Larry Combest: “My concern would be, for example, we can take the UNPROFOR forces, where the United States is a part of that operation…”

“My concern would be, for example, we can take the UNPROFOR forces, where the United States is a part of that operation; requiring a prior approval on each case-by-case basis might not be able to be done in a timely fashion. If it is required that there be a waiver or that that be reported to Congress as a theater, the American forces involved with UNPROFOR in Bosnia, that would certainly be something I would support. It is the individual case, in which in a timely manner prior approval could not be given, just simply because there was not enough time that existed prior to the need to share that information for protection of American lives, either be it a single situation, such as Captain O'Grady, or U.S. forces that might be involved in a situation where we became aware of something that was fixing to happen or was going to happen in a very short order but there was not time for the President to actually get engaged and to grant the waiver prior to the time that action had to be taken. Those are the concerns I have. And in those instances, I would try to protect in my substitute that the appropriate committees of Congress would have to be notified that, in fact, that waiver was granted and could then make their own determination about whether or not it, in fact, qualified.”