Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I am touched by the endorsement of the Republican chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the Clinton policy in this regard, but I have to disagree with it. In fact, we are being told a couple of unbelievable things. Essentially we are being told that the collapse of the Soviet Union means that there is no opportunity to save money in intelligence. We are told there is, after all, Iraq and Iran and Libya. I agree. I disagree with the implicit assumption that there was no Iraq in 1986, that Libya was created in 1983, and that Iran just floated down. All of those other threats were there at the same time. Ten years ago we were dealing with the terrorist threats in Syria, in Iraq, and Libya. Those were not the Andrews sisters a few years ago who suddenly turned ugly on us. Those countries and the threats they projected were a fact 10 years ago. We also had, as the primary focus of our national security expenditure, a Soviet Union which led an unwilling empire of many other nations that were being held captive, that threatened our very existence. Yes, there are problems in the world today. There are people who run countries today who in a good world would not even be allowed to drive cars. They mean us harm and we need to defend ourselves.”