ms. cheney: it is a very sobering experience as a member of congress to have the secretary of defense say to you that no foe in the field has done more harm to our military than the bigot control act, sequestration and the policies of the last administration and that's where we are today. we all, everybody on this stage, i would say everybody in the republican conference understands we have to deal with the debt issue. no question about it. but we cannot do it on the backs of the men and women who are serving us. we don't have time on our side. we have to get resources to them as quickly as we can. i would say to our friends in the freedom caucus, we got these numbers because we stayed together. and i would ask them not to quit before we get across the finish line. we need to get the budget deal passed and turn to the kind of reforms that are crucial in terms of the overall budget process. it is important. as we are having these debates as republicans and members of the house, we all keep much in mind, the moms and the dads out there whose sons and daughters are deploying. and we cannot b

ms. cheney. >> thank you very much, mr. cha. thank you, general votel, for your service and for being here today. i wanted to ask you to elaborate in particular threat from iran. one of the many grave laws of the jcpoa is the fact that it failed to deal with iran's ballistic missile threat, and we are now seeing across the region increasingly evidence that a van is transferring ballistic missile and other conventional equipment to its allies in the region. can you talk about exactly what you're seeing in this regard and what dignity is in a position to be able to do to defend us and our allies against that threat? >> thank you. i think you highlighted one of the principal concerns we have. there seems to be increasing not just quantity but quality of the ballistic missiles and the export and movement of those capabilities to other groups and locations around the region. certainly as we've seen with ambassador haley and her demonstration was recently with some of the items recovered from saudi arabia, these weapons posed the thre