Ken Bacon Quotations

We believe that both countries would be better off if they took steps to reduce tensions, not increase tensions.

We're going to need a larger KFOR, and we want it deployed to Macedonia as quickly as possible. Should there be a peace agreement quickly, as we hope, we need a force that's ready to go in and help the refugees get back as the Serb forces pull out.

We would take almost any reasonable action before reaching a point of having to make a decision about destroying an American plane over American air space.

We have a worldwide mission to perform, and we are not going to stop performing that mission. We can never eliminate the risk, but we can take steps to reduce the risk.

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.

we have increased military pay and benefits and increased money for arms procurement and training.

The principal impact we've had so far is to reduce their ability to sustain themselves, to reduce their supplies. We are now beginning to focus more on the troops on the ground. That began last night with sustained attacks on their staging areas.

When the secretary sat down and looked at all of these openings...he felt that Ralston would bring the same qualifications to the job that General Clark did.

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.

many of the tankers are flown by reservists.

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.

Milosevic should understand the seriousness of our efforts and our determination to keep this fight going until we achieve our goals.

My expectation is that based on the amount of chemical weapons in the pit and then what we've been told about wind patterns on that day and the disposition of forces ... there could be a very large number of troops included in a possible cloud area.

need to embrace, and utilize, the latest technology for force protection

Obviously we are gratified that CNN retracted a report that we believe was not accurate,

Obviously, it's up to Indonesia to provide for the security of its own people in East Timor, as well as United Nations workers and other foreigners in East Timor,

Obviously, if we have a series of tests that are deemed to be failures we couldn't say that this was ready to deploy.

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.

I would question what joy one can derive from being a strongman in a weak country, as Saddam Hussein is,

If we could get by with fewer troops we would, but those figures won't be known until we understand what the peace agreement is, if we get one.

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.

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.

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.

Basically, it will allow us to increase the intensity of the air campaign over Kosovo and Yugoslavia.

I can tell you that their activities and buildup in the Gulf seem to go far beyond their defensive need, particularly on those three little islands.

Given what we have seen, the active redeployment of (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's) air defenses, the high state of alert, we think he is interested in much more than diplomacy, that he has ulterior motives to moving these around and we need to be prepared.

If the summoned vessel takes flight, she may be pursued and brought to by forcible measures if necessary,

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.

He is no longer a threat to his neighbors and is not seen as a threat to his neighbors. That's largely because of the containment that we have carried out.

He fires quite a lot of AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) and missiles at us

There is no consensus in NATO today for a ground invasion force.

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 remains, of course, steadfastly committed to engagement with China as a long-term policy.

There are no precise figures right now and the reason is that the number of troops we'll have to commit for a peace implementation force will depend on what type of peace agreement we are able to win, if we win a peace agreement, if we succeed.

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.

He delayed for a long while participating in the oil-for-food program, which has actually been one of the hopeful and helpful measures that the U.N. has brought to Iraq, allowing it to import more food in return for the oil it sells,

He (Cohen) did have tentative plans to go in June, and he has postponed any trip until some later date.

He just said that if you looked down several months out into the future and you reach a point in August or September or October where we might want to deploy ground troops, what is the type of planning timeframe that would be necessary in order to position NATO to do that,

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.

It appears a bomb fell short of its target.

I think it's good we called this genocide. It's bad that we're not doing more to stop it.

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.

I think that if you look at that, you'll see that there's been a dramatic increase in the amount of time and energy that's been put into this project.

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

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

Our spending now is a little less than $300 billion a year. It's.. as I say, there are always ways to spend more money, or to spend it faster. There are always demands to modernize.

Our goal is not to relocate refugees permanently onto U.S. territory.

Remember, our goal is disarmament. We don't want to fuel the fighting and the arms race in Kosovo; we want to end it.

Recruiting is on an upswing. In the last couple of months, the services have exceeded their recruiting goals.

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.

Material that should have been demilitarized has not been properly demilitarized and is sold when it shouldn't have been.

I think right now it is -- it is difficult to say that we have prevented one act of brutality at this stage.

It is due to credible threat information on unspecified targets.

We no longer deploy those land mines. We no longer make them, and we no longer export land mines of any sort.

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

We have taken a lot of steps not only to arrest the decline in military spending, but in fact to reverse it.

Weeks have gone by with no coordination whatsoever, which has made it very difficult for the humanitarian relief organizations to get organized, to figure out exactly what they should be doing to maximum humanitarian advantage,

we believe there were bunkers in this facility and in many other facilities.

We're watching it very carefully. We have certainly seen signs that (Saddam Hussein is) attempting to reconstruct his air defense abilities north of the 32nd parallel.

We're watching it very carefully, ... We have certainly seen signs that (Saddam Hussein is) attempting to reconstruct his air defense abilities north of the 32nd parallel.

We have analyzed yesterday's information and found that an AGM-130 (missile) did miss its target and explode in a residential neighborhood several kilometers from its target.

We could have part of an enabling force on the ground in Kosovo within several days of a decision to do so.

We have very robust, well-trained combat search and rescue teams available to search for them.

We have not yet seen signs that Serbian troops or special police forces or paramilitary are moving out, but we've certainly seen preparations for moving out.

We have not degraded it to that point. But we're only in the second day.

We are in favor of having NATO move to the next stage, which is the so-called activation warning, to come closer to the use of military force if necessary.

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.

What we have seen is extremely active activity by (Iraq's) air defense system,

We don't know why they have moved these troops or exactly what they plan to do with these troops that they have marshaled around the borders.

We don't know whether it'll be twice as large or three times as large or 50 percent as large as we initially planned.

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

The Defense Department has sent out two advisories to military installations and commanders around the world,

The crews of the new ships can help do some of the work that's required to keep the ship afloat and to deal with the damage to the hull,

we don't believe that there'll be any problem with meeting the time lines.

We did attack a Yugoslav army unit in central Kosovo that's been involved in some of the ethnic cleansing activities. We also attacked a major ammunition dump in Kosovo.

This will basically help NATO tighten the noose around Milosevic's neck, ... do a more effective job at eliminating or neutralizing the forces on the ground.

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.

There has not been a knockout punch. We knew a knockout punch would not come quickly, ... We're now in the seventh day. I think it will take much longer.

trying to get food to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people within Kosovo is a priority for NATO and certainly for the non-government organizations.

The question you all will have is, 'Isn't this a step toward the deployment of ground troops in Kosovo?' ... The answer is, absolutely not. This is pure and simple an expansion of the air operation.

There are heavy concentrations of artillery along the border between Kosovo and Macedonia. There are only 14 roads into Kosovo -- two from Macedonia. These roads are mined. The bridges are mined. There are built in ... tank and artillery positions along lines of communication.

What kind of person would use humans as shields?

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.

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.

We're doing all that. We think it's good that Governor Bush wants to continue these programs.

This soldier got prompt visitation from the ICRC as well as prompt medical care. So we have yet to see any delivery on the Serb promise that they plan to abide by the terms of the Geneva Conventions,

This operation will continue. Nothing has damaged our resolve.

This offer may be one sign he is rattled, but we are going to continue to rattle him until he makes an offer that meets our conditions, and he's far away from that right now.

We think that the Operation Southern Watch and Northern Watch have been able to debilitate Saddam Hussein's air defenses quite a lot ... For one thing, we think that he's largely afraid to use his top of the line air defense systems, for fear of losing them to our patrolling airplanes.

There have been no violations of the no-fly zone by the Iraqi forces for the last five days or so,

(Even) if the interceptor hits the (mock warhead), it could still not be a successful integrated systems test because there could be other parts of the test that failed.

easier to move, harder to find, more lethal, able to strike long distances in short times.

Enterprising generals and admirals will always find ways -- very good ways -- to spend more money.

The train has pretty much left the station ... We believe this will be painful for the Serbs. We hope that relatively quickly ... the Serbs will realize they have made a mistake.

The U.N. is sending a team that's supposed to arrive tomorrow (Wednesday), to evaluate the situation and then return to New York, I believe, on Friday to report their findings. And depending on what they report, then the U.N. will decide what to do next.

These are the forces that are being used to attack the Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo, and we will continue to focus on those targets.

There will likely to be a Reserve call-up. The details aren't ready to be announced at this stage.

These are advisories that highlight, one, the State Department's warning: and two, other information that's been collected,

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

These soldiers from the First Infantry Division first went to Macedonia to participate in a United Nations mission called UNPREDP, the U.N. Preventative Deployment, which was protecting Macedonia.