
veto it, and Secretary Rumsfeld said he would
‘oppose any proposal to re-institute the draft.”
September 30, 2004
Committee Unanimously Approves 9/11
Recommendations Implementation Act (pdf)
"As
we learned during the course of our recent 9/11
hearings you can’t simply draw an arbitrary line
between tactical military intelligence and strategic
intelligence,” Chairman Duncan Hunter said. “While
that may make sense in Washington, it doesn’t work
on today’s battlefield. We won’t serve the families
of 9/11 victims by depriving our men and women in
uniform of the direct intelligence lifeline that
currently exists between our troops, spyplanes and
satellites.
"In
fact, the Commission’s Vice-Chairman, Lee Hamilton,
acknowledged the importance of this point when he
stated during one of our hearings: ‘I think the
committee has helped us in understanding the
importance of the tactical military intelligence.
And I think some of our recommendations can be
refined.’ And also: ‘I think the questions that are
being asked here are helpful to us and causes me to
think that we need to refine some of our thinking in
this very important area, and we will try to do
that.’”
September 21, 2004
Chairman Hunter on Allegations of a Secret
Military Reserve Troop Call-Up After the
November Election (pdf)
“The Department of Defense regularly
activates reserve troops and units as part of the
normal rotational cycle. Notifications for these
rotations have been going on for months in plain
view of members of the military, the public and
Congress."
September 9, 2004
Hearings on Abu Ghraib: The Schlesinger
Report; and the Kern, Fay, and Jones Report -
Statement of Chairman Hunter (pdf)
"As we move forward, these are important facts to
remember: The military started the
investigations. The military first reporter them to
the public.
The
military took aggressive steps to identify any
systemic problems that contributed to abuse. The
Department of Defense took immediate steps to
correct problems as it discovered them. And today,
the Department is revising its doctrine, training,
and policies in order to ensure that detainees are
treated in a manner consistent with our values and
our obligations. That's the image of the military
that must replace the faces of a few individuals
photographed disgracing their uniforms, in violation
of their orders, their training, our policies, and
our values."
September 8, 2004
Full Committee
Hearing on the
Progress in the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of
Iraq-Opening Statement of Chairman Hunter
(pdf)
"Today we will hear from the military officers
directly in charge of commanding our men and women
in uniform who are performing with bravery, honor
and effectiveness in multiple theaters around the
world in the fight against global terrorism."
August
11, 2004
Statement by
Chairman Hunter on 9-11 Commission Hearings
Commissioner Hamilton States Need for Refining Some
Commission Recommendations
(pdf)
"I
am very encouraged to see that many of the suggested
Commission’s recommendations were implemented by the
Bush Administration even before the report came out.
Given our findings this week, we will work with the
9-11 Commission and move at a deliberate speed to
continue to improve our intelligence apparatus.
However, if we opt to make changes dictated more by
politics than by the demands of national security,
we make ourselves more vulnerable and cause the
nation more harm."
August
11, 2004
Full Committee
Hearing on Intelligence Implications of the 9-11
Commission Report for the Department of Defense -
Part II
- Opening Statement of Chairman Hunter
(pdf)
"We
must ensure that reforms don’t have undesirable and
unintended consequences. For instance,
recommendations to weaken the relationship between
warfighters and the defense intelligence assets that
support them could undermine our military edge, put
our soldier’s lives at risk, and ultimately weaken
national security by degrading our military
performance."
August
11, 2004
Full Committee
Hearing on Intelligence Implications of the 9-11
Commission Report for the Department of Defense
- Opening Statement of Chairman Hunter
(pdf)
"As
the Armed Services Committee of the House, it is our
responsibility to explore in sufficient depth and
detail the possible impacts that reforms could have
on the ability of our military to fight and prevail
on tomorrow's battlefields."
August
10, 2004
Full Committee
Hearing on Denying Terrorists Sanctuary
- Opening Statement of Chairman Hunter
(pdf)
"The
good news is that the Administration, Congress, and
the Commission agreed on the importance of
eliminating terrorist sanctuaries and we have been
doing just that since September 11th."
August
10, 2004
Full Committee
Hearing on the Final Report of the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States
- Opening Statement of Chairman Hunter
(pdf)
"...the
commission looked at September 11th much
more thoroughly than the public debate has
acknowledged. Its recommendations were much more
comprehensive than simply rearranging the deck
chairs on the ship of state."
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