National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Trust and verify. Wow. In the New START treaty, it's trust and verify. But to get to the trust and verify, we're going to have to begin the process--$70 million requested by the military to begin the process.

I know the gentleman on the other side of this question has spent days and days working through this budget. The military plans years ahead; And in order to carry out the New START treaty and see the reductions that we need to make on our side, as obligated by that treaty, we need to begin that planning process now.

It's not a matter of throwing the weapons out or disposing of these weapons today. It's how we go about getting to that point, and the $70 million is essential for that.

We'll delay by one whole year the process of carrying out our treaty obligations. Russia is in the process of carrying out their treaty obligations, and we should too.

It's very simple, guys. It's about carrying out an obligation that we have. It's about giving the military the money that they need today to begin the planning, to do the early parts of that process.

Trust and verify. The Russians want us--they trust us, maybe, but they want verification. We want verification from them also. This is all about carrying out a treaty obligation, getting it going.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

A lot of analogies come to mind: slippery slopes, camel's nose under the tent.

Syria is an extremely serious matter, and the role of the United States in the serious issue of Syria needs to be fully vetted by the Congress and the Senate. We are debating; 435 of us are given 10 minutes, 10 minutes of time to this issue, plus perhaps another 5 minutes in the committee hearing, to this matter of what is the role of the United States in the serious Syrian issue.

Slippery slope, red lines, military aid, nonlethal aid. What does it all mean? Where is the House Foreign Affairs Committee on this matter? And by the way, how did this slip by the requirement of dual referencing? It did. We're here.

Ten minutes, 10 minutes on a matter that could very easily suck the United States into another war in the Middle East. We need time. We need to debate this. We need to understand all the ramifications of this. The language in this particular section is really serious language. It's far more than has been stated on the floor. Put it aside, step back, take our time, understand what all the ramifications are.

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