Political Quotes

“I assure my colleague that we are greatly concerned about the safety of our service personnel as they undertake this mission, if it has to be done. I visited with them, together with Senators Levin, Rockefeller, and Roberts. They are ready. The Senator raises, quit properly, the record we had first in Kosovo. I happen to have visited there during the early part of that securing of it by the United States and other forces. I assure the Senator that the rules of engagement were spelled out. I remember American servicemen guarding the Serbian churches from destruction. I remember instances where they would carefully respond to protect the Serbs, who were at that point in time in minority status, so to speak. So we performed that mission, and we did it admirably, together with a coalition of nations. We will have other nations assisting us in this engagement. Then you bring about Afghanistan. That is a country, historically, that has been fought over by factions. We visited there a week or 10 days ago. There is relative quietude there. There is no severe amount of factional strife today; that is, outbursts of actual casualties and the like. Tensions are present. We are trying to reconstitute an armed forces under the Government of Afghanistan now. So we have a good track record on that.”