[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 20, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           HAITI AS RELATED TO OTHER RECENT MILITARY ACTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House put the question to 
Members involving the resolution supporting the action of the President 
and the peace delegation, the negotiating delegation, and of course the 
American soldiers, the military personnel who went to Haiti. This is 
not unusual, that when you have a military action or a quasi-military 
action, often the question is put to the House Members, generally after 
the fact, after the decision has been made to send those people, to 
support the troops.
  Mr. Speaker, there was no compelling interest, national interest 
served, in my estimation, that would justify going into Haiti military 
forces, whether you call it an invasion, an invasion with permission, 
an occupation or whatever.
  In the instances in recent years when we have gone into nations in 
this hemisphere, such as Grenada, such as Panama, we had what I would 
call compelling national reasons for doing that. In Grenada we had 
hundreds of American medical students who were surrounded by the 
communist thugs who had just machinegunned Maurice Bishop and others at 
Fort Rupert a few miles away. In the words of these students when they 
were saved by American Rangers and brought back to the United States, 
and here I am paraphrasing what a lot of them said and what a lot of 
their parents said, ``We were in imminent danger. We thank you for 
bringing us back.''

  With respect to the Panama Canal, that action under President Bush, 
we had of course a compelling justification, which was the canal 
itself, a strategic asset to the United States.
  In this case, I think the President made no compelling justification. 
In fact, there appears unfortunately that some of the statements that 
he made early on to increase American support for this actions, such as 
calling General Cedras, alluding to him in a way that he was a 
bloodthirsty terrorist; hearing that from the President, and then a 
short time later after this so-called agreement had been made, hearing 
him refer to General Cedras as an honorable man, I think raised a lot 
of confusion in the minds of Americans. Had he become an honorable man 
over the last several hours because he now made an agreement with the 
President? Was he still a bloodthirsty terrorist? Was it really a 
reason for American troops to be introduced into Haiti?
  Yesterday when the issue came before the House of Representatives, 
both Republicans and Democrats, obviously the time for debating whether 
we should go into Haiti was over because the President had sent troops 
into Haiti. We were asked to support the troops, and of course 
Republicans and Democrats support the troops.
  Some Members on both sides decided not to support that resolution. 
They felt that the troops already knew who supports them in the United 
States Congress, and they did not need to do that.
  Others of us felt whenever you have troops carrying out a military 
operation, it is important to let them know about that.
  But let me tell you what most Members on the Republican side of the 
aisle do not support. I think most of us did not support the operation 
in the first place. We do not support the notion that there is a 
compelling national interest in being in Haiti.
  Another thing that we do not support, though, and you are not going 
to see this coming from the Republican side of the aisle while you did 
see it coming from the Democrat side of the aisle from some of the more 
liberal Members during the 1980's, let me go over a few of the things 
you will not see.
  You are not going to see any ``Dear Commandante'' letters. That was a 
letter sent to the communist dictator of Nicaragua by the Democrat 
leadership at a time when American interests were strongly opposed by 
the communists, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, at a time when freedom 
fighters were dying under Soviet-made helicopter gunships and AK-47's 
manufactured in the Soviet Union, moved in by Soviet intelligence 
operatives into Nicaragua. You are not going to see Members of the 
American Congress going down and trying to strategize with certain 
elements in Haiti as to how best to frustrate American policy.
  You saw all those things coming from the liberal Democrat leadership 
in this House of Representatives during the 1980's, during the contra 
wars. You are not going to see Members of the Republican side of the 
U.S. Congress going down and meeting with adversaries to American 
interests trying to figure out how to frustrate an American President.
  So this is President Clinton's move. He has made it about 6 weeks 
about the election. I think the timing is unfortunate because obviously 
everything the President does now is tinged with political 
ramifications. That is clear.
  I think he owed it to the American people to wait until the election 
was over so there were be no question as to whether or not he was 
trying to move his polls for his party a little bit before the upcoming 
election.
  I think most Americans feel that that is a misuse of the lives of our 
uniformed personnel, to move them around the globe in any way 
immediately before an election.
  I wish he had not done that.
  But not that he has done it, I think he has brought our focus to 
something else. That something else is the issue of what President 
Clinton and the liberal Democrat leadership of the House and the Senate 
had done to American military posture.
  What happened to the great military machine that was built during the 
1980's under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and George Bush? Where we 
restored the hollow military that had been left to us by the Carter 
administration. We rebuilt the American Navy, we rebuilt our strategic 
triad, we rebuilt our readiness, we gave pay raises to our uniformed 
personnel. We increased moral to the highest point in years. We built 
M-1 tanks, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot missile and ultimately we 
deployed all those systems, all that readiness, all those personnel in 
the war in the Persian Gulf, in Desert Storm. We had an overwhelming 
victory. I think it was well stated, we had an overwhelming victory in 
Desert Storm because we had forces that were far superior to our 
adversary's, even though the press told us over and over again, ``You 
are going up against the fourth largest army in the world,'' and they 
kept waiting for Saddam Hussein to throw his best punch. Sometimes I 
think the press was waiting a little too anxiously. He was never able 
to throw that punch because we had overwhelming forces. We projected 
American military power like we had not projected it in 20 years, and 
it was that rebuilding of that national defense that brought the Soviet 
Union to the bargaining table.
  Remember when we rebuilt our strategic triad, building missiles, 
building bomber aircraft, when Mr. Gorbachev--when the Soviet Union 
went into Western Europe and started to ring the nations of our allies, 
the French, the British, the Germans, started to put SS-20's ballistic 
missiles close by those countries that were allies of the United 
States; the United States said ``we are going to put ground-launched 
cruise missiles and Pershing missiles in Europe facing you.'' And we 
faced down the Soviet Union.

                              {time}  1820

  And the liberal press said, ``Now you've done it now, Ronald Reagan. 
You've gone too far, and you're going to start a war, or you're going 
to produce a split between the Soviet Union and the United States that 
will never heal, a rift, and we'll never have peace.''
  And yet we did those things. We provided from a position of strength, 
and, lo and behold, there was Mr. Gorbachev on the phone saying, ``Can 
we talk about this?''
  And we talked about it in a series of arms control treaties that were 
unprecedented, that vastly reduced, and are reducing, the exposure of 
American citizens to nuclear conflict. We did all that because we were 
strong.
  So, in 1992, we got a new President, a Democrat President named Bill 
Clinton, and President Clinton put into effect one of the most radical 
cuts in national security in the history of this Nation. He cut $129 
billion out of national defense, and that was below the cuts that had 
already been made by Colin Powell and Dick Cheney.
  Now in cutting $129 billion out of national defense he is taking out 
Army divisions from 18 to 10, taking our fighter wings from an 
equivalency of about 24 fighter wings to 14. We have gone down to, last 
year when we only did 62 percent of the required depot level 
maintenance--that means fixing the equipment, keeping it up to speed--
we now have American men and women in uniform taking $27 million worth 
of food stamps because we are not keeping them up to speed with respect 
to their pay, and this President is producing a hollow military, and 
maybe it is appropriate that the only nation that he felt he could 
really face down this year was Haiti because it really reflects all 
those situations that he was unable to face down, situations like the 
Korean Peninsula where you have a real threat.
  And let me go over just a couple of the statements that have been 
made concerning our military readiness under this President. The Army 
has stated this: Recruiters are finding mission achievement 
increasingly difficult, and the Marines note interest in joining has 
never been lower. Regarding quality of troops and recruits, in 1989, 
Mr. Speaker, 100 percent of our recruits had high school diplomas in 
the first 6 months of 1994. This has already dropped to 94 percent. The 
Defense Science Board made a study. They warned us DOD is investing in 
maintenance, repair, and modernization of its facilities at a rate that 
is far lower than the robust period of the mid-1980's and will soon 
equal the rates of the hollow force era of the late 1970's. The Army 
has cautioned that their inability to provide requisite maintenance 
resources to sustain functional facilities will clearly result in lost 
training time, degraded equipment availability and continued troop 
diversion.

  There are some of the smartest people in our country on the Defense 
Science Board saying, ``You're cutting too much, your equipment is not 
ready, and that's going to result in disaster if we go on the 
battlefield in the near future.''
  The Marines have an unfunded depot maintenance backlog. That means 
fixing the equipment. They have got a backlog of $360 million. The Navy 
will have a backlog of 100 air frames and 250 engines, and the Air 
Force may face a 1,000 engine backlog because of lack of spare parts.
  Remember the 1970's under Jimmy Carter? That great peace negotiator? 
We were cannibalizing so many of our aircraft that about half of them 
were not mission capable. That means we had to go off--if you are a 
farmer that is like going and taking one of your combines and taking 
all the spare parts off that combine so you can keep the other one 
running. That is what we were doing under President Carter. That is 
what we are starting to do today.
  Now how does this translate into war fighting capability? As of 1994, 
Mr. Speaker, the Marines show a decline from 92 percent to 89 percent 
in equipment readiness. That is the first time in a decade it has gone 
under 90 percent. The Air Force is projected to have a 6-percent 
decrease in aircraft mission capable rates, and its mission capable 
rates for F-16's in the past 3 years has dropped from 85 percent to 79 
percent.
  Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Gen. Joseph Hoar, 
Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command, stated and I am quoting him,

       Airlift in this country is broken right now. I'm not sure 
     it's workable for one major regional contingency. In 
     addition, while the world situation has changed, U.S. troops 
     are still in harm's way, yet we aren't procuring for them the 
     necessary weapons systems.

  And let us review that a little bit. In fiscal year 1990 we procured 
20 carriers, 511 aircraft, 448 tanks, and 175 strategic missiles. Under 
President Clinton's leadership, or lack thereof, DOD will procure only 
6 ships, 127 aircraft, no tanks at all, and only 18 strategic missiles. 
Even the Congressional Budget Office has said more planes, more ships, 
and more tanks than are included in the administration's procurement 
plan would be needed to sustain its forces in the steady state. That 
means to keep your potential and your capabilities strong and not have 
it decline.

  ``We need more than what you're sending us.'' What that means is 
that, if you look at the replacement rate for used equipment during the 
1980's, and you look at the replacement rate for our equipment now, 
like our carrier aircraft, it is about one-fifth of the rate now of 
what it was in the mid-1980's. That means you are going to have more 
equipment wearing out faster, and you are not going to be able to 
replace it, and when you have to take the wheels off the deck, some of 
those planes do not work, and some of the equipment and the weapon 
systems on those planes do not work, and that means dead pilots, and it 
means missions that have not been completed.
  Let me quote Col. Jan Hooley, U.S. Marine Corps. He said this:

       Our fleet of attack helicopters in Somalia were grounded 
     just as I arrived off the coast of Somalia. To get them 
     flying it took cannibalization or stripping of all the parts 
     of the aircraft that were left back at Camp Lejeune so that 
     only five of the 28 remaining aircraft were operational and 
     flyable.

  Once again that is like taking that piece of farm equipment and 
stripping all of the parts off of it so you can keep the other piece of 
farm equipment running. We are taking away mission capability from one 
aircraft here. In this case we are taking it away from 23 aircraft so 
that you have at least 5 aircraft out of 28 that are operational. That 
was in Somalia.
  So, Mr. Speaker, foreign policy is the province of the President of 
the United States. I said that when it was Ronald Reagan running 
things, when George Bush was running things, and now with the present 
gentleman in office, Mr. Clinton, I will maintain that position. I 
think it is appropriate. He is the Commander in Chief under the 
Constitution. But he has a duty that he has not carried out, and that 
duty is to keep America strong. He has not kept that duty. He has not 
met that duty. And this House of Representatives should be judged by 
the American people in this election for not forcing the President to 
keep that duty because we have a constitutional right to keep national 
security strong, raise the Armies and the Navies and to maintain them 
so they can project American military power and protect and defend 
American foreign policy. The liberal Democrat leadership of the House 
of Representatives has essentially rubber stamped the defense numbers 
for this President, the $129 billion cuts in national defense.

  And let me just close by quoting Col. William Loney, U.S. Air Force 
Commander, 33d Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He said 
we are starting to see that we can no longer cut the force if we hope 
to have a capable force, and perhaps that is why those of us out in the 
field are starting to see some indications where now the budget needs 
to match the force structure. Whether or not that is happening I cannot 
tell you.

                              {time}  1830

  Of course, no military officer wants to say ``My commander in chief, 
the person I salute, is wrong.'' That is about as close as you will 
ever come to finding a military officer trying to send a message to 
this Congress that things are very, very wrong.
  You know, if you look at President Clinton's 5-year budget, you will 
see there a lot of increases. While he cut defense spending by 35 
percent, he increased entitlement spending by 38 percent, and he 
increased domestic spending by 12 percent. But he cut national 
security, and he cut it at a time when the world is still a very, very 
dangerous place.
  So this President can do what he wants in Haiti. That is obvious. He 
already has. I am sorry he did it only a few weeks before the election, 
because that always raises questions, and I think keeps us from being 
able to design a foreign policy that is as bipartisan as possible.
  This President has done that. Republicans are not going to be writing 
any ``Dear Commandante'' letters, like the liberal Democratic 
leadership used to write to our adversaries during the contra wars of 
the 1980's. But we are going to do a couple of things. We are going to 
ask the President to account to us how much welfare we are going to be 
giving Haiti, because that welfare, those expenditures by American 
taxpayers on Haiti, will probably go over $1 billion. That is all the 
income taxes in certain towns in this country. If you took all the 
income taxes in certain mid-sized towns, you could devote all those 
Federal income taxes strictly to the Haitian operation, and they would 
barely satisfy it.

  So we are probably going to spend $1 billion in Haiti. We want the 
President to come clean with us and tell us what it is going to cost 
the American taxpayers to put seven million new people on American 
welfare rolls. We are probably going to do that. We are also going to 
be asking the President some very, very what I believe will be 
unfortunately difficult questions for him over the next several weeks 
as to what he has done to the power of American Armed Forces.

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