[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 2, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H12259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        IT'S OFFICIAL: CLINTON BREAKS PROMISE ON BOSNIA DEADLINE

  The SPEAKER. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Solomon] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I had come over here to talk about 
something that was very alarming to me, and certainly to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker, about the Clinton administration's 
shielding a report that is critical of the Clinton administration on 
antidrug policy, particularly using executive privilege to bury 
politically damaging information, which talks about a lack of 
leadership in the fight against drugs. That, to me, is alarming, 
considering the seriousness of the situation. But on the way over, I 
happened to be approached by others who pointed out something even more 
alarming.
  Mr. Speaker, it has just come to me that President Clinton is going 
to try to keep our troops in Bosnia longer than he told the American 
people. What many of us have been predicting all year long was 
confirmed yesterday by Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon when he 
reported that 5,000 new, and I repeat new, troops were being deployed 
to Bosnia from Germany and would stay there until mid-March, way beyond 
the December 20 deadline for bringing our troops home.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are certainly capable of recalling 
that last year, when President Clinton ordered this ludicrous mission, 
he told us all that our troops would be home by December 20. It was not 
believable then, and the mid-March deadline is not believable now. I am 
afraid this thing is going to turn into another Vietnam, going on and 
on and on.
  Mark my words: If President Clinton is reelected, he will immediately 
move to extend this new deadline, further exposing our troops to harm, 
and further squandering our precious military resources that are 
defense budgeted and which the American taxpayer can ill-afford.
  Mr. Speaker, American troops have no business being in Bosnian beyond 
that December 20 deadline. The Bosnian tragedy was always and remains 
mostly a civil war. American foreign policy has never been based on 
inserting our own military personnel into the middle of these civil war 
situations, until the Clinton administration took office. Rather, our 
policy has always been preserving peace through strength by maintaining 
our alliances, our treaties with other countries, and only deploying 
troops when sovereign allies were under external attack or vital 
American interests were at stake; in other words, when other countries 
were being invaded by another country, like in Kuwait, that was reason 
for us to defend our treaty allies. This certainly is not. Bosnia does 
not meet this test, and it never did.
  Mr. Speaker, we must bring those troops home, as the President 
promised.

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