Joe Cunningham: “I want to give some perspective on an issue that is, I think, very near and dear to every American's heart, as it is in…”

“I want to give some perspective on an issue that is, I think, very near and dear to every American's heart, as it is in Kosovo today also. I would like to give the Speaker a little perspective. First of all, according to Henry Kissinger, and I agree, Rambouillet was a very poor foreign policy. It was an agreement only between Albania and the United States in which the United States knew, in no uncertain terms, that Serbia would never give up Kosovo itself. Any history student would know that. We have spent $16 billion in Bosnia to date; Somalia cost us billions of dollars; Haiti cost us billions; $4 billion times the four strikes in Iraq, the Sudan, Afghanistan. Our troops are deploying 300 percent above the highest level in Vietnam but yet we are doing it with about half the force. Enlisted retention in our own military is below 23 percent; pilots, 30 percent. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said we are $150 billion short. We cannot buy spare parts. We do not even have basic bullets. Top gun, 14 of 23 aircraft are down; 18 for engines; 137, parts. Kosovo, and this is according to General Clark, I was with General Clark just days ago and I said I want to know how many sorties the United States is flying. Mr. Speaker, General Clark said, and this is accurate to the sortie, 75 percent of all strikes in Kosovo are being flown by the United States. That does not include the B-2s, the tankers, the support aircraft like C-17s and C-130s. That brings it up to 82 percent.”