Mark Souder: “last week we had a historic symbolic vote on the war. This House voted against ground troops. We also voted against, in…”

“last week we had a historic symbolic vote on the war. This House voted against ground troops. We also voted against, in a tie vote, a resolution to support the air war. This week we have the real vote. Are we going to fund the war? Are we just talk or are we going to actually cut off the funds for the war? There are three goals that have consistently been stated by NATO and by our government. One is to degradate the military forces or sufficiently degrade the military forces of the Yugoslav government so that we can move hundreds of thousands of refugees back, and then manage it with a peacekeeping force. I would put forth that anybody who has listened to any of the military briefings we have had, who have listened to the public reports, understand fundamentally that this is an unachievable goal. Milosevic understands that. When are the American people going to be told the truth, that our fundamental goals are unachievable? First off, the military has been saying all the way along, this cannot be accomplished just by an air war. They are hopeful that they can bring him to the table, but what do they mean when they say this cannot be accomplished just by an air war? He has dug in, he is fighting in mountainous terrain, he has supplies that are going to last him an extended period of time, and we read just last week that our military says that after 30 days of bombing, we have a net degradation of his military forces of zero.”