Barney Frank: “There is virtual unanimous agreement here that it is an inappropriate strain on the American taxpayer and the American…”

“There is virtual unanimous agreement here that it is an inappropriate strain on the American taxpayer and the American defense establishment for us to be providing the ground troops that will have to be contributed from America in Kosovo and Bosnia. We are told time and again we should not have to do it, but the Europeans are not capable without us. There is only one way we will reach a situation where the Europeans are able to provide the ground troops for European activity. That is by beginning a 3-year process. This begins a 3-year process of a drawdown in American troops. At the end of the first year, we will still have 85,000 there. Then we will go down to 60,000, then to 25,000. The fact is that the remaining lavish welfare program in the world is the one by which American taxpayers allow our European allies not to bear a fair share of the burden. Members say, oh, we wish the Europeans would do it. We can wish and we can wish and we can wish, and it is not going to happen. It will happen when we bring down our troops.”