Political Quotes

“I rise today to take strong issue with remarks by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as summarized in the Washington Post on May 18 and subsequently reproduced in their entirety on the paper's website, that he is ``pushing'' to pull U.S. troops out of Bosnia. According to Secretary Rumsfeld, ``the military job [in Bosnia] was done three or four years ago.'' I firmly believe that Secretary Rumsfeld's analysis of the situation in Bosnia is incorrect, and that his policy prescription would be seriously detrimental to the national security interests of the United States. First, let me turn to Mr. Rumsfeld's statement that the ``military job was done three or four years ago.'' It is true that IFOR, and then SFOR, successfully separated the largely exhausted warring parties without much difficulty. But to assert that this separation spelled the end of our troops' mission is to define ``military'' in such a narrow way so as to make it nearly meaningless in the Balkan context.”