Speech #1060027492

I can name the guys that I flew with in these wars that are now in the Pentagon. They looked me eye to eye and said: Duke. we told the President not to get into this air war. not to do it. because. A. the goals could not be achieved with air strikes alone. and the unwillingness to conduct ground troops and to insert them into the war. that we would make things worse. that we would kill a lot of innocent people. we would stretch our military beyond belief. we would make ourselves vulnerable in North Korea and Iraq and other places in the world and that we would accelerate an increased forced evacuation of refugees. And that is exactly. Mr. Speaker. what we have done. When you ask the people where were you when the Serbs came: We were in our homes: they told us to get out. They were not evacuating. they were not refugees. but our bombing forced acceleration of that. and there are millions of people that in my opinion this President and Milosevic are responsible for that would not be there today. and this is a sad thing to say about your own country. Mr. Speaker. and the lack of planning and understanding and leadership.