[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 45 (Thursday, April 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   BANKRUPTCY AMENDMENTS ACT OF 1993

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 1640

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1640.

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, add the following:

     SEC.  . UNITED STATES ARMS EMBARGO OF THE GOVERNMENT OF 
                   BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.

       (a) Termination.--The President shall terminate the United 
     States arms embargo of the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina upon receipt from that government of a request 
     for assistance in exercising its right of self-defense under 
     Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
       (b) Definition.--As used in this section, the term ``United 
     States arms embargo of the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina'' means the application to the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina of--
       (1) the policy adopted July 10, 1991, and published in the 
     Federal Register of July 19, 1991 (58 Fed. Reg. 33322) under 
     the heading ``Suspension of Munitions Export Licenses to 
     Yugoslavia''; and
       (2) any similar policy being applied by the United States 
     Government as of the date of receipt of the request described 
     in subsection (a) pursuant to which approval is routinely 
     denied for transfers of defense articles and defense services 
     to the former Yugoslavia.


                Amendment No. 1641 to Amendment No. 1640

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send an amendment in the second degree to 
the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Dole], for himself, Mr. 
     Lieberman, Mr. Mack, Mr. Lugar, Mr. McCain, Mr. Levin, Mr. 
     Feingold, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Dorgan and Mr. McConnell, proposes 
     an amendment numbered 1641 to amendment number 1640.

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the word ``SEC.'' and insert the 
     following:

        ``UNITED STATES ARMS EMBARGO OF THE GOVERNMENT OF BOSNIA 
                   AND HERZEGOVINA.

       (a) Prohibition.--Neither the President nor any other 
     member of the Executive Branch of the United States 
     Government shall interfere with the transfer of arms to the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       (b) Termination.--The President shall terminate the United 
     States arms embargo of the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina upon receipt from that government of a request 
     for assistance in exercising its right of self-defense under 
     Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
       (c) Definition.--As used in this section, the term `United 
     States arms embargo of the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina' means the application to the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina of--
       (1) the policy adopted July 10, 1991, and published in the 
     Federal Register of July 19, 1991 (58 Fed. Reg. 33322) under 
     the heading `Suspension of Munitions Export Licenses to 
     Yugoslavia'; and
       (2) any similar policy being applied by the United States 
     Government as of the date of receipt of the request described 
     in subsection (a) pursuant to which approval is routinely 
     denied for transfers of defense articles and defense services 
     to the former Yugoslavia.
       (d) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as 
     authorization for deployment of U.S. forces in the territory 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose, including 
     training, support or delivery of military equipment.

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, there will be additional cosponsors. I want 
to thank my colleague from Connecticut for his continuing support. We 
have been working together in this and other foreign policy areas. I 
certainly appreciate his willingness to make this bipartisan. There are 
not any politics in this. The last vote we had on this, I think, was 87 
to 9. The problem with the nine, I think, is that they had some fears 
about what might happen. So we have added one paragraph where we make 
it very clear:

       Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as 
     authorization of deployment of U.S. forces in the territory 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose, including 
     training, support or delivery of military equipment.

  We think we have taken care of that concern.
  I also ask that Senator McConnell be added as an original cosponsor.
  Mr. President, yesterday the President announced a new initiative to 
broaden the use of NATO air power to protect United States declared 
safe havens in Bosnia. In my view, such a move is welcome and long 
overdue. However, the President's initiative did not include an effort 
to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnians.
  President Clinton said he favored lifting the arms embargo, but did 
not believe our allies would support such a move. Nothing will change 
unless America takes the lead, and that is why I am offering, with my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle, legislation to lift the embargo 
today.
  I might add, the President said he was ``encouraged'' by the support 
in Congress for lifting the embargo. I believe this will further 
encourage the President and strengthen his hand when he talks with the 
French, the British, the Russians--whoever--because Congress does have 
a role to play. Hopefully, this will be helpful to the President.
  We have already gone on record, as I said earlier, by an almost 
unanimous vote, 87 to 9, in support of lifting the arms embargo--not 
just the U.N. embargo--but unilaterally lifting the U.S. embargo. If 
allies want to go along, it should be on a unilateral basis. We adopted 
a sense-of-the-Senate amendment after considerable debate. It seems to 
me that now is the time to strengthen the President's hand by letting 
the British, the French, and the Russians, who have objected to lifting 
the embargo in Bosnia, know that the U.S. Congress fully supports going 
it alone, if necessary, because this embargo has no legal basis and is 
unjust.
  Administration officials have said that the United States should not 
act unilaterally because such action could unravel support for other 
U.N. embargoes, such as that against Iraq.
  Mr. President, the arms embargo against Bosnia is not analogous to 
the embargo against Iraq.
  First, this arms embargo was established against Yugoslavia, a 
country that no longer exists. Second, extending the arms embargo to 
Bosnia violates Bosnia's fundamental right to self-defense, a right 
that is incorporated in article 51 of the U.N. Charter.
  And finally, aggression was waged against Bosnia, while Iraq was the 
aggressor against Kuwait. The arms embargo against Bosnia, unlike the 
legal embargoes against Iraq, Serbia or Libya, is illegal, in addition 
to being unjust.
  So I introduce the amendment which goes further than my earlier 
amendment. It mandates termination--it is only a sense of the Senate 
though--of the United States arms embargo against Bosnia. The amendment 
simply states the President shall terminate the U.S. arms embargo of 
the Bosnia Government upon receipt from that Government of a request 
for assistance in exercising its right of self-defense under article 51 
of the U.N. Charter. This language is taken from S. 1044, a bill I 
introduced--again, with the distinguished Senator from Connecticut [Mr. 
Lieberman]--last year. And, of course, I am pleased we are working 
together today along with others of my colleagues.
  In addition to that, the amendment prohibits the enforcement of the 
U.N. embargo against Bosnia. The amendment also includes a provision 
which I previously read so nobody has any misunderstanding. We are not 
talking about troops. We are not talking about somebody going there for 
training purposes or to get equipment into any area in Bosnia.
  So I think there are certainly many of us who have grave concerns 
about deployment of U.S. ground forces even after, if a peace agreement 
is reached. I think many of us are going to have concerns because it 
appears to this Senator--maybe I can be convinced otherwise--what we 
are doing is enforcing a peace, lining up with the Serbs to enforce a 
peace where they get to retain the territory they have taken, 70 
percent of the independent nation of Bosnia, and we are going to be in 
a position, in my view, of lining up with the Serbs to make certain 
that none of that territory slips away.
  I think the best way to ensure that we are not going to commit U.S. 
ground forces is to lift the embargo and give them an opportunity to 
defend themselves.
  For 2 years now, the Bosnians have been unable to defend their 
citizens against the destruction and slaughter that has come to be 
known as ethnic cleansing. So officials of the Bosnian Government have 
been forced to plead with the international community for the 
protection of their people.
  Yesterday, I received a letter from the Bosnian Prime Minister Haris 
Silajdzic, in which he said:

       And while we would prefer to defend our own people against 
     this brutal aggression, rather than ask for help from the 
     United States and NATO, we do not have the means to defend 
     ourselves due to the U.N. arms embargo on Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina.

  The Bosnian Vice President, Mr. Ejup Ganic, was in my office 
yesterday, and he emphasized the point when I met with him. He said the 
tragic situation in Gorazde may not have occurred had the Bosnians had 
antitank and other defensive weapons. He said, ``We have the men but 
not the arms.'' And in my view it is not our place to deny the freedom-
seeking Bosnians the right to self-defense.
  I also asked Mr. Ganic, Is it too late? Would it make any difference 
at this point whether or not we lifted the arms embargo? The answer, he 
said, was yes. It is pretty hard to fight off a tank with a rifle, but 
if you had antitank weapons, you could have a pretty solid defense.
  So, Mr. President, the President suggested if he could not convince 
the Serbs to halt their aggression and come to the negotiating table, 
that the allies might be persuaded to change their mind, and I hope 
that is the case. Why wait any longer? The war on Bosnia has gone on 
for 2 years now, and how much longer must the Bosnians wait to exercise 
their right to self-defense and how many more do we kill each day?
  Yesterday, one incident happened--the Bosnian Serbs shelled an 
emergency room in a hospital killing 10 patients. How many more chances 
are we going to give Bosnian Serbs, who already occupy--I said 70 
percent earlier--I think it is closer to 75 percent of Bosnia? And when 
is the international community going to abandon its neocolonial 
approach in which the world decides what is right for Bosnia and the 
Bosnians have no say at all?
  I think it is time to try to lead our allies and persuade our allies 
to the right position, a position that President Clinton supports, and 
that is lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia. I believe a vote in favor 
of this amendment will strengthen the President's hand and certainly 
get the Senate on record. I am not certain about the House. I hope they 
will follow through. But in my view it is a step in the right 
direction.
  I would be perfectly willing--I know this is not really germane to 
the bankruptcy bill, and I do not want to interfere with the managers, 
so, unless there is some objection, we hope at the appropriate time we 
can get a time agreement, maybe 1 hour equally divided, if anybody 
wants to speak in opposition, and then we would be back on the 
bankruptcy bill.
  I also want to clarify that, unlike my previous amendment, this is 
not a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, and I would also like to add the 
distinguished Senator from New York, [Mr D'Amato], as a cosponsor, and 
the Senator from Alaska, [Mr. Stevens].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Connecticut, [Mr. Lieberman].
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join with the 
distinguished Republican leader, the Senator from Kansas, [Mr. Dole], 
in cosponsoring this amendment and thank him for his leadership.
  This is truly a bipartisan expression of the opinion of Members of 
the Senate, I believe Members of the House, and I would guess members 
of the public of the United States of America about one course of 
action that we should and can take to try to bring an end to the 
slaughter and aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  Mr. President, in moving to direct the administration to suspend the 
existing embargo of distribution or sale of weapons to Bosnia, I 
believe we are also acting, as the Senator from Kansas has said, to 
support a position that President Clinton has taken now for almost 2 
years, which is to be opposed to the embargo, to strengthen his hand in 
negotiating with our European allies, and in our own voices to send as 
clear a message as we possibly can to the Bosnian Serb Army and to the 
Serbian leadership that we have had enough and we are going to match 
rhetoric with action and, more important, with weapons, effective 
weapons in the hands of the Bosnian Moslems.
  Mr. President, in the course of the past few years, unfortunately, 
many of us have come to this floor to speak about the tragedy which has 
occurred and continues to occur in Bosnia today. Recent events in 
Gorazde are only the latest indicator of the inability of the world 
community to muster the moral courage and military might to end the 
slaughter of innocents which is taking place at the hands of Serbian 
aggressors.
  Mr. President, we find today that Gorazde is, in the words of the 
U.N. Commander on the ground, Lt. General Rose, ``on the verge of a 
major humanitarian catastrophe.''
  Artillery and mortar shells, regardless of the promises or signatures 
of the Serbian authorities, continue to fall on the innocent civilians 
of Gorazde, protecting themselves, as Senator Dole has said, with 
rifles in the face of Serbian tanks. Every 20 seconds, at different 
points in this week, death has hurtled its way into masses of civilians 
whose crime is that they happen to live or have sought refuge in a city 
the United Nations has declared a safe haven, in which the United 
Nations, the world community has said, ``OK, Bosnian Moslems, there are 
not a lot of places where you can feel safe in Bosnia but this is 
one.'' They have sought refuge in a place where the Serbian aggressors 
simply have not wanted them to go.
  How much more of this outrage are we going to tolerate? How much more 
of Bosnia needs to be ethnically cleansed? How many more people need to 
be injured or killed because of their religion before the world stops 
wringing its hands and takes strong and effective action to put 
handcuffs on the perpetrators of this evil?
  Mr. President, I know that all of us in this Chamber worry about the 
possibilities that action which we may take in Bosnia may not be 
carefully thought out and focused on ends that we seek to achieve 
reasonably that could lead to increased levels, if we are not careful, 
of violence but not progress toward resolution of the dispute. But 
inaction in the case of Serbian aggression has proven time and time 
again to be a prescription only for more suffering, death, and 
continued slaughter of innocents in Bosnia.
  When the world community finally stood together in the ultimatum 
issued in Sarajevo, we have seen the Serbs back down and the killing 
subside. When we make threats which we do not carry out, we have seen 
only more death and destruction.
  When we use the power that we have in an inspective and limited way, 
as we have around Gorazde, we see that the Serbs pay no heed to us. 
What will it take before we realize the value of these lessons the 
Serbian aggressors continue to teach us?
  Mr. President, we must act now at a minimum to give the people of 
Bosnia the chance they have been pleading for to defend themselves, by 
lifting this pernicious arms embargo and delivering, in an expeditious 
fashion, the weapons and equipment that will allow the Bosnian Moslems 
to defend their homes and their families. No one wants to see this war 
expanded. But by refusing to give these people the means of defending 
themselves, the world community condemns them to either death or life--
what is left of it--in a Serbian-controlled ghetto.
  Mr. President, I know that there is a dispute in this Chamber on the 
related question of whether allied air power should be used more 
extensively in Bosnia and Serbia to punish the aggressors and bring 
them, hopefully, to the peace table. I support the wider use of allied 
air power. I think we should not only--as the latest United Nations 
actions propose--use that air power to try to protect the safe havens, 
but we should go beyond that and hit command posts, supply lines, and 
military depots of the Bosnian-Serbian Army and of Serbia, which is 
supplying them.
  Mr. President, some of my colleagues have raised the question: ``Can 
we say with any confidence that this kind of use of allied air power 
would bring the war to an end? Air power never does.'' I agree with 
them.
  It takes action on the ground, not action by American soldiers sent 
to fight on the ground in Bosnia. No one is asking for that, not here 
in the United States Congress and not for the Bosnian Government. The 
action on the ground that can be taken, if we help them take it, is by 
the valiant Bosnian-Moslem soldiers who want to fight, who have fought 
successfully, but cannot fight with rifles against oncoming tanks.
  Mr. President, these are not easy issues which face the world 
community. But it is clearly in all of our interests to bring this 
nightmare to an end. The world was set back twice in this century while 
aggression went unchecked in Europe, and ultimately paid a much larger 
price for that early inaction.
  Mr. President, when the United States of America, the strongest 
Nation in the world, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 
most effective alliance in the history of the world, military alliance, 
when the United Nations, look impotent--and are impotent in the face of 
criminal actions, lawless action, bullying actions by the Serbian 
military which is a third- or fourth-rate army--then the security of 
every person in Europe, and indeed every person in the United States of 
America, is on the line.
  Here is an action, the lifting of this embargo, that we can take 
together that will make this a fair fight, and will allow us to again 
achieve some level of the high moral ground on which the United States 
has functioned best over our history, and while achieving that ground 
also serving the strategic interests of the United States and our 
allies in Europe.
  Mr. President, let me just briefly talk about the legal issues at 
work here. The embargo, as it exists now, violates the Bosnians' 
inherent right of self defense as codified in articles 2, 4, and 51 of 
the U.N. Charter. The right of self defense is a preeminent right of 
international law, and simply cannot be abridged by actions of the 
Security Council, such as the one that led to the U.S. executive branch 
action to impose this embargo, which we would lift by the amendment 
that Senator Dole and others and I have submitted here today.
  Denial of Bosnia's right to acquire weapons, to defend itself against 
aggression, to prevent the destruction of the state of Bosnia, to 
prevent genocide against Bosnian nationals, clearly violates Bosnia's 
international right of self defense. In abridging that right to self 
defense, the U.N. Security Council undertook to provide for the 
country's peace and international security. For 2 years, however, the 
Security Council has not taken measures necessary to maintain that 
peace and security in Bosnia. Accordingly, the U.N. Charter's provision 
of Bosnia's right to self defense through the acquisition of these 
defensive arms becomes preeminent.
  In other words, the arms embargo was imposed as part of a promise by 
the United Nations that the United Nations would act to maintain the 
security of Bosnia. The world community has clearly failed to do that. 
The least we can do is let them defend themselves. Continued 
application of this arms embargo conflicts with the obligations of the 
U.N. member states under the United Nations Convention on Genocide. It 
conflicts with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions, and U.N. 
General Assembly Resolution 4842.
  Mr. President, in the particular case of this amendment, it seems 
clear to me that in accordance with international law, our country, the 
United States of America, may unilaterally seek to end the embargo by 
declaring the embargo invalid, refusing to participate in the 
enforcement of the embargo, and supplying arms to the Republic of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  The declaration of the arms embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina as 
unlawful would not result in the invalidity of the economic and arms 
embargoes against such other States as Serbia and Iraq. It is not even 
a precedent in doing that, in my opinion. The circumstances are 
dramatically different. Unlike those States, Bosnia and Herzegovina is 
under direct military attack sponsored by a neighboring state. As much 
as 75 percent of Bosnia's territory is occupied by hostile forces 
seeking its destruction, and partition. Its population is subject to 
mass killings, rapes, forcible relocation, and other crimes of 
genocide, and Bosnia simply does not possess a sufficient supply of 
defensive arms to meet minimal requirements for self defense.
  In other words, while the embargoes against Iraq and Serbia are 
intended to punish aggressor nations, this embargo against weapons for 
the Bosnians is punishing a victim nation, and making it impossible for 
the people of that nation to exercise their fundamental right to 
protect themselves, their families, and their homes.
  Again, I thank the Senate Republican leader for his extraordinary 
leadership in this matter. I am confident that if the Senate stands 
together on a bipartisan basis to adopt this amendment, we will 
strengthen the desire and ability of President Clinton to lift the 
embargo, which has been the policy of this administration for more than 
a year. We will make it easier for him to convince our allies in Europe 
to join in lifting the embargo, and hopefully we will send a loud and 
clear message to the Serbian aggressors that the days of their 
unfettered, unlimited, unresponded-to 
aggression are over.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I want to thank again the Senator from 
Connecticut for his leadership.
  I want to just put in the Record a letter received yesterday from the 
mayor of Gorazde.
  Let me read the second paragraph. I think we all see these pictures 
and we sometimes understand. He says:

       The situation is horrifying. In one incident, a mother was 
     separated from her child on the streets.
        She had to be restrained from going to the child, who was 
     only a few feet away, in order to prevent the mother from 
     being killed along with her child.

  In any case, the child was killed.

       In the hospital, people tread through pools of blood. The 
     situation is the same in the streets.
       We appeal to civilization to help us. The grenades are 
     killing innocent, unarmed people. In the name of our 
     citizens, we ask Boutros-Ghali, the world, and the media, to 
     relay this request: Please use half of the planes used in 
     Iraq [in the Gulf War] not to bomb Serbian positions but to 
     bomb us. The citizens of Gorazde and the world will forgive 
     you for this act, for making our deaths easier.

  I suggest that is a very powerful statement, with the mayor saying, 
in effect: Kill us, bomb us, to make it easier.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From HAM Radio Reports, Apr. 20, 1994]

                                Gorazde

               (Statements by Gorazde Mayor Ismet Briga)

       1. An appeal from the citizens of the safe area of Gorazde 
     sent by the Major:
       We appeal to the United Nations and Boutros-Ghali to stop 
     the Serbian shelling and the agony of our city. The situation 
     is dire. We cannot comprehend how the West does not 
     understand what is happening, although, at first, we, too, 
     did not understand. We thought we were on the eve of the 21st 
     century, but we are back to medieval times. We, individually, 
     will forgive the Serbs, but the world should not.
       The situation is horrifying. In one incident, a mother was 
     separated from her child on the streets. She had to be 
     restrained from going to the child, who was only a few feet 
     away, in order to prevent the mother from being killed along 
     with her child. In any case, the child was killed. In the 
     hospital, people tread through pools of blood. The situation 
     is the same in the streets.
       We appeal to civilization to help us. The grenades are 
     killing innocent, unarmed people. In the name of our 
     citizens, we ask Boutros-Ghali, the world, and the media, to 
     relay this request: Please use half of the planes used in 
     Iraq [in the Gulf War] not to bomb Serbian positions but to 
     bomb us. The citizens of Gorazde and the world will forgive 
     you for this act, for making our deaths easier.
       2. For two years, Gorazde has been attacked with ammunition 
     used by Serbian forces, not the Bosnian Army. The Major would 
     like to inform President Clinton that his suggestion that the 
     people of Gorazde have been shelling themselves is shameful. 
     He calls on Manfred Woerner to launch NATO Air strikes on the 
     ``safe area'' itself so that its citizens can die with 
     dignity.
       3. The Major calls for a minute of silence in honor of the 
     mothers who have lost children in these attacks.
       4. Attacks are worse than yesterday, Serb forces are 
     destroying the city house-by-house, apartment-by-apartment. 
     City residents cannot bury their dead because so many have 
     been killed. Many people not otherwise wounded are shell-
     shocked.
       5. Technical materials, not ammunition, were produced in 
     the factory that the Serbs claim to be after as a military 
     target. The factory is behind the front lines and is not 
     producing anything at the moment.
       6. The hospital has been shelled non-stop all day. It now 
     looks like a derelict building that should be pulled down.
       7. The Serb forces are in the suburbs and have made their 
     way to the edge of the city center. Bosnian Army forces, 
     remarkably, still hold the city center.
  Mr. DOLE. Sometimes we forget, and some people think Serbia must be 
like the former Soviet Union, a third- or fourth-rate power. Compared 
to Bosnia, they have about 300 tanks; Bosnia has about 10. It is 10 to 
1 everywhere else. That is why they have a big advantage.
  To those who say they are worried about maybe escalating the 
violence, I suggest that all of the violence is on one side now. There 
is no opportunity for the poor Bosnian Moslems to defend themselves. 
Again, I visited with their Vice President yesterday, Mr. Ganic. He 
understands that we are not going to involve American troops. He would 
even understand some who say ``no airstrikes.''
  But what he cannot understand is why we are not willing to give them 
a chance to defend themselves. I do not know how you explain that to 
somebody. The U.N. Charter was pointed out by the Senator from 
Connecticut and will be pointed out by my colleague from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from 
Kansas, the distinguished Republican leader, for this very important, 
although perhaps a little late, measure to lift the United States 
embargo of Bosnia. We need to pass it and Congress needs to pass it and 
the President needs to act on it.
  I also find myself in complete agreement with the remarks of my 
friend from Connecticut, who has been involved in this issue for a very 
long period of time.
  Mr. President, I apologize ahead of time to this body if I am a 
little emotional in my remarks. I just finished meeting with Vice 
President Ganic, the Vice President of Bosnia. I wish every American 
could have the opportunity to meet with him and hear of the tragedy--
the preventable tragedy--that is befalling the citizens of that very 
tiny nation.
  Mr. President, we need to lift the embargo, either with the approval 
of the United Nations or without it. I do not say that lightly, because 
we are signatories to a U. N. resolution, which is binding. But the 
fact is--and I believe every American should know this--that the 
resolution was imposed on the then Yugoslavia, which no longer exists. 
I repeat, the resolution passed by the U. N. Security Council was 
applicable to the nation of Yugoslavia, which no longer exists.
  The U. N. Charter states in article 51:

       Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent 
     right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed 
     attack occurs against a member of the United Nations until 
     the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain 
     international peace and security.

  Repeating:

       Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent 
     right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed 
     attack occurs against a member of the United Nations * * *

  An armed attack is taking place against Bosnia, Mr. President. That 
nation, because of a Security Council resolution, is being prevented 
from defending itself. So we are now in violation of the charter of the 
United Nations, not to mention the Judeo-Christian principles upon 
which this Nation was founded.
  Mr. President, the Bosnian Vice President just told me that an 
ultimatum has been delivered to the Bosnians within Gorazde and that 
they have about an hour to get their troops within the confines of the 
city of Gorazde, or else there will be a full-scale attack against 
Gorazde. I do not know if it is true, but I know that if it is we have 
a group of people trying to defend themselves with weapons that are 
only effective at 20 meters. They do not have an antitank weapon. The 
Vice President of Bosnia said they do not want F-16's or B-1 bombers; 
they do not even want tanks. They want the ability to defend 
themselves. It boggles the mind for us to be concerned about a U.N. 
Security Council resolution which was enacted--an embargo was enacted--
on a nation that no longer exists.
  Mr. President, I am a student of history, and the fact is that this 
Nation may not have achieved its independence without the help from the 
sympathetic nation of France, who did not send many troops, but did 
send people to help, and supplies and equipment and other assistance, 
in order that we might gain independence in our struggle.
  As I say, we are clearly in violation of the fundamental principles 
in the United Nations, in that we have prevented a nation, through this 
embargo, from defending itself. That needs to be rectified and, 
frankly, the members of the United Nations should be the ones to do so, 
so that we, this Nation, will not have to do it by ourselves.
  But in all candor, for the President of the United States to say 
there is a comparison between this and the arms embargo on Iraq is not 
valid. It is not valid to compare what we are trying to do, to make 
sure Iraq does not engage in further aggression, with an embargo placed 
on a nation which no longer exists.
  Finally, Mr. President, we as a nation were founded upon certain 
principles. Those principles, we believed, did not apply just to 
residents of this continent. We believed in those principles, and 
steadfastly today hold to those principles as expressed in the 
following words:

       We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men--

  I repeat, ``all men''--

     --are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain 
     inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the 
     pursuit of happiness.

  This embargo is preventing those people from obtaining life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. We ought to act now, quickly, and in the 
name of the principles of this Nation. Let us do it, and do it quickly.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner] is 
recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am hopeful of trying to clarify 
precisely what is intended by the pending amendment. I have spoken 
several times in favor of lifting the embargo. I continue to be of that 
mind.
  The action of lifting the arms embargo should be taken because the 
West will be held accountable from this moment on in history for the 
fact that we have literally tied one arm behind the backs of the 
Bosnian Moslems and asked them to fight this bitter civil war without 
adequate weaponry. It is time we released that arm and gave them the 
option of receiving such weapons as can flow, so that they can do the 
best they can to defend themselves and hopefully regain the territory 
that is rightfully theirs.
  Mr. President, I am doggedly opposed to the United States taking 
unilateral action in this conflict. If it is the intent of this 
amendment to urge the President to show stronger leadership, I agree. 
But if in any way this amendment implies that if our allies do not act, 
then the United States should act alone and unilaterally, I am opposed. 
I do not want to see the stamp put on this conflict from this moment 
forward ``Made in the U.S.A.'' and the U.S.A. becomes responsible from 
this moment on and our allies step back and say, ``You took an action. 
We did not agree to it. It is your conflict. You supply the arms. You 
manage it. You take sides.'' That we should not do.
  Mr. President, I am hopeful that if one of more of the sponsors of 
this amendment reappear on the floor, we can enter into a colloquy. I 
see my good friend from Connecticut. I have expressed my concerns, I 
say to my good friend.
  I will yield for the purpose of a question if the Senator wishes to 
ask it, but I have further remarks.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend and colleague from Virginia. I want 
to respond to a question. Therefore, I will wait until he is finished. 
Then I will rise personally to explain what I believe the intention of 
the amendment is.
  Mr. WARNER. If the Senator wishes to put that in the form of question 
at this time, I would like to hear it.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Virginia for yielding while 
he retains the floor.
  I would ask him whether he would accept this personal understanding 
of what this amendment intends to do. I speak for myself, and I believe 
this is the intention of the distinguished Senate Republican leader, 
although obviously he will return to the floor and speak for himself.
  The intention here is for the United States to terminate the embargo 
currently existing on the transfer of weapons and other defense systems 
to the people and Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I think 
implicit in this is our hope that by passing this amendment we will 
encourage the President to go forward in his effort to negotiate with 
our allies a joint lifting of the embargo and we will send a message to 
the Serbian aggressors.
  But I do want to make clear to the Senator from Virginia what my 
understanding is here, which is that if the President is not able to 
convince our allies to join with us in lifting the embargo this, 
nonetheless, would have the President terminate the United States 
embargo unilaterally and that conclusion is based on the premise that 
we are leaders, that we will set the standard, that, in fact, the way 
to get the allies to move it may be for us to exercise that leadership, 
moral and strategic, to avoid exactly the concern that the Senator from 
Virginia has expressed.
  As the Bosnian Moslems suffer, perhaps history will ask where we 
were. We are saying at least by lifting the arms embargo, the United 
States of America did what it could at this fateful hour for Bosnia 
and, in fact, for Europe to help the Bosnian people defend themselves.
  So at bottom line the hope is for allied action. But the clear 
intention of this amendment is also to allow for the United States to 
lift the embargo unilaterally.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague from Connecticut.
  Mr. President, I am a lawyer; he is a lawyer. We should not be 
dealing here, especially with this background of strong emotion when 
all of us are watching this tragedy unfold daily. There is not a Member 
of this Chamber whose heart does not throb with compassion for the 
pitiful tragedy we see unfolding of human against human for reasons 
which are cultural and ethnic. That is not the question.
  Let us not as lawyers use the words that the Senator just used: You 
think it is the intention; you think it is implicit. Let us put it down 
very, very clearly. This is not an amendable amendment under our rules, 
a second-degree amendment, or I would seek to amend it. So my hands are 
tied to try to clarify this.
  I would urge the sponsor, if that is the intent, let us put it down 
with such clarity that the man on the street in hometown U.S.A. can 
understand it, because this is an important step. If it does not 
authorize it under this amendment, this is a step toward at least 
consideration of unilateral involvement of this country in that 
conflict.
  This Senator is opposed to unilateral action in that conflict. I 
think it is incumbent upon the drafters to come over here and make it 
very clear as to exactly what is meant.
  I can understand the legalities, and I have just been briefed on how 
it is questionable as to whether or not the existing U.N. resolutions 
are legal, how they should not tie the hands of the United States. But 
let us not get lost in legalities here today. Let us put it down in 
plain English.
  I need only remind my colleague of the tragedy that unfolded in 
Somalia as the Congress sort of laid back and allowed the Presidents in 
succession, Presidents Bush and Clinton, to involve our forces in that 
conflict. And then came the tragic events of October 3 and 4, 1993, in 
which some 17 were killed and some 70-plus sustained wounds--a terrible 
loss.
  Congress then began to react to the people of the United States who 
rose up and said ``What is our security interest in that country? What 
is it we are trying to do?''
  Both the President and the Congress share equal responsibility for 
having failed to explain to the American public precisely what those 
operations were for, precisely what our national security interest was, 
if any, in Somalia. It was more or less a humanitarian mission. And 
what happened? This Congress, indeed this very Chamber, led the fight 
to bring those troops home from Somalia by Christmas.
  Finally, in due course, basically behind the doors while the debate 
was taking place on this floor, cooler heads prevailed, and we allowed 
the President the right to decide, as Commander in Chief, when our 
troops should be brought home. And they were brought home, as we know, 
in March 1994, not Christmas.
  It was not a partisan debate. It was a debate between Senators on 
both sides of the aisle with understandable disagreements. The fact 
that the President and the Congress had failed to tell the people of 
the United States why our troops were there, what the risks were in 
terms of our most precious assets--and that is the men and women of the 
Armed Forces who go beyond these shores in the cause of freedom. The 
result was the Congress came close to overriding the President's 
authority as Commander in Chief.
  I do not want to see that happen here. We have not, in my judgment, 
sufficiently established for the American people whether or not the 
United States has a national security interest in the Balkans. I 
personally do not think there is one there to the degree to justify 
further U.S. military involvement.
  I am opposed to the expansion of the air strike option. It has proven 
futile. It was tried in good faith. Brave pilots of the United States 
and our allies flew the strikes. We know the facts. It did not deliver 
the message. It did not provide the leverage that the diplomats thought 
it would achieve, and I have grave doubts it will ever do so, even 
though the President says air strikes should be increased in intensity. 
That is a side issue to this, but nevertheless it is linked.

  I come back to the fundamental issue that the President and Congress 
have not assessed adequately the extent to which this country does or 
does not have a national security interest. Humanitarian, yes. National 
security, a big question mark. I happen to think we do not have a 
national security interest, certainly not to the level to require the 
further risk of our troops.
  And here we are today about to send a message that we wish to lift 
the embargo. As I said, I am in favor of it, but I would like to have 
in this debate--and I am going to oppose any time agreement until to my 
satisfaction we have had an adequate debate--within this debate we have 
to discuss the tough ramifications of lifting this embargo.
  What is the time element within which the Bosnian Moslems can train 
and learn to use heavy weaponry effectively? What is it we expect the 
Serbian aggressors to do while this interim time period is taking 
place?
  The Serbs may well start an aggression to take everything they 
possibly can before the first tank and the first artillery piece 
arrives. These are questions that I find most troubling.
  Yesterday, in a speech when I said we should lift the arms embargo 
and tried to explain it, I was accused by people who said, you are 
going to perpetrate genocide. The loss of life will be far greater than 
we are witnessing today.
  What is the timetable that we would hope to achieve for the flow of 
weapons? How can we guarantee that these weapons will get to the 
various locations where they can be utilized by the Moslem forces? Many 
of the land routes are through territory under the control of Croatia. 
Do we have any indication that they are agreeable to allowing their 
territory, such territory as they claim, to be utilized for the 
transfer of these weapons?
  So I say to my friends: Leadership, yes. I urge our President to show 
greater leadership, greater strength, in talking with our allies, and 
maybe there is a plan that all can agree on.
  What is the likelihood that the lifting of the embargo will succeed 
as hoped for? What will we do as a nation in concert with our allies if 
the lifting of the embargo fails? Are we to take another step?
  Each time we take a step over here--and regrettably we have taken a 
lot of false starts and steps forward and quickly steps back--there has 
not been an expression of opinion by the President, the Secretaries of 
State and Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Their 
has not been a consistent message from our leadership on these tough 
issues in Bosnia. And, as a result, how do we know that lives have not 
been lost of late because of the failure of a clear, concise and 
unified U.S. policy?
  I do not want to see this body fall into the same trap to send a 
message which will be heard around the world--the Senate pronounces 
that the embargo should be lifted--until we know exactly what the 
consequences of lifting it are, how it would be implemented and what is 
the opinion of the American people about what should or should not be 
done to rectify this tragic situation in Bosnia.
  Finally, I ask of my good friend from Connecticut, how do we avoid a 
repetition of the tragic circumstances that took place in Somalia, 
where we went with the best of intentions and sacrificed the lives of 
our men and women in the Armed Forces, and saw our President's policy 
nearly reversed by this Congress in response to the outcry of the 
American people from coast to coast in this country?
  I ask that question to my friend.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  I note the presence of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations and my colleague from Massachusetts. I would indicate 
to them I intend to respond briefly and yield the floor to them. The 
Senator from Virginia has raised some serious questions.
  May I say that it is the intention of the sponsors of this amendment 
to speak with just the clarity and conviction that the Senator has 
found absent in other statements and other leadership.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I say that you have not done that when you 
say to me it the intention of the amendment and you think it is 
implicit in the amendment. What do you have expressly in the language 
that we and every American can understand?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, we have a disagreement, the Senator 
from Virginia and I.
  The language of this amendment is extremely clear. Let me state it to 
him exactly. I believe my colleague from Virginia may not support the 
language of the amendment.
  The amendment seeks to make clear that the United States shall 
unilaterally lift the embargo on the distribution or sale of weapons to 
the Government of Bosnia. If I indicated any tentativeness earlier, it 
was only on the question, which I believe is shared by the cosponsors, 
that it would be our understanding that the President would seek to 
convince our allies to join with us in that.
  But I say to the Senator from Virginia, there is a clear intention 
here--and by his statement, I understand he does not support it--which 
is that this is a moment, as he has said, of moral imperative. And one 
response to that moral imperative that I hope we can agree on is to at 
least have the United States, acting unilaterally if necessary, not to 
deny the people of Bosnia the arms with which they could defend 
themselves.
  We may disagree on the question of air strikes. I do not think we 
disagree on the question of whether American troops should be sent to 
serve on the ground in Bosnia. I have not heard anybody say that, and I 
certainly would not support that.
  In fact, the last paragraph of this amendment, offered by the Senate 
Republican leader, makes clear: ``Nothing in this section shall be 
interpreted as authorization for deployment of U.S. forces in the 
territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose.''
  Second, the Senator from Virginia raises the question about Somalia. 
This is a very different circumstance, certainly in terms of what the 
United States would do if this amendment passes. We are not talking 
here about sending American soldiers to Bosnia, as we did in Somalia. 
We are talking about sending American weapons to the Bosnian fighters 
so they could use them to defend themselves.
  I agree with the concerns--and I admired the Senator from Virginia 
when he stated them at the time of the crisis in Somalia--that public 
opinion, that Members of Congress not tie the hands of the Commander in 
Chief in terms of the deployment of American personnel, forcing the 
Commander in Chief to bring back American troops at a premature date. 
That was worked out.
  In my opinion, we are not dealing here, in the lifting of this 
embargo, with the President's powers under the Constitution as 
Commander in Chief--no personnel involved; no troops. We are dealing 
here with what I would view as the foreign policy powers of the U. S. 
Congress.
  What we are doing here, in asking that the embargo be lifted, is 
comparable, for instance, to what we do when we say in our foreign aid 
appropriations bills, in our Foreign Military Assistance Act, and 
earmarking as we often do: Congress directs that x dollars or x systems 
be sent to y foreign nation for the purpose of protecting 
themselves. It is quite comparable--we may agree or disagree with the 
recommendation made earlier this week by my colleague from Connecticut 
and several others, directing the United States to increase sanctions 
against the Government of Haiti.

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator respond to this, then?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will.
  Mr. WARNER. You have answered, No. 1, you interpret this as saying 
the United States shall unilaterally lift whatever embargo we have.
  I ask my good friend, does that not send a signal to the people 
tragically suffering, the Muslims: We have lifted it, and it implies 
we, then, will send some weapons? Is that not a logical--
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Through the Chair to my friend from Virginia, I say 
the Senator's statement is absolutely right. That is a logical 
conclusion. And not only is it a logical conclusion, it is the 
intention of the sponsors of the amendment. And it is the desire of the 
duly elected leadership of Bosnia.
  The Senator said earlier he was concerned that the sending of weapons 
might either raise the hopes of the people there unfairly or contribute 
to more deaths. Earlier the Senate Republican leader read a letter from 
the mayor of Gorazde saying, astoundingly, movingly, that he felt the 
people of Gorazde would rather U.S. planes bombed Gorazde in an effort 
to force out the Serbian aggressors than have the people of Gorazde die 
defenseless at the hands of those Serbian aggressors. So their desire 
is clear.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, let me then qualify. My colleague 
interprets the amendment as saying legally we, the United States, will 
lift our embargo. And you agree with my observation this sends a 
message--again using your word--it implies that the United States is 
saying we will be sending arms.
  I ask my friend, if our allies, mainly Great Britain and France, who 
have at risk their own people in the UNPROFOR forces in Bosnia today, 
those forces, commingled geographically with combatants on all sides, 
be they Serbs, Moslems or Croatians, those UNPROFOR troops right in the 
crossfire of this combat--supposing Great Britain and France say, ``You 
shall not, United States, send arms in. We object to those arms going 
in.''
  Could that not happen?
  Mr. KERRY. Will my colleague yield?
  Mr. WARNER. Let me just finish the question and I will be glad to 
yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY. I just wanted to add to the question, if I may?
  Mr. WARNER. Let us get this one answered. My colleague can answer it. 
Then I will be happy to receive his question.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. It is quite possible, in response to the Senator from 
Virginia, that our allies in Europe might give the response that he has 
given. But I would say this. The suffering of the defenseless victims 
in Bosnia sounds louder to me, and I think to the sponsors of this 
amendment, than the possible expression of opposition by our allies in 
Europe. My hope is that they will decide to join us.
  Again, I say to my colleague, I have spoken to the Prime Minister of 
Bosnia, as many us have here, and the Vice President. They say, ``If 
you gave us a choice of whether to have the ability to receive arms to 
defend ourselves or to keep the British and French peacekeepers in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the choice for us is an easy one. We would say, 
``Thank you,'' to the British and French peacekeepers, and wish them 
farewell, in order to receive the weapons with which to defend our 
families and our homes.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think I received a third answer, and 
that is that we go ahead, irrespective of whether Britain or France 
agree. I say that is unilateral intervention by the United States. That 
stamps this conflict, then, ``Made in the U.S.A.'' And we become 
responsible, not only for the further loss of life by the Serbian and 
Moslems and Croatians that may die, but also the UNPROFOR forces of 
many nations, who are there bravely trying to provide assistance to 
those who are suffering.
  This is a very serious risk, Senator. I think before this body acts 
on this resolution, we must have a clear understanding of what reaction 
would come from our allies. I once again say I am unalterably opposed 
to unilateral action or even sending a signal we intend to act 
unilaterally. I urge the President to use the most forceful of 
leadership. I will support the lifting of the embargo, providing it is 
done in unity with our allies.
  One further comment. Yes, I oppose the introduction of United States 
ground forces in Bosnia. But let us not overlook the fact that we have 
United States pilots today fighting in the skies over Bosnia. As far as 
I am concerned, an airman is just as valuable as one of our ground 
troops, and we should not dismiss the risk that they are taking, the 
risk that they could be shot down, the risk that they could become 
prisoners along with the UNPROFOR forces. They will be taken prisoner 
the moment the signal is sent. They will be taken as hostages if this 
embargo is lifted.
  I say to my friend, yesterday in the Armed Services Committee we had 
an Air Force officer, now a CINC, General Horner, who is now in charge 
of our Strategic Command. He was our air commander in the Persian Gulf 
war, recognized for brilliantly executing, under General Schwarzkopf, 
the air part of that conflict. I asked the General, ``How many missions 
did the allied forces fly in the gulf operation?''
  ``Senator, you would be astonished. In a period of 6 weeks, January 
to February 1991, 100,000 missions were flown.''
  It is clear that the air war was a critical part of the vicory in 
that conflict for the coalition forces. Even though there were 100,000 
sorties, this was not decisive and it took several hundred thousand 
ground troops to secure victory.
  This use of air power in the past weeks in Bosnia, a mission here, a 
mission there, weather problems that we did not have in the gulf 
operation, such missions will never succeed.
  I am concerned we are raising false hopes, both the President by 
saying he is going to augment the use of air power and this Chamber by 
saying we are going to lift the embargo. We have not, in my judgment, 
sufficiently thought through all of the ramifications.
  I lastly ask my question to my friend. Then I will yield the floor to 
others because I am anxious to hear from them, as we all are.
  If we send forth this message that we are going to lift the embargo 
unilaterally, what is the likelihood of the Serbian forces then 
beginning to take more and more hostages from the UNPROFOR, which are 
right there as we speak today, trying to fulfill humanitarian missions?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the question of the Senator from 
Virginia is a fair one. He asked earlier about what reaction the 
Bosnian Serbian army might take in response to the lifting of the arms 
embargo against the Bosnians. I would say there is not much worse. 
Certainly from the point of view of the Bosnian Moslems, 200,000 people 
killed in the last 2 years, 2 million refugees forced out of their 
homes, there is not much worse that could happen to these people than 
has happened to them while the rest of the world effectively stood by 
and let them suffer defenseless.
  So there are no guarantees of how anyone will act in a circumstance 
of this kind. But one thing we know is that our inaction up until this 
time has been a failure. It has failed to impede the progress of 
aggression. It has failed to stop the genocidal acts that are 
occurring.
  I must say, though some of the questions the Senator from Virginia is 
asking are obviously quite important and fair, I am disappointed that 
he would oppose the unilateral lifting of the arms embargo by the 
United States, because I had hoped that on that ground--I understand 
the dispute about the use of air power. Although I must say the 
reference to the gulf war is a good one, we have not really used allied 
air power here.
  We have tweaked their noses and not really brought the force that we 
have to bear in a way that would hurt the aggressors, the Bosnian Serbs 
and those who support them and supply them in Serbia.
  The Senator from Virginia has said he is concerned that lifting the 
embargo unilaterally would put a ``Made in the U.S.A.'' stamp on this 
conflict.
  What it would do, responding to something the Senator from Virginia 
said at the outset of his remarks, would be to put a stamp that said at 
least in this way the people of the United States of America did not 
stand by, did not equivocate. We at least sent weapons to the victims 
of aggression and genocidal acts with which they could defend 
themselves.
  That is a stamp that is consistent with the best moral traditions of 
our people and our foreign policy, and a stamp which history, I think, 
will applaud and not criticize.
  So I hope we can find a way to have unanimous, or at least 
substantial, support in this Chamber for the unilateral lifting of the 
arms embargo. It is an act of leadership in a conflict in a world that 
is sorely lacking.
  I say, finally, the Senator from Virginia has had a proud and long 
and distinguished record in strengthening the rule of order and law in 
the world in supporting the development of strength of the U. S. 
military to protect our national security and world order.
  I know that he shares my feeling that when we are in a situation 
where, as Senator Dole, the Senate Republican leader, said earlier, a 
third- or fourth-rate military power can intimidate and make the United 
States, the world's superpower, and NATO, the greatest military 
alliance in the history of the world, look timid and weak, then the 
message to Europe, to other aggressors there and throughout the world, 
to the leadership of North Korea, for instance, Iraq, Libya--wherever 
we may have enemies--that message is the wrong message we want to send.
  We need to find a resolve to a complicated situation in Bosnia, 
obviously. But to me there is a clear aggressor, and that is the 
Bosnian Serb army. There is a clear party that is guilty of genocidal 
acts. That is the Bosnian Serbs. We have a strategic interest and a 
moral obligation, at least, to stand together and say we will give 
these people the arms with which to defend themselves.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in closing, would the drafters of this 
amendment consider amending it in some manner to reflect that while the 
United States may have a legal right under international law to lift 
such embargo as this country is responsible for, we will do that, but 
we will not act unilaterally in this conflict in opposition to our 
allies; that we will only take such further actions in concert with our 
allies? Could that be made a part of this amendment with such clarity 
as we can all then have the feeling that we will not see this conflict 
suddenly transform into one for which the United States of America is 
primarily responsible?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, there would never be an occasion on 
which this Senator would hesitate to sit down and discuss and try to 
work out an arrangement that could be supported mutually with the 
Senator from Virginia. I have enormous respect for him. But I must say 
I feel very strongly--and I speak only for myself and not the Senate 
Republican leader or the other sponsors of this amendment--that this is 
a moment in which this body should speak with clarity and eliminate and 
avoid conditions and qualifications, and to say very clearly that we 
intend to unilaterally lift the arms embargo so we can supply weapons 
to the Moslems in Bosnia to allow them to defend themselves.
  I say that with the understanding that the President will continue to 
negotiate with our allies, and I hope that our allies will join us. 
But, most of all, what I want this amendment to do is to provide help 
for the Bosnian Moslems and put a little bit of fear into the Bosnian 
Serb aggressors, which they have not had until this time.
  The Senator from Virginia asked what the impact on the Bosnian Serbs 
and others in Bosnia will be as a result of passage of this amendment. 
Right now the Bosnian Serbs are acting like thugs in a lawless 
territory, firing at civilians, ignoring a declaration of safe havens 
where the Moslems can run--leaving the homes they were forced out of 
only because of their religion--going into Sarajevo where we had an 
agreement and taking antiaircraft weapons out of a depot that the 
United Nations was storing them in, acting with such pernicious 
disregard for promises they made that even their historic allies in 
Russia have left the field of negotiations feeling they could not trust 
them.
  Mr. President, I say to my friend from Virginia, there is nothing 
more that we could do here that would embolden the Serbs to do anything 
worse than they have done now. They are animals running without regard 
to the law through what used to be a civilized and peaceful land.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will remind my good friend from 
Connecticut that I ran a calculation. There are 36 conflicts going on 
in the world today. Most of them civil wars, cultural wars, religious 
wars. Yes, we are appalled about the tragedy unfolding before our eyes 
in Bosnia. Yes, we have compassion. But this Senator draws the line. I 
am speaking today for the future involvement, the future credibility of 
this country and the future risk of lives of the men and women in the 
Armed Forces that wear our uniform. We cannot become militarily 
involved in every humanitarian tragedy in the world.
  Madam President, does the Senator from Massachusetts wish to address 
a question to the Senator from Virginia?
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I had a question that I wanted to follow up 
with the Senator. Is the Senator willing to yield the floor?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to retain the floor and 
entertain his question, as I can.
  (Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN assumed the chair.)
  Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I also have some statements I want to 
make with respect to this.
  I join with the Senator from Virginia in some respects, and I join 
with the Senator from Connecticut in others. But I want to make it 
clear, along with the Senator from Virginia, that this amendment, in 
its current form, I believe, has flaws.
  I would like to lift the embargo under the appropriate procedures and 
with an appropriate process. But the Senator from Virginia is 
absolutely correct in raising certain questions and in asking the 
Senate to make a judgment about whether or not this is the best method 
of accomplishing the goal that the Senator from Connecticut seeks.
  For instance, the language of the second-degree amendment--I regret 
that this is second degreed in the way it is. This is far too important 
an issue to come to the floor and plunk down in front of us a second-
degree, prearranged amendment that may even have flaws with respect to 
the intentions of the proponents, but which does not allow us in the 
U.S. Senate to flesh out a vital foreign policy issue.
  Let me be very specific, Madam President. There is a unilateralness 
to this which the Senator seeks, I understand, in terms of the message 
we want to send. But the messages that are also sent with respect to 
our allies and current negotiating efforts the administration is in the 
middle of, could conceivably be extraordinarily damaging.
  It seems to me that the amendment would be a much stronger amendment 
if there at least was a 2- or 3-day or an immediate effort embraced in 
the amendment to respect the multilateral manner by which we engaged in 
this, and to respect the multilateral manner in which we will most 
likely finally reach some kind of resolution.
  If we just run off in a unilateral fashion, to be specific, what 
happens to the current fragile cooperation of Russia? Do we then create 
a new threat to Boris Yeltsin and the capacity of the Russians to 
cooperate, which invites their need politically to respond to the Serbs 
in a way that deprives us of some of the very response of air attacks 
that the President is now contemplating?
  We would, in fact, make matters worse for the people of Gorazde if 
all of a sudden the Russians were to say, ``Well, in view of this 
unilateral action, we are no longer prepared to support the air attacks 
because you have clearly entered on the side of one of the protagonists 
in a manner that is not called for by the current dynamics of the 
negotiating process.''
  So I would respectfully say I do not know the answer for certain to 
that, but I do know that the Senate should not vote on this until we 
have some understanding of what those implications are. I suspect the 
answer is that the Russians would view this with grave implications, 
that the Russians would see this as a threat to their relationship in 
the region, and that it would alter the balance of power in the 
immediate circumstances that would make matters worse, not better.
  Now, I do not think the Senator from Connecticut wants that to 
happen. Now, I wish to preface my statement by saying I wish to lift--I 
wanted to lift the embargo a year ago, and the timing was correct a 
year ago. The timing was correct for a lot of things that we chose not 
to do a year ago including, I might add, what the Senator from Virginia 
has said, which is to bring the American people into some consensus 
about what is really at stake in the region and what is not at stake in 
the region.
  I might add, however, I happen to disagree with the Senator from 
Virginia that there has not been at least some effort to do that. 
Secretary of State Christopher, in February a year ago, said that ``the 
continuing destruction of the new U.N. member state challenges the 
principle that internationally recognized borders should not be altered 
by force.'' He said, ``The conflict may not have natural borders, but 
it threatens to spill over into new regions.'' He said, ``It could 
become a greater Balkan war.'' He said, ``The river of fleeing 
refugees, which has reached the hundreds of thousands, would swell and 
the political and economic fiber of Europe, as demonstrated by the 
former Communist States, would be further strained.''
  So it is not as if there has been no further effort to try to 
describe this. The fact is though we find ourselves in a situation 
where there is not a clear understanding by the American people, where 
there is not a clear definition of the progression we might be willing 
to go down in an effort to assert our interests.
  Now, I think yesterday the President of the United States made it 
very, very clear. It is the policy of this country to not only try to 
protect Gorazde but to try to extend the concept of the safe zones in 
the areas of dispute.
  It seems to me that that is a clear definition of a policy, and that 
is very much in play right now. I think we should put it on a very 
short fuse, Madam President. I think that we ought to look at this 
resolution and any effort to lift the embargo unilaterally in the light 
of a very short fuse. And I would respectfully submit to my colleagues 
that if we take the time to fashion a resolution that creates a 
sufficient process for the President to be able to carry out the 
Presidential prerogatives that he exercised yesterday and we link the 
lifting of an embargo to the failure of the Bosnian Serbs to come to 
the table or to the failure of the air power to resolve some of these 
questions, then we will do far more to induce their behavior while 
simultaneously maintaining the integrity of the message the Senator 
wants to send and of the common sense, if you will, of the United 
States Senate.
  So I think this needs to be fleshed out more. I ask my colleague from 
Connecticut, is he prepared to end the humanitarian effort in Bosnia? 
Because that may be one of the implications of this amendment.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I say in response to the question of 
the Senator from Massachusetts, this Senator does not feel that would 
be one of the implications, one of the results of the passage of this 
amendment.
  Mr. KERRY. My colleague from Connecticut says he does not think it 
would be. Let me say to my friend that the Bosnian Serbs have made it 
clear that if the United States is perceived as somehow entering the 
conflict of this particular moment in a way that in the current 
dynamics is unilateral, they may decide they are going to take 150 or 
200 UNPROFOR people hostage as a consequence.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. They have already done that.
  Mr. KERRY. But they have been releasing them in the last few days, 
Madam President. We seem to have made the point and we seem to be 
breaking through in the last few days.
  Now, I cannot deny there is a perfidy that is unacceptable in their 
actions in Gorazde. It is unacceptable, beyond anybody's standards, to 
lob mortars and direct artillery shells straight into a hospital. And 
that is why I think the President should put the bombing on a much 
shorter fuse. But we should think very carefully about at the very 
moment that the President is saying I am prepared to bomb, we want to 
simultaneously take the step unilaterally, unilaterally, to have a 
greater impact on this.
  Now, I would say to my colleague, if the United States is truly 
prepared--and I hope it is and I believe it is--to follow through on 
this threat of air strikes, and if we are prepared to stay the course, 
I respectfully submit and I believe that we will change Bosnian Serb 
behavior. We may not. But if we make it clear that we are responding 
specifically to their perfidy, specifically to their inhumanity, 
specifically to their willingness to attack innocent women and 
children, and to defy the United Nations and NATO and the will of the 
civilized world, I believe we have the high moral ground and the world 
will understand our bombings.
  But I believe that if we moved unilaterally, without even the consent 
of our allies, who have the troops on the ground--it is their risk on 
the ground today, not ours--we would be inviting an irresponsible 
international reaction.
  What is wrong with having an amendment, which I would vote for, that 
suggests the condition precedent to our lifting the embargo, on very 
short order, I might add. I respectfully submit to my colleague that if 
we set up a continuum of conditions precedent to our actions and vote 
that we will lift the embargo in the event that the Bosnian Serbs do 
not respond, we will do far more to elicit a response than if we ask 
ourselves to unilaterally lift this embargo.
  So I just think this needs to be fleshed out. And I regret that this 
is in a second-degree form, because I think we could come up with an 
amendment that is strong, that is sensible, that reflects an important 
message which the Senate ought to send.
  I wish to make it clear, the Senator from Connecticut is absolutely 
correct to come to the floor with a sense of outrage. He is 100 
percent, together with the minority leader, appropriately suggesting 
that the United States owes the world leadership on this. We do. We do 
owe the world leadership on this. And we have been, frankly, going on a 
slippery rock, from rock to rock, into deeper and deeper water, without 
a clarification of what we are going to do once we are swimming, if we 
know how to swim.
  So I say respectfully that we have an obligation here to approach 
this as the greatest deliberative body ought to, which is sensibly and 
slowly and carefully. I am not suggesting we should not vote. I would 
like to have an amendment I could vote for, and I hope my colleague and 
the minority leader will help us, together with the Senator from 
Virginia, to come together on this in a way to fashion a sensible 
foreign policy message. And I join my colleague--I have to go to a 
hearing. I would stay here and debate this at great length. But I am 
not going to agree to a time agreement until such time as we have 
really tried to flesh out these issues further. There is a great deal 
more to be said. I am not going to say it now, but I certainly want to 
be able to reserve the right to do that.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts. 
While we may have differences on the use of air power, I initiated this 
debate along the framework of the question as to what happens under 
this amendment on the unilateral question. I think the Senator and I 
have a meeting of the minds. I hope others will join and that we can 
work with the distinguished Republican leader and his distinguished 
group of cosponsors here to fashion an amendment which we can all agree 
to and get behind.
  Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I appreciate that. I want to work with my 
colleague to do that, and I hope we can work with the Senator from 
Connecticut.
  On the air issue, the Senator is as versed, if not more so, as the 
former ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, and more 
importantly as the former Secretary of the Navy. I understand the 
limits of air power. But I also understand the limits of the Serbs. And 
I cannot disagree with the comments of the Senator from Kansas when he 
talks about this power.
  For heaven's sake, the United States of America spent 40 years 
building up a military that was supposed to be able to fight not just 
the former Yugoslavia but every single one of the Warsaw Pact nations 
and the Soviet Union. Here we are faced with one small partition of one 
country of the Warsaw Pact, and we are kind of putzing around as to how 
much message we are willing to send to make the price for the Serbs 
high. Yesterday, the President made that clear. I have no illusions.
  Might you tighten resolve? Yes. You might. Could it conceivably turn 
then to say we are going to prolong this? Yes. It might. But the 
alternative is to do nothing, the alternative is to admit failure, and 
the alternative is to accept that the United Nations and the NATO are 
impotent in the face of any kind of threat. The alternative is to 
invite demagogs and despots in the rest of the world to believe they 
can challenge that power with impunity and not with a price.
  My own belief is that if the United States of America were more clear 
and more determined to accept the risks and the limits of what is 
involved in pressing the air strikes, the Serbs might have a different 
message in that chess game that they were so prominently displaying in 
the New York Times the other day.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, let me say to my friend before he 
departs the floor, let us examine the use of air power in the Persian 
Gulf. I mentioned before the Senator arrived that there were 100,000 
sorties flown in a period of 6 weeks during that conflict. There was a 
clear demarcation--the boundary of Iraq. Once we went behind that 
boundary, we knew the enemy, but even there was collateral damage to 
civilians.
  We had the best of weather conditions; the best of air bases. We had 
carefully marshaled all the assets for a major conflict before we 
initiated that conflict.
  The situation in Bosnia is starkly different. You have difficult 
terrain in which to spot targets and operate. You have very difficult 
weather conditions. You have the Serbian forces, which are designated 
as the enemy, colocated but a mile or less from civilian populations, 
and a mile or less from UNPROFOR forces. We cannot release the air 
power, or even a fraction of it, that we used in the gulf in this 
conflict. And we should not mislead the American people that air power 
can turn this battle.
  I say to my good friend from Massachusetts that sometimes leadership 
is more difficult to exercise by way of restraint than by using 
military force.
  Mr. KERRY. Madam President, let me just say to my friend that 
everything he said is correct. Everything he said is correct. I do not 
argue with it. His description of the limitations in the gulf is 
accurate, and he is as knowledgeable as anybody in the U.S. Senate.
  But here is I think respectfully the distinction. While we may be 
able to specifically turn the battle at Gorazde by pointing the air 
strikes at Gorazde, the Serbs have an enormous number of assets in 
other locations that we are aware of that are not near civilians and 
that are not part of that battle. I believe that because they are 
defying their own word, because they are going against their own 
agreement, because they are violating their own understanding--and the 
world understands that--and because they are engaging in behavior that 
is contrary to the rules of warfare, the world will understand if the 
NATO and U.N. attack targets that are not in the area of Gorazde or of 
civilians, but which make the price higher.
  I admit to the Senator that may or may not work. I rather suspect 
that if the Serbs saw a united determination of the world to make it 
clear that the United Nations word is not going to be flaunted and that 
the will of civilized people is not going to be trampled on, I would 
suspect that they would understand this is a serious measure, that it 
will cost them dearly, and that it will do what it did at Sarajevo. It 
worked at Sarajevo. Those who are clamoring for leadership should 
respect the fact that this President of the United States and his team 
brought about the events of Sarajevo, and they also brought about the 
peace between the Croats and the Moslems.
  So I would respectfully suggest things are happening. I think that 
the use of that air power is worth the effort recognizing all of the 
limitations.
  I would also say that with respect to this particular resolution that 
I would be much more comfortable if this resolution made it far clearer 
that we are doing this in response to the specific Bosnian Serb perfidy 
and to their behavior, that we are respecting the neutrality, if you 
will, and that this is really not entering into the effort. It is in 
response to their actions and would only occur if those actions 
continued.
  That is a far more sensible way to approach the choices that are 
presented to us, far more responsible way to approach it than 
otherwise.
  (Mr. KERREY assumed the chair.)
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would ask one more question. I observe 
the presence of the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, and I will momentarily yield.
  I ask my friend from Massachusetts, if that is the strategy to be 
used, this air power and these significant attacks on targets, supply 
depots, avenues of approach, which are clearly in Serbian territory, I 
presume that territory is Bosnian Serbian territory and not Serbia 
proper.
  Would the Senator clarify that?
  Mr. KERRY. That would be clearly the first order of priority. But may 
I say to the Senator, if the behavior continued--and here you have 
obviously an extraordinarily difficult issue to work out with the 
Russians--but you would have to make it clear that that was an option 
on the list. Obviously, the Russians play significantly in this. But a 
first order of priority is Bosnia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask of my distinguished colleague, with 
that use of force it would clearly be perceived that we, the United 
States, together with our allies who presumably would participate, and 
I assume we are talking about NATO air strikes, not just U.S. air 
strikes----
  Mr. KERRY. I am.
  Mr. WARNER. Then we have chosen sides in this conflict. Let there be 
no doubt we have chosen sides.
  I wish to ask this question: Clearly defined, are we doing this in 
response to compassion and emotion, or are we doing it as a part of the 
NATO force consistent with a clear national security interest in 
Bosnia? I suggest it is a result of emotion and compassion, and there 
is an absence of a clear national security interest.
  Mr. KERRY. I think that the Senator from Virginia has asked one of 
the best questions, and it has been long lacking from the debate and 
the framework within which we are trying to approach this issue.
  It is the question what should have been debated in this country, and 
what should have been set out for this country a long time ago is a 
clearer discussion of what the progression is here. What is the 
slippery slide? We have been dancing around. We have been sort of 
sending the message that we want to be militarily strong, that we are 
prepared to use force. But is the United States prepared to use force? 
Are we prepared to see body bags coming back and arriving at Dover, DE? 
That is what the Senator is asking. What is at stake here?
  I respectfully submit to the Senator from Virginia that the answer is 
there is a vital national security interest. How vital? Is it as vital 
as others that we have faced more recently in other parts of the world 
where we have chosen to send troops and fight wars? The answer is 
``no.''
  But does it rise to the level of legitimate national security 
interest? The answer to that is absolutely yes. We have a vital 
national security interest in the stability of Europe. We have a vital 
national security interest in the ability of the United Nations to not 
have its word flaunted, to not have its intent simply trampled on by 
thugs and war criminals.
  We have a vital national interest in not having this spill over in 
Macedonia and Kosovo. We have a vital national interest, I believe, in 
having our own leadership mean something in the world, so that we do 
not wind up inviting other people in other parts of the world to put us 
to the test like Francois and Cedras in Haiti, who scoffed their noses 
at us only days after we moved out of Somalia. That is what is at stake 
here, and I think that is important.
  I know the Senator, who is a passionate advocate of an adequate 
defense for this country, and who understands the stakes of foreign 
policy, would share with me a view that the word of the United States 
and the word of the United Nations and the word of NATO and their 
ability to effect their power is important in future conflicts and in 
future negotiations. That is an interest.
  Is it a vital interest that predicates that we should put American 
troops on the ground? No, I do not believe that; not unless there is a 
peace of some kind and we are in peacekeeping, not peacemaking, 
component. I do believe fervently that air power here is one of the 
tools that we have available to us, commensurate with a level of 
national interest that I have just described. If the national interests 
were greater, then we would talk about putting marines in. If the 
national interests were even greater, we might talk about the kind of 
confrontation we had in Cuba. It clearly is not that.
  The problem is that we have never spent enough time defining the 
interests and measuring the levels of response. The Serbs understand 
that, so they are operating with a perception that when push comes to 
shove, the United States will back down. They were given succor the 
other day and an ability to believe that--I mean, in the total of all 
of this war with ethnic cleansing, with rape as a calculated tool of 
war, with the most extraordinary bombardment and movement of civilians, 
we have dropped, through NATO and the United Nations, a total of six 
bombs, and three did not go off.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I must say that, to me, that did not 
establish a national security interest. I do not believe we have a 
national security interest. But your definition that it is there to the 
extent we use air power but is not there to the extent we use ground 
forces, that is a fallacious, I say to my good friend, formula. I think 
a U.S. airman's life, a downed pilot, captured on the ground, is just 
as valuable as any marine that marches in. So I cannot distinguished 
between air and ground in terms of the level of our national security 
interest.
  I disagree with my good friend that this conflict could destroy U.S. 
credibility in Europe. We have stood side by side with the Europeans in 
two major world wars. The Europeans have looked to us for leadership 
every year since World War II. We have given it time and time again in 
the form of our support for NATO. Our record is clear.
  And I do not think this conflict, certainly in the last 2 years, has 
come to the point where Europe is about to fall, convulse, implode, or 
otherwise destruct, as a consequence of this tragic conflict. You say 
``casualties.'' There were tens of thousands of casualties over the 
past several weeks in Rwanda alone. That is life. There are 36 
conflicts in the world today of civil war proportions, with life being 
lost.
  We cannot say that because the United States is not involved in those 
many conflicts, that our credibility is weakened. I think it is wrong 
in this debate to go back and examine from this day backward, what went 
wrong and what went right. We will have to do that another day. Let us, 
on this day, not only thank the Republican leader and his cosponsors 
for initiating this debate, which is long overdue, but let us address 
from this day forward what the U.S. interest is and what we should do.
  I say that I am yet unconvinced that we have a national security 
interest which justifies the use of our military--be it air, or 
otherwise--as recommended by the Senator from Massachusetts and the 
President. I think that would be a mistake, and it would end up that 
this conflict is stamped ``made in the U.S.A.''
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if I could answer my friend. No one has 
suggested putting a different level of values on the lives. No one has 
suggested that. Obviously, the airman's life is at risk. For Heaven's 
sake, there are troops of France, and troops of a host of other 
countries, that are there now, and we ought to care as much about them, 
frankly, because they are part of our effort. They are doing our 
bidding, in essence, almost our mercenaries, because we are willing to 
pay for it, but we are not willing to put the troops on the ground.
  These troops need this air support in order to be protected. That is 
what Lieutenant General Rose decided, and we have given him the 
command. I know my friend respects the notion of letting command make a 
decision. I say also that those who put on the uniform are prepared to 
accept certain kinds of risks, and there are different gradations of 
what a nation is willing to do in certain kinds of situations.
  Our friend in the chair, who was a Navy Seal, knows full well that 
there are different kinds of missions that you can get sent on. And 
sometimes they will say to you when you go out on a mission: You are on 
your own; you are not going to have cover on this one, or we are not 
going to be able to come in and pick you up. You guys have to go get 
off there yourselves.
  This is the risk you take. Usually, American soldiers have had the 
courage and gumption to raise their hands and say, ``We will take that 
risk.'' It does not mean we do not value them. We make judgments every 
single day in foreign policy, and in the conduct of our military 
affairs, about what we are willing to put in or not put into this. This 
is the whole problem with this issue. Let me finish here. The problem 
with the whole issue is that the Nation has not yet gone down the 
slippery side. We want to not have the United Nations humiliated, or 
NATO humiliated, and we want to not walk away from our humanitarian 
responsibilities; but, at the same time, we have not really said what 
we are willing to do to maintain all of those desires, or to achieve 
those desires.
  I am simply saying to you that it is my belief that in this effort 
you would not abandon anybody, but you would bring the power to bear in 
the effort to try to seek the resolution. I believe if the Serbs 
thought we were serious, as they did at Sarajevo, we could achieve 
these safe havens and might get back to the negotiating table.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I share the concerns--and I have said it 
in this debate in the last hour--of the French and the British about 
their forces on the ground in Bosnia. They were put in there to carry 
out a humanitarian mission. They were equipped with such military 
equipment as was necessary to protect themselves, not to become an 
aggressive force and work in conjunction with NATO air power to repulse 
the Serbs. If you leave the impression that if we add air power to what 
they now have on the grounds, this could turn the tide in that 
conflict, you have made a very fallacious military argument.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, in answer to my colleague, I think there 
are limits to it. I accept the limits. I accept the possibilities of 
failure that might go with the limits to it. But as the Senator from 
Kansas said, we have a responsibility here to try and show some 
leadership and to take a certain level of risk, if you will. There is a 
level of risk in not doing that. The level of risk in not doing that is 
that you invite all of the repercussions I articulated, by making paper 
tigers out of these institutions that they have struggled to give power 
to.
  As I expressed earlier, I hope the distinguished minority leader will 
open up the opportunity, notwithstanding the second degree, for us--I 
would like to be able to vote to lift this embargo, because I think 
there is a moment where that indeed is something you have to do. But I 
hope that in this delicate moment, where the Russians are so important 
to our ability, and where our allies rely on us not to do something 
unilaterally, if we can just create this capacity to approach the 
multilateral portion of it, then you would be comfortable, I would be 
comfortable, and I hope the Senator from Kansas, the minority leader, 
would also feel we are accomplishing what we were setting out to do.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KERRY. I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has the floor.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I just wanted to put in the Record a fax we 
have just gotten from the Prime Minister of Bosnia. Let me read it to 
my colleagues.
  Certainly we are willing, if we need to modify the amendment in some 
appropriate way, not to take any teeth out of it, to make a strong 
statement. But I have to check with my cosponsors on both sides of the 
aisle.
  This is a letter we just received from Dr. Silajdzic, the Prime 
Minister:

       Excellency: We have just been informed that Serbian 
     extremist forces besieging the ``safe area'' of Gorazde have 
     issued an ultimatum to Government defense forces located 
     within the center of the city. The Serbian extremist's 
     ultimatum demands that Government forces withdraw completely 
     from areas in the city lying on the Eastern bank of the river 
     Drina, in addition Government forces are required to withdraw 
     from areas lying within a three kilometer radius from the 
     western side of the Drina. Under this ultimatum, UNPROFOR 
     troops will not be permitted to enter the city and any 
     evacuation of wounded civilians or UNPROFOR personnel will be 
     prevented, until Government defense forces comply. The 
     ultimatum further states that if Government forces refuse to 
     comply with its provision by 16:00 CET, the Serbian aggressor 
     will level the city to the ground.
       May I ask, Excellency, for Your kind assistance in 
     circulating this letter as a document of the Security 
     Council.
       Please accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my 
     highest considerations.

  This is directed to Mr. Colin Keating, President of the Security 
Council, United Nations, Sarajevo.
  I think it underscores this. All I am suggesting in our amendment--
and I will not get into all this other debate--if we are not going to 
do anything, and maybe there is good reason we should not do anything, 
we ought to at least let them defend themselves. It seems to me they 
ought to have that basic right. It is in the U.N. Charter. We are not 
choosing up sides. We are choosing up sides with the Serbs if we do not 
do anything. They do not need the weapons. They have 300 tanks; the 
Bosnians have 8, and it is the same ratio in other weapons systems.
  I hope that in the very near time we could vote on the amendment 
because I know the distinguished Senator from Alabama wants to get back 
to the bankruptcy bill at some appropriate time and finish that up.
  But I have been listening to the debate of colleagues. I think it is 
a good, healthy debate. But I think in this case we would be 
strengthening the President's hand, and NATO is meeting today and 
tomorrow. I am not certain they care what the U.S. Senate says or not. 
I hope at least they understand we had some serious reservations about 
slaughtering innocent people, killing 10 people in the emergency room 
in the hospital yesterday, killing a child while the mother stood 10 
yards away, where the mayor of Gorazde asked us, in effect, to drop 
bombs on his city. He said it makes dying easier.
  We can walk away from that, but at least as we walk away let us lift 
the arms embargo and make it clear that we want people to have a right 
to defend themselves.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KERRY. I would like to answer the minority leader, if I may, 
because it is an important question. I want to make sure I answer it 
directly.
  Mr. President, I say to the distinguished minority leader I agree 
with what he said. I think President Clinton agrees with what he said.
  The President announced a policy yesterday that may do more, 
conceivably, to respond immediately to the need he has described than 
lifting the embargo, because, if we lift the embargo today on this bill 
or send a message today, we absolutely will invite them to rapidly do 
everything they can, and they will not get any arms. They are not going 
to get arms to save Gorazde.
  What is going to save them there, if anything will save them, will be 
the response that the Senator from Kansas has rightfully just called 
for. Under no circumstances should we do nothing. That is why I 
supported the strikes, and that is why I believe we ought to hold that 
on a very short fuse.
  All I suggest respectfully to my friend is let us try to send this 
message in a way that combines the best of both worlds, that sends the 
message but allows the President to move in the next days, hopefully, 
to prevent precisely what the Senator has just described.
  I would say to my friend from Kansas, if you read article 51, it is 
not an unlimited right of self-defense. It is a conditional right of 
self-defense. You can take the first part of article 51 and cite the 
right of self-defense, but if you go to the second part, it says very 
specifically measures taken by members in exercising this right shall 
not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security 
Council under the present charter to take, at any time, such action as 
it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace 
and security.
  That is precisely, with UNPROFOR troops on the ground with the 
multilateral approach of the President, that is precisely what the 
President is trying to do right now. If we were to unilaterally do 
that, we raise a legal issue whether we are in keeping with the 
article, but we also, I think, more dramatically undermine the message 
we could send here.
  So I say to my colleague--and I think the Senator just said he does 
not want to do this in a way that somehow does not send the strong 
message, nor do I--I want to vote to lift this arms embargo if these 
other efforts fail, but if we are in keeping with article 51, we are in 
keeping with our responsibility if we put this on an extraordinarily 
short fuse. Our friends in Gorazde or the people of Gorazde will not 
get these weapons any sooner or any later if we do that. I think we 
will have a far more constructive approach. I hope we can work 
together.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for an 
observation, I again express my appreciation to the distinguished 
Republican leader and his cosponsors.
  Let us hope that we can reshape this amendment to send the needed 
message that the Republican leader so correctly states but do it in a 
manner that meets two criteria: First, that it is clear that this 
amendment does not imply that this Nation is going to act unilaterally 
but that this Nation will join with our allies in future actions and; 
second, that there is a cause of action which militarily, 
strategically, and diplomatically will not put at risk the UNPROFOR 
forces, raise false hopes, and further inflame this conflict.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I apologize to the Senator from Rhode 
Island, my distinguished chairman, who has been waiting at great 
length. He has been very indulgent to this colloquy. I thank him very 
much.
  Mr. PELL. I thank the Senator very much, indeed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I am hopeful that compromise language that 
takes into account some of the concerns expressed by Senators Warner, 
Kerrey, and others can be worked out.
  As a strong proponent of the United Nations, I must oppose this 
amendment at this time because of its potential to undermine the 
strength of U.N. Security Council decisions. While I would support the 
lifting of the embargo on a multilateral basis, I do not support a 
unilateral lifting of that embargo.
  The arms embargo is in place as a result of a binding U.N. Security 
Council action. Accordingly, I do not believe it wise to direct the 
President to lift the embargo unilaterally. A unilateral lifting of the 
arms embargo would set a very dangerous precedent. Other nations could 
choose to ignore Security Council resolutions that we might consider 
important, for example, such as the embargo against Iraq or sanctions 
against Libya.
  At yesterday's press conference, President Clinton indicated that he 
supports the lifting of the arms embargo but that he is not willing to 
do so unilaterally, for the reasons that I outlined here. I believe 
that this amendment could seriously damage President Clinton's leverage 
with our allies at this delicate point in the negotiations over the 
three-pronged United States strategy on Bosnia that the President 
outlined yesterday. How can the President hope to gain NATO support for 
the U.S. plan if he is forced simultaneously, at the behest of 
Congress, to undermine the notion of multilateral consensus?
  I hope very much, as I say, that some sort of compromise language can 
be worked out because we are not far apart and it should be within the 
ability of man.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I want to express my full agreement with 
and admiration for the distinguished leader of the Republicans and the 
Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman].
  It is long past time, it seems to me, that we should be dealing with 
these wonderful abstractions of how an arms embargo will lead to some 
kind of peace, of how another bombing raid or two will change the minds 
of the aggressors in connection with this case.
  If my understanding is correct, some 100,000 sortie missions were 
flown by the United States and its allies in the war in the gulf, and 
yet after those 100,000 missions, in order to conclude that conflict, 
it was required that ground troops go in and actually win a war.
  To think that a handful of additional raids, to think another in a 
series of threats, which have gone on in hollow fashion for 2 entire 
years now, will suddenly change the minds of those who engaged in 
systematic slaughter and ethnic cleansing is, I think, to believe in 
the tooth fairy.
  It simply is not going to happen. There is no one in our Military 
Establishment who believes that the course of action being proposed by 
the President to NATO is going to work. And, of course, there is no 
historic precedent for it working at all.
  We, this country and the United Nations, recognized the independence 
of Bosnia some 2 years or more ago. The Bosnians, like the residents of 
any other nation, have the right to defend themselves. The Bosnians 
have been the subjects of unprovoked aggression on the part of the 
Serbs. They have been subjected to tens of thousands--perhaps more than 
that--of deaths of their people, the great majority of whom are 
civilians, women and children, older people, and the like. More 
hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes. And the 
nature of the demands on the part of the Bosnian Serbs remains 
absolutely unchecked.
  It is not only a wrong and perversive policy to continue to enforce 
this arms embargo, it is, in my view, an absolutely immoral policy to 
do so.
  This body, as I remember, has already, on at least one and perhaps 
more occasions, passed sense-of-the-Senate resolutions that the arms 
embargo should be lifted. Remarkably enough, a debate 4 months ago, 6 
months ago, a year ago, fell on almost exactly the same lines it has 
fallen today: Let us wait. Let us let the United Nations see what it 
can do. It is premature to end the embargo. The Serbs will be angered. 
The Russians will be angered.
  Well, these arguments for patience, for delay, have had a single 
result: more deaths, more aggression, more loss of territory.
  Is it not time to listen to the people who are the victims of the 
aggression, the Bosnians themselves? They do not want the so-called 
peacekeeping or relief forces which are there at the present time from 
various European countries. They want them gone. They want the 
opportunity to defend their own liberties, to establish their own 
State. Only when they have arms sufficient to impose a punishment which 
is remotely proportional to what they have suffered are they likely to 
get and to achieve any kind of just peace and any kind of settlement on 
a reasonable and appropriate basis.
  It certainly is clear that we in the United States cannot, by any 
action that we have remotely thought of taking, end the ethnic and 
religious tensions which have plagued the Balkans for such an extended 
period of time. But to risk the lives of even a handful of American men 
and women, Air Force and Naval officers and enlisted personnel, on 
fruitless bombing missions, on bombing missions in which our military 
does not believe, on missions which will not be a success but will risk 
our people, and at the same time to say that the victims cannot defend 
themselves, Mr. President, that is a perverse, erroneous, and immoral 
set of policies.
  The United States of America has survived and prospered as the leader 
of the free world because our successive administrations have, in fact, 
been leaders. And when we express our unequivocal intention to end this 
arms embargo, I suspect that at least a significant portion of the NATO 
nations will be willing to go along with us.
  When we express that kind of leadership and do something that follows 
up the rhetoric which has occupied two previous administrations and its 
predecessor administration, the chances that the aggressors will be 
willing to talk peace on some kind of a rational and reasonable basis 
will dramatically increase.
  So far, however, our threats have been empty, our actions have been 
utterly and totally inadequate. We have seen, and it has been the case, 
that we lack any kind of leadership or any kind of rational policy. Our 
leadership, our ability to be respected throughout the world has 
suffered greatly.
  Let us say, first, that this is not directly the fight of the United 
States but, second, as it is the fight of a beleaguered people for its 
own independence, we are not going to inhibit that struggle, and that 
in fact we will help them at least to attain arms equality with their 
opponents.
  We should not amend or change this resolution. We should pass it in 
its present form and, in the view of this Senator, at least, we should 
follow up by seeing to it that we are not speaking mere words but that 
we are giving these people the ability to fight for their own 
liberties.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, as a principal cosponsor of the amendment 
of the able minority leader, Mr. Dole, I must acknowledge that U.S. 
involvement in Bosnia has already gone too far.
  Two weeks ago, President Clinton made the military decision to 
initiate limited air strikes against Serbian targets in Bosnia. This 
decision came just hours after a statement by the Secretary of Defense 
that the United States would not participate in airstrikes.
  Today, we note news reports that the administration has now proposed 
expanded airstrikes--a reversal of Mr. Clinton's position of 8 weeks 
ago. All of this is just the latest misstep by this administration, 
which could lead this country toward greater U.S. military involvement 
in the former Yugoslavia.
  As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 
as a Senator from North Carolina, I absolutely oppose expanded air 
strikes.
  So, as I said at the outset, I am extremely concerned that the U.S. 
may already have gone too far in its involvement in Bosnia. I am not 
certain that we can believe the statement of the administration that it 
will not commit troops to Bosnia without congressional approval. We may 
not now be able to reverse course. The administration has already 
committed to sending 25,000 U.S. ground troops to enforce the peace 
agreement, and from 2 years of experience surely we know that any peace 
agreement could vanish in a heartbeat.
  The administration has already dispatched troops to the precipice of 
the conflict in Macedonia in the hopes of ``deterring aggression.'' 
Where have we heard that before? These troops will soon number about 
500. Now the United States has used American pilots, under NATO 
Command, I might add, to strike Serbian positions.
  Mr. President, U.S. lives have been put in jeopardy under the 
auspices of a U.N. resolution that is subject to the decisions of 
foreign bureaucrats. That rubs against the grain of this Senator and 
most of the people back home whom I represent. I cannot and will not 
countenance this multilateral ``enlargement'' of U.S. involvement.
  Of course, I do not support the belligerent actions of the Serbs. 
Quite the contrary. Their actions are reprehensible and I believe the 
United States should give what compassionate aid it can to the victims 
of aggression.
  However, the President has had other options available to him that 
would not lead the United States down a dangerous, ill-advised, ill-
considered, misguided and costly path of military intervention. Lift 
the arms embargo and allow and enable the Bosnians to defend 
themselves.
  I received a lot of calls from North Carolina regarding the 
President's foreign policy actions. Rarely have I received so many 
calls opposing the President's most recent actions. The American 
public, as I judge it to be, is not convinced that the United States 
should become engrossed in imposing a peace in the former Yugoslavia. 
Nor do I believe that we have such strong national security interests 
in Bosnia so as to justify risking U.S. lives in the heart of Europe 
once again this century. We have already done that. The Europeans may 
have a national security interest in ending the conflict on their 
borders but we do not.
  From the very beginning of his presidency, President Clinton has 
taken half steps in Bosnia. His policy is one of advancement and then 
retreat. During his campaign for the presidency, by the way, Governor 
Clinton called for a lifting of the arms embargo. Months later, the 
President announced the intention to lift the arms embargo and then 
alerted our allies. Our allies gave a resounded no and the President 
accepted their decision.
  While condemning the dismemberment of Bosnia, administration 
officials have been muttering that any peace agreement would have to 
``be fair, enforceable and fully embraced by the Bosnian government.'' 
Talk about Alice in Wonderland. Now, it seems they are ready to accept 
almost any agreement as long as it is on paper. The Bosnians have few 
choices. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the Bosnian Government 
to agree ``freely'' to the dismemberment of their country while guns 
are pointed at their heads. And that is the position that we have put 
them in.
  The administration first announced that it was willing to initiate 
air strikes in February 1993. We all know how many times hollow threats 
have been made since then, but I understand that we are serious now. Do 
not believe it.
  Mr. President, no one knows the goals, objectives, duration, exit 
strategy or U.S. national security interest in this conflict. No one 
knows how much the U.S. tax payer will be forced to spend on this 
operation. No one knows how we will pay for the operation.
  The one thing I do know is that I am not willing to spend one 
American life on an ill-conceived, ill-defined, and ill-advised 
military mission. It is pure folly to believe that the United States 
can impose order in a region that defines hostility and chaos.
  The administration is not prepared to insist on lifting the arms 
embargo on the Bosnian people so they can defend themselves. Yet we 
seem prepared to risk U.S. lives. I reiterate, I am totally opposed to 
that. I believe the American people are totally opposed to that. And we 
do not need to. When I met with President Izetbegovic, he pleaded that 
the United States allow Bosnia to defend itself. He was right.
  Mr. President, air strikes alone will not work. If the President is 
serious about stopping the carnage, he would order cruise missiles to 
strike the military command, control and communication headquarters of 
the Bosnian Serbs. He would issue notice to Serb and Bosnian Serb 
leaders that they are personally responsible. He would insist that 
unless there is an immediate ceasefire, military sites in Serbia and 
Bosnian Serb-controlled territory will be the primary target until they 
cease and desist from their brutal and senseless attacks on defenseless 
civilians.
  But, Mr. President, this administration appears to be half-serious 
about ending the tragedy and carnage that has engulfed the former 
Yugoslavia for almost 2 years. This Senator is dead serious that U.S. 
servicemen and women will not be pawns in a diplomatic game played by 
U.N. bureaucrats dancing to the tune of the Secretary General.
  I urge my colleagues to allow freedom-loving people to maintain their 
dignity and defend their country and their families.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is considering S. 540, and the 
pending amendment is the Dole amendment 1640, the Bosnia amendment.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair. Before I proceed, Mr. President, I ask 
unanimous consent that Senator Gorton be added as a cosponsor of the 
pending Dole-Lieberman amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the tragedy in Bosnia continues and, to me, 
it is incredible, it is unthinkable, it is immoral that the world has 
not taken reasonable risks sooner to defend an entire people who are 
the subject of this massive aggression and this ethnic cleansing.
  I never thought I would hear the words ``ethnic cleansing'' again in 
my lifetime. But we have--not just heard the words but seen the 
cleansing--in Bosnia. The shame of the world.
  But it is even more incredible to me that we do not even let the 
Bosnians defend themselves. We have been unwilling to take even the 
minimal risk of air strikes against military targets. I think that has 
been a mistake. I have always felt we should engage in those air 
strikes to reduce the military capability of the aggressor. That has 
been a tragic mistake, but what is totally indefensible is that we will 
not even allow the Bosnians to defend themselves on the ground. This is 
not a question of whether American troops are sent in. This is a 
question of whether we will finally let the Bosnians defend themselves 
against Serbian aggression.
  Whatever the argument is about the use of air strikes, whether they 
can succeed alone or whether you have to have a ground component, or 
whether it jeopardizes U.N. people on the ground or not, or whether we 
should conduct air strikes unilaterally or do them through NATO, there 
are a whole host of questions on air strikes. While I favor those air 
strikes, at least there are questions to be argued and to be resolved 
relative to the use of air strikes.
  But when it comes to letting a people defend themselves in their own 
homes, how in the name of Heaven can we justify the maintenance of an 
arms embargo which will not even let people do that?
  The violence in former Yugoslavia has mocked democratic societies. We 
who celebrate the end of a halfcentury of cold war should be ashamed by 
what is going on in Yugoslavia. A few weeks ago, the civilized world 
was apparently pushed over the brink by the slaughter from a shell 
exploding in Sarajevo at a marketplace. Finally--finally--with that 
marketplace tragedy, after the world had swallowed ethnic cleansing and 
genocide for 22 months, the world finally gagged and began to take 
credible action. And it worked in Sarajevo. The threat of credible 
force worked in Sarajevo, finally, 22 months late. The world could not 
take it anymore.
  Well, we should not take it anymore in Gorazde, and we should not 
take it anymore in the other so-called safe zones, which are about as 
unsafe as any place can be in the world.
  The war in Bosnia cannot be ended without American leadership. There 
is no other way to end this war except to let the Bosnians defend 
themselves and to combine that with the threat of credible air 
strikes. Not us on the ground, but the Bosnians on the ground defending 
themselves. But the only way that can happen is if the arms embargo is 
lifted.

  Would air strikes work alone? No one is suggesting that air strikes 
do work alone in this resolution. This resolution is saying let the 
Bosnians defend themselves on the ground. This resolution does not 
address the question of air strikes. I wish it would, but it does not. 
But at least it finally does the moral thing, saying we have had it 
with tying people's arms behind their backs so they cannot defend 
themselves.
  And so today I hope that the Senate will finally, in a strong way, 
express itself; that whatever additional steps are taken relative to 
air strikes by NATO, at a minimum we will let the people of Bosnia 
defend themselves. We should lift this arms embargo that has 
effectively punished the weakest faction in Yugoslavia.
  Mr. President, I know there is an effort being made to work on the 
language. That is the way it should be. I for one as a cosponsor of 
this amendment would have no difficulty whatsoever if there is an 
amendment to this which says that the arms embargo will be lifted in X 
number of days unless something happens between now and then, as the 
Senator from Massachusetts has suggested, providing that period of days 
is a short period.
  But the heart of this is that we are telling the Serbs, finally you 
are going to face for the first time not unarmed victims that you are 
slaughtering city by city, but you are fighting a people who are 
allowed to defend themselves. And whether or not the Serbs will respond 
to that, I do not know. I am not sure what it will take. But I know 
that without it, without them facing an enemy which is armed, which 
they are slaughtering in this century's newest genocide, the Serbs will 
not stop their aggression.
  I hope we adopt this amendment or something close to it. I 
congratulate Senators Dole, Lieberman, and the others who have decided 
that we want to act on this amendment. I know that the Presiding 
Officer is one of those cosponsors, and he has felt strongly about this 
issue for a long time.
  I do hope the Senate will adopt this resolution promptly and send a 
very strong message to the Serbs that they are likely in the next few 
weeks to face a two-pronged problem. One is, hopefully, credible air 
strikes and, two, a credible armed force of Bosnians that finally will 
be allowed to defend themselves.
  I am hopeful that there can be, even at this very late stage, some 
minimal, decent, equitable, negotiated settlement among the factions. 
The only way to achieve it is if there is a credible threat of force, 
at least against the artillery which is pummeling those safe areas and 
shelling hospitals, against the Serbian forces who have taken as 
hostages both international peacekeeping forces and humanitarian relief 
workers.
  The best chance we have for any kind of a just settlement is if that 
kind of exclusion zone is established in other areas and backed up the 
way it was in Sarajevo, in order to make peace, not to make war. In 
Bosnia, we must have a credible threat of force and a willingness to 
use force to make peace.
  Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor this resolution, and I urge 
its adoption by the Senate.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, unfortunately I have not been able to 
participate in this debate until this moment.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, I introduced the first amendment on 
this issue when President Bush was in the White House. We passed the 
so-called Biden amendment that authorized the President, then President 
Bush to seek that the arms embargo be lifted.
  I ask that that amendment be entered into the Record.
  There being no objection, the amendment was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                 authority to assist bosnia-hercegovina

       Sec. 559D. (a) Congress finds as follows:
       (1) the United Nations has imposed an embargo on the 
     transfer of arms to any country on the territory of the 
     former Yugoslavia;
       (2) the federated states of Serbia and Montenegro have a 
     large supply of military equipment and ammunition and the 
     Serbian forces fighting the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina 
     have more than one thousand battle tanks, armored vehicles, 
     and artillery pieces; and
       (3) because the United Nations arms embargo is serving to 
     sustain the military advantage of the aggressor, the United 
     Nations should exempt the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina 
     from its embargo.
       (b) Pursuant to a lifting of the United Nations arms 
     embargo against Bosnia-Hercegovina, the President is 
     authorized to transfer to the government of that nation, 
     without reimbursement, defense articles from the stocks of 
     the Department of Defense of an aggregate value not to exceed 
     $50,000,000 in fiscal year 1993: Provided, That the President 
     certifies in a timely fashion to the Congress that--
       (1) the transfer of such articles would assist that nation 
     in self-defense and thereby promote the security and 
     stability of the region; and
       (2) United States allies are prepared to join in such a 
     military assistance effort.
       (c) Within 60 days of any transfer under the authority 
     provided in subsection (b), and every 60 days thereafter, the 
     President shall report in writing to the Speaker of the House 
     of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the 
     Senate concerning the articles transferred and the 
     disposition thereof.
       (d) There are authorized to be appropriated to the 
     President such sums as may be necessary to reimburse the 
     applicable appropriation, fund, or account for defense 
     articles provided under this section.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it authorized the President of the United 
States--and it is the law of the land--to make available to the Bosnian 
Government up to $50 million in arms that are sitting ``on the shelf'' 
here in the United States.
  I have been an open critic of at least some of the ways this 
administration has handled a very complicated, admittedly complicated, 
situation in Bosnia. But I would like to set a few things straight 
before we vote, if we vote, on this amendment.
  It was not President Clinton who locked the United States into a 
multilateral approach. It was President Bush. It was Secretary 
Eagleburger, with whom I spoke, who said we should do nothing in 
Bosnia. And finally the last administration decided that we should 
impose through the U.N. Security Council an arms embargo on all the 
constituent parts of the former Yugoslavia. That was a mistake from the 
outset, in my opinion.
  It was well intended. It was done in the name of bringing people to 
the peace table, except for one small thing. The JNA, the Yugoslav 
National Army, which had been very well equipped, over the previous 30 
years under the leadership of President Tito, was under the control of 
Mr. Milosevic, the President of Serbia.
  And so, as in the former Soviet Union, when its constituent republics 
began to break up and go back to being countries under the watchful and 
disdainful eye of Mr. Gorbachev, the world rushed to recognize, as it 
should have, the independence of those States, which were not 
constituent republics but the independent entities of the Ukraine, 
Belarus--it went down the line.
  The same thing was happening in Yugoslavia. Slovenia first came along 
and said, ``We want independence.'' They did not want to be a part of 
Yugoslavia anymore, because at the turn of the century Slovenia was an 
independent country.
  Things began to break apart. Milosevic and Serbia decided: We are 
Yugoslavia. And the fact is that Bosnia was a multiethnic culture made 
up of Serbs, who are orthodox Catholics; Croats, who are Roman 
Catholics; and Bosnian Moslems, who 400 years earlier, in order that 
they could own their own businesses, decided to become titular Moslems. 
It is interesting when you visit. You sit with Moslems in front of a 
mosque and you watch them drink liquor. You do not see any veils. It is 
what you might call secular. But they are all Slavs. They are all 
Slavic people--Yugoslavia, southern Slavs. That is how we got the name.
  And all of a sudden these countries in the former Yugoslavia said, 
``We want to be independent countries.'' And Germany said, ``We ought 
to recognize Croatia.'' And France said, ``We ought to recognize 
Slovenia,'' and so on.
  Well, the Bosnian people had a vote, this multiethnic culture. Almost 
all the Croats, almost all the Moslems, and some of the Serbs said, we 
want to be an independent country. We do not want any part of 
Yugoslavia anymore.
  But Milosevic, sitting there seeing this empire crumble in Belgrade, 
said no. But the world came along and, after this vote, boycotted by 
Bosnian Serbs, took place, said we recognize this country as one of the 
family of nations, and here are its borders, with the Drina River on 
one side. We said this is an independent country, a member of the 
United Nations.
  And then Milosevic thought, There goes my dream of a greater Serbia. 
Yugoslavia is crumbling around me. I am going to have a smaller empire, 
but I know if I cross the Drina River with troops from the Yugoslav 
Army, that is, now the Serbian Army, it will be a war of aggression. 
Europe will have to respond.
  So what will I do? What I will do is on the State-controlled 
television I will put on these phony messages. Now, the Serbian people 
are good people. They have been our allies. They were our allies during 
World War II. But Milosevic went on television and played upon the 400 
years' of history, saying on television, remember when the Croats 
massacred some 100,000 Serbians just like they did the Jews in 
concentration camps in the Crimea.
  Yes, it happened.
  Well, that got the attention of good, thinking, normal Serbians, who 
said: Wait a minute; could this be happening again? They said, look at 
what the Moslems must be doing to our people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
And in the meantime, across the bridges on the Drina River, Milosevic 
was sending tanks, artillery, troops, oil, money, and ammunition to aid 
the Bosnian Serbs in a fight against the Moslems and, originally, the 
Croats as well.
  And while all this is going on under the watch of the Bush 
administration, the United Nations says, we are going to move toward 
peace. This could break out in a war. We are going to put an arms 
embargo on everybody. The problem is, as I said, the Serbs had all the 
arms. They had the munitions factory. They had the tanks. It was a 
modern army that Yugoslavia had. The Bosnian Government had a Remington 
rifle, figuratively speaking.
  So, some of us said, as you recall--the Presiding Officer strongly 
supported the proposal--wait a minute. This ``ain't'' right. Let us 
lift this embargo. Let these poor devils fight. We urged the President 
to lift the embargo. Senator Dole strongly supported that, as others 
did. I am not in any way questioning the credibility of people who are 
now pushing this resolution. But it did not happen at the time.
  So along comes a new President. He gets sworn in in January, raises 
his right hand, and he has said, we are going to do things 
multilaterally. We want to make the United Nations work. We want to 
make NATO work. But NATO had said, now, hey, United States you signed 
on with us. You said you will not lift the embargo unless we all agree. 
So now this President is in a real conundrum. If he chose to 
unilaterally lift the embargo, and I think, arguably, he can do that 
under resolution 51 of the U.N. Charter, he splits NATO. Where are we 
without a NATO when this happens in Ukraine, in Belarus, in Russia, 
when the Zhirinovsky's of the world, the ultranationalists, say, we 
must go into the Ukraine where there are 6 million ethnic Russians 
being ill-treated by our Ukrainian brothers? Where are we without NATO? 
Where are we without a United Nations, which we need to bring the 
hammer down on North Korea for building atomic weapons? We ask the 
United Nations to sign on.
  They say, why the devil should we sign on with you? You, the United 
States, made a deal. You joined up. You said we could do this in 
unison. You are the only one that wants to lift the embargo. You are 
the only one, and because you do not get your way, you are going to 
take your ball and go home.
  So the President is in a tight spot. Let me tell you my criticism of 
the President, though. I think the President has let NATO and everyone 
else off the hook. I went to Bosnia just over a year ago, and wrote a 
report upon my return, debriefed the President, debriefed the Secretary 
of State, came to the Senate floor, and proposed that we should adopt a 
new policy in Bosnia. We should push to lift the arms embargo and we 
should use air strikes. And the President publicly signed onto that. He 
said, that is my policy; lift and strike.
  Then he sent the Secretary of State to Europe to a NATO meeting. My 
hope was that the Secretary of State was going to say, ``We demand you 
join us to lift the embargo. And we are going to call you to task. We 
cannot make you, but we want you to sign up for world history. You 
sign, you vote yes or no.''
  The President did not do that. I think the President should go to the 
United Nations and have Ambassador Albright, our Ambassador, say, here 
is the deal. We make a formal motion. Lift the embargo. Now stand up 
and be counted.
  I predict the French will not veto it. I predict the British will not 
veto it. I predict none of them will have the guts to veto it. But if 
they do, at least we are on the right side of history. Then we can make 
the decision whether or not we should fracture the alliance and go it 
alone. But let us do it by the book first.
  Look, I do not think, although I may be mistaken, there is a senior 
Member on this side of the aisle who has been as openly critical of 
this administration on foreign policy as I have. I cannot think of one 
off the top of my head. I would be surprised if you could. But I 
believe that this move is ill-timed.
  NATO is meeting on Friday to decide what their policy is. We are 
going to pass a law while the President, as we speak, is negotiating 
with Major, Mitterand, and Kohl trying to get them to move to this 
position? And we are going to say, ``Mr. President, you must?''
  I would respectfully suggest that if the Democrats had done that with 
the last two Republican Presidents on the eve of negotiations involving 
NATO, we would have been blown into next Wednesday for interfering in 
the prerogatives of the President while he is negotiating.
  You know that when a President goes on national television, that 
means he goes on world television. Everybody listens. It is like that 
E.F. Hutton commercial. When the President speaks, the world listens. 
They may not agree, but they listen.
  Helmut Schmidt used to say to me and to others, ``When America 
sneezes, Europe catches a cold.'' We are the 800-pound gorilla in the 
world.
  What has the President of the United States said? He has said, I, 
Bill Clinton, favor lifting the arms embargo. I, Bill Clinton, want to 
widen NATO air strikes.
  The only reason there are threats of air strikes--although I argue it 
came late in Sarajevo--is that the President of the United States 
forced the issue with the NATO alliance. And what did NATO do? Even 
though resolution 836 had been passed allowing a wide use of air power, 
NATO commanders concluded that in Gorazde they would not apply the 
Sarajevo standard. In Gorazde, they said, we will only let NATO 
aircraft fire at offending pieces of artillery or offending tanks if, 
and only if, that tank or piece of artillery is firing at U.N. 
personnel. That was not the deal.
  People say to me during interviews, ``Well, Senator, how can air 
power work? It did not work in Gorazde.'' We dropped six bombs, two or 
three of which did not go off. That is all we did.
  My friend from Maine, as we say in this body, ``and he is my 
friend,''-- quoted Chesterson; paraphrased him--I do not remember the 
exact quote--on the crime debate. The Senator from Maine is truly the 
most literary man in this institution, besides maybe being the most 
honorable. People say air power has been tried and it has not worked. 
That is not true. As Chesterson said about Christianity, ``It is not 
that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it has been found 
difficult and left untried.'' It is not that air power has been tried 
in Gorazde and found wanting or lacking. It was not tried.
  So what is the President of the United States doing right now? He has 
picked up the phone and called Yeltsin. He called Mitterand. He has 
called Kohl. He has called Major. On Friday, our military leadership 
and civilian leadership were meeting in Brussels to say, let us use air 
power as we intended. It will not ``win the war,'' but it will save 
some lives in the meantime. By using air power, that means, if you fire 
at me with this tank, I can go find any tanks you have anywhere and 
blow them up.
  You shoot at me with this gun, I can go find where you store your 
ammunition and blow it up. You shoot at me with this piece of 
artillery, I can find your command post and blow it up. That is not 
going to stop the war, nor does the President think it will. But, at a 
minimum, it will stop what you see on television, or it has a chance of 
it, which is seeing Serbs--by the way, I keep saying ``Serbs.'' It 
should be pointed out that there are still Serbians in the Bosnian 
Government. There are still Serbians in Serbia, who want no part of 
what is happening to Bosnia, to the Moslem and Croat population. This 
is not all Serbs. But look at the pictures you see on television. You 
see women and children huddled, literally crouched, running down 
streets, huddled against walls, hiding in mosques and churches, and in 
basements, and you see, sitting up on a hill lobbing a piece of 
artillery, a shell, and pulling a string and indiscriminately blowing 
innocent civilians up, without any fear of anybody doing anything about 
it. Why? Bosnians have no weapons, for God's sakes.
  So it seems to me that since this President was dealt this hand 
through the incompetence of a previous administration, having 
compounded the bad hand he was dealt by some incompetence on the part 
of his administration, he is now trying to find the way through it. He 
says the first step is to let us use air power to the extent we have 
the capability to do so, without limitation. And even that he cannot 
get NATO to agree to yet. They are going to meet on Friday to vote on 
it. Let them do that and then let the President make a serious effort 
to lift the arms embargo with our allies.
  I have not had a chance to talk to the majority leader, because I was 
in another meeting, nor to Senator Dole, but I hope we can reach a 
compromise on this, not on principle, but a compromise on tactics. I 
hope we can work out language--and do it with a directive, which we 
have the power to do, if we have the votes--and say the following: Mr. 
President, you must insist with our allies that the arms embargo be 
lifted. Mr. President, you must table at the United Nations a 
resolution lifting the arms embargo. You must show you have done 
everything in your power to persuade the allies in the U.N. to reach a 
rational and humane position on this issue. In the meantime, let him 
negotiate. My friend from Maine knows. Private negotiations with our 
NATO allies. Let us see if we can move this in the next 4 or 5 days.
  And then if, A, it does not move, or, B, the President does not 
attempt in earnest to lift the arms embargo multilaterally, then we 
have the option a week from now, or 10 days from now. The answer to 
this problem is a truly negotiated settlement in Bosnia. A truly 
negotiated settlement can only be arrived at after all of the warring 
parties are convinced that they have totally used up all their 
wherewithal to do better on the ground.
  Can anyone in here name for me a circumstance where there has been a 
negotiated agreement with warring parties that has held before the 
warring parties have expired on the battlefield? Name me a single such 
circumstance. Right now, the people of the Bosnian Government--mostly 
Moslems--had they the wherewithal, could take back part of the 70 
percent of their country taken by the Serbs.
  The worst of all worlds is--and I have said this to the President, so 
I am not being disloyal to him or this country, and I will say it 
publicly now--the worst of all worlds is for a falsely negotiated 
settlement.
  The worst of all worlds is that there would be a negotiated 
settlement, because the Bosnians cannot take it anymore, so they 
negotiate. Does anybody suggest that means that once there is a 
settlement, we are going to keep an arms embargo forever on Bosnia? The 
answer is ``no.''
  The economic embargo will be lifted on Serbia and, mark my words, 
within 6 months to a year, the Bosnians will be back, Moslems and 
Croats, fighting--and now better armed--the people they signed an 
agreement with because they feel it is an unjust agreement foisted upon 
them.
  The best way to get to the negotiating table is for the Serbs to know 
they got all they could get through force. Look, we have been 
negotiating now, and what are the Serbs doing? The Serbs are going 
after Tuzla, Bihac, Gorazde, and Srebrenica. Why? Well, the world is 
standing by. They do not have any need to settle. Why do we have to 
negotiate? Who are they negotiating with? Themselves. That is the 
negotiation that is going on. So ultimately, if we were put in the 
awful position of having to send in American forces to enforce a 
negotiated agreement that was literally a coerced agreement, American 
soldiers become apartheid cops, actually codifying Serbian gains.
  So that is why I believe ultimately the answer lies in lifting the 
arms embargo, again a position I have relentlessly pushed from the 
beginning. But at this point, on the eve of a Friday meeting in NATO 
for us to pass this would be wrong.
  If we pass this today and dictate to the President of the United 
States to say, you must thumb your nose at the rest of NATO and say, 
``I do not care what you all think; we are going to do it anyway,'' 
while the President is trying to negotiate a multilateral response that 
is more robust, I think it would be premature. It is not premature in 
the sense it should not have been done 18 months ago. But it is ill-
advised on the eve of this meeting to pass something that will not have 
any effect other than to embarrass the President of the United States 
while he is trying to negotiate.
  And I know that is not the intention of Senator Dole or Senator 
Lieberman, both of whom I will be allies with on this subject.
  So I hope that in the next minutes or hour, people of good faith can 
say OK, let us work out something here whereby, even if we resurrect 
the old amendment that passed, we say, Mr. President, we want you to 
lift the arms embargo, we want you to push for it, and we authorize you 
ahead of time if it is lifted to send $50 million worth of equipment. 
Let us do that, send that message to our European allies now but do not 
send the message that says, ``Mr. President, do not negotiate with the 
people you are negotiating with. Tell them it does not matter what you 
think of their opinion. Unilaterally lift the embargo, break up the 
coalition''--and that is not going to in and of itself break up NATO--
but break up the coalition and go it alone. Give the man some time.
  I think he has clearly understood the intention. His instincts have 
been right on this point all long. He inherited a position that is 
difficult to get out from under, and I think with the prodding of this 
body and hopefully the American people, we will act in a more forceful, 
not just forceful in terms of physical force, forceful in terms of 
negotiating posture, a more forceful way than we have of late.
  So I stand ready, if anybody wishes to try to craft such an approach. 
I stand ready to try to help work one out. I think it is the more 
reasonable approach. I think it is the more rational approach, and I 
think it at least does due deference to the President of the United 
States, who tomorrow will have his representatives sitting down with 
NATO allies to try to get a decision to use additional air power.
  I think it is ill timed. I hope we wait on it. I hope we come up with 
a compromise.
  I thank my colleagues for listening, and I thank my good friend from 
Maine for allowing me to take his name in vain.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it is no secret that no one, I repeat, 
no one on either side of the aisle has had the magic solution to the 
problem in Bosnia. This is quite probably the most difficult, 
perplexing foreign policy issue on the horizon, certainly at the 
moment.
  We are all pretty sure what is not going to happen. We all know, Mr. 
President, there are not going to be American troops on the ground in 
Bosnia. The President is not asking for that at this point. We all know 
that we would insist that any decision to put American troops on the 
ground be preceded by a resolution of authorization by the Congress.
  Having pretty well concluded that we are not going to put troops on 
the ground in Bosnia, we are left with very limited options. I think it 
is also safe to say very few people, either in or out of this body, 
believe that airstrikes standing alone are going to have any 
substantial impact on a conclusion to this conflict and political 
solution.
  In short, Mr. President, in all candor, we all know whether we say so 
publicly or just utter the words privately on the floor, that our 
ability to effect the outcome of this conflict from outside is 
extraordinarily limited either because of lack of political will, a 
feeling that it is simply not in our national interests, or whatever.
  So what are we left with, Mr. President, as we see this carnage on 
television every night?
  I think what we are left with is what is embodied by the amendment of 
the distinguished Republican leader and Senator Lieberman of 
Connecticut, which is to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Moslems 
now and to do it unilaterally.
  Some Members of the Senate have said this afternoon and the 
administration has said that it is a mistake to lift the arms embargo 
unilaterally because if we do that, the strength of our U.N. embargoes 
will be reduced and, therefore, the credibility of other multinational 
embargoes of arms will be undermined by a U.S. unilateral action.
  First, Mr. President, let me say that I think the notion that 
American foreign policy should be to that degree guided by any 
multinational body is a somewhat suspect place in which to find 
ourselves, that, in fact, American policy should not be in most 
instances determined by the United Nations in any event. But even if 
one is convinced that somehow U.N. permission for an arms embargo 
lifting is critical, the argument is fatally flawed as applied to 
Bosnia.
  I think it could be persuasively argued, Mr. President, that the U.N. 
arms embargo on Bosnia is illegal in the first instance. The U.N. arms 
embargo violates Bosnia territory integrity and its inherent right to 
self-defense. The right to self-defense in article 2, subsections 4 and 
51 of the U.N. Charter is the preeminent right under international law.
  The arms embargo, it seems to this Senator, is unjustly and illegally 
applied for Bosnia in the first place. The arms embargo was imposed by 
Resolution 727 on the former Yugoslavia before Bosnia had achieved 
statehood or even declared independence. I repeat, the embargo of the 
United Nations was applied to Yugoslavia which does not exist anymore. 
Bosnia is not a successor state to Yugoslavia under international law.
  Bosnia had to apply for U.N. membership as a new state, as a brandnew 
state, Mr. President, and has not been able to use U.N.-related 
property of Yugoslavia. No U.N. action ever applied the arms embargo to 
the independent State of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  Upon admission to the United Nations, Bosnia is unquestionably 
entitled to the right of self-defense.
  So I think it could be argued, Mr. President, that the U.N. arms 
embargo does not apply to Bosnia anyway. So even for those who feel 
that our policy must somehow be bound by the policy of the 
multinational body, it does not apply in this situation and it is 
pretty clear that our allies at this point do not have the stomach for 
lifting the embargo. And the question at this point is whether we are 
willing to do it on our own, to try to give the Moslems a fair chance, 
to give them some chance to succeed.
  Some Senators have said here this afternoon they are for it but just 
not now. Just do not do it right now because it may create some 
problems for the administration or some other problem because of some 
meeting that may occur tomorrow or next week or sometime. We have been 
talking about this for a long time. In the meantime, the shells are 
being lobbed in, hitting hospitals, killing civilians. Others have 
said, ``Well, if we lift the arms embargo, it is going to take a while 
for the arms to get there, and that will just encourage the Serbs to 
commit additional atrocities.'' I do not know how much worse it can be 
than it already is.
  So, regardless of what actions the Serbs may or may not take in 
response to a decision by the U.S. Senate to recommend that the 
President or to actually dictate to the President that the arms embargo 
be lifted now, we do not know what the Serbs are going to do for sure 
on a day-to-day basis. We do know what the pattern is. It is pretty 
clear to anybody who can turn on a television set that the pattern is 
of continuous aggression, continuous carnage.
  Oh, they may step back for a day or two at a time or respond to some 
line drawn in the sand temporarily. But the movement is inexorably in 
the same direction and that is to subdue the Bosnian Moslems.
  So we are left with only one option, Mr. President. We are not going 
to put troops on the ground. Air strikes are not going to work. The 
United Nations is not going to lift the arms embargo. We are either 
going to do it unilaterally or nothing is going to happen.
  So I think the amendment of the Republican leader and the Senator 
from Connecticut is appropriate. I think all of us feel that it may be 
somewhat overdue. But, Mr. President, better now than never.
  Let us give the Moslems a fair shot at this thing. Let us give them a 
chance to level the military playing field. We have the armaments to 
send. They have the will to fight.
  Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by my colleagues, 
Senator Dole and Senator Lieberman requiring the President to lift the 
arms embargo on Bosnia. I come to this decision reluctantly, but 
largely out of frustration with the misteps and miscalculations in the 
administration's policy. When the Senate first debated American policy 
in the former Yugoslavia in August 1992, many members of this body 
wanted to demonstrate the Bush administration's shortcomings in 
resolving the crisis. Senators were cheered on by candidate Clinton, 
who accused the Bush administration of ``sitting on the sidelines'' for 
too long allowing Yugoslavia ``to slip into chaos and civil war.''
  In August 1992, I believed such calls to action were dangerous. In 
close consultation with Prime Minister Major, the United States was 
actively engaged in a full scale diplomatic initiative as we 
simultaneously moved forward in providing humanitarian relief and food.
  In August 1992, the President was balancing our frustration with 
bloodshied with the facts on the ground. He balanced our commitment to 
continuing humanitarian relief operations with our allies intention to 
pull out their peacekeeping forces if we took unilateral military 
action. President Bush did not squander American or NATO credibility by 
threatening actions which he could not or would not take. There was no 
grandstanding, no empty threats. The administration pushed hard to 
isolate the Serbs through sanctions. The President also affirmed his 
commitment to deploy and use air and naval assets to protect relief 
convoys. He defined a specific use of American power and effectively 
carried out that commitment. All the while he was actively engaged in 
moving the peace process forward.
  I supported that effort completely. It was my view that adding arms 
to the equation or taking sides against the Serbs would only escalate 
the conflict. I believed that hard headed diplomacy with the credible 
threat of force to protect American lives or American interests, was 
the appropriate course. Force remained a last, but viable, resort.
  I remained hopeful through April 1993 that the new administration 
would clearly define our goals and international role. The 
administration indicated three options were under consideration--air 
strikes against Bosnian Serb targets, lifting the arms embargo, and 
establishing safe havens. I was impressed when Secretary Christopher 
spelled out four strict tests for the use of air strikes or any other 
force: The goals must be clear, there must be a strong likelihood of 
success, there must be an exit strategy, and Americans must support the 
plan. The final test presumed a clear cut explanation of the 
administration's intent to the Congress and the public.

  Unfortunately, since last April, we have seen our credibility 
collapse and our policy implode. No less than nine times, the 
administration has called for the use of air power and then retreated. 
There was little predictability to our policy, no consistency in 
carrying through on our pronouncements.
  Polling told the public and the President that there was a deep 
ambivalence about American involvement in Bosnia. That ambivalence 
translated into indifference at the White House. The shock of the 
savage attack on a heart of Sarajevo renewed interest in attempting a 
solution. Now with Gorazde under siege, we are once again seeing an 
interest on the part of the administration.
  But, I am concerned about how seriously and how long we will sustain 
that interest. If we ask ourselves whether the administration has met 
the four tests spelled out by Secretary Christopher the answer is a 
resounding no. We do not know what the goals are--we are unclear 
whether we can achieve success, there is no end in sight, and finally, 
I doubt a single American could tell us what exactly we are doing and 
why.
  Good intentions are no substitute for good policy. What happens when 
the air strikes don't work? What happens when the first American is 
shot from the sky? Will the American people understand?
  When I posed the ``what happens next'' question to Deputy Secretary 
Talbott last night, he told me he did not have a ``persuasive answer.'' 
He left me with the uncomfortable impression that we are hoping this 
will work, and have not thought through the consequences if it does 
not.
  The use of air power to protect six enclaves squarely puts the 
credibility of NATO and therefore the United States on the line. The 
administration will no longer be able to hide behind the notion that 
this is a European problem or a U.N. war. There is no doubt in my mind 
that we are backing this nation into a serious responsibility.
  I hope the threat of air power has not come too late--months after we 
have forfeited U.S. leadership and compromised our credibility.
  Whether it works or not, I am supporting this amendment because I 
view it as a way to make clear that there is a next step if air power 
alone does not push the Serbs back to the negotiating table. The 
amendment supplements the current initiatives, giving teeth to the 
efforts. The Serbs have successfully exploited weaknesses and 
inconsistencies in the international community's position, while 
continuing their slaughter of the Bosnians.
  The time has come to give the Bosnians the means to defend themselves 
until international action and effort succeeds in negotiating a durable 
agreement. If we can't help them, we at least should give them a chance 
to help themselves.
  Mr. COHEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lieberman). The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I will only take a few moments to express 
some thoughts on the amendment that has been introduced by Senator Dole 
and others.
  I think it reflects a sense of desperation. I think what Senator Dole 
and the cosponsors of the amendment are indicating is that they have 
looked at all the options, there does not seem to be any other options 
and, therefore, let us take this one last act of desperation on behalf 
of people who are being slaughtered.
  This act of desperation has been precipitated by the absence of a 
policy. We do not have a policy, not one that has been clearly 
conceived and articulated and certainly not one that has been 
articulated with any degree of coherence. We do not have a policy, and 
we do not have a voice to express that policy.
  Who, for example, is speaking for the administration? Is it the 
Secretary of Defense? Is it the Secretary of State? Is it the National 
Security Adviser, Mr. Lake? Is it the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff? Who speaks for the administration?
  Well, ultimately, only the President can speak for the 
administration. And yet we have had conflicting statements and policy 
suggestions expressed to the public by each of the individuals I have 
mentioned.
  Not long ago the Secretary of Defense made a public statement saying 
that the United States simply would not bomb the city of Gorazde. The 
Secretary of State made a different statement. Mr. Lake, from NSC, also 
rushed to the podium to say no, that is not our policy. We will act 
with air power to save this city. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said 
it is not in our interest and would not be effective to pursue a 
bombing policy in Gorazde.
  We have this cacophony of voices--all of those individuals have very 
high positions of prominence. And, as Senator Biden from Delaware said, 
it is not only when the President speaks that the world listens. 
Everybody watches on CNN when you have high-level individuals speaking 
on behalf of the administration.
  So the picture painted to the world at large, not only to the Serbs, 
the picture painted is one of complete chaos, of inconsistency, of 
fragmentation, of confusion. And so they are bewildered. They are 
befuddled, if I can use that word. They do not know exactly what we are 
doing, or what NATO is doing, or what the United Nations is doing.
  We have gone through a series of threats. We threaten to bomb, and 
then we back away from the threat. We threaten to bomb again, and then 
again, the threat appears to be empty. We finally take action, but it 
is ineffective.
  And, if I might just contradict my friend from Delaware when he says 
we are the 800-pound gorilla, we may be the 800-pound gorilla, but over 
the last 2 years we have acted like a weak and whimpering tiger.
  And we have to ask the question: Why? Why have we failed to take the 
action worth any of an 800-pound gorilla? We certainly have the 
military power, but we obviously do not have the will. And we do not 
have the will because we do not have a consensus in this country, and 
we do not have a consensus in this Chamber, not to mention the other 
body.
  We do know there is a consensus that there shall be no ground troops. 
I have not heard anyone here suggest that we ought to introduce 
American ground troops to help stabilize that country and to prepare 
for peace or make peace. No one is suggesting that. There have been 
hints that if we had some kind of a settlement, a real and stable 
settlement in which all the parties agree to the boundaries, that we 
might consider putting up to 25,000 troops into that region in order to 
secure the peace.
  And let me suggest to you even that would be very controversial in 
this Chamber. There would be no immediate consensus, and perhaps 
ultimately, no consensus, at all.
  So we start with the proposition: No ground troops. They say, ``Well, 
how about air power? We have fantastic air capability.'' And we do. But 
virtually every military adviser coming over from the Pentagon to 
testify before the relevant committees have said air power alone will 
not be sufficient. Yes, we can target bridges, and we can target 
ammunition dumps, and we can go and take out fuel supplies, and we can 
take out cities of Serbia, itself, and leave them in ruins. We can take 
out electric power plants. We can do all of that.
  I have talked and learned about some of the targeting plans that are 
there as contingencies. We have that capability.
  But there is no one coming forward to this Congress, to the Senate, 
suggesting that will, in and of itself, do it.
  They say, ``Well, it might get their attention. It might make them 
understand that we might go further.''
  Well, maybe we would and maybe we would not. And, by the way, what 
happens if we start to deliver that air power and we start to lose U.S. 
air personnel? A British aircraft was shot down earlier this week. The 
pilot was rescued. But what happens when we start to lose American 
pilots who do not get rescued, who either get killed or held as POW's? 
Does that change the formula at all? Obviously, we have to take that 
into account.
  If we are prepared to use air power, we have to be prepared to lose 
personnel. That is one risk you assume when you go to war or when you 
take action short of all-out war. But seeking to send messages, or 
seeking to interrupt supply lines, or seeking to rescue individuals, 
you run the risk of losing American lives.
  So are we prepared to put American lives on the line? Well, that is 
something we still have to debate here in this Chamber.
  What Secretary Perry said last week or 10 days ago, he said 
initially--in Munich back in the first week of February at a conference 
in Munich--he said we really should not take action A unless we are 
prepared and we have a plan for actions B, C, D, and E. And at that 
time, while being new to the job, I think only a few days as Secretary, 
he expressed the opinion that we did not have such a comprehensive plan 
in mind. So he urged caution on the part of United States.
  Well, again we have gone from threatening the use of force to almost 
overnight suing for peace.
  I recall the Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan] at one point more 
than a year ago was suggesting let us charge certain individuals with 
war crimes. Bring them to the United Nations, charge them with being 
war criminals.
  We have gone from a point of charging them with being war criminals, 
to threatening the use of bombs, to eventually suing for peace, saying 
if only you stop slaughtering the Moslems, if only you stop this, we 
might even lift the economic embargo that we placed on Serbia.
  So on the one hand, we threaten to bomb, which is ineffectual, and 
then we offer to sue for peace, and that too is ignored, and the 
slaughter continues. And so the sponsors are offering this amendment as 
the last thing we can turn to. Let them fight for themselves.

  But I think, as others have pointed out--and I have yet to conclude 
what the ultimate rationale should be for this action we take today or 
how it should be formulated--we also have to understand there are 
consequences for us if we seek to lift the arms embargo.
  Who delivers the arms? How are they delivered? Will we use our air 
power in order to ensure that they reach their destination? What 
happens if the Russians decide they are not going to go along? They 
might decide to supply the Serbs with surface-to-air missiles, and we 
might start to lose more and more planes. Do we then escalate it and go 
further? Do we then take out Belgrade? How far are we prepared to go?
  None of us is in a position to make that judgment today, which is one 
of the reasons why, for the past several weeks, I have suggested that 
we not initiate bombing until we know what the complete plan is going 
to be. We cannot continue to act on an ad hoc basis. We need clarity of 
purpose and consistency in the pursuit of that particular purpose. As 
of this date we have neither.
  So, is it worthwhile for us, this afternoon or this evening, to agree 
to an amendment which will not go into effect immediately, on a bill 
which will have to go to conference, which will take days if not weeks 
of negotiation with the other Chamber to come up with a proposal to 
present to the President long after the decisions have been made as to 
whether we go to a bombing strategy or not in Bosnia? It seems to me 
not unless we are prepared to answer these questions about whether we 
go it alone.
  If NATO decides, ``It is your ball game; if you decide you want to 
lift it unilaterally, go ahead,'' and we pursue that unilateral policy, 
it will have repercussions not only in Bosnia but in other areas as 
well where we depend upon a united, concerted effort. Is it worth 
taking that particular risk today to send the signal we are prepared to 
go alone? Does it strengthen the President's hand? Or is it better, as 
Senator Biden of Delaware has suggested, that perhaps we ought to give 
the President at least one more day? People are going to die during 
that one more day. We have to understand that.
  But is it worth giving the President of the United States an 
opportunity? To say, ``We are giving you this direction. We have 
reached the end of our rope in terms of patience. We are not 
formulators of foreign policy. We cannot have coherency in a body of 
100--or 435, in the other Chamber. We need you to lead. You have not 
been leading. You have been stepping forward and backwards, then 
forward and backward again. You have not been leading on a true and 
straight course. Maybe it is not possible to do that, but you have not 
done it. But we think it is worth another 24 hours to say to you, Mr. 
President, Go to NATO. Tell the NATO allies that we cannot tolerate the 
current situation a day longer, that we need united action to lift the 
embargo so the Muslims can defend themselves and stop tying their hands 
behind their backs.
  If they turn us down at that point, then I think you can say we have 
tried everything. We gave the President a chance.
  I recall on each and every occasion when we had President Reagan and 
President Bush in the White House, Members of the other side in 
particular were always eager to pass resolutions. And we on this side 
said, look, let us not take this action on the eve of a negotiation. Do 
not undercut the President. We find ourselves in a similar position, I 
think, today. Those who support the amendment, I know, feel they are 
going to strengthen the hand of the President, that he can go to the 
NATO allies and say, Look, unless you agree we are going to go alone.
  They may call that particular bluff of ours, if it is a bluff, and 
say, Go alone. Then we have no alternative. No more empty threats, no 
more empty promises. Then we will go it alone. The question is, where 
will we go and how far? Using what?
  None of us have thought that through yet. None of us, perhaps, can 
without the full information of our intelligence community, our defense 
establishment, the best advice we can get out of this Government.
  So I think we ought at least to have enough caution in this 
particular debate to say: Mr. President, we are not happy with a 
nonpolicy that you have articulated on one day and disavowed the next, 
or had spokesmen articulate one day and disavow the next. We are not 
pleased with that. Frankly, we should not be pleased with our own 
performance because we have not really been very much integrated with 
this process. We have not become too activated on this process. We have 
not had a very aggressive debate on this question. We have followed the 
President's lead as well; that is, just ignore it for the time being, 
let us look the other way and hope it somehow works out.
  What we realize, nothing in the world works out unless we are 
engaged, unless we are actively engaged, be it in dealing with China or 
Japan or any place in the world. We cannot simply pursue a domestic 
policy. This is a domestic President. But we cannot be a domestic 
nation. It is not as if we can simply tell the world, ``We are not 
concerned with you. Let the world fend for itself. Let the Asians take 
care of Asian problems. Let the Europeans take care of European 
problems. Let us come home to America.''
  We cannot shut the world out, because the world is not going to shut 
us out. There is nothing that takes place in isolation. Everything that 
happens in this ever-diminishing world of ours--diminished by 
technology, being miniaturized by technology--everything that happens 
has a consequence. Maybe it will reach our shores and maybe it will 
not. But the solution is not for us to come back to a cocoon called 
continental United States, zip ourselves inside, and let the world 
unfold and everybody watch it on CNN. That is a sure prescription for 
disaster, for future wars, for future entanglements which will cost us 
thousands of lives. So, we cannot claim any high position here, any 
moral virtue, that somehow only the President is at fault. We are at 
fault as well.
  This debate has been enormously helpful, I think. I think Senator 
Dole and Senator Lieberman and others, who have introduced this 
amendment, have forced us to start dealing with this, not on a 1-day 
basis but looking at what the ultimate consequences to Bosnia are, to 
the Serbs, to the Moslems, to the Croats, and to us. We should not 
follow the President's declaration it is only going to be domestic 
issues we are concerned about. We ought to be as concerned about 
foreign policy as the President should be concerned about foreign 
policy.
  Mr. President, I hope the initiative you and others have taken will, 
in fact, stir us to sit down this afternoon to see if we cannot come up 
with some kind of workable approach to give the President some time--
not a lot of time. As I mentioned before, people are dying. People are 
dying by the minute, by the second, through the brutality that is being 
waged, the savagery that is being conducted in Bosnia. If the President 
is going to communicate with NATO officials tomorrow, let us tell the 
President: We want you to take action. We want you to persuade the NATO 
allies to take this action. In the event you are unsuccessful in doing 
so, you can rest assured Congress is going to urge we go forward 
unilaterally.
  I think it is worth waiting a very brief period of time. I hope it 
does get the President's attention. I hope the President will, in fact, 
put together a foreign policy apparatus within the administration that 
is capable of, number one, focusing upon the complexities, the nuances, 
the dangers, the opportunities involved in formulating foreign policy, 
then speaks with a consistent, coherent voice, and then has the 
leadership to come to the Congress, who represent the American people, 
saying: This is what I want in the way of your support.
  There is one thing we have learned in this country. If the President 
takes action which puts our young men and women in harm's way so they 
lose their lives or are in jeopardy of losing their lives, unless the 
President has the Congress on record in advance in support of that 
action, then when the bullets start flying and the bombs start falling 
and the bodies start coming home, public opinion will be flowing in 
exactly the opposite direction. And we as Members of Congress will be 
right behind them.

  So the President must have the support of Congress in advance. In the 
absence of that support, he is likely to be out there on a limb, and 
the limb will get thinner with each tragedy, and he will reverse his 
policy. And, once again, the United States will look as if it is that 
weak and whimpering tiger that roars a great deal but takes no action, 
and when it takes action, it is ineffectual.
  So I think, Mr. President, that this debate has been helpful and 
healthy. I hope that the leadership will be able to meet during the 
course of the afternoon, as we are debating this issue, to come up with 
a proposal that does not undercut the President, that does, in fact, 
strengthen his hand, that does give him one last opportunity to go to 
our allies and say what we have done has been a disgrace. In the 
absence of action, we have forfeited the lives of tens of thousands of 
others; we have subjected them to absolute horror and terror and death, 
and we cannot be proud of that.
  So we go to NATO, insist that NATO take the action that we are 
recommending here; namely, allow, at the very minimum, the Moslems to 
be armed, allow them to fight with both hands.
  But in the absence of that, Mr. President, we would tell our NATO 
allies that, under those circumstances, if there is going to be a total 
default, complete abdication of any moral responsibility for action to 
defend innocent people, then we are prepared at that time to go 
forward.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President. I rise today as an original cosponsor of 
the Lieberman-Dole amendment which will, in effect, unilaterally lift 
the pernicious arms embargo against the Republic of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. I do not have a great deal to add to the comments by my 
colleagues, but only to reiterate what I and others have said for over 
a year: The missing link in an integrated and effective international 
policy on Bosnia is allowing the Bosnians to exercise their right to 
self defense by lifting the U.N. arms embargo against the Republic of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is an action I have advocated ever since I 
introduced Senate Resolution 79, a resolution expressing the sense of 
the Senate to do just that.
  We are discussing the embargo again today because of the imminent 
fall of yet another Bosnian city to Serbian aggressors. But while the 
debate today may be more impassioned, it is no different than before: 
this is an action we should have taken a long time ago.
  This is much more than just a feel-good measure taken by a group of 
Senators who want ease their consciences regarding Bosnia. Feeding 
starving people who are unarmed targets of aggression is a feel-good 
measure. Piecemeal air strikes, launched in the absence of a long-term, 
integrated strategy in Bosnia, is a feel-good measure. Rather, lifting 
the embargo is the most practical approach we can take in this 
conflict. Peace will have to be negotiated no doubt, but as long as the 
Bosnians pose no threat whatsoever--and carry no international 
protection--the Serbians have no reason to settle.
  Further, if the United States is, indeed, going to invest in Bosnia 
with our own troops--a step I have grave reservations about for several 
reasons--then we have an interest in the Bosnians being able to defend 
themselves.
  The only way the Bosnians can save themselves and preserve what 
remains of their country is by fighting for themselves, by being 
allowed to arm themselves. This will help make a fair fight on the 
ground where up to now it has been egregiously imbalanced in favor of 
the Serbs. It is also the surest way U.S. troops can stay out of the 
conflict.
  This amendment, as other cosponsors have already said, does exactly 
what the administration has supported for a year. But the President and 
others are cautious about sending arms to Bosnia unilaterally because 
of the precedent it sets for further U.N. action. That is a point well-
taken.
  However, in this case, Mr. President, I am among those who believe 
that the U.N. resolution barring arms to Bosnia is superseded by the 
U.N. Charter itself. As article 51 says,

       Nothing in the * * * Charter shall impair the inherent 
     right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed 
     attack occurs against a member of the United Nations until 
     the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain 
     international peace and security.

  Clearly, the international community, led by the United Nations, has 
not yet ``taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and 
security.'' Therefore, the right of Bosnia to self-defense, pursuant to 
article 51, is being violated. This is also a precedent for U.N. action 
which I think we must also take very seriously.
  As long as we participate in the embargo, we are assisting the 
Serbs--the Serbs who are guilty of some of the most heinous war crimes 
in the post-cold-war era. I believe that lifting the arms embargo is a 
defense of human rights and a strengthening of international law. It is 
also--ironically enough--a step toward a peace agreement. Without 
lifting the embargo, the increased air strikes, the tightened 
sanctions, the protection of so-called safe havens will prove to be 
just feel-good measures.
  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I rise to support the initiative that is 
before us this afternoon, and I want to commend both the Chair and 
Senator Dole for bringing this to the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  I suspect that there are a lot of people who have been wondering why 
it has taken us so long. I guess my initial reaction to that thought is 
that we, frankly, wanted the President to lead. The American people 
want to support President Clinton. The American people want to support 
his foreign policy. But, frankly, they have become dismayed, and the 
international community looks at us with disbelief.
  From a personal perspective, it is hard for me to believe that in a 
very short period of time, we have destroyed the vision of what America 
is all about to people around the world who have looked to us so long 
in support of freedom, who have looked to America as the leaders who 
are prepared, a society, a nation that is prepared to defend freedom 
anywhere on the globe. But in a relatively short period of time now, 
there is serious question about America's resolve: Who are we? What do 
we believe? What are we committed to?
  There have been many articles written over the last several weeks 
with respect to Bosnia and questioning the President's leadership. Let 
me just read from one. Anthony Lewis, New York Times, Monday, April 18:

       For 50 years, American power, purpose and resolve have kept 
     the peace in Europe. They faced down the severest challenges, 
     and prevented a third great war.
       That age is over now. So we have to conclude from the 
     humiliation in Bosnia. There the United States and NATO, the 
     most powerful military alliance in the world, have allowed 
     themselves to be intimidated by a minor force of ultra-
     national Serbs under demagogic leadership.
       The reason for this seismic change in the balance of 
     effective power in the world is plain. The United States has 
     in office an administration that does not believe in the 
     commitment of American power, purpose and resolve to keep the 
     peace.

  I think we are again here today to discuss and debate this issue 
because the time has come when the country will no longer accept a 
position that in essence says just wait till tomorrow; we will have 
another policy for you.
  I think a second frustration people are feeling is no longer do they 
believe it is proper for the United States to abdicate or to turn over 
its role in the world to the United Nations. That is not said from the 
perspective that I am trying to beat up on the United Nations. But when 
one observes just what has occurred in the world as a result of the 
United States saying we are in essence going to turn over foreign 
policy to the United Nations, we have seen I think terrible 
consequences--in Somalia, in Haiti, and clearly in Bosnia as well.
  This month is the 52d anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The 
world's response was ``Never again.'' Never again would we turn our 
backs on people who are being slaughtered. We said we in essence would 
take a stand.
  I think we have failed ourselves, and we have failed our Nation in 
not providing the world with the leadership necessary to bring the 
forces together to defend those innocent people in Bosnia.
  Mr. President, again, I come to the floor with a very strong 
conviction that the Senate of the United States must speak out; that we 
must unilaterally lift the economic embargo imposed on the Bosnian 
people. It is morally wrong for our Nation to support a policy of 
denying people the right to defend themselves and at the same time 
saying to them ``And we won't defend you either.''
  The time has come for us to act. The information coming out of 
Bosnia--there is an article that I have in ``The Bosnia Relief Watch.'' 
The headline, if you will, is, ``This is Not War; This is Slaughter.''
  Mr. President, it is time for us as a nation and as a people to stand 
up once again and say to the world we are prepared to do what is 
necessary, not just to maintain the peace but to protect and extend 
freedom around the world.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Chair recognizes the distinguished President pro tempore of the 
Senate, Mr. Byrd, of West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

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