[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 126 (Monday, September 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          DO NOT INVADE HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Pelosi). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor tonight with great 
concern about the beating drums that we are hearing in this country now 
on the issue of Haiti. Casper Weinberger made a speech here in 
Washington a number of years ago and I do not have the speech in front 
of me, but I hope to dig it out and bring it to the floor here in the 
next couple of days, talking about how the United States makes 
decisions on when to intervene militarily. He enumerated a number of 
points that needed to be examined that would essentially serve as a 
guidepost as to where the United States would commit forces. And in a 
world that has become much more confused, much more difficult to 
determine what actions we take, I think this outline of former 
Secretary Weinberger should be reviewed. I argued this case when we 
found ourselves involved with an ever-changing mission and role in 
Somalia and I think that before we would take any precipitous action, 
we would one more time take a look at the outline of what Mr. 
Weinberger suggested when we decide or when we try to figure whether we 
want to commit U.S. forces.
  The first question as I recall from that speech is, is it in the 
United States interest to intervene militarily? I would make the case 
that there has been no clear definition of how the activities that are 
currently going on in Haiti directly affect the United States 
interests. So when it comes to United States interests, clearly the 
President has not made a compelling case as to how the American people 
should find themselves in a position of agreeing to go to Haiti because 
somehow this directly affects what is going on in the United States and 
directly affects our interest.
  Second, Mr. Weinberger said, do we have a plan for getting involved? 
What exactly are the plans that we have? Frankly, I do not know what 
the plan is for going to Haiti. I do not know what the plan is for when 
we get to Haiti. What are we going to do? Are we going to have Mr. 
Aristide run the government? Is he supported by the people? There is so 
much confusion across this country about exactly what the plan of the 
President's is. Until the President can articulate that plan, clearly 
he does not make the second requirement that Mr. Weinberger outlined in 
his speech.
  Thirdly, is there an exit policy? Once you get in, how do you get 
out? The last time we went to Haiti, we were there for 19 years. I do 
not anticipate that the American people would support the idea of the 
United States having another extended involvement in Haiti. There is no 
exit plan. There is only hope and a prayer and a wish that we would get 
in and get out quickly. But frankly without a specific plan, without a 
specific program, how can we begin to determine what the exit strategy 
will be?
  Then a fourth point that Mr. Weinberger outlined was, do the American 
people support this military action? He considered that to be critical. 
You might remember during the gulf war, President Bush traveled across 
this country outlining the U.S. interest that was involved in terms of 
invading Iraq, in trying to rescue Kuwait from the dictatorship of 
Saddam Hussein. He argued what the U.S. interests were. You might 
remember that former Secretary of Defense Aspin argued what the 
defenses were. Nukes and oil and aggression had to be stopped. You 
might remember that President Bush went around the country telling us 
how we were going to go in and essentially what the plan was, to expel 
Iraq from Kuwait. And in addition to that, how we were going to exit 
that particular situation, all of which was designed to garner public 
support for the military action against Saddam Hussein.
  President Clinton has failed clearly to enlist United States support 
for a variety of reasons. One is because the President has not been 
able to show us the compelling reason for invading Haiti. He has not 
been able to show what is in the U.S. interests. He does not have a 
plan to go in. He does not have a plan when we get there. He does not 
know how we are going to get out, and he does not therefore have the 
support of the American people. These are the compelling reasons as to 
why the House of Representatives, this body, must vote on whether the 
United States is going to intervene militarily in Haiti.
  In this House, we have had many debates about military operations and 
we have had many debates about whether we would get involved in, for 
instance, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

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