Political Quotes

“last Friday, the Senate began debate on a bill that directs the President to lift the United States arms embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina. As we continue this debate today, I would like to review for my colleagues the points made in opposition to the Dole-Lieberman bill. In January, the Senate voted to adopt a sense-of-the-Senate amendment to the State Department authorization bill calling on the President to lift the United States arms embargo against Bosnia. I was one of a few Members who voted against that provision, and I continue to hold to that position today. As I said last Friday, I, in fact, found many of the arguments in favor of lifting the arms embargo to be quite compelling. Clearly, the people of Bosnia are suffering greatly, and Bosnian Government forces are outgunned by the Bosnian Serb aggressors, as we saw most recently in Gorazde. Although the NATO ultimatum of April 22 appears to have relieved the Serb bombing of Gorazde, regrettably, in other parts of Bosnia, the reckless violence against civilians continues. As my esteemed colleague Lee Hamilton and I wrote in a piece in last Thursday's New York Times, lifting the embargo appears to be a way of showing support and sympathy for the beleaguered government and people of Bosnia. It seems like an easy, cost-free solution. It may make us feel better, but I believe it is bad policy that could yield disastrous results.”