Neil Abercrombie: “Again in furtherance of what the gentleman from Illinois has indicated and others here this evening, these are the same…”

“Again in furtherance of what the gentleman from Illinois has indicated and others here this evening, these are the same questions that many of us asked of President Clinton. This is not something that has suddenly sprung into being. And they were asked in a bipartisan basis, too. My colleagues will remember that some of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, had these same questions for President Clinton with respect to Kosovo, with respect to the activities that took place in the Balkans. We had these same questions of ourselves as to what was expected of us. I think that as a result, what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) has indicated is perhaps a start for us in terms of the questions that need to be asked, I think, needs a bit of reiteration. I find it very strange that when President Carter was in office, people in the media, particularly Nightline, would come on every evening, day 292 of the hostages and the number of hostages that were still in Iran, on day 292, three, four, five, 300, whatever it was. Yet we go now to casualties, deaths, we are not talking about those that are maimed, and this casual dismissal by some of the, I am sorry to say, some of the highest officials in the administration now of, well, this is all over, intelligence changes from day to day. You never know what it is from day to day, this almost sarcastic dismissal of these questions.”