Political Quotes

“Sometimes what happens around here, Mr. President--and it happened in Libya, when we passed a resolution at 9 o'clock one night by unanimous consent and somebody over at the State Department decided that was an authorization for force. That was not the intent of that resolution. Again, we are talking now about the resolution, not about the sanctions bill. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the cosponsors of S. Res. 380, because there is a clause 6 in here that says: . . . strongly supports United States policy to prevent the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. There are some wise people over at the State Department who could use that statement as a declaration of war, and I think they acknowledge that. But I don't think the authors of this resolution want that to be the case. So I wish to clarify that in the resolution--not in the sanctions bill--none of the language included in S. Res. 380 may be interpreted as congressional support for military operations in Iran. I hope that should the administration decide kinetic activities are the only avenue available--we all hope that doesn't happen, but believe it can--that if kinetic activities are the only option available to achieve our policy objectives, they will come to Congress for authorization. This is not intended as an authorization of war.…”