-- In an appearance at a San Antonio grade school on Oct. 13, 1993, Bush expressed concern that the humanitarian mission to Somalia that he had launched nearly a year earlier was being "messed up" by the Clinton administration. "If you're going to put somebody else's son or daughter into harm's way, into battle, you've got to know the answer to three questions," Bush told the students. He said the president has to know what the mission is, "how they are going to do it," and "how they're going to get out of there." Several news reports noted that Bush's comments appeared to violate his earlier pledge not to publicly criticize Clinton during his first year in office. (The New York Times, 10/14/93; The Boston Globe, 10/23/93)
-- In an interview published in the February 1994 issue of Washingtonian magazine, Bush criticized the Clinton administration's purported lack of a "general strategy" in the foreign policy arena and the "start-and-stop" failures it had exhibited. Bush pointed to the Clinton administration's handling of the situation in Haiti as an example and also criticized Clinton for his policy toward Bosnia:
"The specific point of difference I'd make with the current administration, however, is that when you send a US ship loaded with military personnel to go ashore, you don't say, 'They're going ashore' unless you mean it. And you don't get turned back by a group of thugs standing on the dock.
"What that does -- starting and stopping -- is weaken the image of the United States as a strong, resolute leader. It was devastating, sent a horrible signal, when that troop ship was turned back -- a signal not just to Latin America, but to Europe and elsewhere. Where I find most fault in the Clinton foreign policy, the area where I find room for criticism, is this pattern of start-and-stop, start-and-stop.