Political Quotes

“let me say to my friend before he departs the floor, let us examine the use of air power in the Persian Gulf. I mentioned before the Senator arrived that there were 100,000 sorties flown in a period of 6 weeks during that conflict. There was a clear demarcation--the boundary of Iraq. Once we went behind that boundary, we knew the enemy, but even there was collateral damage to civilians. We had the best of weather conditions; the best of air bases. We had carefully marshaled all the assets for a major conflict before we initiated that conflict. The situation in Bosnia is starkly different. You have difficult terrain in which to spot targets and operate. You have very difficult weather conditions. You have the Serbian forces, which are designated as the enemy, colocated but a mile or less from civilian populations, and a mile or less from UNPROFOR forces. We cannot release the air power, or even a fraction of it, that we used in the gulf in this conflict. And we should not mislead the American people that air power can turn this battle. I say to my good friend from Massachusetts that sometimes leadership is more difficult to exercise by way of restraint than by using military force.”