Political Quotes

“I know I have a fundamental disagreement with the chairman of our Committee on Armed Services on whether or not it is the responsibility of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on which I served for 8 years, or our House Armed Services Committee to resolve this issue of putting U.S. forces, American fighting men and women, under foreign command. Mr. Speaker, here for the umpteenth time I hold up this complicated chart of the command structure in Somalia that indicates double chains of command for both two-star General Montgomery and two-star General Harrison--who is not even really listed here by name--the commander of the Special Ops and the Rangers, and how this whole complicated thing depended upon a very nice 3-star Turkish General named Bir, with whom I had lunch over there in October, and who wanted more control of the troops, but then this was not a pure NATO operation. Of course, we will have levels of nations in NATO inserted in the command, but that is only by a ratified treaty. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to insert in the Record, again for the umpteenth time, this time with three new commandments, are Cap Weinberger's six commandments that must be followed before subjecting American men and women to hot combat in harm's way.”