Haley Stevens: “with the amount included in the emergency supplemental, the United States will have expended over $7.5 billion for…”

“with the amount included in the emergency supplemental, the United States will have expended over $7.5 billion for operations in and around Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia by the end of this fiscal year 1998. It is estimated that the United States is paying over 50 percent of the cost of maintaining the peace in Bosnia, nearly $200 million a month in 1997 alone, and no end is in sight to the United States presence there, with the current wish of the President to extend our mission there. Defense overseas funding to NATO countries continues. The cost of maintaining our U.S. forces there averages $10 billion a year. Let me state that again. Defense overseas funding in NATO countries is such that the cost of maintaining our forces there averages nearly $10 billion a year. Security assistance alone to NATO allies since 1950, and that includes military assistance and military education and training, now totals over $19 billion. No other member of NATO has the global defense role that the United States has, nor the forward-deployed presence in potential flash-point areas such as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula.”