David Skaggs: “I have three ideas that come to mind in this debate right now: footholds; duplication; and the legitimate interests of…”

“I have three ideas that come to mind in this debate right now: footholds; duplication; and the legitimate interests of my Republican colleagues. There has been, I think, fairly casual use of language and logic in suggesting that the President's ``no instructions'' instruction in the spring of 1994 occasioned the Iranians gaining a foothold in Bosnia. Unclassified intelligence makes it very, very clear that there were hundreds of Iranian revolutionary guards and others, unfortunately, in Bosnia in 1993, way before any of the events in question here took place. Second point, the question of duplication. Are we going to learn anything new from creating this select subcommittee that we are not already going to learn? Mr. Speaker, this matter is already under investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on National Security has jurisdiction, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has jurisdiction. The Committee on International Relations can have plenty of jurisdiction, too, without spending one million bucks to create another select committee. We have so many people looking at this they are going to be stepping all over each other trying to schedule witnesses and everything else during the next few months.”