Political Quotes

“I rise today to take issue with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's comments yesterday in Brussels, in which he called for reducing NATO forces in Bosnia by one-third by the end of next year. I find Secretary Rumsfeld's proposal both faulty in its logic, and dangerous in its implications. Mr. Rumsfeld based his suggestion upon the allegation that the size of the NATO mission in Bosnia, known as SFOR, is ``putting an increasing strain on both our forces and our resources when they face growing demands from critical missions in the war on terrorism.'' From this assertion, one might think that the United States and NATO have massive numbers of troops in Bosnia. In fact, SFOR's strength is now about 18,400 troops. The U.S. contingent is only 3,100. According to the Pentagon's new Quadrennial Defense Review, we must be able to ``swiftly defeat aggression in overlapping major conflicts while preserving the option of decisive victory, including regime change or occupation and conduct a limited number of smaller-scale contingency operations.'' By any calculation, therefore, we should have plenty of troops and materiel to handle the smaller-scale operation in Bosnia and still meet our commitments elsewhere in the war on terrorism. In short, Secretary Rumsfeld's argument that Bosnia is a serious drain on our war-fighting capabilities simply doesn't wash.”