Political Quotes

“Just one other point, and that is in the U.N. Security Council Resolution, under which our troops operate now, which provides for how they are treated in Iraq, expires in December. That is why we need to have a Status of Forces Agreement. If we don't have, and we now elevate this to a treaty, and Congress doesn't act on the treaty, they will lose their protection when the United Nations provision expires. It doesn't make sense to put this onus on them, that somehow we are going to raise this thing to a treaty level and Congress, by golly, is going to have to now ratify it before we can decide how an E-5, a sergeant with a couple of stripes, living in Baghdad, how he is going to be treated with respect to the laws of that country. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I think we ought to leave this thing alone. When we go to any treaties that actually manifest security commitments by the United States, certainly that has to be then ratified by Congress. This isn't one of them. It will be the 81st SOFA that we have had without requiring Congress to ratify it.”