Ken Bacon Quotes (119 Quotes)

I think the primary reason for that (the delay) is that, right now, he (Cohen) feels that his place is here in Washington devoting as much time as possible to running the U.S. participation in the air campaign in Kosovo, preparing for the peacekeeping force.

Secondly, ... the military is carrying out on a regular basis it's normal engagement policy, a policy with 100,000 -- nearly 100,000 troops forward-deployed in Europe and nearly 100,000 troops forward-deployed in the Asia-Pacific region.

First of all, consensual sex between an officer and an enlisted person or between a sergeant and a trainee is -- is a violation of good order and discipline.

The FEST Team, which stands for Foreign Emergency Security Team, has also arrived. And that involves State Department personnel, FBI and Justice Department personnel, and others, about 50 people,

Cost estimates are often difficult to come by and they are even harder to stick to. I am learning that all numbers rise, so I think there is a good chance it will be more than four billion, ... Everyday we delay in sending it up it rises.

That will bring our total of stealth fighters up to 24 in the theater, and our total number of aircraft up to about 220.

Admiral Fry, or someone working with him, said, 'You know, if this thing suddenly veers off course and heads to Chicago, we'll have some really tough decisions to make,'

But also it probably is not the easiest time to visit China. China, as you know, has broken off military-to-military relations temporarily with the United States and he feels that it may be better to go later.

Some of this involves cutting out clutter on the Internet and focusing Web sites so that they provide useful amounts of information without overwhelming users.

It's not surprising that their facilities are primitive by our standards. It's also not surprising that, given the dedication and money they've devoted to upgrading their military, that they have been able to produce long-range missiles, and to fire them from such primitive spots.

We're looking at ways to improve the quality of life, ... Beyond pay and retirement, one is medical care, and that's a box that is yet to be checked, but it's something that the secretary and the chairman are working on, and I would hope that we'd have something to say about medical care relatively soon. But that's a work in progress.

It's too early to speculate on that. The Navy will do whatever is necessary to help the NTSB get the information it needs to conduct a thorough investigation.

It will be much easier to attack them.

I respect Secretary Cohen's decision, and I will comply with its terms, ... I believe that ultimately my conduct will be found lawful.

He has not been able to rebuild his military, in part because of our containment, but also in large part because of the United Nations' embargo on Iraq, which has prevented him from buying the military equipment he would like to buy.

A week ago we weren't hearing comments like this out of Yugoslavia, out of Belgrade, out of leaders, either political leaders or former military leaders, ... Now we are hearing them.

The massed artillery is relatively easy for NATO planes to target. And we have been targeting that, and have now, we believe, removed the majority of the artillery in Kosovo -- perhaps as much as 90 percent of the artillery in Kosovo in the last several weeks -- by attacking massed artillery along the borders.

My understanding is that they (the government in Jakarta) have provided a battalion of forces from outside of East Timor. And that they were able to turn back an assault by militia groups against the U.N. people last night.

It would be an absolute victory for terrorists ... if we stopped doing our job in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world,

The Yugoslavs thought that they could wipe out the Kosovo Liberation Army in five to seven days. They have not succeeded in doing that.

After every flight there is a third-party review of the flight tapes to make sure that there was a full compliance with all flight rules and regulations.

morale is dangerously low.

In terms of NEO (non-combatant evacuation operations), obviously if the Indonesian army performs its job then there shouldn't be need for an evacuation,

There may be times when we have to rescue pilots and the less said the better for the safety of the pilots.

We are making progress against military infrastructure, and we are reducing the Yugoslav ability to sustain operations.

There have been some down days (during which patrols were not conducted) because of weather and other reasons, but we are still patrolling the no-fly zones, particularly in the south, aggressively.

I'd say it's a stronger, more supple military. I think that there have been important improvements in technology, important increases in investment, important improvements in quality of life

Asked whether the U.S. military is as strong and capable ... Well, the military is about the same size, a little smaller, and I would say it is more capable.

The pay is now going up about 3.5, 3.7 percent a year, more than the rate of inflation, and that's built into the five-year plan. So pay is improving.

The KLA has already agreed not to attack the Serb troops as they're leaving,

This visit did not comply with the rules or conventions under international law, the Geneva Convention, in that they were not allowed to see these prisoners alone, they were escorted by representatives of the Yugoslav government. The rules say they should be allowed to meet with them alone.

In Bosnia, for instance, they play a crucial role in setting up these joint commissions that bring Army people and local people together to talk about governance issues, providing humanitarian aid.

I don't know quite what they mean by that, whether they'll build the military back up in size to 2.1 million people to a Cold War-force size or whether they'll leave it at the current size.

We feel that this is an area where a nuclear war is possible if people don't show restraint, and it's an area where the damage would be extraordinary because of the large populations of these two countries.

In the last four years, the (U.S.) military has fought one of the most successful air wars in history

But I think this is an area where pressure from the public is having an impact on what our government is doing.

But altogether, we think that we have a better chance of maintaining the type of stability we have achieved in Asia through a full dialogue with China, and that's what we'll be working on with Minister Chi's visit.

There is extensive movement in Iraq's air defense system. We assume that this movement is for two reasons. Part of it is defensive, so that it is harder for us to target ... air defense missiles, particularly SA-6 missiles, but also SA-2 missiles and ROLAND missiles, and we also think that some of it is offensive.

He wanted to make sure that no decisions were made by default, and that everybody was aware of the type of planning, and potentially training, that would be required for a future movement of forces.

It is part of a plan to make force mobility more difficult, to interdict the flow of supplies and of forces,

This is a very high-priority program. We are working very hard ... to get the president the information he needs from the technical side to make a decision sometime this summer.

The extent to which disparaging speech or expression with respect to sexual orientation occurs or is tolerated by individuals in the chain of command will be assessed.

There is no such thing as clean combat. We have the best trained forces, but there is no way to avoid collateral damage or unintended consequences when weapons are employed to solve what might have been solved diplomatically.

It's required sharp increases in pay and benefits, and I think those have been appropriate, particularly in light of the recruiting problems that we were having a year ago, and the quality of life problems that have been eliminated. And I think that we've worked -- that Secretary (William) Cohen and President Clinton have worked very hard to increase defense investment, as I said, by 40 percent, from 43 billion to 60 billion a year ... That, also, has been justified, and will help us be as strong and dominant in the 21st century as we are now.

I think it is fair to say that things were in their expected position -- which was moved, ... They have been moving their military assets, including tanks and artillery -- and other things. Dispersion is a standard defensive tactic, and the Serbs are very good at dispersion.

The flying public, I believe, has nothing to worry about. The military is trained to stay well away from civilian airliners.

There's a wide range of aircraft load masters, ... who ... aren't just combat people, but they're people who load the C-17s and other transport planes to carry humanitarian aid or military equipment into the theater.

They've done this with consummate skill and professionalism and success. I don't think there's a citizen who isn't proud of the way our military has performed in these operations and is performing every day

There were reports on Radio Free Europe that water hoses were used against women and children who were protesting the fact that their husbands or fathers, loved ones, were being killed in Kosovo,

Force protection is the job of unit commanders in Bosnia and elsewhere, and they have the authority to take steps that they think are appropriate to match the threat they face.