[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 82 (Friday, June 24, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will now resume 
consideration of S. 2182, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2182) to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
     year 1995 for military activities of the Department of 
     Defense, for military construction, and for defense 
     activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe 
     personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed 
     Forces, and for other purposes.
       Pending:
       Johnston amendment No. 1840, to restore funding for the 
     National Defense Sealift Fund and reduce funding for the LHD-
     7 amphibious ship.


                           Amendment No. 1840

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will resume the pending 
business, the Johnston amendment No. 1840.
  The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens] is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask the pending amendment be set aside 
temporarily and I that I may offer an amendment at this time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1850

                 (Purpose: Limitation on compensation)

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:


       The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1850.

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 34, line 12, strike ``$52,650,000.'' and insert: 
     ``$52,650,000.''
       ``(g) Limitation on Compensation.--No employee or executive 
     officer of a federally funded research and development center 
     named in the report required by subsection (b) may be 
     compensated at a rate exceeding Executive Schedule Level I by 
     that federally funded research and development center.''

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, as I understand it at this time it has been 
agreed to by the managers that myself, the distinguished Senator from 
Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, Senator McCain, and others would offer 
our amendment on lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia. If the Senator 
from Alaska has no objection, I wonder if he might be willing to set 
his amendment aside that we might proceed?
  I ask the amendment be temporarily set aside.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The minority leader is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 1851

(Purpose: To terminate the United States arms embargo applicable to the 
                 Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina)

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Dole] for himself, Mr. 
     Lieberman, Mr. Thurmond, Mr. DeConcini, Mr. D'Amato, Mr. 
     Levin, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. 
     Wallop, Mr. Lugar, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Hatch, 
     Mr. McCain, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Pressler, Mr. Durenberger, Mr. 
     Brown, Mr. Murkowski, Mr. Helms, Mr. Gorton, and Mr. Moynihan 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1851.

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

       On page 249, between lines 7 and 8, insert the following:

     SEC.   . BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA SELF-DEFENSE.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1994''.
       (b) Findings.--The Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) For the reasons stated in section 520 of the Foreign 
     Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 
     (Public Law 103-236), the Congress has found that continued 
     application of an international arms embargo to the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina contravenes that 
     Government's inherent right of individual or collective self-
     defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and 
     therefore is inconsistent with international law.
       (2) The United States has not formally sought multilateral 
     support for terminating the arms embargo against Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina either within the United Nations Security Council 
     or within the North Atlantic Council since the enactment of 
     section 520 of Public Law 103-236, Senate passage of S. 2042 
     of the One Hundred Third Congress, and House passage of 
     sections 1401-1404 of H.R. 4301 of the One Hundred Third 
     Congress.
       (c) Termination of Arms Embargo.--
       (1) 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.
       (2) 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--
       (A) the policy adopted July 10, 1991, and published in the 
     Federal Register of July 19, 1991 (58 (F.R. 33322) under the 
     heading ``Suspension of Munitions Export Licenses to 
     Yugoslavia''; and
       (B) any similar policy being applied by the United States 
     Government as of the date of receipt of the request described 
     in paragraph (1) pursuant to which approval is denied for 
     transfers of defense articles and defense services to the 
     former Yugoslavia.
       (3) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this section shall be 
     interpreted as authorization for deployment of United States 
     forces in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any 
     purpose, including training, support, or delivery of military 
     equipment.

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined once again by the 
distinguished Senator from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, in proposing 
this amendment to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 
we are pleased to have a number of cosponsors again this time to an 
almost identical amendment.
  The McCloskey-Gilman-Bonior-Hoyer amendment, which was almost 
identical, was adopted by the House, to the House defense authorization 
bill almost 2 weeks ago, by a substantial margin. We are probably going 
to hear again today, just as Members of the House heard, now is not the 
time to lift the arms embargo. Let me just suggest that you read the 
Washington Post today, if you think now is not the time to lift the 
arms embargo. They are preparing for war in that part of the world. I 
know there are these peace plans--51 to 49 percent--whatever the 
percentages now are. Just read the Washington Post piece today, ``Winds 
of War Blow in Balkans Despite Latest American-Backed Peace Plan.'' 
Those who are most unprepared for war are the people in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, and I ask at the appropriate time this article be printed 
in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Murray). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  [See exhibit 1.]
  Mr. DOLE. We have heard for the last 26 months now, usually with the 
same excuses--that this is not the time to lift the arms embargo, that 
we are going to table something at the United Nations, that something 
is going to happen, that allies with troops on the ground oppose 
lifting the embargo, that the Russians oppose lifting the embargo, that 
it is too late, that it will hurt the negotiations. We have heard all 
these arguments for a long time now and we have gone along with failed 
policies in the name of consensus. We have forsaken principle for 2 
years and ignored international law in the naive hope this war will end 
by the good graces of the very perpetrators of this aggression.
  It may be that once again we are on the brink of the signing of 
another settlement, but based on today's Washington Post story I am not 
certain that is the case. Once again we are pressuring the victims, the 
Bosnians, to accept ethnic partition. And, once again, the 
administration is using this as an excuse to do nothing.
  Do not get me wrong. I have just been to Sarajevo recently and I 
would like to see a peaceful settlement. I would like to see an end to 
this brutal war. I have seen its consequences, as I will indicate 
later, personally, as has the distinguished Senator from Delaware, 
Senator Biden, along with the distinguished Senator from Virginia, 
Senator Warner. Just 3 weeks ago I was in Sarajevo. I saw the victims 
of the Serbian assault on Gorazde and victims of sniper attacks in the 
Sarajevo hospital.
  I believe everyone in this body would like to see an end to this war. 
But that is not the issue. The issue is how to get to a just peace--not 
just any peace--not surrender.
  But for the moment, let us put aside issues of justice, morality, 
principle, or Bosnia's legal rights.
  There is one big question that no one in this administration can 
answer, or anyone else who advocates denying the Bosnians a right to 
self-defense. And that is: Who or what is going to make the Bosnian 
Serbs withdraw from 70 percent of Bosnia to 49 percent, as proposed by 
the so-called contact group? The Bosnian Serbs are not going to do it. 
They have taken over 70 percent of this independent nation.
  Again, I wish all of my colleagues could go to Sarajevo. They would 
not recognize Sarajevo. There is not much left in Sarajevo. They would 
recognize who occupies the high grounds.
  If they go to the hospital there, they can see this little, beautiful 
girl who, the night before our visit to the hospital, was hit by a 
sniper. We also saw a 15-month-old baby girl, and we handed her a teddy 
bear, and we wondered why there was no reaction. Well, she was blind, 
in addition to other multiple injuries. We are trying to see if we can 
work out some way to bring her to the United States for medical 
treatment.
  But this is happening every day: Discriminate fire hitting senior 
citizens, old people--nobody engaged in the war--children, babies.
  What do the Bosnians tell us? They do not want American troops. They 
do not even want air strikes. They want the right to defend themselves. 
It seems to me that this right is rather basic in America.
  We went up and down the streets of Sarajevo, and these little shops 
were opening, little shops, about the size of the table in front of me. 
That is about the size of their shops, about 6 feet by 5 feet. That was 
a shop. The people have a lot of courage--I guess is the right word--in 
Sarajevo. They understand what has happened to them.
  And what do the Bosnian people want? They want American leadership. 
They want American leadership. They are not asking us for anything but 
the right to defend themselves, the same right any of us would want if 
our homes are threatened or if anything else was threatened that we 
possess. We would want the right to defend ourselves.
  This is serious business--there have been 200,000 people killed. I 
want to repeat what I read in the paper this morning, what the Bosnian 
Vice President said. He said, ``We are getting a little tired of big 
rhetoric and small deeds.'' And he was right; we have a lot of big 
rhetoric around here, a lot of big rhetoric. Go to Sarajevo and you 
will understand how important this issue is to the people who live 
there.
  We Americans do have an interest. The interest that we have is that 
we believe in the right of self-defense. We understand Bosnia is an 
independent nation. We understand Bosnia is a member of the United 
Nations. We understand that article 51 of the United Nations Charter 
recognizes their right to self-defense. So what is all the argument 
about? The vote on this amendment should be 100 to 0. It ought to be 
100 to 0. The President of the United States ought to persuade our 
allies to go along--We do not want anybody hurt; we do not want anybody 
in harm's way. Let the U.N. protection forces leave, but give the 
Bosnian people the ability to defend themselves.
  So I do not see anything new happening. Maybe you can force the 
Bosnians to sign another peace agreement. We met with the President of 
Bosnia. He said, well, if you will not lift the arms embargo, maybe you 
can get the Serbs to come down to parity so they would reduce the 
weapons they have.
  We were told--myself and the Senator from Connecticut, Senator 
Lieberman--by the Bosnian Vice President, Mr. Ganic, the last time he 
was here, that they have one rifle for every four men--one weapon. The 
Bosnians want antitank guns.
  It just seems to me we ought to do the right thing. About all the 
hope the Bosnians have is America. That is what they tell you, with 
tears in their eyes: ``We're waiting for America; we're waiting for 
America.'' And that is what this debate is all about: Not American 
troops, not American air strikes, but American leadership, to say the 
Bosnians ought to have a right to defend themselves. It seems to me 
that is not too much to ask.
  So, Madam President, I want to again urge my colleagues. I know there 
are some Members who voted against this proposal the last time who may 
join us this time. I understand that the administration feels strongly 
about this, and it may be very difficult for some to oppose the 
administration. But this is not a partisan effort. It should not be a 
partisan effort.
  I just would like to take another look at some of the other arguments 
made against this amendment.
  First, the impact on the negotiations. Again, I think if somebody 
reads this morning's Washington Post, that piece about war looming in 
that part of the world, I think they will understand. There are not 
going to be any negotiated settlements. At least, that was the sense I 
had when I left Bosnia.
  History shows us that a stable peace can be achieved when there is a 
balance on the battlefield--a balance on the battlefield. Our own 
history of negotiations with the Soviets taught us that negotiating 
from a position of strength produced the best results.
  The Bosnians are getting a little stronger; they are gaining a little 
more strength. They may have a little more negotiating power in the 
next weeks, months, or years. But again, if there was a balance, if we 
lift the arms embargo unilaterally, if the United States leads the way, 
they will have a chance. Good things happen when the United States 
leads the way; whether it is politics or economics or military, good 
things happen when the United States leads the way.
  So it seems to me the only potential outcome that is furthered by the 
continued arms embargo on the Bosnians is surrender.
  Some will say, ``Oh, this can have a negative impact on NATO.'' It 
seems to me NATO has already suffered significant damage, but not as a 
result of our efforts to lift the arms embargo. NATO's credibility 
suffered because of decisions to subordinate NATO to the United Nations 
in Bosnia, allowing U.N. officials to have operational control over 
NATO forces. NATO's influence has been marginalized because of a 
failure to define a clear and independent role in the post-cold-war 
era.
  I read a piece in the Los Angeles Times which reported that Mr. 
Akashi and other U.N. officials are building monumental structures as 
if they want to stay in Croatia and Bosnia forever. UNPROFOR has 3,000 
civilian employees. They have a bureaucracy going and they do not want 
to leave.
  I ask unanimous consent to print that article in the Record, too, in 
case some of my colleagues may have missed it. It tells what is really 
happening in Croatia and Bosnia and why some in the United Nations 
insist on staying there.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1994]

                    U.N. Force Has a Life of Its Own

                         (By Carol J. Williams)

       Zagreb, Croatia.--In between the fierce squalls that usher 
     in the Balkan summer, builders under contract to U.N. 
     peacekeepers have been pouring cement and hammering arches 
     for twin porticoes of faux Ionic columns outside the two most 
     important doors at mission headquarters.
       The embellished entrances, about 100 feet apart on Building 
     A, lead to the offices of the U.N. mission chief, Yasushi 
     Akashi, and to an administrative beehive that has swelled 
     since his January arrival.
       While the stab at re-creating antiquity's grandeur may seem 
     pointless against a backdrop of squat military barracks, the 
     colonnades and architectural substance to local fears that 
     the U.N. Protection Force, or UNPROFOR, has metamorphosed 
     from a temporary peacekeeping mission into a city-state with 
     a life of is own. There is no name yet emblazoned on the 
     frieze of the vaulted arches, but U.N. workers joke that it 
     should read: Republic of UNPROFOR.
       With nearly 40,000 troops and employees already deployed in 
     the embattled former Yugoslav republics and 5,000 more on the 
     way, the U.N. peacekeeping force has expanded during its mere 
     two-year life span to become the largest and most expensive 
     mission in U.N. history.
       Its 3,164 civilian employees alone eclipse the work force 
     of Vatican City.
       Its proposed $1.5-billion budget for the next fiscal year 
     is nearly 50% more than that of the U.N. Secretariat.
       The mission has its own airline, with two daily flights to 
     Sarajevo and regular service to Belgrade and other 
     peacekeeper venues.
       There are 11,527 white vehicles plying the roads from this 
     Croatian capital to the tripwire lookouts in northern 
     Macedonia.
       Thousands of portable living units--the postmodern version 
     of the Quonset hut--have created hundreds of remote U.N. 
     mini-bases.
       A fleet of white buses shuttle translators and secretaries 
     from the crammed headquarters complex to Zagreb hotels and to 
     the airport, creating a transportation system parallel to the 
     city's.
       The mission is even developing its own radio-television 
     network, hiring reporters and anchors and duplicating the 
     broadcasting services of other international agencies.
       While administrators justify the cost and sprawl as 
     investments necessary because of the mission's broad scope, 
     there are growing concerns in the mission area as well as in 
     the West that the United Nations has built an empire that is 
     more absorbed with keeping itself in business than restoring 
     peace so it can disband and go home.
       The mission that has neither the mandate nor the military 
     means to stop the 3-year-old conflict is increasingly raising 
     questions about the efficacy of peacekeeping in regions where 
     there is no more peace to keep.
       It is also prodding some Western analysts to wonder whether 
     the ever-expanding and elusive quest for a negotiated 
     resolution will end up costing more in foreign dollars and 
     local lives than a swift and decisive military intervention 
     would have if one had been undertaken at the start. The tab 
     for food aid, humanitarian actions and peacekeeping is 
     generally estimated at well over $2 billion a year. More than 
     200,000 lives have been lost.
       ``Not a single objective of this mission has been achieved, 
     because it is compelled to remain neutral in the face of an 
     obvious aggression,'' Bosnian Information Minister Ivo 
     Knezevic complained during a recent interview in Sarajevo. 
     ``For UNPROFOR troops, overseeing our people's suffering has 
     become a matter of jobs.
       ``We don't want to sound unfair or ungrateful for their 
     endeavors and the aid that we do receive, but the negative 
     aspects of this mission are now dominating.''
       His chief complaint, that the U.N. mission is trying to 
     strong-arm the combatants into agreeing to an unjust peace, 
     is, ironically, shared by all warring factions.
       Serbian rebels in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia accuse the 
     U.N. troops of trying to reduce their territorial spoils, 
     while Zagreb contends that the world body's presence here has 
     firmed up the Serbs' hold on the one-third of Croatia that 
     insurgents seized in a conflict three years ago.
       The imperturbable Akashi smiles tolerantly through the 
     accusations of bias, as he does through suggestions his 
     massive mission has become an immovable force.
       ``We are in goods shape when we are equally criticized by 
     both parties,'' the 30-year veteran of U.N. bureaucracy said 
     during an interview in his penthouse office atop the newly 
     aggrandized Building A.
       Among its assignments, the U.N. peacekeeping force overseas 
     negotiations aimed at brokering peace both in the suspended 
     war between Serbs and Croats in this republic and the Serbian 
     rebellion in Bosnia that has been left to deteriorate into 
     civil war.
       But after nearly two years of attempts to cojole the 
     factions into talking out a settlement, the latest team of 
     mediators trying to achieve the elusive peace treaty has 
     begun brandishing the threat of a U.N. pullout.
       France and Britian, who together contribute nearly, one-
     third of the U.N. force (36 other countries make up the 
     rest), have warned they may withdraw their soldiers unless 
     the factions agree to a negotiated settlement within a few 
     months. But in Croatia and Bosnia, political leaders dismiss 
     that ultimatum as diplomatic bluster.
       ``UNPROFOR, like any other bureaucratic organization, has 
     the intention to perpetuate itself,'' said Bozo Kovacevic, a 
     leader of the Croatian Social-Liberal Party. ``It has to. 
     There are too many jobs and careers at stake.
       Western diplomats speculate that France and Britain many 
     actually reduce the commitments to the peacekeeping force to 
     calm fears at home that their solders are being exposed to 
     the hazards of war while the people they were sent to help 
     show no willingness to make the compromises necessary to end 
     the conflict. The U.N. troops have suffered more than 1,000 
     casualites--84 of them fatal.
       But without any international will to militarily impose a 
     settlement, the United Nations must keep the fig leaf of a 
     peacekeeping force in place, one Western envoy insisted.
       ``I see no chance whatsoever that UNPROFOR will leave 
     before there is some kind of settlement here,'' he said. 
     ``They may have to restructure the force with more Third 
     World troops if the British and the French do cut back, but 
     that would probably be to the U.N.'s liking.''
       A protracted stay by the peacekeepers is also a boost for 
     the Croatian economy, which was shattered by the six-month 
     war with Serbian rebels in 1991 and has been shrinking with 
     the loss of tourism income and key industrial sites that 
     remain behind rebel lines.
       Drazen Kalodjera, a senior research fellow at the Economics 
     Institute of Zagreb, estimates that the missions housing, 
     food, gas and other expenditures--an estimated $400 million a 
     year--account for as much as 5 percent of Croatia's gross 
     national product.
       ``Five percent of GNP is important for any economy,'' said 
     Kalodjera, dismissing threats by the Croatian leadership to 
     ask the U.N. mission to leave unless it restores Zagreb's 
     sovereignty over Serb-occupied territory.
       ``In spite of all our dissatisfaction with the United 
     Nations, these troops are here for a long time,'' the 
     economist said.
       U.N. activities more telling than the symbolic erection of 
     the porticoes also suggest that the mission is hunkering down 
     for the duration.
       A U.N. press center has been built in central Sarajevo to 
     spare public information officers the five-mile drive to 
     forward head-quarters from their offices nearer to town. 
     Dozens of observation posts have been established over the 
     last two months to monitor the on-again, off-again truces. 
     Sophisticated radar equipment has just been moved in to trace 
     the origin of cease-fire violations in northern Bosnia. And 
     the search for more troops to bolster the burgeoning force 
     continues.
       Akashi waves away questions about how long he expects his 
     mission to persevere, offering vague expressions of hope that 
     it won't be too long.
       ``Not decades. Not like Cyprus,'' he said. ``I completely 
     identify myself with the parties to the conflict here. I do 
     not want a reproduction of the stalemate we see in Cyprus,'' 
     where the United Nations has been involved for three decades.
       But it is just such a standoff that the Balkan populations 
     and some troop-contributing nations have begun to fear.
       ``I worked at the United Nations for five years, so I'm 
     familiar with its institutional mentality,'' said Slaven 
     Letica, a political science professor at Zagreb University. 
     ``It is lazy, bureaucratic and institutionally stupid. The 
     people who take part in these missions learn to accommodate 
     the local suffering. They have to develop this indifference 
     as a survival strategy, because they are nice young people 
     who cannot really do anything to help. Their preoccupation 
     becomes that of any other job--getting by, getting a 
     paycheck, achieving career advancement.''
       Like most political and economic analysts in this host 
     nation, Letica dismisses the threat of a pullout by the 
     United Nations as ``just for foreign show.''
       ``We can probably expect a decrease in the scope of the 
     deployment at some point, but withdrawal would be 
     unacceptable for both the international community and the 
     Croatian government,'' said Letica, a former chief adviser to 
     Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
       With new responsibilities for patrolling and monitoring 
     heaped on the peacekeepers with each U.N. Security Council 
     resolution, the number of troops needed is likely to continue 
     rising.
       Akashi concedes that the mission's size is approaching its 
     limit, not because the situation is stabilizing but because 
     the international communnity's willingness to send armed 
     forces to the Balkans is nearly exhausted.
       A March appeal for 12,000 more troops to enforce cease-
     fires in Sarajevo and central Bosnia drew pledges of only 
     4,500, half of which have not arrived.
       ``We continue to assess in a very realistic and pragmatic 
     manner what we can achieve with our limited resources,'' 
     Akashi said. ``We have to maximize our resources. We should 
     not ask for more and more troops all the time, even though we 
     are fully aware of the danger of being spread very thinly for 
     our comfort.''
       In the unlikely event that the mediation efforts wring out 
     a settlement, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has 
     promised to help implement it by sending 50,000 troops. That 
     would more than double the mission's size.
       As one European officer in Sarajevo quipped, ``If the U.N. 
     can keep 40,000 people busy without having produced a single 
     agreement, imagine what the force will grow to if we ever get 
     a real cease-fire.''

  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, in addition to NATO's other shortcomings, 
NATO has been weakened by its willingness to allow Russia to dictate 
the terms of our security relations with former Warsaw Pact countries 
like Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
  I would like to address again the argument made by administration 
officials that unilaterally declaring this illegal arms embargo null 
and void will lead to the demise of legal U.N. embargoes against the 
perpetrators of aggression.
  I think it is fairly clear that Bosnia is not a perpetrator, Bosnia 
is a victim of aggression, while Iraq and Serbia are the aggressors. 
The arms embargo against Bosnia violates its inherent right to self-
defense, as I said, a right which is recognized in, but not limited to, 
article 51 of the U.N. Charter.
  Whether or not the administration or other members of the U.N. 
Security Council choose to see it, right and wrong still exist in the 
world, legal and illegal actions still exist under international law. 
Obfuscation and moral equivalence may work in the short term, but will 
not work in the long term. History is going to judge our actions here. 
History will judge whether or not the United States exercised 
leadership in support of a just peace in Bosnia or not.
  Some opponents of our amendment may argue that lifting the embargo 
would endanger the U.N. protection forces. In my view, that puts the 
cart before the horse. The U.N. protection forces have not protected 
Bosnia. They have not protected--they have been witnesses to all the 
suffering.
  As this recent Los Angeles Times article pointed out, the U.N. 
protection forces have become `` * * * an empire more absorbed in 
keeping itself in business than restoring peace so it can disband and 
go home.'' That is the article I made reference to earlier.
  So for all the reasons I can think of, Madam President, this embargo 
must be lifted. And again, I know that one visit to Sarajevo does not 
make anybody an expert, but you can see the devastation, you can see 
the horror, you can see the tragedy, and it is still happening.
  About 150 sniper rounds a day from the hills come in, and children 
are hurt, babies are hurt, old people are hurt. They are not 
participants in any conflict. They are innocent. Again, I am not now 
asking us to become involved at all. I retreated from that position. I 
thought air strikes might be a good idea. But, let us forget about air 
strikes. Let us talk about lifting the arms embargo; let us talk about 
providing leadership for the rest of the world; and let us do it by a 
big, big vote on this amendment.

                               Exhibit 1

Winds of War Blow in Balkans Despite Latest, American-Backed Peace Plan

                         (By David B. Ottaway)

       Zagreb, Croatia--As the United States, Russia and Western 
     Europe prepare to unveil with much fanfare their own 
     partition plan for a Bosnian peace settlement, Western 
     diplomats and U.N. mediators in the Balkans are expressing 
     deep pessimism and total frustration.
       The prevailing feeling among these diplomats is that the 
     region is facing a widening war and that outside efforts to 
     avert the storm are just about exhausted. All parties engaged 
     in the overlapping Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, these 
     sources say, are busy preparing for more war, not peace.
       ``I consider [a new outbreak of war in Croatia] a very real 
     danger,'' said Peter Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador here. 
     ``If there is another Serb-Croat war, it is going to be 
     unlike what we've seen so far. It could escalate to air raids 
     on cities, rocket attacks and large-scale tank and artillery 
     assaults.
       ``Such a war could lead to the direct involvement of the 
     Yugoslav army. It is precisely such a catastrophe that our 
     negotiating efforts have sought to forestall,'' he added.
       The coming Western peace plan for Bosnia is counting 
     heavily on high-level diplomatic hoopla--and a few new but 
     slim carrots and sticks--to win the approval of the warring 
     parties.
       First, U.S. Russian and West European foreign ministers 
     will put their stamp of approval on the plan at a meeting in 
     early July, either in Geneva or Naples. Then, it is scheduled 
     to be formally endorsed at the summit in Naples on July 9 and 
     10 of the Group of Seven major industrial nations, with 
     Russia also taking part.
       The crux of the plan consists of a map drawn by a ``contact 
     group'' of U.S., Russian and West European diplomats for 
     Bosnia's partition, with 51 percent going to the newly formed 
     Muslim-Croat federation and 49 percent to the Bosnian Serbs' 
     self-declared state.
       The plan, however, may prove stillborn. At this point, it 
     seems to have little to do with the realities on the ground 
     and little prospect of being accepted by either the Bosnian 
     Serbs, who hold more than 70 percent of the republic, or by 
     the Muslim-led Bosnian government, which is pressing to 
     retake strategic points from the Serbs.
       In Bosnia, a U.N.-negotiated cease-fire between Muslims and 
     Serbs that began on June 10 is already breaking down, with 
     U.N. officials in Sarajevo confirming ``major violations'' of 
     the truce by both sides, particularly by the Muslim-led 
     Bosnian army in central Bosnia.
       In Serb-surrounded Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, Muslim 
     forces are digging additional defensive trenches all around 
     the city and sending spare troops to fight in central Bosnia, 
     according to U.N. sources.
       ``Everybody is preparing for war,'' said a dejected U.N. 
     relief official, Peter Kessler, who just returned here from 
     Sarajevo.
       Though under an international arms embargo, both Croatia 
     and Serb-controlled Yugoslavia, the main players in the 
     overall Balkan drama, are busy buying arms abroad for the 
     next round of fighting.
       Diplomats here say the Croatians continue to obtain MiG jet 
     fighters--they have 16 now--and helicopters on the black 
     market from East European countries. Diplomats in Belgrade, 
     the Yugoslav capital, report that an engine for a MiG-29 was 
     recently discovered by U.N. monitors hidden under a pile of 
     loose detergent in a truck coming across the border from 
     Bulgaria.
       The cease-fire negotiated between Croatia and its Serb 
     separatist minority that went into effect March 29 has held 
     so far, with U.N. peacekeeping troops spread out along a 1.6-
     mile-wide corridor separating the rival forces. But a senior 
     U.N. military official here predicted the truce would become 
     ``more and more fragile'' with each passing day after the 
     breakdown last week of the negotiating process here.
       The combined efforts of U.S., Russian, West European and 
     U.N. mediators to start direct talks between the Croatian 
     government and the rebel Croatian Serbs reached a dead end 
     last week when the Serbs refused to allow five Croatian 
     reporters to cover the event.
       The mediators say there is nothing more they can do until 
     there is some change in attitude by the hard-line Croatian 
     Serbs, who, one diplomat concluded, ``simply are not 
     interested in negotiations.''
       As a result, U.S. and other diplomats no longer can offer 
     Croatian President Franjo Tudjman the hope of peaceful 
     negotiations as an alternative to going to war to regain the 
     quarter of the country held by the Serbs, as he has long 
     threatened to so. Instead, the diplomats are warning him that 
     the consequence of renewed war, with the prospect of 
     intervention by neighboring Yugoslavia, could be a lot worse 
     for Croatia than its current division.
       The attitude of Bosnia's warring Serb and Muslim factions 
     toward negotiations is not much different from that of the 
     Croatian Serbs.
       A nearly completed draft of the international mediators' 
     proposed partition map, published in the Belgrade weekly 
     Vreme on Monday, would require the Bosnian Serbs to hand back 
     about 30 percent of the land they seized at the outset of the 
     war 26 months ago, mostly in eastern and northern Bosnia.
       The map's most contentious points would require the Serbs 
     to give back to the Muslims substantial territory around the 
     three remaining Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia--
     Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa--and to the Croats a broad swath 
     of land in the north. The latter proposal, if implemented, 
     would practically cut in half the corridor that connects 
     Serb-held lands in northeastern and northwestern Bosnia.
       The chances that the Bosnian Serbs will ever accept this 
     plan are rated by Western diplomats here as close to 
     nonexistent. Only enormous pressure from President Slobodan 
     Milosevic of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, might 
     accomplish this, but they doubt he has the political will or 
     clout to squeeze the Bosnian Serbs into compliance after his 
     failure to deliver the far less powerful Croatian Serbs to 
     the negotiating table.
       The Clinton administration has drawn up a list of new 
     carrots and sticks to persuade Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs 
     to accept the proposal. The carrots rely mainly on an easing 
     of two-year-old U.N. economic sanctions on them if they 
     accept. If they refuse, the sticks include measures to 
     tighten the sanctions--and possibly exempting the Bosnian 
     Muslims from the arms embargo.
       But if a recent U.S. government-sponsored survey of public 
     opinion in Serbia is anything to go by, there is little 
     support there for getting tough with the Bosnian Serbs and 
     considerable confidence that the republic can withstand any 
     additional U.N. sanctions.
       The survey, based on a sample of 1,600 people interviewed 
     in late May and early June, showed that 8 out of 10 Serbians 
     say their government should support the Bosnian Serbs ``at 
     all costs,'' including the use of military force to help them 
     seize the three Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia. Fully 90 
     percent said they believe a lasting peace is impossible as 
     long as the Muslims keep those enclaves.
       Two-thirds were of the opinion the Bosnian Serbs should 
     either hold onto the 70 percent of Bosnia they now control or 
     try to seize even more land. Only 32 percent favored giving 
     up some territory to obtain a peace settlement.
       The survey also showed that 84 percent of Serbians said 
     they could withstand U.N. sanctions at least through the end 
     of this year, ``if not longer,'' and nearly the same 
     percentage said Serbia's economic situation had improved over 
     the past year.

  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, for a couple years now, some of us in 
this Chamber--Senator Lieberman from Connecticut and others--have been 
urging that the arms embargo placed on Yugoslavia, and Bosnia, in 
particular, by the last administration, be lifted.
  As a matter of fact, in the waning hours of the Bush administration 
we actually adopted an amendment that I authored not only urging the 
President to lift the embargo but authorizing then President Bush to 
expend up to $50 million in military arms to make available to the 
Bosnian Government. The Bush administration did not act.
  The Clinton administration, although critical during the campaign of 
the Bush administration's position, came in and essentially adopted the 
same position. We have had no change. We have had herculean efforts on 
the part, I expect, of both administrations to try to negotiate 
something. But the essence of the negotiation always is, Bosnia, give 
up, as Czechoslovakia did in the thirties, part of your territory to 
the naked aggression sponsored by a foreign state, Serbia, in return 
for having the right to exist in any form as a nation state.
  That is the deal the Bosnian Government is asked repeatedly to sign. 
I made my position very clear. I think that this administration should 
be directed to move that the United Nations table a resolution 
demanding the lifting of the embargo, force our NATO allies to stand up 
and be counted. I predict to you they will not veto such a resolution. 
I predict to you they will not have the courage to go down on the wrong 
side of history. I predict to you that vigorous American leadership 
could reverse the arms embargo and do it multilaterally. But it seems 
that is not going to be done.
  This administration has not acceded to my pleas or those of others. 
We will be left in the Senate with the choice to vote for an amendment 
which I believe will be offered and, I suspect, supported by the 
administration--an amendment which is well-intended, may even be 
correct--although I happen to think not, but I suspect it will call for 
an interim step. That step will propose that if the Serbs do not agree 
to a negotiated settlement, then and only then will we lift the 
embargo. I know the Secretary of State, in talking to me, has been 
working vigorously to try to, if that route were taken, convince our 
allies that they would then join us in lifting the embargo.
  Well, on its face that seems to be reasonable, Madam President, 
except for one important factor. We have been on record in this 
administration from the outset, and a critical element of my position 
on this issue has been, that we will not dictate the partitioning of 
Bosnia. We, the United States, will not be party to insisting on the 
partitioning of Bosnia.
  The contact group proposal, the so-called contact group made up of 
the major European powers, our NATO allies and Russia, has put on the 
table for discussion a partitioning of Bosnia--49-51. It says that the 
Serbs must back off from the 70 percent they now control to 50 percent. 
The Serbs have no right to 1 percent, one-quarter of 1 percent.
  Now, I am not naive enough to think we can dictate an outcome which 
allows the Bosnian Government to be fully reconstituted--multicultural 
and within the confines of the original nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina 
that we recognized several years ago. If we had acted when we should 
have, I believe we could have guaranteed that. But we are beyond that 
now.
  Now the question is, do we get on the wrong side of history in two 
ways. Do we get on the wrong side of history by saying, in this 
Chamber, to the President of the United States that we not only condone 
this partition, but insist that the Bosnian Government give up 49 
percent of its territory.
  Now, the way it is going to be presented to us by the administration 
is that we are insisting the Serbs back off 20 percent of the 70 
percent they now have.
  Well, the truth is that we will be endorsing the fact that Bosnia 
will be split and roughly half of it will be under the effective 
control of a guy named Milosevic, who happens to be President of an 
independent and separate country called Serbia. That is what this is 
about, separate and apart from whether or not the chronic debates that 
my friend from Virginia and my friend from Arizona and I have had about 
the utility of air strikes. It has nothing to do with that. This is a 
fundamental decision we are going to be asked to participate in: Do we 
officially condone, as a matter of United States policy, the 
partitioning of Bosnia after 2 years of insisting the territorial 
integrity of Bosnia, under the control of a single multiethnic 
government in Sarajevo, remain intact? That is the position the contact 
group, at least in a de facto way, is abandoning.
  So there is a principle at stake here that I caution the Senate not 
to go on record as supporting. Now, as often happens in complicated 
matters, we are presented with Hobson's choice here in the Senate. We 
get to this point because of inadvertence, bad policy, misguided policy 
or honest to goodness mistakes, well-intended in the beginning but 
nonetheless mistakes. We are left with several bad choices. The 
proposal of my friends, the Republican leader and my friend from 
Connecticut is, if taken in the abstract, misguided in my view. We 
should not be unilaterally lifting embargoes. We signed onto it with 
our allies. the Republican administration locked us into a position 
inherited by this administration. A position which is now not only 
inherited but now adhered to by this administration, compounding in my 
view the incredibly misguided judgment of the last administration and 
participating in that misguided judgment. And so we are left in this 
Chamber to vote on whether or not to unilaterally lift the embargo.
  Now, the alternative will be to vote, I suspect, on recognizing that 
the underlying premise of an alternative is to support the position of 
the contact group. The position dictates that Bosnia accept half its 
country or suffer the consequences.
  Now, fortunately for the contact group--and in Machiavellian 
political terms it is probably going to turn out to be this way--the 
Serbs will be stupid enough and greedy enough and vicious enough to 
reject even being handed half the country. They will probably insist on 
70 percent of the country. And that is what Mr. Izetbegovic is going to 
bank on. I feel badly for the Bosnian Government. Mr. Izetbegovic is 
sitting over there along with Mr. Silajdzic and other leaders of the 
Bosnian Government and I bet you, after speaking with them for hours, 
their calculation of the discussion sounds something like this: Do we 
want to sign onto anything that says we voluntarily give up half our 
country? Then the counter will be, well, if we sign on, then the ball 
is in the Serbian court and they will be stupid enough not to sign, and 
then we will get help. Then someone will respond, and say, No, wait a 
minute. What if they accept? My Lord. Do I want to be a signatory to 
the demise of my country? Think about that in terms of what we would be 
doing--``we,'' us, political leaders--if put in a similar situation.
  The one thing I have found is that there is little difference between 
political leaders all over the world.
  So what are we left with? A choice of signing onto one alternative 
which has the possibility of lifting the embargo multilaterally because 
hopefully the administration will say that if the Serbs reject the 
contact group offer, they have agreement from the Russians and the 
other contact group members either to support lifting the arms embargo, 
or abstain from vetoing it. But that is a high risk, to actually say we 
support partitioning.
  Then there is the alternative. What is going to happen here? If the 
Dole-Lieberman proposal passes, what will happen? We will have 
established a precedent of unilaterally lifting an embargo. Well, I 
think it is just as likely the following will happen. If Dole-Lieberman 
passes, I believe it is equally as probable that the President will 
have to do what we have been pleading with him to do for 2 years. He 
will go to the United Nations, and to NATO and say that this is for 
real. I have no choice. So unless you want to blow the whole alliance, 
unless you want to blow the whole Security Council, listen to me. 
Either abstain or vote with me. That is what I demand.
  That is the alternative the President is going to be faced with. He 
is either going to be faced with vetoing this bill, if it passes--a 
solid piece of legislation its managers have worked impressively and 
incredibly hard to put together in the interest of this country, or he 
and the Secretary of State will be forced to step up to the ball. They 
will have to lay it out for the Europeans, no ifs, ands, or buts; take 
all the varnish off. This is the deal.
  I doubt whether anybody in here really believes that the President of 
the United States and the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of 
State will say this is it, that they cannot get the votes. But at a 
minimum, I predict they will require a new try, or veto this bill.
  Let me say a few other things, and then I will yield the floor.
  I recently returned to Sarajevo with Senator Dole and Senator Warner. 
I had been to Sarajevo a year earlier. I had been to Sarajevo, and I 
had been to a number of other areas in Bosnia that were under siege 
then and under siege now. We had a chance to see the country, 
unfortunately. It is a magnificently beautiful country.
  We were riding back in the plane, Senator Dole, Senator Warner, and 
I. One of them asked me, ``What has changed?'' I remember saying on the 
plane that what has changed is the attitude of the people in Bosnia, 
the attitude of the Moslems and the Croats and the few Serbs who still 
live in Bosnia committed to the notion of a Bosnian government.
  When I was there a year and a few months ago, people were pleading 
for the United States to help--pleading. It was obvious that the cities 
of Sarajevo, Tuzla, Srebrenica, the Bihac, the entire country, was in 
the process of disintegration. They saw what was coming, and they knew 
what was there, and they pleaded with us for air strikes, pleaded with 
us for help, pleaded with us to lift the arms embargo, pleaded with us 
to intervene with American forces.
  Well, this time I went back to a group of realists. This time as I 
stood in the streets of Sarajevo with my colleagues, or in the hospital 
next to the hospital beds, or with the relief workers, or in the shops, 
they looked at us with steely eyes, and said, we need Americans help to 
lift this embargo. But I tell you, pal. You lift the embargo, we will 
take care of our ourselves. We will take care of ourselves. They have 
figured out that they have a bigger army. They have a more committed 
army. They have fighters who can fight.
  I remember debating with some of my colleagues on the floor when I 
said send arms to them and other Members of this body argued that they 
do not know how to use those arms. Like heck they do not know how to 
use those arms. They have no problem. There was universal conviction in 
that country before it was divided up. The Moslems in Bosnia, the 
Croats in Bosnia are equally as tenacious and tough fighters as the 
Serbs in Bosnia and the Serbs in Serbia.
  So what I found in the change in attitude was, give us a chance.
  The second thing I found was, no matter what we sign, Senator, do not 
think we are going to permanently agree that Serbia has de facto 
control over half of our country. We may have to sign something here in 
order to get a cessation of hostilities. Part of their calculation will 
be that if they sign the agreement, my colleagues may say, do we keep 
the arms embargo on? Will we then agree to lift the arms embargo on 
Bosnia? My guess is we will be told we have to keep the arms embargo 
on. But the Bosnians are counting on it being lifted.
  Does anybody in here, after seeing the state of affairs in Bosnia, 
think that the Bosnian government is going to, once the arms embargo is 
lifted, no matter what they agreed to, sit there and say that is OK, 
keep Bihac, do not worry about Tuzla, Srebrenica and all along the 
Drina River is not a problem for us. Does anybody believe that?
  I want to make the point that what we want is a permanent settlement. 
I realize I sound like a broken record. I have been saying this for 2 
years. The only way, in my reading of the history of that region, as 
well as in all Europe, is that there has only been a lasting--
``lasting'' meaning decades--peace when there is a stalemate on the 
battlefield, when both sides in the conflict conclude there is no more 
they can gain as a consequence of military engagement.
  I challenge anyone who has been to Bosnia. I challenge anyone who has 
been to Croatia and not Bosnia, or Serbia and not Bosnia, to tell me 
that they think the Bosnian government thinks that if they had arms 
they could not do any better.
  So the quickest road to peace is to let it be made clear to the 
Bosnian Government and to the Serbian Government and to the Serbian 
butchers, Karadzic and the military leader Mladic, that this is as far 
as they can go, and no sides go any further, not because of an 
international resolution, but because they are stopped on the 
battlefield.
  That is the reality of conflict in Europe. People like to try to 
educate me about the reality of the Balkans. Well, I am sure there are 
people who know more than I know about the Balkans, but I challenge 
anybody in this Chamber who thinks they know any more than I know about 
the history of the Balkans. I may be wrong in the conclusions I reach 
after reading history, but I do not fail to know the history. The truth 
of the matter is that nothing is ever resolved by international 
accords, agreements signed under duress, or agreements that do not have 
the standing and backing of the principals who signed those agreements.
  My second point is, purely from a pragmatic standpoint, it makes 
sense to allow the Bosnian Government to find out whether their present 
disposition is correct. I assure you if it is not, they will be at the 
table to sign for 49 percent.
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield for a brief question?
  Mr. BIDEN. Yes, I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. WARNER. I had the privilege of traveling with you and the 
distinguished Republican leader. This debate today should focus on the 
choice between the United States unilaterally lifting the embargo, or 
lifting the embargo along the lines of an alternate amendment which the 
Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn] and myself and others will shortly 
introduce, whereby we do it in conjunction with our allies.
  That is the key question, given the value of our alliance today, as 
it has been in the past, and will be in the future. This week, the 
Armed Services Committee had extensive testimony from Great Britain, 
France, Denmark, Spain, and others. Without exception, each witness 
told us that if you lift this unilaterally, this war becomes stamped 
``made in America.'' We cannot let that happen.
  Would the Senator narrowly focus on that as he concludes his remarks, 
so that the distinguished majority leader and others may address the 
Senate?
  Mr. BIDEN. I would be happy to. Unfortunately, I began this before 
the Senator was on the floor. I started off by saying that the choices 
were stark. They were Hobson's choices; neither was very good.
  The reason I could not go the route the Senator from Virginia and 
others are going to propose is because an essential element of that 
resolution is signing on implicitly, if not expressly, to the contact 
group's requirement that the sides accept the 49-51 split. That is 
counter to American policy stated thus far. The alternative offered by 
my friend from Connecticut and our friend from Kansas, although not a 
good alternative, I believe has an equally or better chance of forcing 
the President to do what needs be done--going to the allies and saying 
that the embargo is going to be lifted, and you better join me now to 
do it multilaterally. I predict that will happen. I could be dead 
wrong. That is a very short version of what I took 10 or 15 minutes to 
explain prior to the Senator being on the floor.
  I will conclude by making a much more parochial point. First, we 
cannot get on the wrong side of history and, as a nation and a Chamber, 
condone that an independent country we recognized, which was later 
invaded by another country and partitioned by and with the help of 
another country, be partitioned in any degree, whether 49-51, 60-40, or 
10-90. That is a matter of principle, and we should not sign on to 
that.
  Mr. NUNN. Will the Senator yield to me for approximately 30 seconds 
for the purpose of introducing a second-degree amendment?
  Mr. BIDEN. Of course.


                Amendment No. 1852 to Amendment No. 1851

  Mr. NUNN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn], for himself, Mr. 
     Warner, Mr. Mitchell, Mrs. Kassebaum, and Mr. Robb, proposes 
     an amendment numbered 1852 to amendment No. 1851.

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

       Strike out everything after the first word and insert in 
     lieu thereof the following:

                        ``Bosnia and Herzegovina

       (a) Purpose.--To express the sense of Congress concerning 
     the international efforts to end the conflict in Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina.
       (b) Statements.--The Congress makes the following 
     statements of support:
       (1) The Congress supports the use of international 
     sanctions in the form of arms and economic embargoes imposed 
     by the United Nations Security Council in appropriate 
     circumstances.
       (2) The Congress supports the imposition of an arms and 
     economic embargo on the Government of Iraq by United Nations 
     Security Council resolution 661 of August 6, 1990 to bring 
     about compliance with a number of conditions, including in 
     particular an end to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
       (3) The Congress supports the imposition of an arms, 
     petroleum and economic embargo on Haiti by United Nations 
     Security Council resolutions 875 of October 16, 1993 and 917 
     of May 17, 1994 to bring about compliance with the Governors 
     Island Agreement.
       (4) The Congress supports the imposition of an arms and 
     civil aircraft embargo on Libya pursuant to United Nations 
     Security Council resolution--of March 31, 1992 in order to 
     convince Libya to renounce terrorism.
       (c) Findings.--The Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) The United States took the lead in the United Nations 
     Security Council to impose international sanctions in the 
     form of arms and economic embargoes on Iraq, Haiti, and 
     Libya.
       (2) The security of the Republic of Korea with whom the 
     United States has a mutual defense treaty and on whose 
     territory there are more than 38,000 members of the United 
     States Armed Forces is a vital interest of the United States.
       (3) Should negotiations fail, the imposition of sanctions 
     by the United Nations Security Council on North Korea, which 
     would require the affirmative vote or abstention of China, 
     Russia, Britain, and France, may be essential to stop North 
     Korea's nuclear weapons development program and to end a 
     nuclear threat to the Republic of Korea and Southeast Asia.
       (4) The effective enforcement of sanctions on North Korea, 
     once imposed by the United Nations Security Council, would 
     require the cooperation of China, Russia, and Japan as well 
     as other allies, including Britain and France, both permanent 
     members of the United Nations Security Council.
       (5) The United States voted for the international arms 
     embargo imposed by United Nations Security Council resolution 
     713 of September 25, 1991 that was imposed on Yugoslavia.
       (6) The imposition of the United Nations arms embargo on 
     September 25, 1991 has not served to end the conflict in 
     Bosnia Herzegovina, has provided a battlefield advantage to 
     the Bosnian Serbs, who possess artillery, tanks, and other 
     weapons left behind by the former Yugoslav Army or provided 
     by Serbia and Montenegro, and has deprived the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina from acquiring the adequate means of 
     defending itself and its citizens.
       (7) Our NATO allies have committed ground forces to the 
     United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in former 
     Yugoslavia. At the present time France has 5,518 troops, 
     Britain 3,435, the Netherlands 2,073, Canada 2,037, Spain 
     1,417, and Belgium 1,000. Our NATO allies have thus far 
     sustained 49 deaths and 931 wounded as a result of their 
     participation in UNPROFOR.
       (8) For the first time the so-called ``contact group'' 
     composed of representatives of the United States, Russia, 
     France and Britain is moving toward a unified position of 
     using an incentives and disincentives ``carrot and stick'' 
     strategy to bring about a peaceful settlement of the conflict 
     in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       (9) Although lifting the arms embargo on the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina by the United Nations Security Council 
     is supported by the Congress, the unilateral lifting of the 
     embargo by the United States would lead to the following 
     consequences:
       (a) disruption of the ongoing effort by the ``contact 
     group'';
       (b) withdrawal by our NATO allies of the forces detailed in 
     subparagraph (7) above from former Yugoslavia;
       (c) contradict United States efforts in the United Nations 
     Security Council to impose sanctions on North Korea, should 
     that become necessary;
       (d) serious damage to the NATO alliance;
       (e) loss of cooperation by other nations in the enforcement 
     of sanctions, including the sanctions on Iraq, previously 
     imposed by the United Nations Security Council; and
       (f) damage to the authority and responsibility of the 
     United Nations Security Council for the maintenance of 
     international peace and security.
       (d) It is the sense of the Congress--
       That the United States should work with the NATO Member 
     nations and the other permanent members of the United Nations 
     Security Council to endorse the efforts of the contact group 
     to bring about a peaceful settlement of the conflict in 
     Bosnia Herzegovina, including the following:
       (a) The preservation of an economically, politically and 
     militarily viable Bosnian state capable of exercising its 
     rights under the United Nations Charter.
       (i) as part of a peaceful settlement, the lifting of the 
     United Nations arms embargo on the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina so that it can exercise the inherent right of a 
     sovereign state to self-defense.
       (b) If the Bosnian Serbs, while the contact group's peace 
     proposal is being considered and discussed, attack the safe 
     areas designated by the United Nations Security Council, the 
     partial listing of the arms embargo on the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina and the provision to that Government 
     of defensive weapons and equipment appropriate and necessary 
     to defend those safe areas.
       (c) If the Bosnian Serbs do not respond constructively to 
     the peace proposal of the contact group, the immediate 
     lifting of the United Nations arms embargo on the Government 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and the orderly withdrawal of the 
     United Nations Protection Force and humanitarian relief 
     personnel).
       (e) Policy.--The Congress authorizes the President, upon 
     the termination of the United Nations arms embargo on the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to direct the drawdown 
     of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of 
     Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and 
     military education and training, of an aggregate value of not 
     more than $100,000,000, in order to provide assistance to the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina so that it may exercise 
     its inherent right of self-defense. Such assistance shall be 
     provided on such terms and conditions as the President may 
     determine.

  Mr. NUNN. I thank the Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, let me conclude. The weapon of choice by 
the Serbs who are engaged in this carnage from day one has been 
indiscriminate terrorism.
  First, setting up rape camps, concentration camps for the purposes of 
raping and permanently defiling Moslem women, because of the nature of 
the impact that has on the culture.
  Second was indiscriminate shelling. Literally there are photographs 
of Serbian--I will not even call them soldiers--Serbs sitting in the 
hills where the Olympic ski jumps were, in shirtsleeves, sunning 
themselves and drinking wine and eating cheese, dropping in shells and 
indiscriminately firing on cities. I remember showing my colleagues 
where I had stood a year earlier, showing them the opening in the old 
city between the buildings up into the mountains where the clear shot 
of the gun was maneuvered for the express purpose of being able to hit 
an area where people were getting drinking water from a spigot or a 
pipe coming out of the side of a building.
  Other forms of terror have been employed from the outside. I would 
like to add onto something the Republican leader said. The Senator from 
Virginia, the Senator from Kansas, and I, went to a hospital, and we 
observed the young children that Senator Dole spoke of. It would break 
your heart to see them. But as leaders of a great country of 250 
million, we cannot make foreign policy based upon our emotions, 
notwithstanding how wrenching the experience was to see that 
magnificent little girl, who until she looked at us looked perfectly 
normal and stared at us with these big blue eyes. The doctor said to 
us, ``She cannot see you.'' When she turned her head, you could see 
that half the side of her head was gone where a sniper bullet had gone 
through. We walked over to a bed and were holding onto a magnificent 
looking little 9-year old girl whose leg had been shattered by a 
sniper's bullet, lying there whimpering, because it had only occurred 
the night before. We saw four men who were sniper victims two and three 
nights earlier.
  I do not say this to give a catalog of horrors, because all you have 
to do is go to Rwanda and you would see horrors that far outstrip 
anything I have described. Let me tell you why I raise it. I think 
inadvertently the minority leader said ``indiscriminate'' firing. There 
was nothing indiscriminate about this. The only way these children were 
hit was intentionally. Snipers wait for children, get them in their 
sights with high-powered weapons, with night scopes, and deliberately 
shoot the children. None of these people we saw were hit as a 
consequence of a spray of bullets. They were all hit by a single shot, 
fired from a single weapon by a single terrorist, for the express 
purpose of terrorizing the community.
  Few times in modern warfare has it been a matter of policy to bring 
down a government, break the moral resolve of a nation by singling out 
9-year-old children. We were walking across a street where there were 
blankets hanging like you would see in the old movies of the lower east 
side of New York, laundry hanging from fire escapes, and some of the 
young people with us said, ``What is this for?''
  I explained to them. They put blankets across these streets to cut 
off the angle of the snipers so they cannot see their victim. That is 
why it is done. The snipers are not up there indiscriminately spraying 
machine guns. They are sitting in buildings waiting for children like 
they wait for rabbits.
  And that I will say, Madam President, is the quintessential example 
of what characterizes the people waging the war to bring down this 
government and partition this nation.
  As I said, people can cite for me and I can cite for you, in terms of 
quantity, evidence of brutality that far exceeds what we saw, but I 
doubt whether you can cite for me the policy condoned by a government, 
engaged in by a people, that is as brutal and as lacking in 
humankindness as this group of people who are attempting to bring down 
this government.
  If, in 1935, it had been Lutherans or Catholics or Presbyterians who 
had been rumored to be in those death camps in Europe, I believe the 
world would have reacted differently. If we were not talking about 
Moslem children, if we were not talking about a Moslem-dominated 
government, I believe the world would also react differently.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BIDEN. I would be delighted to yield for a question.
  Mr. McCAIN. I am curious as to how much longer the Senator from 
Delaware intends to speak.
  Mr. BIDEN. I am finished.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Madam President, this is an important debate and 
discussion, and I hope that it will occur in a manner that permits both 
sides to be fairly presented during the debate.
  I would like to respond to several of the points made by the Senator 
from Delaware, but I would like to respond first to the last point made 
describing some of the horrors which have occurred in the former 
Yugoslavia.
  Those horrors will be multiplied thousands of times over if this war 
widens. Yet that will be the inevitable result of the unilateral 
lifting of the arms embargo by the United States.
  Is our revulsion against killing a reason to encourage more killing? 
If so, then emotion will have overwhelmed reason.
  No one disputes the fact that this war has been harmful and 
catastrophic, but the course of action prescribed by those who support 
the unilateral lifting of the arms embargo will inevitably--indeed, 
according to the Senator from Delaware himself, the very reason for 
lifting it is to encourage the Bosnians to fight--the inevitable result 
will be a much wider war, much more killing, much more pillage and many 
more of the horrors against which he has understandably rebelled.
  Madam President, this is an emotional argument, but let us not permit 
emotion to overwhelm reason. Some killing, horrible as it is, should 
not induce us to adopt a policy which encourages more killing.
  The issue here is a narrow one, as the Senator from Virginia has 
noted. It is whether the arms embargo imposed by the United Nations on 
the former Yugoslavia with the support of the United States shall now 
be lifted unilaterally by the United States in defiance of the United 
Nations' action and contrary to the interests and views of our allies. 
That is the narrow issue.
  The amendment offered by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn], and the 
Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner], points out that right now the 
United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iraq with the support of the 
United States, has imposed sanctions on Haiti with the support of the 
United States, has imposed sanctions on Libya with the support of the 
United States, has been discussing and may soon resume discussing 
sanctions against North Korea with the support of the United States.
  If we now unilaterally lift the arms embargo in the former 
Yugoslavia, we will be saying to every participant in those other 
sanctioned countries, you can jump out whenever you see fit. We will 
completely undermine the international effort through the United 
Nations and with our allies to use sanctions as a means of attaining 
universally accepted international objectives.
  Turkey wants out of the sanctions against Iraq. How are we going to 
insist that they stay in when we unilaterally get out of those 
sanctions that we do not like? Others want out of the sanctions against 
Libya and Haiti. And others do not want to join in the sanctions 
against North Korea. We will be sending a signal across this world that 
any international effort to impose sanctions can be disregarded by any 
nation at any time for any reason it chooses.
  Madam President, it has been stated here several times by the 
proponents of this amendment that they have been to the former 
Yugoslavia and they are familiar with the history of the Balkans. That 
is useful and helpful. But I would note that many Senators have been to 
the former Yugoslavia, many Senators are familiar with the history of 
the Balkans, and a visit there imparts to no one special insight and 
knowledge. People who have been on both sides of the issue have been 
there and have reached different conclusions.
  Madam President, there is much about this debate that is deeply 
disturbing, but from my standpoint nothing is more so than the manner 
in which our allies have been treated with what can only be described 
as condescension and insult.
  We are told, in words demeaning to the British and French, that we 
simply have to tell them what to do. We are told what we have to do is 
lay it out for the Europeans. And we were told, in the previous debate 
last month on this subject, we are not the British or French, we are 
the Americans.
  Well, I ask every Member of this Senate and every American to 
consider these facts: Right now in the former Yugoslavia there are more 
than 5,500 French troops, more than 3,400 British troops, more than 
2,000 Dutch, more than 2,000 Canadians, nearly 1,500 Spanish, and more 
than 1,000 Belgians. And during the course of this tortured conflict, 
936 of them have been wounded and 49 killed.
  There are no American combat ground forces there. Talk is cheap. 
Action is expensive. While we talk, they act.
  Who are we to insult and demean our allies? Who are we to preach at 
the British and French, as they send thousands and thousands of their 
young men there, see hundreds of them wounded, and dozens of them 
killed?
  Every Member of this Senate knows, and every American knows, that if 
there were 15,000 American troops in Bosnia, if 936 Americans had been 
wounded and 49 Americans had been killed, these Senators who are out 
here giving these speeches today would be falling all over themselves 
to offer the first resolution to withdraw the Americans. Everybody 
knows that. And there is not one of these Senators--not one--who will 
vote to unilaterally lift the embargo who will stand up and say that he 
now favors sending thousands of Americans to replace the British and 
French. Not one. Talk is cheap. Action is expensive.
  Who are we to preach to the British and French? They are sovereign 
nations. They are democracies. They are our allies. They are doing what 
we have been unwilling to do. Their men are being killed. Their men are 
being wounded. Their countries are spending hundreds of millions of 
dollars to try to bring about a resolution of this conflict. And here 
we are preaching at them, insulting them, telling them, ``You've got to 
do what we say.''
  How would Americans feel if the British and the French Government 
said to the United States Government, ``You do it our way''? No 
discussion; no debate.
  We have a responsibility for leadership. We are not only the leader 
in the free world, we are the leader of the world. But we also have a 
responsibility to treat our allies with the same respect we expect from 
them, to encourage action in a multilateral way. But let us rid this 
debate of any condescension toward our allies.
  Madam President, this is a fateful moment in the Balkans. War, which 
has raged intermittently for nearly 500 years based upon ancient 
religious and ethnic hostilities which have repeatedly erupted over 
that period of time, is now threatened on a scale much wider and much 
more devastating than that which has occurred before. Imperfect and 
halting and sometimes mistaken as they have been, our European allies, 
with very little support from us, have attempted to bring about a 
peaceful resolution. And, as I said, they have placed 15,000 of their 
men in risk, seen nearly 1,000 of them wounded, and 49 of them killed 
in the process.
  They have made it clear beyond any doubt, in private and public 
statements, that if the United States unilaterally lifts the arms 
embargo, they will, as they must, withdraw all of their forces, and 
what has been a multilateral effort will then become an American 
effort.
  I say to my colleagues that history will judge this action to have 
been a fateful error because, when that war widens, as it inevitably 
will, and when the horrors, described with such feeling by the Senator 
from Delaware, multiply by the thousands, and when the debate increases 
for the Government which has taken the step and has triggered this 
wider war to now do something about it, everybody here knows that those 
who vote for this unilateral lifting of the embargo will not be 
prepared to do anything. Not one will vote to send an American soldier 
over there to face injury and death.
  We are not going to end the history of the Balkans by what we do here 
today. We are not going to eliminate or mitigate ancient religious and 
ethnic hostilities which have occurred for nearly 500 years and beyond. 
But we can take a sensible, prudent, responsible step, and that is to 
adopt the resolution offered by the Senators from Georgia and Virginia, 
which encourages the action underway to try to bring about a peaceful 
resolution and a containment of the war, and which provides for a 
multilateral effort to lift the arms embargo should those efforts at a 
peaceful resolution fail. That is the choice that we have.
  There are very strong feelings on all sides. Americans have been 
moved by the televised scenes described by the Senator from Delaware. 
But I say to my colleagues, if this unilateral lifting of the arms 
embargo is adopted and, as they will, our allies withdraw all of their 
forces and, as it will, this war widens, there are going to be many, 
many more such televised scenes.
  I ask my colleagues to tell us what it is they are prepared to do 
now. Tell us now whether they will vote to send thousands of Americans 
into the place now occupied by the British and the French and our other 
allies, risk those Americans to injury and death. I ask them to tell us 
that now. Because if they will not, then they ought to make that clear 
to the people in the region. This is a very, very difficult question. 
It is a very difficult issue. But I believe it is at a critical stage.

  I hope that in the course of this debate the Senator from Virginia 
and the Senator from Georgia will describe in detail their amendment, 
which I strongly support and which I encourage all Senators to support 
because I believe it represents the most sensible and reasonable course 
to take in a very difficult situation.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, will the Senator yield for one brief 
question?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, certainly, one question.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the remarks made by the distinguished 
majority leader covered all issues save one, which I think should be 
included, and that is that we are at a critical moment in history with 
respect to the relationships between the Western World and Russia.
  Russia has made it very clear that if this unilateral lifting were to 
take place they would be constrained to align themselves with their 
allies through history, and that is Serbia.
  I wonder if the distinguished majority leader would add that element 
to his otherwise very broad and carefully laid remarks, because I am 
deeply concerned that it would reverse the progress the Western World 
is now making with respect to Russia: Notably, this week, the 
Partnership for Peace. To my understanding the Russian Foreign Minister 
is in Corfu today, working again in a multilateral forum. Unilateral 
action by the United States could bring about a reversal of that 
progress.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Madam President, I thank my colleague.
  The most significant event, in my judgment, of the second half of the 
20th century has been the collapse of communism and the demise of the 
Soviet Union and the end of the cold war--with the United States as the 
resultant lone superpower. We have a lot of foreign policy interests, 
but I think most Senators would agree that among the highest is the new 
relationship with Russia and the former states of the Soviet Union.
  Reference was made earlier here today to the history of the Balkans. 
I urge all of my colleagues to go back and familiarize themselves with 
the history of the Balkans in the period immediately preceding the 
First World War. That war--which as the name suggests was the first 
truly global conflict--was triggered precisely because of the situation 
in the Balkans and the very powerful commitment of Russia to what are 
known as the south Slavs, the center in modern Serbia. It was the 
conflict between the south Slavs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the 
desire for the south Slavs to have a Slavic dimension to the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, which was, as the name suggests, based primarily in 
Austria and Hungary, that triggered the events that led directly into 
the First World War.
  The Russians aligned themselves with the south Slavs. The Germans 
aligned themselves with the Austro-Hungarians. And ultimately all of 
the nations of Europe and eventually the United States were drawn into 
a conflict that resulted in millions of deaths. That attraction, that 
relationship, is no less today. There is a very powerful imperative in 
Russia--political, historical, economic, and military--to strongly 
support the Serbs. And the Russians have made it clear, as the Senator 
from Virginia suggests, if we are going to lift the arms embargo and 
supply arms to the Bosnians, then they are going to supply arms to the 
Serbians. And we will then be back in a situation tragically 
reminiscent of the cold war, where the provision of arms by outside 
forces accelerates and widens conflict in different parts of the globe. 
And it will be a wider conflict. Everyone knows that.
  Just in this mornings's Washington Post there is a report about the 
lengthening shadow of the prospect of wider war and how the only hope 
of preventing that is for some progress to be made by the so-called 
contact group in bringing about a peaceful resolution.
  None of this is to condone any of the actions of the Serbs, the 
Bosnian Serbs or those residing in Serbia. There have been atrocities 
on all sides, but it is clear for all to see that the fundamental 
aggressors have been the Serbs and the primary victims have been the 
Bosnians, primarily Moslems but including some Bosnian Croats and some 
Bosnians Serbs. That is not the issue.
  The issue is, how do we go about pursuing a policy most likely to 
produce a peaceful resolution without the prospect of wider war? It is 
a narrow difference. But this conflict has the potential not just for 
involving many others in the region, not just for expanding the number 
of dead and wounded dramatically, but also for causing a very serious 
break and rupture in relations between the United States and Russia. 
That is something that everyone ought to keep in mind as we debate this 
matter.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, while the majority leader is still on 
the floor, he asked the question several times as to whether proponents 
of this amendment are willing to send United States young men and women 
to Bosnia. The answer is, obviously, no. In fact, the only proposal I 
have heard to send American troops to Bosnia is that, I believe, 
supported by the majority leader--he can correct me if I am wrong--of 
sending 25,000 American troops in the unlikely event that there is some 
kind of peace agreement. I do not support sending troops because I do 
not believe any agreement is going to be enforceable. So my response--
--
  Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator is wrong.
  Mr. McCAIN. So my response, and I know that of the Senator from 
Kansas, who was the prime sponsor of this resolution, is ``no.'' Our 
answer is ``no.'' We will not support sending American troops to that 
region, nor would we countenance such a thing. The connection between 
the amendment of the Senator from Kansas and sending American troops 
there is spurious at best.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCAIN. On the issue of sanctions--I have just responded to the 
question by the majority leader. I did not interrupt his statement. But 
if he wishes to speak further, I will be glad to yield to him.
  Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator just said, ``Correct me if I am wrong.'' I 
took that to be an invitation to correct him if he is wrong, and my 
answer is he is wrong.
  Mr. McCAIN. Do I understand that the Senator from Maine does not 
approve the administration proposal that, in the event of a peace 
agreement in the Balkans, we would send 25,000 troops? He does not 
support that?
  Mr. MITCHELL. There has never been a number to which I have agreed.
  I said that if a peace settlement occurs, we should consider--I would 
consider the administration's request to send troops there, not in any 
numbers, and awaiting the context.
  Mr. McCAIN. So my understanding is the majority leader's position is 
he would only consider such a thing?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Let me make clear to the majority leader that I would not 
consider such a thing. I would not consider such a move. It would be an 
exercise in foolishness and futility, and it would result in the death 
and wounding of thousands of young Americans.
  Mr. MITCHELL. That is the answer I expected. That is why I asked the 
question.
  Mr. McCAIN. The majority leader knows, since he likes so much to 
refer to history, that American casualties would be an inevitable 
result. American casualties would be the inevitable result of 
dispatching troops to an area which, as the majority leader mentioned, 
has been involved in a civil war for about 500 years.
  I would like to address the comment about sanctions and the argument 
that if sanctions were removed and the arms embargo were lifted, 
sanctions in other places would also fall. The argument being that if 
we do not support these U.N. sanctions, that other sanctions would not 
be valid either.
  Madam President, there is a fundamental difference between the 
sanctions that have been imposed on Yugoslavia--and by the way, the 
sanctions were imposed on Yugoslavia, not Bosnia--and the sanctions 
that have been imposed on Haiti, Iraq, and Libya.
  The difference is, Madam President, that these nations are not trying 
to defend themselves. They are not under attack.
  The U.N. charter says that every Nation has the right to self-
defense, and no action on the part of the United Nations may impair 
that right to defend themselves. Madam President, not only is Bosnia 
under attack, but 70 percent of its territory has been absorbed by the 
enemy. What this embargo does is impair the ability of Bosnia to defend 
itself.
  To me, it is incredible. It is incredible that we should sit here in 
judgment of the Bosnians, who are pleading and crying and begging for 
us to allow them to defend themselves.
  Iraq is not under attack from another country. Haiti is not under 
attack from another country. Iran is not under attack from another 
country. Libya is not under attack from another country. But Bosnia is. 
And Bosnians should have the right to defend themselves.
  To compare a nation that has seen hundreds of thousands of its people 
killed and millions of them displaced with other nations who are under 
U.N. embargo clearly begs logic and reason.
  I do not believe there will be a settlement. In fact, the Washington 
Post, which has been referred to several times this morning, says: 
``Winds of War Blow in Balkans Despite Latest, American-Backed Peace 
Plan.''
  I ask unanimous consent that this and an article from the Washington 
Times be printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Winds of War Blow in Balkans Despite Latest, American-Backed Peace Plan

                         (By David B. Ottaway)

       Zagreb, Croatia.--As the United States, Russia and Western 
     Europe prepare to unveil with much fanfare their own 
     partition plan for a Bosnian peace settlement, Western 
     diplomats and U.N. mediators in the Balkans are expressing 
     deep pessimism and total frustration.
       The prevailing feeling among these diplomats is that the 
     region is facing a widening war and that outside efforts to 
     avert the storm are just about exhausted. All parties engaged 
     in the overlapping Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, these 
     sources say, are busy preparing for more war, not peace.
       ``I consider [a new outbreak of war in Croatia] a very real 
     danger,'' said Peter Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador here. 
     ``If there is another Serb-Croat war, it is going to be 
     unlike what we've seen so far. It could escalate to air raids 
     on cities, rocket attacks and large-scale tank and artillery 
     assaults.
       ``Such a war could lead to the direct involvement of the 
     Yugoslav army. It is precisely such a catastrophe that our 
     negotiating efforts have sought to forestall,'' he added.
       The coming Western peace plan for Bosnia is counting 
     heavily on high-level diplomatic hoopla--and a few new but 
     slim carrots and sticks--to win the approval of the warring 
     parties.
       First, U.S., Russian and West European foreign ministers 
     will put their stamp of approval on the plan at a meeting in 
     early July, either in Geneva or Naples. Then, it is scheduled 
     to be formally endorsed at the summit in Naples on July 9 and 
     10 of the Group of Seven major industrial nations, with 
     Russia also taking part.
       The crux of the plan consists of a map drawn by a ``contact 
     group'' of U.S., Russian and West European diplomats for 
     Bosnia's partition, with 51 percent going to the newly formed 
     Muslim-Croat federation and 49 percent to the Bosnian Serbs' 
     self-declared state.
       The plan, however, may prove stillborn. At this point, it 
     seems to have little to do with the realities on the ground 
     and little prospect of being accepted by either the Bosnian 
     Serbs, who hold more than 70 percent of the republic, or by 
     the Muslim-led Bosnian government, which is pressing to 
     retake strategic points from the Serbs.
       In Bosnia, a U.N.-negotiated cease-fire between Muslims and 
     Serbs that began on June 10 is already breaking down, with 
     U.N. officials in Sarajevo confirming ``major violations'' of 
     the truce by both sides, particularly by the Muslim-led 
     Bosnian army in central Bosnia.
       In Serb-surrounded Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, Muslim 
     forces are digging additional defensive trenches all around 
     the city and sending spare troops to fight in central Bosnia, 
     according to U.N. sources.
       ``Everybody is preparing for war,'' said a dejected U.N. 
     relief official, Peter Kessler, who just returned here 
     from Sarajevo.
       Though under an international arms embargo, both Croatia 
     and Serb-controlled Yugoslavia, the main players in the 
     overall Balkan drama, are busy buying arms abroad for the 
     next round of fighting.
       Diplomats here say the Croatians continue to obtain MiG jet 
     fighters--they have 16 now--and helicopters on the black 
     market from East European countries. Diplomats in Belgrade, 
     the Yugoslav capital, report that an engine for a MiG-29 was 
     recently discovered by U.N. monitors hidden under a pile of 
     loose detergent in a truck coming across the border from 
     Bulgaria.
       The cease-fire negotiated between Croatia and its Serb 
     separatist minority that went into effect March 29 has held 
     so far, with U.N. peacekeeping troops spread out along a 1.6-
     mile-wide corridor separating the rival forces. But a senior 
     U.N. military official here predicted the truce would become 
     ``more and more fragile'' with each passing day after the 
     breakdown last week of the negotiating process here.
       The combined efforts of U.S., Russian, West European and 
     U.N. mediators to start direct talks between the Croatian 
     government and the rebel Croatian Serbs reached a dead end 
     last week when the Serbs refused to allow five Croatian 
     reporters to cover the event.
       The mediators say there is nothing more they can do until 
     there is some change in attitude by the hard-line Croatian 
     Serbs, who, one diplomat concluded, ``simply are not 
     interested in negotiations.''
       As a result, U.S. and other diplomats no longer can offer 
     Croatian President Franjo Tudjman the hope of peaceful 
     negotiations as an alternative to going to war to regain the 
     quarter of the country held by the Serbs, as he has long 
     threatened to do. Instead, the diplomats are warning him that 
     the consequence of renewed war, with the prospect of 
     intervention by neighboring Yugoslavia, could be a lot worse 
     for Croatia than its current division.
       The attitude of Bosnia's warring Serb and Muslem factions 
     toward negotiations is not much different from that of the 
     Croatian Serbs.
       A nearly completed draft of the international mediators' 
     proposed partition map, published in the Belgrade weekly 
     Vreme on Monday, would require the Bosnian Serbs to hand back 
     about 30 percent of the land they seized at the outset of the 
     war 26 months ago, mostly in eastern and northern Bosnia.
       The map's most contentious points would require the Serbs 
     to give back to the Muslims substantial territory around the 
     three remaining Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia--
     Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa--and to the Croats a broad swath 
     of land in the north. The latter proposal, if implemented, 
     would practically cut in half the corridor that connects 
     Serb-held lands in northeastern and northwestern Bosnia.
       The chances that the Bosnian Serbs will ever accept this 
     plan are rated by Western diplomats here as close to 
     nonexistent. Only enormous pressure from President Slobodan 
     Milosevic of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, might 
     accomplish this, but they doubt he has the political will or 
     clout to squeeze the Bosnian Serbs into compliance after his 
     failure to deliver the far less powerful Croatian Serbs to 
     the negotiating table.
       The Clinton administration has drawn up a list of new 
     carrots and sticks to persuade Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs 
     to accept the proposal. The carrots rely mainly on an easing 
     of two-year-old U.N. economic sanctions on them if they 
     accept. If they refuse, the sticks include measures to 
     tighten the sanctions--and possibly exempting the Bosnian 
     Muslims from the arms embargo.
       But if a recent U.S. government-sponsored survey of public 
     opinion in Serbia is anything to go by, there is little 
     support there for getting tough with the Bosnian Serbs and 
     considerable confidence that the republic can withstand any 
     additional U.N. sanctions.
       The survey, based on a sample of 1,600 people interviewed 
     in late May and early June, showed that 8 out of 10 Serbians 
     say their government should support the Bosnian Serbs ``at 
     all costs,'' including the use of military force to help them 
     seize the three Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia. Fully 90 
     percent said they believe a lasting peace is impossible as 
     long as the Muslims keep those enclaves.
       Two-thirds were of the opinion the Bosnian Serbs should 
     either hold onto the 70 percent of Bosnia they now control or 
     try to seize even more land. Only 32 percent favored giving 
     up some territory to obtain a peace settlement.
       The survey also showed that 84 percent of Serbians said 
     they could withstand U.N. sanctions at least through the end 
     of this year, ``if not longer,'' and nearly the same 
     percentage said Serbia's economic situation had improved over 
     the past year.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, June 24, 1994]

   Iranian Weapons Sent via Croatia--Aid to Moslems Gets U.S. `Wink'

                            (By Bill Gertz)

       Croatia has become a major transit point for covert Iranian 
     arms shipments to Bosnia with the tacit approval of the 
     Clinton administration, which publicly remains opposed to a 
     unilateral lifting of the international arms embargo against 
     the fractured Balkan states, according to intelligence 
     sources.
       Disclosure of Iranian arms shipments through Croatia comes 
     as representatives of four NATO governments warned the Senate 
     yesterday that Congress' lifting of an arms embargo against 
     Bosnia unilaterally would have dire consequences.
       A senior U.S. official said last night the U.S. government 
     opposes the Iranian arms shipments because they undercut U.N. 
     sanctions. ``There is no U.S. support for what Iran is 
     doing,'' the official said.
       But intelligence sources said the U.S. government, which 
     closely monitors Iran and in the past has halted a shipment 
     of arms to Bosnia in September, has not protested Iran's 
     transshipment of arms to Bosnia through Croatia that have 
     increased dramatically since March.
       The lack of protests caused the Croatians to assume the 
     administration has ``winked'' at the arms shipments, one 
     source said.
       According to intelligence reports circulating to senior 
     policymakers in the administration, Croatia's government is 
     expanding ties to Iran following the agreement in Washington 
     last March to form a Croatian-Bosnian federation.
       As part of the growing ties, Croatia is now a conduit for 
     Iran's arms shipments to Bosnian Muslims, battling Serbs in a 
     bloody, 26-month-old civil war. The arms shipments violate 
     the international embargo.
       A Pentagon official familiar with the report said the CIA 
     and Pentagon intelligence agencies have detected regular 
     shipments of small arms and explosives being flown into 
     Zagreb, the Croatian capital, from Iran on Boeing 747 
     transports.
       Other shipments have been detected arriving at the port of 
     Split, on Croatia's Adriatic coast. The weapons are then 
     moved by truck to Bosnian Muslim forces.
       Iran, also has supplied between 350 and 400 Revolutionary 
     Guards that Tehran has ordered to help form terrorist groups 
     similar to the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran's 
     government has denied sending the paramilitary forces.
       Pentagon officials are concerned the Iranian arms, while 
     helping muslims defend themselves, complicate peace efforts, 
     which appear to be foundering due to widespread violations of 
     a June 10 truce agreement.
       According to the intelligence sources, the Croatian 
     government is divided over allowing Iran to funnel arms to 
     the Bosnian Muslims. Foreign ministry officials are 
     distrustful of the growing ties to Iran, while the prime 
     minister and defense ministry officials favor closer trade 
     ties with Tehran.
       Croatia's foreign minister believes the Iranian weapons 
     shipments have the tacit support of the Clinton 
     administration, which has said it favors lifting the arms 
     embargo if Western allies go along, according to the sources.
       Croatian defense officials support the Iranian arms 
     shipments because a large portion of each arms shipment sent 
     from Iran is siphoned off for use by the Croatian military.
       Croatians seeking closer ties to Iran see the relationship 
     as a way to build up Croatia's armed forces and reduce a 
     trade deficit with Iran estimated at more than $200 million.
       Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on Iran with the 
     Congressional Research Service, said Iran has offered to send 
     10,000 troops to Bosnia as part of a U.N. force, but the 
     world body does not want them there.
       ``They don't want to see an upsurge of Islamic 
     fundamentalism there,'' Mr. Katzman said in an interview.
       Any Iranian force would be made up of Revolutionary Guards, 
     the radical Muslim forces that have established militias and 
     terrorist groups in the Middle East and North Africa, Mr. 
     Katzman said.
       On Capitol Hill, defense officials from Britain, France, 
     Spain and Denmark testified before the Senate Armed Services 
     Committee yesterday that a unilateral lifting of the arms 
     embargo against Bosnia by the United States would intensify 
     the conflict.
       ``We believe that the lifting of the arms embargo would 
     have the effect of pouring gasoline on fire and mean an all-
     out war,'' said Danish Undersecretary for Defense Anders 
     Troldborg.
       Mr. Troldborg appeared along with Jean Claude Mallet, 
     director of strategic policy at the French Defense Ministry, 
     Gen. Juan Martinez Esparza, deputy undersecretary at the 
     Spanish Defense Ministry, and Maj. Gen. Rupert Smith, 
     director of strategic policy at the British Defense Ministry.
       The House recently voted in favor of a unilateral lifting 
     of the arms embargo, and the Senate is expected to debate a 
     similar measure this week.
       Two other measures passed in the Senate last month. One 
     ordered Mr. Clinton to lift the embargo unilaterally and the 
     second ordered that he seek allied and U.N. agreement before 
     doing so.
       Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, Kansas Republican, plans 
     to introduce an amendment to the fiscal 1995 defense 
     authorization bill, now being debated, that would direct the 
     United States to lift the embargo unilaterally.
       Opponents of the measure could again counter the action 
     with a separate measure that would require obtaining allied 
     support before lifting the ban.
       Allied defense officials said lifting the arms ban would 
     force the withdrawal of U.N. troops in Bosnia, a cutoff of 
     humanitarian aid, and prompt new and more aggressive attacks 
     by Bosnian Serbs.
       If the United States acts alone in lifting the embargo, 
     U.N. efforts to maintain troops in the country would be 
     ``difficult if not impossible,'' and would undermine current 
     peace efforts, Gen. Smith said.
       Mr. Mallet, the French defense official, said the United 
     States would be placing itself above international law and 
     would contribute to ``international disorder in the post-Cold 
     War world.''
       ``This would probably mean the end of the game of the 
     [U.N.] Security Council in the international context,'' Mr. 
     Mallet said. ``The future of European security is in many 
     ways at stake.''
       State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said the 
     administration shares the concerns of the four nations, who 
     have troops on the ground in Bosnia.
       Meanwhile, leaders of the United States, Russia and Europe 
     are expected to endorse a peace plan dividing up Bosnia at an 
     economic summit meeting next month, a senior administration 
     official said.
       The plan calls for giving Muslims and Croats 51 percent of 
     Bosnian territory while Bosnian Serbs would get 49 percent. 
     The Serbs currently control about 72 percent of Bosnia.
       The Bosnian government has reacted negatively to the plan 
     and will eventually resort to military action to obtain more 
     territory by force rather than through negotiations, U.S. 
     officials said.

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, the reason why the winds of war are 
blowing in the Balkans, as all of us know, is because the settlement 
that is being imposed on Bosnia is unjust and unworkable.
  (Mrs. BOXER assumed the chair.)
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, it is unjust to tell a country they have 
to give up half their territory because another nation has come in and 
taken it from them and practiced genocide and ethnic cleansing and all 
the things we know about. It is unjust.
  In the Middle East peace process, we are demanding that Israel give 
back the land that they gained as a result of the 1967 war. We have 
taken the position that there can be no peace in the Middle East until 
that happens.
  Yet here we are in Bosnia supporting a settlement which requires that 
country, which now only has 30 percent of its territory, to give up 
half its territory. It is unjust.
  Madam President, it is unworkable because it is unjust. Until the 
Bosnian people are able to regain their lost territory, there will be 
no prospects for peace in the region. Will there be an increase in 
casualties? Tragically, yes. Who will absorb at least half those 
casualties and probably more? The Bosnians. The Bosnian Government, 
freely elected democratic government leaders are telling us, as short a 
time ago as yesterday, ``Please let us die fighting. We are dying; let 
us die fighting.''
  Is the embargo working, Madam President? According to the Washington 
Times this morning:

       Iranian Weapons Sent Via Croatia. Croatia has become a 
     major transit point for covert Iranian arms shipments to 
     Bosnia with the tacit approval of the Clinton administration, 
     which publicly remains opposed to a unilateral lifting of the 
     international arms embargo against the fractured Balkan 
     States, according to intelligence sources.

  We are enforcing an embargo which prevents us from helping the 
Moslems but allows one of the most dangerous nations on Earth, Iran, to 
provide those weapons, to gain the allegiance and loyalty of the 
Bosnians and others in the Balkans and throughout the world who are 
sympathetic to the plight of the Bosnians.
  In every mosque, from Malaysia to Tehran, it is being said that 
Western nations, including the United States, are allowing the murder 
of Moslems. The legitimate question is being asked in these mosques all 
over the world: If Bosnia was a Catholic nation, if it was a Protestant 
nation, would the Western nations, including the United States of 
America, sit by and watch them be slaughtered?
  I think it is a very legitimate question. I think it is an extremely 
legitimate one and one we may pay for in the alienation of the Moslem 
world in the months and years to come.
  I want to repeat again, these sanctions were not imposed on Bosnia. 
They were imposed on Yugoslavia, which no longer exists. These 
sanctions directly violate the Charter of the United Nations, which 
says no action on the part of the United Nations will impair a nation's 
ability to defend iteself.
  The fact is, according to news reports, that there are arms coming 
into Bosnia. The distinguished majority leader said, well, then the 
Russians will supply arms to the Serbs if we supply arms to the 
Bosnians. One thing the Serbs are not short of, Madam President, is 
weapons. They are not short of weapons. In fact, the overwhelming 
preponderance of weapons is on the Serbian side. This is the major 
complaint we have with these sanctions because it froze in place an 
unequal battlefield equation which has led to the deaths--needless 
deaths, in my view--of hundreds of thousands of Bosnians.
  Finally, let me say, history, which has been referred to many times 
here, tells us one thing which is irrefutable. And that is, when an 
aggressor nation is faced with equal or greater force and cannot 
achieve its goals--which in this case the Serbian goals are the 
acquisition of Bosnia, or the large majority of it--then they cease 
that aggression. And if they are not assured of defeat or an extremely 
high cost on the battlefield, they will continue that aggression.
  Unless the Serbs are absolutely convinced that the price of 
aggression in Bosnia is an unacceptable loss of treasure and blood on 
the Serbian part, their aggression will continue. I freely admit that 
the casualties will probably go up in the short term if this embargo is 
lifted. But should we not listen to the nation that is the victim of 
the aggression? Should we not pay attention to the pleas and cries of 
their freely elected leaders and citizens? I suggest we should.
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the distinguished Senator from Arizona 
is particularly qualified to answer this question. As we are here today 
in this Chamber debating this very important issue, the command and 
control arrangements now governing the embargo are primarily in the 
hands of U.S. officers. We have the NATO South Command under Admiral 
Smith, we have the air command conducting the air cap, and so forth, 
under U.S. officers.
  This debate today, I hope, can focus on what I perceive as a very 
important but clear distinction between the Republican leader, who 
wishes unilateral withdrawing, and the Nunn-Warner amendment which 
wants to do it in conjunction with our allies.
  But the question to the Senator, a former distinguished Naval officer 
and one who understands command and control in NATO, what happens to 
the NATO structure now implementing the U.N. resolution through U.S. 
officers? Would we not have to withdraw our senior officers in the face 
of an adoption by this body of the resolution of the Senator from 
Kansas [Mr. Dole]?
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I say to my friend from Virginia--and I 
thank him for his always kind remarks--what would happen is that the 
admiral would remain in Naples and the aircraft carrier would probably 
steam away and the Air Force assets that are flying out of Italy would 
probably remain on the ground or perform other functions.
  But I want to say to my friend, I do not see that the Nunn-Warner 
resolution just calls for a multilateral lifting of the embargo. Very 
frankly, that is the preferred step, that is the preferred method. The 
embargo should be lifted multilaterally. But the resolution is not that 
simple.
  As I read this,

       That the United States should work with the NATO member 
     nations * * * to endorse the efforts of the contact group to 
     bring about a peaceful settlement of the conflict, * * * 
     including the following:
       a. The preservation of an economically, politically and 
     militarily viable Bosnian state * * *.
       (i) as part of a peaceful settlement, the eventual lifting 
     of the United Nations arms embargo on the Government of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina so that it can exercise the inherent 
     right of a sovereign state of self-defense.

  I read this, and I may be wrong, that the lifting of the embargo 
would not only be done multilaterally but only as part of a peaceful 
settlement and it would only happen eventually. I guess that is why the 
word ``eventually'' is there.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the word ``eventually'' is one I worked 
on in the draft. It is not a part of the amendment at the desk. I 
apologize to my distinguished friend from Arizona.
  But if you read carefully, the Nunn-Warner proposal lays out 
sequential steps to be taken, which include, if the contact group fails 
or in some circumstances if it succeeds, a lifting of the embargo.
  But the important thing is that it is done in partnership with the 
allies who have stood with us since 1917 through 1940, through many 
conflicts, including Korea. It is essential that the relationship 
between the United States of America and its principal allies be 
preserved.
  Therefore, I plead with Senators to examine these two amendments very 
carefully, because the Nunn-Warner amendment moves further in the 
direction that the distinguished Republican leader has set as a goal 
for some period of time.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Virginia. But I would also 
admonish my colleagues to do the same, to read this amendment as I read 
it. It says, ``As part of a peaceful settlement, the lifting of the 
United States embargo.''
  ``As part of a peaceful settlement.'' I say to my friend from 
Virginia, I see no prospects of a peaceful settlement. I see the 
prospects of a peaceful settlement being brought about by the Bosnians 
being able to defend themselves. So I read the Nunn-Warner amendment 
significantly different than just a multilateral lifting of the arms 
embargo. I read it as saying that it has to be part of a peaceful 
settlement.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, if the Senator will read b. and c.----
  Mr. NUNN. Will the Senator yield for a brief clarification on this 
question?
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. NUNN. On this point, because this is an important point, the 
resolution, that is, the Nunn-Warner resolution has three different 
ways that the embargo can be lifted but all of them are under 
multilateral methods. That is the fundamental distinction. The Senators 
have just identified one of those ways. It is my view--and this is 
paragraph a. under (d) on page 3. I think the Senator from Arizona was 
just reading that--one of the ways of lifting the embargo--it can be 
done multilaterally in my view--is absolutely essential and that is as 
part of a peace agreement because no nation can defend itself without 
arms, and the Bosnian Government in my view has a right to those arms 
if it is going to be a sovereign state.
  As the Senators know, I disagree with the embargo. I am not in any 
way disagreeing with the Dole position and McCain position in terms of 
the embargo. It is my fervent belief though to do it unilaterally is a 
mistake.
  Now, the second way, the second way the embargo in my view can be 
lifted--and this is paragraph b.--is if during the course of these 
discussions--and they may go on for another 2 or 3 months or another 
couple years for all we know. It may be a long, long time before the 
parties come to any agreement. If during that period the Bosnian Serbs 
violate the safe havens, then paragraph b. makes it clear that the U.S. 
Government position should be that we would call for a limited lifting 
of the embargo so that each safe haven that is violated by the Bosnian 
Serbs would get defensive arms immediately on a multilateral basis. So 
that is the second way that I believe our Government should be 
vigorously pursuing it with NATO and with the U.N. Security Council.
  The third way is paragraph c., and that is if the Bosnian Serbs do 
not respond constructively to the peace proposal of the contact group--
and that is a subjective judgment. I would stipulate that--the 
immediate lifting of the arms embargo on the Government of Bosnia. And 
in my view it would be realistic about what has to happen in the event 
we do lift that embargo--the orderly withdrawal of the United Nations 
protection force and humanitarian relief personnel.
  So really these are the ways that I believe we have to pursue it, 
these 3 ways, and none of them do it unilaterally but all of them could 
develop depending on the events there and depending on how successful 
American leadership is and how assertive we are in pursuing these 
avenues with our allies.
  I just wanted to make sure that was clarified.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the distinguished chairman. Let me just point out 
with regard to the first option that the resolution says ``including 
the following.'' I think perhaps you should make it ``one of the 
following'' or ``either one of the following.''
  The second situation, if the Bosnian Serbs attack the safe areas 
designated by the United Nations? Yesterday, yesterday, I say to the 
chairman, and I can provide him with the information, they attacked the 
safe areas and they violated their commitments. So b. should be 
operative right now.
  Mr. NUNN. I would agree with the Senator on that. I have been pushing 
for that for several months. I think b. should be operative now. That 
should be done in lieu of the threat on bombing or in addition to the 
threat on bombing because I would agree now our allies have not agreed 
to that nor has our Government proposed that. But that is what I would 
agree it should be.
  Mr. McCAIN. Then it would seem to me that the Senator from Georgia 
would support the Dole amendment because the Bosnian Serbs are, as we 
speak, attacking the safe areas designated by the U.N. Security 
Council. If the United Nations fails to take that into cognizance, or 
our allies take that into cognizance, I think we should.
  Mr. NUNN. So do I, but I do not think we ought to do it unilaterally. 
That is the distinction.
  Mr. McCAIN. I see. So we really are getting down to whether the 
United States policy should be dictated by our allies or by what is in 
the best interests of the United States of America and Bosnia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the word dictate is unfair.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would like to finish. I will be glad to yield later to 
my friend from Virginia.
  The resolution states: ``If the Bosnian Serbs do not respond 
constructively to the peace proposal of the contact group.'' Obviously, 
the Bosnians have not responded positively for quite a long period of 
time. But I would suggest over time that the Bosnian Serbs will 
probably act affirmatively since they have absorbed 70 percent of the 
country and will be allowed to have 50 percent of the country.
  Since when is it U.S. national policy to endorse and ratify the 
aggression and absorption of half a country? In the Middle East peace 
process, as I mentioned earlier, we are demanding that Israel literally 
return every piece of land that they acquired as a result of the 1967 
war. In Bosnia, however, we are going to say, well, you have taken 70 
percent of the country and you have killed 200,000 people and you have 
displaced 2 million people, but as a reward for that we are going to 
give you half the country. Instead, instead, why can we not let these 
people defend themselves and gain that territory back?
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, if I could pick up with my second 
question to my colleague----
  Mr. McCAIN. Go ahead.
  Mr. WARNER. And then I will yield the floor because there are many 
anxious to speak, and I have had a fair opportunity. I hope the Senator 
would revisit the word ``dictate.'' The history of this country, 
certainly in this century, has been in working with our allies, and 
really the future of this country is predicated on our ability to form 
coalitions and work with our allies in trouble spots throughout the 
world. The Nunn-Warner resolution does not involve being dictated to 
but working in partnership with our allies.
  But I come back to the earlier comment by my distinguished colleague, 
and that is if the United States, pursuant to the Dole resolution, were 
to trigger the unilateral lifting of the embargo--that means the 
withdrawal of U.S. officers from the NATO command, that means the 
withdrawal of the UNPROFOR forces, it means a total reversal of what 
has been put in place.
  We were told yesterday by a distinguished officer from Great Britain 
that nowhere, where French and British and other UNPROFOR are now 
stationed, is there rape or pillage or killing. Certainly in those 
areas they have been able to contain it.
  But if the United States is the triggering mechanism and this 
conflict then becomes stamped ``Made in USA,'' I say to my friend, 
there will be a complete dichotomy between our work and our deeds. We 
will send nothing, no troops to fill the vacuum when the killing takes 
place. The pictures will then show the killing and the question will 
be: Where is the country that brought about the reversal that resulted 
in the greater killing?
  How can we then withstand the pressures not to come in and try and in 
a material way aid the Bosnians? In all probability the Bosnians will 
call on us for technical expertise and training as is necessary to 
operate the arms they receive.
  I ask my friend, How can we reject those pleas?
  Mr. McCAIN. First of all, I would say in response to the initial 
question about what would happen to our involvement with NATO. We would 
remain in NATO. Our officers and people would remain exactly where they 
are. As you know, they are not in Bosnia. They work in places like 
Naples and other places. I do not see them being withdrawn from 
anywhere except perhaps not involving themselves in the Bosnian 
conflict.
  As far as the UNPROFOR forces are concerned, if the Europeans decide 
that they want to leave, that is a decision that is up to them, not up 
to the United States. As far as the issue of our relations with our 
allies, what has been missing here in this equation is leadership. We 
should lead our allies. We should be the ones, as we did during the 
Persian Gulf war, forming the coalition. If the administration believes 
that we should multilaterally lift the arms embargo, let us go to them 
and ask them, or say that we are not in favor of lifting the embargo. 
But for the President of the United States just to say, ``Yes, I 
support lifting the arms embargo,'' and not instruct our Ambassador in 
the United Nations to do anything to try to bring that about is, 
frankly, not what I call leadership.
  The second thing is where do we get this idea that if we lift the 
embargo and allow those people to defend themselves that somehow it is 
a ``Made in the U.S.A.'' struggle? It was not a ``Made in the U.S.A.'' 
struggle 500 years ago. It may not be, tragically, a ``Made in the 
U.S.A.'' struggle 500 years from now. All we are proposing is allowing 
these people the sovereign right of all nations, and that is to defend 
themselves.
  Back about 20 years ago, there was an invasion of Afghanistan. That 
country was invaded by Russia. We did not send American troops there. 
But we did arrange for the Afghan Freedom Fighters to have the 
equipment to repel the invader. Frankly, we did not expect to go in 
there with American troops. It was not stamped ``Made in the U.S.A.'' 
But I tell you what it did. It made the Russians eventually leave 
Afghanistan and allow that country to sort out its affairs by itself. 
Admittedly it is a miserable situation. But at least they are not 
occupied by Russian troops, and that was a key factor, in the view of 
many of us, in the ending of the cold war.
  So because the United States no longer enforces an unfair and unjust 
embargo on the Bosnian people and Government, who are pleading for it 
to be lifted, somehow we translate that into ``Made in the U.S.A.'' 
that is clearly not logical to assume, in my view.
  I would like to yield the floor because I know that the Senator from 
Connecticut and the Senator from Nebraska are waiting.
  I thank my friend from Virginia.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Madam President.
  Madam President, I wish I could support the Nunn-Warner second-degree 
amendment because the right solution is clearly that all of our allies 
would come together to lift this embargo. But the reality is every one 
of us on the Armed Services Committee sat there yesterday and listened 
to the defense representatives of our allies. And they said, ``Don't 
lift the embargo.'' They do not favor lifting the embargo.
  I said to them: ``I wish we could get your support because this is 
the right thing to do.'' And they said no. In fact, most of them said 
that they would probably in one degree or another leave Bosnia if we 
unilaterally lift the embargo.
  We have been talking about lifting the arms embargo on these people 
while they see thousands of their countrymen die. They see their women 
raped. They see people in a marketplace on a Saturday morning killed, 
defenseless.
  So we had the opportunity in the Armed Services Committee yesterday 
to hear from the Vice President of Bosnia, the duly elected leader of 
that country. And I asked him the question specifically.

       Do you want the embargo lifted?
  He said,

       Yes. Let us defend ourselves. We know that some of us will 
     die. 200,000 of our people have already died. When this is 
     over, we will not even declare a victory because so many of 
     our friends and neighbors have already died. But we want to 
     die fighting for our country.
  So we have the specter of our allies over there not defending them, 
not fighting with them, but sitting basically on our hands. We are 
doing the humanitarian mission, yes. Those people need defense. They 
need someone willing to fight for them. And if we are not willing to 
fight for them, let them fight for themselves.
  So I asked the second question of the Vice President. ``If the NATO 
forces leave, are you still prepared to say that is the best 
alternative, that you will be there by yourselves?'' He said ``yes.''
  The distinguished majority leader asked the question. ``Are we 
willing to vote or support sending our troops into Bosnia?'' The answer 
is emphatically ``no.'' It is for that very reason that I believe we 
must let these people defend themselves. I am not willing to support 
spilling even one drop of American blood in Bosnia.
  So how can we sit here and say that without saying we will give them 
the means to defend themselves, to die protecting the soil of their 
country? This is a war we should not be involved in. So we should let 
them settle it within their country.
  I hope our allies will come around. I hope our allies will come with 
us and say let these people defend themselves. I hope that we will not 
leave them there.
  But, Madam President, we cannot sit here debating month after month 
while these people are living this nightmare. They are the duly elected 
representatives of this country and they have asked us to lift this 
embargo. And I just think we must do it.
  I hope that we can come to a resolution of this very quickly so that 
they will have the opportunity to do what every country inherently has 
the right to do; that is, defend themselves.
  I wish we could do it with the support of our allies. We have waited 
too long. We have asked for their support for too long. The time has 
come for us to take this action, even if it must be unilaterally, which 
is not the best of circumstances. But it is the only alternative that 
we have.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, there is an old expression in the U.S. Navy: ``Now 
hear this.'' I hope that all in the Senate, all in the House of 
Representatives, as much as is publicly possible, heard the 
tremendously moving statement that was made by the majority leader on 
this subject before the Senate within the hour. I wholeheartedly 
subscribe to the statements that the majority leader made. I 
wholeheartedly rise to endorse the best possible resolution to the 
dilemma offered by Senator Nunn and Senator Warner.
  Madam President, while there is sharp debate on this matter, I am 
rather proud of the U.S. Senate in the way this debate has been handled 
and has been broken out. There are obviously very strongly held views. 
Just as obviously, in the opinion of this Senator, there is no certain, 
definite road to go on the matter that we are debating.
  This Senator had the opportunity or the obligation to chair one-half 
of the hearings that were held yesterday in the Armed Services 
Committee on this matter, where we had a great divergence of opinions 
and views from people on both sides of the issue, which I thought was 
confusing, but I also thought it was very informative.
  While those hearings were not very well covered by the press, I think 
a copy of them would be available to anyone who is interested. It 
points up again the strongly held views, and some of the views that 
have been very thoroughly thought through by both sides on this issue, 
so that the public understands the importance of this debate, and also 
the importance of how it is eventually resolved.
  I want to say before I continue with my comments, which will not be 
lengthy, Madam President, that interestingly enough, the partisanship 
is not running rampant on this debate, because there are Democrats and 
Republicans on each side of this issue. In fact, many of my closest 
associates and personal friends are on the other side of the issue, as 
the Senator from Nebraska sees it. That indicates, more than anything 
else, that I think there is room for differences of opinion and that 
all of those expressing opinions today, and those who will follow in 
expressing their opinions, I have great respect for.
  But the problem we have before us is how do we cut through all of 
these clouds? What action do we take? Certainly, the majority leader, 
in his remarks, outlined the precarious situation that I think we find 
ourselves in. I believe that the majority leader outlined, as well as 
anyone could, the reasons why this Senator feels we should reject the 
Dole, et al, offer and accept the solution offered by the chairman of 
the Armed Services Committee, Senator Nunn, and our distinguished 
colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner.
  Madam President, I simply say that of the group that was before the 
Armed Services Committee yesterday--a group all Democrats, I might 
add--who were speaking for a very large group of Democrats and 
Republicans, important officeholders, and several previous Democratic 
and Republican administrations, all were basically taking the position 
that has been offered in support of the Dole amendment and the other 
Members of the Senate who have spoken very eloquently on why they think 
it is absolutely essential that the United States of America 
unilaterally lift the arms embargo.
  I am not certain that I agree completely with everything that the 
present administration has done on this matter. However, I hope this 
matter will not deteriorate any further into a system of Presidential 
bashing, when it is not a political matter at all. It is a matter that 
concentrates on what we are going to do now. And what we do now has to 
do with our future relations and world peacekeeping efforts.
  I was rather astonished at those very, very distinguished people that 
appeared yesterday afternoon in front of the committee holding the view 
that we should do it unilaterally, notwithstanding what our traditional 
partners want to do, which has been explained by Senator Mitchell, 
Senator Nunn, and Senator Warner. Do not pay any attention to them, 
they are wrong. We go full-blown ahead and lift the arms embargo. I 
asked those three representatives yesterday afternoon that if they are 
for lifting the embargo, and if they believe the outright commitments, 
if not assurances, that we have received from our traditional allies, 
then--and I will not mention again this morning their record, but they 
are well known to all.
  I simply say that 2 days ago the Armed Services Committee also held a 
closed meeting with the Foreign Minister of Great Britain. He was not 
at the hearing yesterday in the Armed Services Committee. But what he 
told us in that closed meeting essentially tracks identically with what 
others have said, that if we move ahead unilaterally, our traditional 
allies that have many troops there, as outlined in great detail by the 
majority leader, would pull out.
  Some people say that will not happen. I believe it will. At least 
that is what they have told us on numerous occasions, without any 
equivocation or mental reservation. If we lift the embargo, that is 
something I would eventually like to see happen, but not unilaterally. 
As has been explained by those who supported the Nunn-Warner 
proposition previously, including the majority leader, we all would 
like to see the embargo lifted to allow the Bosnians the wherewithal in 
the form of arms that they probably could obtain to defend themselves 
and maybe take back some of the territory that has been brutally taken 
over by the Serbs.
  Let them fight for themselves. Who can argue with that, except those 
of us who would like to see action to stop the fighting? I believe that 
the contribution of men and women and facilities by our allies in the 
absence of any ground troops by the United States of America, those who 
are attempting to keep the peace there now, should be given some 
consideration.
  If we lift the embargo unilaterally, and if our traditional allies--
our partners in NATO, and our partners in the United Nations who have 
sanctioned the present situation--sit back and look and see what is 
happening because of the unilateral action by the Government of the 
United States of America, as suggested by the Dole amendment, then all 
of the peacekeepers would leave, and the Bosnians would be better off 
because they certainly would be in a position to obtain more arms than 
they have now to defend themselves.
  But the basic proposition is that when the peacekeepers leave, 
however good a job they are doing or not doing, there is one 
calculation that I think is very clear, and that is that new bloodshed 
would break out. More deaths would occur. Possibly, very possibly, 
Madam President, that would allow, through all of that bloodshed and 
war, the good people of Bosnia to regain some of their territory. I 
simply say that it has been alluded to on many occasions.
  I asked the three distinguished members representing a large group of 
great Nebraskans, who want unilateral action by the United States, that 
while I did not accuse any of them as being hypocrites --because they 
are very distinguished Americans and that is the last thing I would 
do--I did ask the question: Did it appear to anyone that the actions 
that they were taking turned out to be hypocritical in nature? I asked 
each and every one of them whether or not they felt that if the Dole 
amendment was accepted and we unilaterally lifted the embargo, we 
should as a result thereof--and since our traditional allies in Europe 
would be leaving--did they think it would be wise now or at some future 
date for us to send ground troops into Bosnia? Oh, no, that is the 
worst thought anybody could make.
  It seemed a little hypocritical to me--hypocritical in action, Madam 
President--for those who propound a procedure that would force the 
leaving of the peacekeepers that are there now, to provide arms to the 
Bosnians that I would like to see happen for their good but simply at 
the same time saying: Oh, no; we will be party to a program that will 
remove any of the peacekeepers from the area now that have made some of 
the sacrifices, as very eloquently outlined by the majority leader, but 
we are not going to send in our ground forces.

  Madam President, I do not think we should send in our ground forces 
either. But I am not going to be a party to what I consider 
hypocritical action by saying to our European allies that we are going 
to do this because we think it is the right thing, and if you want to 
take your peacekeeping forces out of there go ahead, but we are not 
going to send ours in.
  I hope, Madam President, that we can have further mature discussion 
on this. I hope and I plead with the Senate, regardless of the strongly 
held feelings that I know are very sincere of my colleagues, both 
Democrats and Republicans, on this issue, we will stand back a little 
bit and take a look at this thing before we rush into anything, which I 
think is as irresponsible for both the short-term and the long-term 
interests of peace, NATO, and the United Nations, by taking overt 
action now in the heat of legitimate passion that we have in trying to 
help the Bosnians out of a most difficult situation.
  Now hear this, hear the statement, and read the statement. It should 
be required reading for all, at least among the decisionmakers and I 
hope the public at large. I happen to feel that this is a healthy 
debate. I hope that the healthy debate turns out eventually in the 
acceptance of the resolution offered by Senator Nunn and Senator 
Warner.
  I think that is the reasonable, thoughtful way that we should proceed 
at this juncture.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The chairman of the committee.
  Mr. NUNN. Madam President, we have had a lot of good debate this 
morning, and I am not sure whether the majority and minority leader 
want to bring this to a vote today or are going to wait until next 
week. Nevertheless, I think the debate has been healthy. I cannot say 
this on all debates of the U.S. Senate.
  I think the people on both sides of this debate are absolutely 
dedicated to doing what they believe to be right. The difficulty in 
this situation is knowing what is right and what will be effective.
  When I hear Senator Levin in the committee or on the floor, or 
Senator Lieberman or Senator Dole here, I hear a lot of words that I 
have been saying myself for the last 2\1/2\ years, and that makes it 
particularly frustrating for me to be on the other side of the issue 
from them because I think morally they are correct in terms of the 
overall position that they have.
  I think that a nation should be able to defend itself. I believe that 
the embargo has been counterproductive. I do not think it was intended 
to be counterproductive, but I believe that without some kind of level 
playing field at some point in time, there is not going to be any hope 
of stability.
  So on the central thrust of their resolution, I would have to say 
that I generally agree. The difficulty is that you cannot look at 
Bosnia without looking at a broader picture. The United States does not 
have the luxury of looking at only one aspect of a tragic situation, 
and tragic it is. We have to look at what happens around the world. We 
have to be able to distinguish between what is vital to the United 
States and what is important to the United States, and what is purely 
humanitarian.
  In the case of Bosnia, we have important interests, we have 
humanitarian interests, and if the conflict spreads, we could have 
vital interests. But we do not have vital interests in Bosnia itself. 
By the term vital, I mean an interest that would warrant the commitment 
of U.S. military forces--if necessary, alone--always preferably with 
allies, but if necessary alone. We do not have that.
  If we did, then we would have military forces there now. If we did, 
the Senator from Michigan, the Senator from Connecticut, and the 
Senator from Kansas would be on the floor saying: Let us put military 
forces in because this is unacceptable. This tragedy cannot be 
permitted to continue.
  They are not doing that. I think they are right. I think they are 
right.
  I would be joining them in that cry if it were a vital interest.
  So it may be that some people disagree with this, but I think the 
first thing we need to understand as we debate this issue is that even 
though that conflict could spread in Macedonia, it could spread and 
involve our allies in NATO, even the Greeks and the Turks on the 
opposite side of the conflict, it could spread and you could have 
Russia involved with Serbia, perhaps not militarily, but directly in 
aid. You could have Russia squaring off on one side of the conflict and 
the United States on the other side of the conflict.
  Then it becomes vital. Then it becomes vital. Then it is much bigger 
than important.
  Madam President, if someone believes it is vital, then I think they 
ought to stipulate this on the floor of the Senate, and I think they 
ought to prepare to get a resolution that is unlike either the Dole-
Lieberman resolution or the Nunn-Warner resolution, both of which make 
it clear we are not going to put combat forces into that country, as 
tragic as it is.
  So I think the first thing in framing this debate is we have to 
understand the difference between vital and important. Other people may 
have a different definition, but my definition of vital is an interest 
so crucial to the United States that we are willing to send our young 
men--and increasingly, young women--to die in that conflict, if 
necessary, always hopefully with our allies side by side. But if it is 
truly vital, we have to be prepared to go it alone.
  Madam President, I think it is important also as we frame this debate 
to understand what is in the vital interests of the United States. In 
the world that we are in now, it is very difficult sometimes when we 
read a headline and a whole set of news media questions one week on 
Haiti, the next week on Somalia, the next week it is on Rwanda, the 
next week it is back on Bosnia, the next week it may jump over to North 
Korea and South Korea. And then every now and then, you will see 
something in the paper about a possible potential conflict which could 
truly be a tremendous difficulty for us and for allies all over Europe 
and around the world, and that is a conflict between Russia and the 
Ukraine, which has not happened because of the leadership of President 
Yeltsin and President Kravchuk and others. We do not hear much about 
that, but it is there. It is looming.
  I think it is important for us in the Senate, if we are going to get 
explicit about foreign policy resolutions and basically give 
instructions to the executive branch, and we are, that we understand 
that we have to look at a bigger scope. We have to look at a bigger 
picture. It has to be more than Bosnia and what is the right answer for 
Bosnia, as important as that is. It has to also concern what is the 
right answer for the United States where we do have vital interests.
  Madam President, we have a vital interest in Korea. We have 38,000 
combat forces in Korea. Those forces are near the DMZ. And if there is 
a conflict in Korea, we are in on day one, and we will have people 
dying on day one, and we are going to be killing North Koreans on day 
one, and our blood will be shed on day one. And everybody, I think, who 
has looked at Korea understands that. We have a vital interest there, 
and we have declared it to be vital. We even fought a war there. We 
kept some 40,000 to 60,000 combat forces on the ground there for years 
and years. We even had tactical nuclear weapons there for years and 
years and years, and they were pulled out in 1991, some believe 
prematurely, based on subsequent developments.
  So, Madam President, we have a vital interest in Korea. What is the 
connection between Bosnia and Korea? There is a connection. What is the 
connection? The connection is that I think most people in this body 
would say that if the North Koreans do not comply with their recent 
commitments to stop their nuclear program while discussions take place, 
and to have that verified, then the first thing we are going to have to 
do is we are going to have to go to the Security Council and we are 
going to have to ask the Security Council to impose sanctions on the 
North Korean regime.
  The second thing we are going to have to do, if they do vote for it, 
neither China nor Britain nor France nor Russia will veto it. Then we 
have to ask China and Russia and Japan, particularly, but others also, 
to join in an embargo and sanctions on that regime. And if that does 
not work, and we really believe that the North Korean Peninsula is 
vital, which I do, and we really believe that stopping North Korea from 
becoming an exporter of nuclear arms and becoming an armed nuclear 
power is vital to the United States, then I do think we have to be 
willing to take other steps.
  And those other steps could very well include military action, and we 
all ought to be clear about that. And there I think there is no doubt 
that American military forces will be involved.
  Now what is the connection? The connection is that in Bosnia the 
resolution before us, well-meaning though it may be--and I have already 
said I agree with the thrust of it--it calls on us to basically say to 
the U.N. Security Council, we do not care what is on the books at U.N. 
Security Council on Bosnia in terms of an embargo and on the overall 
form in Yugoslavia. It was passed with the United States voting for it 
in 1991. We do not care about that anymore because we are fixed on that 
country and we are going to come up with the right solution--the right 
solution--and we do not care what you think. We are basically going to 
have a unilateral lifting of the embargo.
  And, guess what? The next day we may be before that same group 
saying, ``Would you please vote to impose sanctions on North Korea?''
  Madam President, it is easy to stand up on the floor and say--and I 
have read editorials to this effect--``Well, just tell the Russians and 
the Chinese and the British and the French what we want to do and march 
out and do it. Just tell them. And then tell them that we want them to 
vote for sanctions in the Security Council against North Korea. And 
then tell China that they better do it.''
  They do not ever say, ``or what?''
  Are we going to invade China? I do not think anybody is seriously 
thinking we are going to do anything like that. Are we going to 
threaten our allies with some kind of sanctions themselves if they do 
not go along with us breaking one embargo while we ask them for another 
one? No, I do not think anybody believes that.
  Madam President, the truth of it is, whether we like it or not, the 
United States is not the only person on the Security Council. Can we be 
more assertive? Yes. Have we been assertive enough on Bosnia? No. Have 
we pushed hard enough lifting the embargo on Bosnia? No. Can the 
administration do better? Yes.
  But should we do it alone? Should we march off and say to our friends 
and colleagues, the British and French that we fought two wars with, 
that we are going to basically disregard everything you say and think, 
even though, as the majority leader pointed out so vividly this morning 
so accurately, even though they are the ones on the ground in Bosnia, 
they are fighting and dying? Are we going to do it anyway?
  But, by the way, we want you to help us on North Korea. And, by the 
way, to Turkey, who is suffering from the embargo on Iraq that we voted 
for--in fact, we were the ones who urged that embargo be placed on 
Iraq; and I support that also--are we going to say to Turkey, ``Even 
though it is costing you money every day to keep the pipeline closed 
and not to have trade with Iraq, but we are going to break the embargo 
in Bosnia and we want you to keep the embargo on Iraq, even though it 
hurts you"?
  Madam President, the first result of a unilateral breach of the 
embargo on Bosnia without getting our allies to go along, the first 
result may very well be the end of the embargo on Iraq.
  Now that is not what the people on this resolution intend, but that 
is one of the things they have to accept as a probable, at least 
possible consequence.
  Madam President, I do not agree with what we are doing in Haiti right 
now, but our country is on record and we voted at the Security Council 
to have an embargo on Haiti. I think it is counterproductive, because I 
think the poor people there that are either attempting or being tempted 
to have an exodus from that country are the ones who are suffering from 
that. That is another question.
  Nevertheless, we are on record imposing an embargo on Haiti. On U.N. 
Security Council Resolution 875, the United States led the way.
  We are also on record supporting an embargo on Libya, also voted by 
the United States at the U.N. Security Council.
  So are we going to say to our friends on the Security Council, 
``Forget about Libya, forget about Iraq, forget about Haiti, forget 
about what we may have been asking you on North Korea if these 
negotiations don't no succeed. We have focused on Bosnia now and we 
know the right answer. We here in the Senate and House of 
Representatives, we know the answer on this and we are going to tell 
you what it is and we are not going to worry about any other 
consequence.''
  Madam President, we have to be able to distinguish what is vital and 
what is important, and we have to understand that if we unilaterally 
lift the embargo in one area, without--in fact, in defiance of--the 
Security Council and against most of our allies in NATO, then we are 
not likely to get their cooperation when it comes down to something 
that is truly vital like North Korea.
  And if we do not get their cooperation now, then we may have to skip 
the sanctions step if the negotiations break down and we may end up 
having to move toward some other option which could certainly be a 
military option. That may be required anyway. I hope not. I hope the 
negotiations succeed and I hope North Korea will give up their nuclear 
quest.
  But we would be foolish to believe that this situation in North Korea 
is over. We would be foolish to believe that it is over. The North 
Koreans play brinkmanship, they play games, they go right down to the 
brink. They have done it over and over again. Occasionally, they go 
over the brink--and they did so in the early 1950's--and then you have 
a war.
  Madam President, what is vital and what is important and what is 
humanitarian? There is no easy answer in this post-cold-war world. But 
if this body cannot begin to distinguished between what is vital and 
what is important and what is humanitarian and make those differences, 
and if our own Government cannot distinguished between those, then we 
are going to be lost in the aftermath of the cold war and we are going 
to be bouncing from one foreign policy crisis to another with no 
principles guiding us--with no principles guiding us. Some of them may 
work out all right and some of them may be disasters. We have to have 
some principles. We have to have some things that are important.
  Madam President, I hope out of this debate, the thing that I am most 
hopeful for, in terms of my own position, is that the administration 
downtown not misread it, because I am not satisfied with our position; 
I am not satisfied with the United States leadership in this area.
  I think we have to be more assertive. I think we have to explain to 
the British and the French and even the Russians that the U.S. 
Government believes firmly that there are important moral principals 
here and that a country does have the right to defend itself. And I 
think we have to be very clear to the contact group that is now meeting 
and negotiating and trying to put together both carrots and sticks to 
both sides to try to bring about some peaceful resolution, I think we 
have to explain to them that, even if you get a peaceful resolution in 
Bosnia, even if both sides agree, that the embargo has to be lifted at 
some point during that peaceful transition or otherwise you have a 
country that does not have a right to defend itself.
  Do the British and the French and the Russians think we are going to 
have an embargo on Bosnia forever? We cannot. We should not. We must 
not.
  So, Madam President, just briefly, the resolution sets forth the 
alternative to the Dole resolution. It sets forth the history of the 
other embargoes the United States is participating in that we voted for 
at the Security Council. It also sets forth the important consideration 
of North Korea and what may happen there, the eventualities that may 
happen there. It also sets forth the fact that our allies, as the 
majority leader made clear, are already on the ground in Bosnia. And I 
have no doubt if we unilaterally lift the embargo that the French and 
perhaps the British, but certainly the French and I would say the 
likelihood of everyone on the ground there, are going to pull out. They 
are going to pull out and it is going to be real interesting to see how 
it works out. Because the United States is over there right now flying 
with our allies, putting an air cap over Bosnia, saying we are going to 
shoot down any aircraft, helicopters seem to be an exception--but shoot 
down any aircraft that flies in.

  Madam President, if we lift the embargo, how are we going to get the 
arms in there? Because if the British and the French pull out, the Serb 
guns that have been collected are going to be available to them again. 
I hope they will destroy them before they leave but they may not.
  The Serbs still have a lot of guns. It is going to be almost 
impossible to get enough guns in there to begin with to the Bosnians to 
let them defend themselves against what will be an onslaught by the 
Serbs before an embargo can be effectively phased out by the United 
States.
  So we are going to have to put supplies in there by air. What happens 
to the air cover? Certainly with the United States we would pull out of 
that--we would have to pull out of that. Certainly we are not going to 
shoot down our own airplanes, so we would have to pull out of that. Do 
the allies keep their air cover there? Or take away the air cover? If 
they take away their air cover, who has the airplanes? It is not the 
Bosnian Moslems. Are we going to give them airplanes? What are we going 
to give them, F-18's? F-16's? Where are the airports?
  You are talking about training people. So who is going to have the 
airplanes to fly? It will not be the Moslems. It will not be the 
Bosnians. It will be the Serbs. Are we going to be flying in supplies 
one way and are we going to be participating in the air cover the other 
way, shooting down some planes while we go in?
  Has anybody thought through this? You have to think through it with 
your allies, that is the point.
  Can it be done? It is possible it can be done but it has to be done 
with our allies. It cannot be done unilaterally, no matter what we pass 
on the floor of the Senate. It cannot be done unilaterally.
  Madam President, what about the naval blockade? We have American 
military forces out there right now participating in a naval blockade. 
They are stopping ships, time after time after time, preventing arms 
from going anywhere in that part of former Yugoslavia.
  What happens if the embargo is ended unilaterally? Are we going to 
tell our naval forces to come home? If so what do the allies do? Are 
they going to pull off the embargo on Serbia and let economic goods 
flow into Serbia? Are they going to stop ships? And say if this is oil 
for Serbia, we are not going to let it through? But if this is mortars 
for Bosnia we are?
  What are we going to do? What are the practical implications of this? 
It has to be thought through with our allies.
  I repeat we have to be more assertive. I repeat I believe the embargo 
should be lifted but I do believe there is a bigger world out there 
that we have to think about. It would be the ultimate irony if we end 
up damaging an American vital interest because we want to impose our 
own view on our allies unilaterally of what we should do in an area 
that is not vital but is, I would stipulate, important.
  So Madam President, I think there are three ways the embargo can be 
lifted as a practical matter and I think the administration ought to 
think about all three of them. And I think they ought to be discussing 
this with our allies.
  One way is, pursuant to a peace agreement. And one of the things we 
ought to be saying to the contact group--and if we are not we are 
making a mistake. I do not know what our position is there--that if 
there is going to be a peace settlement there has to be an end of the 
arms embargo. Bosnia has to be able to have enough arms to defend 
themselves. Unless the United States wants to be over there for the 
next 5 to 10 years with 20,000 or 30,000 military forces defending the 
borders between two factions that inevitably are going to end up, as 
they have for a long time, with a lot of animosity. The recent 
tragedies make that even more likely--in fact inevitable.
  The second way we can end the embargo--and this is also part B of the 
resolution that is the alternative--if during the course of these 
discussions, moving hopefully toward some peace settlement that can be 
equitable and fair--if during the course of that the Bosnian Serbs, as 
they have in the past, start shelling in a substantial way--start 
shelling the safe havens and defy the United Nations once again, then 
it is my view that we ought to with our allies put in defensive arms 
immediately. And that will require flying some of them in, in all 
likelihood.
  That would mean putting in antitank weapons where tanks are the 
threat. Or putting in enough counterbattery or mortar capability to 
counter the artillery sitting up on the hills. That does not have to be 
a complete lifting of the embargo. If the allies are concerned about 
that we could table the proposal of partially lifting the embargo 
depending on which safe haven is under threat and getting arms in there 
immediately to the safe haven that is under threat, that is where the 
United Nations resolution is being defied by the Bosnian Serbs. So that 
is the second way I think we could as a nation be assertive in our 
position.
  The third way is if the contact group tables a proposal, that is fair 
and equitable and just--if those are achievable words in this case, and 
probably no one will ever agree to what that is--but if the contact 
group tables the proposal and the Bosnian Serbs say, no, we are 
absolutely not going to sign anything that is fair and just and leads 
to a coherent stable Bosnian border--if they do that, then it is my 
view that multilaterally we ought to lift the embargo much like the 
resolution calls for. But there is another side of that.
  There is another side of that. Madam President, at some point our 
allies have to understand--and I think we have to understand--that you 
cannot have humanitarian aid in the middle of a war. You can do your 
best but you cannot have large deployments of ground forces sitting 
there under the gun at the same time you are either bombing or lifting 
an embargo that the Serbs interpret as being partial to one side--even 
though I think they would be wrong in that because I think we would be 
leveling the playing field--they would interpret that direct 
involvement. In that stage we have to have an orderly withdrawal of 
humanitarian forces and military forces and we have to get arms in 
there very rapidly because if we do not and we do not do it jointly it 
will not be done correctly. We have to put the Bosnian Government in a 
position to defend their own people. But when we do that we have to 
understand that the humanitarian mission is likely to be over. You 
cannot do both. I think we have to think through the consequences of 
this.
  I welcome the debate. I hope there is no misinterpretation of my own 
view on this because I think the time has been--really is overdue, in 
terms of lifting the embargo. But I do believe it matters how we do it. 
I do believe it matters that we coordinate what we do with the British 
and the French, other members of the Security Council, members of NATO, 
and particularly as the majority leader said so well, those forces on 
the ground there who have already suffered substantial casualties.
  Madam President, I hope people understand the resolution. I hope they 
read it. I hope they will give this careful consideration.
  There is no good answer. None of this is perfect. I do not think 
anybody on either side is going to say we have the perfect answer. I 
would again stipulate what we have done so far, we being the Western 
community, has not in my view been the correct policy. We have done 
some good things. A lot of courageous people have sacrificed a lot. A 
lot of humanitarian workers have risked their lives every day and they 
have saved tens of thousands of lives. But overall I think we have not 
taken the correct course. But the fact that we have not does not mean 
that we cannot take a situation that is bad and turn it into an 
absolute disaster.
  You can take a bad situation and make it worse. And I think that is 
what the Senate of the United States is going to have to contemplate. I 
thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Moseley-Braun). The majority leader is 
recognized.


                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. MITCHELL. Madam President, I will not address the pending matter. 
I have already spoken on that and will do so again at a later time. I 
expect this debate to resume shortly. But I wanted to set forth for the 
Members of the Senate the schedule for the remainder of the day and for 
next week, prior to the July 4 recess.
  Madam President, at this moment the Senate is in a catch-22 
situation. A substantial number of Senators have left. And, having 
arrived at their destinations, have contacted other Senators who are 
still here and urged those Senators not to permit any votes to occur.

  So a majority of Senators stayed because it had been our hope and 
expectation that we could debate and vote on amendments to this bill, 
but some of the Senators who remained have made it clear to me that 
they will not permit votes to occur on amendments to the bill, either 
on the amendment with respect to Bosnia, on the B-2 amendment or any 
one of the other amendments.
  So we are in a catch-22 where we have a very important bill, a very 
large number of amendments pending to the bill, with most Senators here 
prepared and willing and desirous of voting on the bill, but some 
Senators here indicating that in order to protect Senators who left, 
they will not permit a vote to occur. So it is a classic catch-22 
situation.
  We have already had one procedural vote, and we will shortly have 
another one. I cannot force a vote on an amendment to the bill because 
Senators have a capacity under the rules to prevent that. I can force a 
vote on a procedural matter and will do so.
  I simply say to Senators that there are certain items which we will 
have to complete next week before we go on recess. Not being able to 
vote on any amendments to this bill today makes the burden of next week 
that much greater. But so there can be no misunderstanding on anyone's 
part as to next week, we will have at least two nominations and perhaps 
others on which we must act. I am required by unanimous-consent 
agreement entered into some weeks ago to proceed to the product 
liability bill before the close of business today, and I will, of 
course, honor that agreement and do so. We must complete action on that 
bill in one form or another.
  We have pending two appropriations bills, the foreign operations 
appropriations bill and the energy appropriations bill, and we will 
complete action on those two bills before we leave next week. And, 
finally, of course, we have to finish the Department of Defense 
authorization bill.
  So, therefore, the Senate will remain in session next week until we 
complete action on the measures which I have just described: Certain 
pending nominations, product liability, foreign operations 
appropriations bill, energy appropriations bill, and the Department of 
Defense authorization bill. Those Senators who have absented themselves 
today and then, having absented themselves, have gotten others here to 
protect them from votes have made it much more difficult for all of us 
next week, but that is the unfortunate situation we are in.
  I have no authority to do anything other than to have the procedural 
vote, which we are now going to have, and to insist that we remain in 
session until we complete action on these measures.
  In a moment, therefore, Madam President, I am going to suggest the 
absence of a quorum, and when the clerk reports that no quorum is 
present, I will move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request the 
presence of absent Senators and ask for a rollcall vote.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, could I just inquire of the majority 
leader a procedural question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. COATS. If the majority leader will yield just for a question, how 
does this decision translate into our duties and activities scheduled 
for Monday of next week? I assume we will be in session, but if the 
majority leader can give us some indication.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I am unable to do so now for two reasons. First, we are 
trying to get a finite list of amendments to this bill. We have had no 
success so far and, of course, the absence of such a list makes a 
Senate session on Monday with votes more likely than would otherwise be 
the case.
  And second, I have yet to meet with the principal proponents of the 
product liability bill to determine how they wish to proceed before 
making a judgment on how to proceed on that bill. I will have an 
announcement on that before the close of business today, but I am 
unable to answer the question at this time.
  Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator.

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