Political Quotes

“Where you don't go back 50 years--for example, if the Senator's amendment had been in place, we probably could not have amended the conventional forces in Europe. In 1991, it became clear-- the wall came down in 1989--we had to amend the conventional forces amendment. We renegotiated that agreement. The flank agreement in the Senate was an amendment. It was passed in Russia in the Duma as well. What we said was that we had to give up a number of pieces of equipment, thousands of pieces of equipment, but because Greece and Turkey were on the southern flank of NATO and because we still were concerned about instability in the region, we still wanted force structure there, we had to call for a cascading down. We took all of the equipment that we were giving up, thousands of pieces, and we just gave them to the Greeks and the Turks. It was in our national interest to do so. Had the Senator's amendment been in place, the cost of all of those pieces of equipment would have to have been computed and added up, and then reduced from the 25 percent ceiling that was allowed to be spent by the United States on the common budget of the NATO. That had nothing to do with the cold war; it had to do with reality. It had to do with the arms control agreement. That arms control agreement would have done one of two things.…”