Questions 13-14: Mr. Vic Snyder (D-AR)

Question 13: Mr. Vic Snyder (D - AR):

Summary: Mr. Perle, how can you reach a conclusion about whether or not it would be advantageous or not to talk to a regime, when you have previously testified that our intelligence is "stunningly incompetent"?
(question summary by incap)

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Response from Richard Perle (not transcribed but available on audio)

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Question 14: Mr. Vic Snyder (D - AR):

Summary: On the issue of taking care of our troops, National Guard troops have been required to take ‘leave’ when gaps in their training schedules occur. This creates a problem for those troops, a hardship on their families and quite a long time to straighten out. This is the kind of detail thing that I believe you were talking about when you were talking about taking care of our troops.
(question summary by incap)

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Response from General Wesley Clark
transcript by Melange

Yes sir, it is and I would just say that, you know, if you really want to look at the center of gravity of the American Armed Forces - active and reserve – it’s the family and when…these seem like technical matters, there’s a dollar figure attached to this and it’s administrative but it’s a big thing for the families.

I mean, the word from the troops – active and reserve – when they come home, the biggest thing they’re worried about is their families. I’ve talked to the chaplains, I’ve talked to other people and it’s just inevitable. We saw this, we say this…see this same thing after every deployment, but especially here.

We want to hold these families together because if we’re going to keep a volunteer force together, we’ve got to keep the families on the team.

We need help and this is a small thing that we’d be asking the Department of the Army for a small number of troops but in this case it’s well-warranted.