Political Quotes

“I have heard many of the statements made here today and yesterday regarding the defense authorization conference report and, indeed, I had hoped to come to the floor earlier, but I was involved in a meeting in my office with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yugoslavia in a very serious and protracted discussion about the possible military options that Mr. Milosevic's Government and our Government were considering with respect to the situation in Kosovo, and the readiness of the military forces as well as the ability of those forces to respond to various contingencies was a significant part of our discussion. Many of our colleagues have expressed their concern over the degraded state of readiness of our armed services. Mr. President, I share those concerns, especially as they relate to our fundamental ability to fight and win two major wars as is called for by our national military strategy. Admittedly, the need to fight two such wars has been challenged by many, but until the tense situations in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula are behind us, we do not have the luxury of cutting force structure anymore. Indeed, in the words of the well-known Broadway musical, 'we've gone about as 'fer' as we can go.' Yesterday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the four service chiefs confirmed that the risk we now associate with fighting in a second theater is high.”