there are 44 potential silos constructed at fort greeley. we are in discussion today. today will be the start of it for the start of authorizations. host: from the democrats' line, herndon, virginia, michael joins us. caller: good morning, how is everybody? my question is basically for the republican that just left. he is on the committee, and why did we send our troops to war when we did not have enough supplies, the equipment was old, it did not protect anyone? and now you guys are talking about missile defense. are you getting us prepared for something? guest: thank you, michael, for your call. i can only answer for my time in the last six months as a new member, a freshman. that is one of the questions that i talked a lot about what i campaigned. do we have the supplies, are we equipped? do we have the necessary troops and the support not only from our country but across the globe? when i campaigned i talked a lot about afghanistan and how we were totally under resources there in terms of troops, equipment, and other aspects of how to deal with long-term sustainabi

based on my visit to fort greeley, the ground-based interceptors are in a position to take action. without telegraphing what we will do, i would just say i think we are in a good position should it become necessary to protect american territory. yes? >> mr. secretary, is there evidence and reports that mistakes or problems that you both mentioned contributed directly to the civilian casualties and does it rise to a level where there needs to be disciplinary action? >> again, without going into the specific details of this, this was a light the fire fight -- this was a long fire fight. this was along the line of seven, eight hours. it is very intense. it was handled very well by the young captain on the ground who was in charge of it. at least in my review, i found nothing that would lead to the need to take any specific action along the lines of what you are asking. it was a tough fight. what he was mostly concerned about was defending his people. there were some injuries. there was a medevac involved in this. i thought what he did, with the capability he had, was supportive of his

my perspective of what i recall the political discussion because everyone kind of focused on fort greeley alaska, our biggest threat right now is iran. my argument is both of them are a threat. what they did is confirmed that absolutely the system can work for both of those threats which is important discussion and argument point and that is probably one of the points i will bring up during the debate hopefully today or the next couple days when we go through the authorization. >> host: on the independent line daniel is calling from michigan. >> caller: hi there. >> guest: hauer you? >> caller: good. a quick thing, here's my voting record for the last presidential , i voted for reagan, bush, clinton, gore, carey and obama. >> guest: you are definitely independent. [laughter] >> caller: what do you think about this debate over obama and like the republicans that didn't think that he was strong enough on his reaction to the iran thing? go ahead. >> guest: that is interesting because a lot of people are talking about that, and i think that he has done a very good responsive measure. in the s

testing of the reach program will give us answers that we certainly is americans will benefit from greeley because we will have information that we did not have previously. what we don't have now is the mechanism. we don't have regulatory agencies that are willing to step forward and say how we limit exposure to these things? >> what do we go back to the gentleman with a blue shirt and then we will come back. >> i am with the epa, and the professionals union that the epa headquarters and i want to raise a point about academe and integrity in that then you. in 2004 jester douglas who is a professor in the harvard school of dental medicine testified before a national research council committee that was looking at epa's drinking water standard for flory, saying that he had found no connection between water fluoridation and osteosarcoma. is it turned out, some diligent members of that nrc committee went back in found a dissertation on which mr. douglas' signature appears finding the opposite. in fact one of his doctoral students dissertation found a sevenfold increase in osteosarcoma risk in y