Russ Feingold: “last week, the Senate expressed in very clear terms its view that the United States' mission in Bosnia should be…”

“last week, the Senate expressed in very clear terms its view that the United States' mission in Bosnia should be terminated by next June, which is the administration's stated deadline. This was not a position that was taken without public debate. In fact, the Senate debate regarding the Bosnia operation began last Thursday evening and continued well into Friday morning. A number of Senators were involved in the debate at various times during the consideration of the DOD bill. Quite frankly, Mr. President, as we well know, there were some Senators--including the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] and the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner]--who did express their disagreement with having a date certain for termination of U.S. ground troop deployment. Mr. President, they were clearly in the minority on this issue. The Senate took this action regarding an end date as part of one of the most important pieces of defense related legislation--the Department of Defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1998.”