Joe Cunningham: “last month I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, John Sununu and ``Cap'' Weinberger, and…”

“last month I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, John Sununu and ``Cap'' Weinberger, and everybody was in agreement the one way to expand the war in this part of the world is to get the major powers involved and also to increase the arms in those areas. Mr. Chairman, none of us want the atrocities to continue. But if we look at the solution logically, increasing arms into an area is not going to help us to a peaceful solution; it is going to expand it and in my opinion, and many others' opinion, it is going to increase the length of time before we could ever go in and stop it. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues would just think logically, by increasing arms is it going to stop the war? No, it is not. It is going to encourage it. More will die on all sides if we put in weapons. And we do not just put in a weapon and ask them to pick it up, especially high-technology weapons. We have to put in those 25,000 U.S. troops. When we do that, we are going to lose a lot of those U.S. troops. We expanded arms in Vietnam; 55,000 Americans died. That was not a good solution and, Mr. Chairman, I say this is not a solution either. If we put in those arms, it is going to encourage.”