[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 BOSNIA

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I rise to strongly endorse the comments 
made by the Republican leader in calling for a congressional resolution 
with regard to the tragic circumstances in Bosnia. This morning we had 
a very eloquent presentation in the Foreign Relations Committee from 
the distinguished Senator from West Virginia on the subject of 
definition of the utilization of armed forces in the post-cold-war era. 
This subject came before the committee, at least briefly. There was 
discussion in the committee about the need for more congressional 
consultation and more congressional participation in the utilization of 
armed forces in this new world.
  I am among those Senators who do not believe that the armed forces of 
the United States, the men and women of the United States serving our 
country, should be subjected to a hostile environment by another 
commander, foreign commander, or the United Nations. I am perfectly 
comfortable with the peacekeeping concept, such as we have in 
Macedonia, where we have U.S. personnel serving under a U.N. commander. 
But the situation we discovered for ourselves, I think imprudently, in 
Somalia, I think was a very flawed concept. We saw the consequences of 
it. There are some striking similarities as we approach these difficult 
times in Bosnia.
  It was the Secretary General prompting the change of the mission in 
Somalia. We even had a circumstance where the President of the United 
States indicated to us that he was unclear about the fact the mission 
had been changed.
  In this morning's New York Times it says, talking about the situation 
in Bosnia, ``Formally it will be up to the U.N. Secretary General, 
Boutros-Boutros Ghali, to order the first strike.'' Of course, everyone 
suggests after that it moves on to NATO. But I do not know what his 
military credentials are to order the first strike. If that involves 
U.N. military personnel, I think it moves us back into this very murky 
and very unclear relationship between the United States, which is 
defining its modern role in the new world, and the United Nations, 
which is busily defining its own role--and I am not comfortable with 
the direction I have seen of late from the United Nations.
  In fact, more and more we see a direction not of peacekeeping but of 
a peacemaking; not of monitoring an agreement between warring parties 
but of imposing a decision made in the policymaking of the United 
Nations on the warring parties. That is a very, very different 
circumstance that we are setting before the world. I see these very 
tracks that left us in such an uncomfortable position in Somalia 
beginning to appear again in Bosnia.
  I hope this Senate, and I hope the Congress of the United States, 
will engage, as has been suggested today, in a resolution that causes 
it to be a participant in this process and that contributes to the 
clarification, when the United Nations is involved, as it relates to 
American men and women in the military in a hostile situation.
  I yield the floor.

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