NELSON: POLITICS BLOCKS TESTIMONY BY U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND CHIEF ON NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES
Mar 25, 01:02 PM CST
March 24, 2010 – Today, Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, issued this statement:
“It is very unsettling that some in Washington are putting politics ahead of national security in their continuing efforts to kill health reform.
“This afternoon, Gen. Kevin Chilton, the commander of United States Strategic Command near Omaha, was to testify at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on strategic national issues. But General Chilton, who traveled from Nebraska to Washington for the hearing, learned just before it was to begin that it was canceled.
“The reason: Senate Republicans objected to a routine request to proceed with today’s hearings. Requests like these have occurred thousands of times during the history of the Senate and rarely has the minority objected to the majority party’s effort to hold scheduled committee hearings.
“Today, General Chilton was to testify at a hearing on the fiscal year 2011 budgets and plans for StratCom. Admiral Robert F. Willard, commander U.S. Pacific Command and General Walter L. Sharp, commander, United Nations Command/Combing Forces Command/U.S. Forces Korea, also were scheduled to testify about operations and challenges of their commands.
“It’s hard for me to imagine, no matter how Nebraskans feel about the health care debate, that they’d agree with Washington putting politics ahead of national security. It’s hard for me to imagine that Nebraskans would agree with shutting down testimony from the chief of Strategic Command’s nuclear forces just to score political points. This kind of obstruction is more than unsettling, it’s dangerous.”
– 30 –– by NDP Administrator | Send this to a friend
