Benjamin Gilman: “I hope Members will think very seriously about this resolution, because what this resolution says is that this House is…”

“I hope Members will think very seriously about this resolution, because what this resolution says is that this House is about to take ownership in what the President has put us into since he started bombing Kosovo. So I think we should think very, very seriously whether we are going to take ownership of the bombing of Kosovo. Let us go back a little ways. Let us go back to even the negotiations in Rambouillet. I do not think many Members of this House have even read the provisions of the peace agreement in Rambouillet. One of the provisions of the peace agreement was that Milosevic had to agree to allow foreign troops, the peacekeeping troops, to have free reign over the entire country of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo, but the entire country of Yugoslavia, which put Milosevic in a very untenable situation. No wonder he was not going to sign this agreement. Then the Secretary of State, who believes in bombing to support her diplomacy, decides that we are going to bomb him to the peace table and make him sign something that would actually slit his throat with his own people.”