Harry Johnston: “I come before you mainly on the proposition of peacekeeping. I have been intimately involved in Africa the last 2 years.…”

“I come before you mainly on the proposition of peacekeeping. I have been intimately involved in Africa the last 2 years. If this bill is passed, you would not have any such thing as Rwanda, where we went in under the U.N. umbrella immediately and solved the cholera situation. We put 4,000 troops in there and saved probably 200,000 Rwandans and pulled them out without one casualty of American troops there. You are now tying the hands of the President of the United States. You are setting a precedent here that is unprecedented in the history of the United States, requiring the Chief Executive Officer to come to Congress before they can put in a peacekeeping group. Let me propose to the Republicans the hypothetical proposed by Jim Leach, Congressman Jim Leach, a republican from Iowa, in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Let us assume in August of this year there is a peace agreement between Syria and Israel, and the Syrians and the Israelis ask the United States to put in 100 troops into the Golan Heights to protect each side. We are on leave at that time. The President literally could not move if this bill becomes law. I think it is irresponsible for us to consider this and go forward with what we are doing to the United States, what we are doing to the United Nations, and what we are doing to peacekeeping in the world.”