[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 21, 1994]



 COMMENDING THE PRESIDENT AND THE SPECIAL DELEGATION TO HAITI--SENATE 
                             RESOLUTION 259

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will now resume consideration of Senate Resolution 259, which 
the clerk will now report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 259) commending the President and the 
     special delegation to Haiti and supporting the United States 
     Armed Forces in Haiti.

  The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time under the 
agreement?
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, first of all, I rise in support of the 
resolution. I think it is a fair one and one that is especially 
deserved by the participants who went to Haiti under very difficult, if 
not unprecedented, conditions in the face of an American invasion and 
came out with an agreement that prevented an invasion which would 
clearly have cost the lives of some young Americans and young Haitians.
  I believe that this resolution commending the efforts of the 
President in sending them is certainly appropriate. I believe that it 
is important that we express our support for the men and women of the 
United States Armed Forces in Haiti. We know that we can count on them 
to perform their duties with professional excellence and dedicated 
patriotism.
  We also support the departure from power of the de facto Government 
in Haiti and the Haitian efforts to achieve national reconciliation, 
democracy, and rule of law.
  Also it supports lifting without delay United States unilateral 
economic sanctions on Haiti and lifting without delay economic 
sanctions imposed pursuant to U.N. resolutions in accordance with such 
resolutions and, perhaps most importantly, a prompt and orderly 
withdrawal of all United States Armed Forces from Haiti as soon as 
possible.
  Mr. President, I want to point out again that all of us are deeply 
appreciative of the efforts of President Clinton in sending that very 
impressive delegation to Haiti, and we enormously appreciate the fact 
that an invasion was prevented.
  I do not claim to have greater or even lesser, for that matter, an 
intelligence quotient than the other Members of this body or members of 
the administration, but I have been clear in my opposition to this now 
occupation of Haiti. One of the arguments that I used for the past 
several months when this possibility became a likelihood and then 
became a reality was that we would have enormous difficulty in figuring 
out exactly what the role of the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces 
mission was and is.
  Mr. President, I refer to this morning's two leading national 
newspapers. There is the Washington Post headline ``Haitian Police 
Attack Crowd; U.S. Troops Watch''--U.S. troops watch--and the New York 
Times headline ``Haitian Police Crush Rally as American Troops Watch.''
  This morning I watched the American general, General Shelton, on 
television, who told the American people in response to a question from 
the ABC news anchor that he would ``talk to General Cedras about this 
today,'' he would talk to General Cedras about this problem today, and 
he will await orders and instructions from our Government as to what 
the U.S. military role is in its attempt to prevent this kind of 
bloodshed.
  Mr. President, we are placing our military people basically in an 
untenable position because if we go out and disarm the police and the 
militia there--and I understand we have now a wonderful buyback program 
that was articulated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
yesterday--then what is to prevent the pro-Aristide mobs from engaging 
in retribution against the police, and how do our young men and women 
in the military differentiate between those who are causing problems 
and those who are defending themselves?
  The fact is what we are about to see is a classic example of what we 
call ``mission creep'' because, obviously, the American people are 
outraged to see--not to mention soldiers themselves--and to sit there 
and observe a couple of people being brutally murdered before their 
very eyes and them under instructions not able to do anything about it.
  Mr. President, we are in a serious situation. We are in a situation 
again not unlike Somalia where clearly there are no instructions to our 
men and women in the military which have any meaning unless we intend 
to get into the business of policing Haiti, which I think is a 
daunting, if not impossible, task.
  Let me say a few words about President Aristide. This morning and 
last night there has been I think justified complaints that President 
Aristide has not expressed his gratitude. In fact, the silence from 
President Aristide himself has been almost deafening and in light of 
the fact that the American people and Members of Congress believed that 
this entire effort was made on his behalf with the expenditure of 
American blood and treasure and he has failed to express one word of 
appreciation for that.
  I believe that Mr. Aristide is ungrateful. I believe he should come 
out and express his appreciation for what is being done on his behalf. 
But I also would point out that Mr. Aristide was not in on the details 
of the Carter mission and I think it is somewhat understandable that he 
should express or feel some displeasure over certain portions of the 
agreement, including the failure to force Cedras and company from the 
country, including perhaps most importantly, the declaration that a 
general amnesty will be declared.
  I certainly do believe that Mr. Aristide's task will be dramatically 
complicated if the military leaders, Cedras, et al., are allowed to 
remain in Haiti and, of course, if there is a general amnesty, it will 
be somewhat difficult to call to account those who have engaged in the 
heinous and barbaric crimes which the President of the United States 
described so graphically to the American people the other night.
  Mr. President, I, like all Americans, support this resolution. We 
support the efforts that President Carter, Senator Nunn, and General 
Powell made that prevented an invasion. But I would also suggest and 
remind my colleagues that if there had been an invasion, I and others 
predicted that it would be very easy and there would be a minimal loss 
of life although there would have been a loss of life and every single 
life is precious, but at least if there had been an all-out military 
invasion, we would have clearly defined who the enemy was and is. It 
would have been people who were wearing the uniform of the de facto 
Haitian Government Army and police. Instead we now find ourselves in 
the rather bizarre situation when General Shelton was asked on 
television what he intended to do about the brutalities that have 
continued to be perpetrated by the Haitian police and military, he said 
he was going to talk to General Cedras about it.
  It is almost surreal that the individual that was described by the 
President of the United States to the American people as one of the 
most heinous butchers, war criminals, in the history of this hemisphere 
now is going to be consulted by our military leaders in order to try to 
bring about a halt to this mob violence.
  Now, again, I want to return to my fundamental point. I do not know 
how you disarm all these Haitians. I do not know how you defuse the 
blood feuds that have been going on for centuries. I do not know how we 
take sides in this civil unrest that will be part and parcel of this 
transitional period.
  The best scenario, obviously, is that everybody lays down their arms 
and everybody heeds the words of President Aristide at the White House 
the other day--no vengeance, no revenge. I do not think that is the 
case. And the ultimate result of all of this is that the American 
military, not unlike Somalia, only exaggerated by many factors, find 
themselves in the classic problem of mission creep and intervening in 
what is fundamentally a civil disorder without, frankly, the 
wherewithal but more importantly the ability to discriminate between 
who is good and who is bad and who is committing what atrocities and 
who is not.
  Along those lines of human rights abuses, I have asked the White 
House and the State Department to give us information concerning Mr. 
Cherubin, who is now in Guantanamo recruiting Haitians to be part of 
the new Haitian police force. There are allegations that that 
individual had engaged in human rights violations. There are 
allegations which are well-known to this body concerning President 
Aristide.
  The fact is that we need to know whether there is going to be true 
observance of human rights by the new Aristide regime or will there be 
a return to some of the activities, which are well documented outside 
the CIA, of abuses that took place under President Aristide's 
administration.
  I predict, Mr. President, that Mr. Aristide, sometime within the next 
24 to 48 hours, will come out in support of what is being done--I do 
not think he has any choice--what has been done by the Carter mission. 
I do not think he has any choice. I think his $50,000 a month lobbyist, 
Mr. Michael Barnes, former Member of Congress, will prevail on him to 
do so. And I think that that is appropriate. In fact, it is way too 
late.
  I think the American people do not understand why President Aristide 
has not already extended his gratitude. At the same time, although I 
think he should express gratitude, I can understand some of his 
reservations about the agreement that was made.
  I would also like to point out one other aspect of this whole 
situation which again borders on Orwellian. We are now occupying a 
country with 15,000 American troops. At the same time, we are 
maintaining an embargo which clearly hurts all Haitians, especially 
poor Haitians. Why in the world we cannot lift this embargo, which was 
part of the agreement that President Carter made with the military 
leaders, present military leaders of Haiti, is beyond me.
  I also watched a television program last night where Haitian human 
rights activists and another individual, in fact, Mr. Barnes, the 
lobbyist for President Aristide, said there would be no amnesty in 
Haiti; that the Parliament would not pass such an amnesty decree 
because of the feelings that the Parliament understandably would have 
about the human rights violations and the gross abuses that have been 
perpetrated by the Cedras' regime.
  So there is a lot that is unclear, Mr. President. There is a great 
deal of confusion. This whole situation is incredibly murky, especially 
as to what the exact mission of the men and women of our Armed Forces 
is in Haiti. We have seen that clearly and graphically demonstrated by 
the headlines in this morning's Washington Post and New York Times and 
other media reports. And, Mr. President, what it argues for is an early 
withdrawal of the United States troops from Haiti.
  Right now, I understand the plan is they would stay until February 
1996 and then a multinational force would take over, and half that 
contingent would be American military people, only it would be a U.N. 
military force rather than U.S.
  Mr. President, the American people's patience is not that great. I 
would suggest that within the next week or two, at least before we go 
out of session, that the United States Senate consider, in conjunction 
with the administration, in cooperation with the administration, a 
resolution calling for a date certain for the withdrawal of the United 
States troops from Haiti. I look forward to doing that with the 
cooperation of the President of the United States and the Secretary of 
State. But I think that this body would pass a resolution calling for a 
date certain for withdrawal of U.S. troops with or without the 
agreement of the administration.
  Mr. President, I note the presence of my friend from Connecticut and 
I yield the floor at this time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator yields the floor.
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd].
  Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will 
not take a great deal of time. I presume others would like to be heard 
on the resolution.
  Let me, first of all, commend the distinguished majority leader and 
the minority leader for reaching an agreement on this resolution. These 
matters are never easy, and particularly given a situation where there 
is obviously some serious division within this Chamber, reflected, I 
suspected, by some serious concerns among the American people, as to 
exactly what is occurring in Haiti and why it is occurring and how long 
we are going to be there and whether or not the desired goals of all of 
us are going to be achieved.
  So this resolution, while it may not be satisfactory to absolutely 
everyone, I believe, as accurately as possible, given the politics of 
the situation, it is about as good as we could expect and I commend 
them, therefore, for their efforts and will myself support this 
resolution.
  My colleague in Arizona has stepped off the floor for a minute, but 
let me pick up quickly on the last point that the distinguished Senator 
from Arizona made about the length of time that United States forces 
would be committed to Haiti. While certainly no absolute date has been 
set, for obvious reasons, it would be a significant restraint on our 
ability, the ability of our forces, to function to all of the sudden be 
given a sort of drop-dead date by which all the things they must do 
must be done.
  So I hope that any resolutions that deal with a time certain would 
certainly take into consideration the concerns of the military, our 
military, and their desires to get the job done. I think oftentimes, 
when we in this body start trying to dictate exactly how our military 
ought to perform and under what time constraints, we make it far more 
difficult for them to get the job done.
  Now, as to the timing, there is, I think, a misunderstanding that 
should be cleared up. The discussions in the Governors Island agreement 
talked about forces, both United States and other forces, but primarily 
other forces, leaving Haiti no later than February 1996. In fact, the 
presence of U.S. forces by that time should be at an absolute minimum, 
if any, at all.
  It is, I think, the anticipated goal of those who are involved in 
this operation today that the presence of United States forces could, 
if everything goes fairly well, be out of Haiti within 4 months.
  The idea of February 1996 does not relate necessarily to the presence 
of a significant U.S. military presence. U.S. forces will, obviously, 
be a part of that. But I think the strong desire is to have it be a 
very small amount of forces, the body and the bulk of responsibility 
resting with the U.N. and international forces; the bulk of U.S. forces 
being drawn down as quickly as possible and, as I say, as I understand 
it, hopefully within a 4- or 5-month, possibly 6-month, timeframe.

  My colleague from Arizona, who has now returned here, is certainly 
someone who appreciates and understands, having been personally 
involved as this body a number of years ago was setting limitations on 
what the military could do. He will appreciate the fact I think we all 
want to get them out of there as quickly as possible. Ideally, they 
would be leaving today if it was possible to do so.
  I have always been a little bit hesitant about the good intentions of 
this body when we start saying next Friday at 3 o'clock you have to be 
gone. When you let your adversaries know that, that becomes an 
advantage for your opponents. If they know exactly when you have to 
leave because you have been told to do so, that gives them an advantage 
I hope we would not give them. So my hope is, here, we can all agree 
they ought to leave as quickly as possible. Get the job done, but be 
careful about trying to be so restraining in those time elements that 
it makes it difficult for them to complete their missions.
  Let me share, if I can, a few thoughts generally on this situation. I 
would like to join with others in, first of all, offering my 
significant praise for President Clinton in all of this. It is a very 
difficult job. It is easy enough for Members of Congress. We get up and 
give speeches and offer resolutions and we offer amendments and bills. 
Then we pack off and can go about our business--held, to some degree, 
responsible for the remarks we make in this Chamber and elsewhere. But 
the President of the United States is the Commander in Chief. The Harry 
Truman expression that ``the buck stops here'' applies to anyone who 
sits in that office. There is an awesome burden, an awesome burden, 
that anyone who has ever sat in that office assumes, when it comes to 
committing U.S. forces and conducting the foreign policy of this 
Nation. It is about as lonely a job as there is in the world, to be the 
President of the United States, given the fact situations you are 
dealing with.
  It is, in my view, unfair in many ways for Members of Congress to run 
around and start dictating what they would do, Monday morning 
quarterbacks--this town has so many of them you could not put together 
a football team with anything but quarterbacks when it comes to trying 
to do business. Everyone will second-guess you. Everyone will tell you 
what you should have done. Everyone will tell you how they would have 
done it differently. But at the end of the day, when those decisions 
get made, it is the President of the United States, certainly within 
the memory of everyone in this country--we have seen the immediate two 
predecessors of the present occupant of that office face similar 
situations, lonely decisions--at the end of the day it is not your 
advisers, it is not the Secretary of State, it is not the National 
Security Council, not the Speaker of the House or majority leader or 
chairmen of committees. They can give you their advice. They can give 
you their counsel. They can tell you what they think you ought to do. 
But at the end of the day, when the doors close and you are there, it 
is your pen and your decision which commits forces and makes the final 
choices.
  At the end of that you are the one, ultimately, as the President of 
the United States, who bears the responsibility, who either receives 
the praise for a job well done or the unending criticism if it does not 
go well. As has been said over and over again, victories have 1,000 
fathers, defeat is an orphan. If this situation had not worked out well 
over the last several days, believe me you would be getting a lot of 
different reactions about President Clinton's decisions over the past 
number of weeks trying to ultimately come up with some answers on how 
we might solve this problem.
  A lot has been said about the mission that went to Haiti. I certainly 
commend them. But it was the President of the United States who made 
the tough decision to commit our forces. It was the President of the 
United States who made the decision to send this delegation down to try 
to resolve the problem diplomatically. It was a classic example of the 
use of power, force in one hand and diplomacy in the other. I think 
both of those hands contributed to the accord, or the agreement, that 
was reached the other night which has brought us to the position we are 
in today.
  Awkward as it is, difficult as it is, confusing and murky as it is, 
with a lot of problems over the next several weeks as to how this 
matter will ultimately be resolved, I think General Powell said it 
about as well as anyone has in the last several days. As we discuss all 
of the various options and the difficulties and the problems, do not 
forget this: That on Sunday night at midnight when the decision was 
made to send those planes from Fort Bragg back, the lives of young 
Americans and the lives of young Haitians were spared and we were not 
involved in an aggressive military invasion, facing resistance, however 
anemic it may have been. I do not think anyone would stand here today 
and tell you that we were going to be able to do this without the loss 
of American lives. There was a very real and strong possibility--I 
would go so far, Mr. President, as to say almost a guarantee--that we 
would have lost young Americans in that effort. It takes a special kind 
of courage to be willing to try once again to reach a diplomatic or 
political solution.
  So, while everyone else is receiving their kudos for the great 
success over the last weekend, it was the President of the United 
States who had the power and the right to say, ``No one is backing 
down. I have made the final call. We are sending the troops in.'' It 
was only the President who could make the decision to actually threaten 
the use of force, the military power, to try to deal with the 
situation.
  I agree with my colleague from Arizona. I think a military invasion 
would have worked fairly easily with a minimum loss of life. You would 
have a different situation on the ground today. But, frankly, I would 
trade that for the situation on the ground today, for the result that 
we achieved as a result of the Carter mission, being able to come to an 
agreement which I think is a good one.
  Again, you have to put these things in context. Would I have written 
it differently? Sure. Would President Aristide have written it 
differently? I promise you he would have. Would other people here have 
written something different than what these three negotiators did? I 
almost guarantee it. But here are three people sitting down in a 
chaotic situation, dealing with a military command, a head of police 
who would not even show up, a President who is basically a puppet, in 
my view, in the country, trying to get someone who would make the final 
call dealing with wives and children in living rooms and kitchens, in 
military headquarters, national palaces--all within a space of 30 
hours.
  They came up with an agreement that basically achieves, in my view, 
several very important goals and lays out a framework for us to, 
hopefully, achieve the others. It says that by October 15 the crowd 
that ripped and stole democracy--a fledgling democracy in a poor, 
difficult country--have to leave, have to leave power. That is not 
insignificant. That, in my view, is the nub, if you will. Without that 
commitment, then everything else would be up in the air.
  Would I like them to leave? Sure. Would I like them to have left 
yesterday? Absolutely. But that is not the point. The point is that 
President Carter, Colin Powell, and Sam Nunn did the best job under the 
circumstances, avoided the bloodshed of young Americans and young 
Haitians, and achieved, in my view, a very important set of goals. So 
my hope is, here, as we analyze as Members of Congress and put in 
commas and dot i's and cross t's and want to add words and so forth, 
that we would step back and appreciate the circumstances they were 
operating under and appreciate, if I can say so, the determination and 
the decision by the President of the United States, the only President 
we have right now, this President, making a decision, a difficult one, 
to send in the forces that brought the people to the table and that 
also sent this mission to go down one last time to achieve the desired 
results.
  With that having been said, I can also understand why there is some 
disappointment that President Aristide has not jumped for joy over 
their effort. But I think it is important to point out that President 
Aristide is not just a casual bystander in all of this. He is not an 
academic sitting around deciding whether or not this particular 
agreement meets some ideal of perfection. He was the individual 
elected--whether anyone in this Chamber likes it or not--by 70 percent 
of the people in that country in the most free and most fair election 
ever held in that nation. He was chosen by the people of that nation. 
Within a few months of assuming office, assuming that Presidency, that 
democratic election was ripped out of the hands of the Haitian people 
and, in a brutal coup d'etat arranged and orchestrated by General 
Cedras, he was thrown out of the country.
  You can describe it any way you want. You can talk about these people 
as being greatly concerned about the constitutional processes of Haiti. 
But the fact of the matter is these are the individuals who caused the 
problem we are facing today. Had there not been that coup we would not 
be in the position we are in today, I do not believe.
  And so when President Aristide says that he is not enthusiastic about 
the possibility that General Cedras may not go, or that these 
individuals are being called names that he finds unbelievable--and for 
obvious reason--this is a man who was sitting in a room while the 
Haitian military sat around in his presence and decided with almost a 
flip of a coin whether or not he would live or die, literally debated 
whether or not to execute him or not while he was standing there. Is 
there any wonder, by any reasonable, thinking individual, that this 
person might be a little bit concerned about whether or not this 
agreement is a great one when we are sitting around and talking about 
an individual, General Cedras, as if he were some military hero, some 
reasonable, thoughtful person?
  I do not fault him for that at all. I think he is more concerned, 
quite frankly, with a lot of the rhetoric associated with the agreement 
than the specific provisions of the agreement. I am confident that he 
will endorse it and support it, but, again, I appreciate and understand 
some of his reluctance.
  Let me also point out, Mr. President, that President Aristide has 
signed other agreements with this same crowd. Back with the Governors 
Island accord, he put his name on a paper along with General Cedras 
that said General Cedras was going to leave October 15, 1993, a year 
ago, the very date he is being asked to leave now. October 15 came and 
went, and General Cedras is still there.
  Where I come from, if a person makes an agreement with me and then 
breaks it and then I am asked to sign another agreement with him, I am 
a little reluctant. I am sometimes doubtful about whether or not those 
individuals are going to live up to those agreements. Maybe I am unique 
in that regard, but I do not fault President Aristide for being, again, 
a little dubious about whether or not these guys are going to live up 
to an agreement when, frankly, the very one we negotiated with General 
Cedras at Governors Island a year ago was violently broken again.
  So here is an individual who is the head of a coup, breaks the 
civilian government elected by the people of that country, violates an 
agreement that we helped put together at Governors Island, sits back 
and watches the brutalization of his own people--and if you did not 
believe the rhetoric before, turn on your television right now. Tune in 
CNN. Here they are--they do not even care if the world watches what 
they do--clubbing innocent people who show up merely to applaud the 
arrival of some people who may save their lives. So if you did not 
believe President Aristide about the problems in his country and human 
rights, turn on your local TV station.
  So, again, is it any doubt that maybe this individual is a little bit 
concerned about whether or not this agreement with these people is 
something that may not quite work? I do not fault him for that. I may 
be the only one here who does not, but I do not fault him for that.
  My hope is, again, that he will be supportive, and I am confident he 
will. I can tell you, Mr. President, firsthand, having spoken with him 
in the last couple of days, that he is deeply grateful that no one lost 
their life, deeply grateful that a diplomatic solution was able to be 
arrived at. He would have liked it to have been a bit stronger and a 
bit better. I do not for a second believe he is not appreciative. In 
fact, I can tell you that he is deeply appreciative of President 
Clinton's commitment to try to resolve this problem.
  We have also heard that this is an issue that has little or no value 
to us in this country. I take issue with that. I do not disagree with 
my colleagues who will point out that this situation does not compare 
with other fact situations where the use of military force has been 
required. It is not as clear as having vital economic interests 
jeopardized, or vital strategic interests like the Panama Canal 
jeopardized, or where missiles or weapons have been pointed at us.
  It is true Haiti does not pose a military threat to the United 
States, does not pose, in my view, a military threat even to the 
Dominican Republic, the country with whom they share the Island of 
Hispaniola. But, Mr. President, I do think it ought to be a matter of 
deep national concern that with a nation that is within 125 miles or so 
of our borders, we have an absolute tidal wave of humanity prepared to 
pour out of that country. They are not going to Venezuela. They are not 
going to Colombia. They are not going to Spain or Mexico. They are 
coming to one place: They are coming here.
  We have 100,000 refugees from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We 
have 15,000 in Guantanamo. We have hundreds and thousands of others who 
have left over the last year or so to escape the brutality, and 
literally hundreds and thousands more who, every night on the island 
country of Haiti, move from house to house, hiding in fear because of 
what we saw on our television screens last evening.
  If this effort collapses, if this military crowd retains power and 
they are able to continue the reign of terror, in my view, of the 7 
million people left in this tiny country, there will be several hundred 
thousand who will get into any vehicle possible, including a wash tub, 
if necessary, to escape the violence of their land--and who could fault 
them--knowing full well that they face great danger and a high 
probability of the loss of life by getting in these rickety crafts to 
escape Haiti. But they cannot sit any longer and watch their families, 
their own lives, placed in jeopardy.
  It costs us today $20 million a month to take care of and accommodate 
these refugees. Expand those numbers beyond 14,000 or 15,000, and who 
is going to pay that bill? Maybe others do not think that is a national 
interest. I do. Were this nation 10,000 miles away, not posing that 
kind of a problem, I suppose you might try to come up with some 
different situation or different proposal. But the proximity of this 
country and the potential for literally a tidal wave, as I said, of 
humanity arriving on our shores, placing great pressures on limited 
resources in this country, I think, is a legitimate reason for us to 
try to take some action and do something about this problem.
  I do not consider this to be an issue where there is no interest. 
Obviously, democracy is critically important and it is in our interest 
to promote and advance democracy wherever we can. That has been a 
stated goal of every administration as far back as I can remember, Mr. 
President.
  I was disappointed the other day to hear some former high-ranking 
officials say that it is not our business to necessarily promote 
democracy and it is not that important to us if other nations do not 
have democratic governments. I think it is directly in our interest. We 
have been able to establish and prove that we do far better, our 
interests are far better protected when we have nations around the 
globe that have embraced democratic values and have chosen democracy 
over totalitarianism or authoritarianism.
  So it is in our direct interest to try to support and promote 
democratic governments wherever we can, but particularly I would say, 
Mr. President, in our own hemisphere, where today--I know the Presiding 
Officer and my colleague from Arizona, because I have heard him speak 
about this, take note of this fact--for the first time in the Western 
Hemisphere, we have more democratic governments today than at any point 
in the 500-year modern history of the Americas. That is not an 
insignificant achievement, and the previous administration, in my view, 
deserves a great deal of credit for helping advance the democratic 
gains--the Bush administration. And I think this administration is 
trying to advance those same principles.
  Again, maybe I am considered too idealistic because I think the right 
of people to choose their own governments and to participate freely in 
the decisionmaking process of their nations is something that we ought 
to be willing to stand up for. I believe those rights should not be 
limited only to those who can afford it, or only those who live in 
nations where we have a strategic interest.
  If you are poor, you care just as much about your right to be heard. 
Those people we saw yesterday being bludgeoned and shot in front of the 
international media, they care just as much as you and I do about 
whether or not they have the right to speak freely and to criticize 
their government and to choose their leadership.
  We ought to learn that in this country. Democracy and the desire to 
be free is not limited by the economic conditions under which one 
lives. This country has a longstanding tradition of fighting for that, 
and we ought never be ashamed of that or embarrassed about it. I 
commend, again, President Clinton for living up to that tradition of 
his predecessors who occupied that office, despite the resounding, 
unfortunately, bipartisan criticism of him sitting in that Oval Office 
making that decision.
  Some Member of this Chamber may be sitting in that office one day, 
and they will know what it is like to have to make those decisions. I 
hope that they will look back and remember that President Clinton stood 
alone, unfortunately--too alone, in my view--during the difficult 
decisionmaking process.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that in the next few days and weeks, we can 
at least come together to try to support the stated goals of the 
resolution that is before us; and that is to secure the departure of 
this military government that is engaging in the brutality we witnessed 
on our television screens over the last 24 hours. Whether you like or 
do not like President Aristide is not our business. The people of that 
country chose him. He has a right to go back and complete his term, and 
we ought to be supportive of that.
  Does he have a perfect record? Would he get elected in Connecticut, 
Arizona, or Texas? I do not know. Probably not. But Haiti is not 
Connecticut, Arizona or Texas. It is a different place. We ought to 
appreciate and understand that instead of trying to decide whether or 
not the Haitian people were correct in selecting him. They did. And a 
very important element in this whole process is that he be allowed to 
go back.

  My hope is that our military leaders there will start talking with 
the retired or exiled ministers, the parliamentary leaders of the 
civilian government elected under President Aristide, and send a very 
clear message that that is the legitimate Government of Haiti.
  My hope is that President Aristide goes back as soon as practicable. 
I think it is important that he be in his country. As soon as we are 
told that it is safe and secure for him to go back, I think he ought 
to. I do not think he ought to be sitting in an apartment in Washington 
trying to negotiate with people in Haiti. He ought to be back in his 
own country trying to resolve the problem by building a coalition that 
would allow him to complete his term and to achieve the desired 
parliamentary election this fall and then the Presidential elections of 
next year.
  I commend him, by the way, for what I thought was a brilliant speech 
at the White House last Friday, where he firmly committed to support 
the choice of a new President in Haiti in 1995. I think very 
appropriately and accurately he said the test of a democracy is not the 
first free election but the second one. I think there is a lot of merit 
and wisdom in that statement. And the commitment he made to that 
approach I think deserves repetition and support in this body.
  So, Mr. President, these will not be easy days in the next few weeks. 
There will be a lot of pictures on our TV screens that are going to 
cause Americans great concern. But as you watch them, remember that 
these young men and women I think are our best ambassadors, our best 
emissaries. Those kids down there have an intuitive sense about what is 
right or wrong and some of them sitting on that wall last night in 
Port-au-Prince said it well: We ought to be given a chance to try to 
protect these people, to give this new government a chance to get back 
on its feet--the civilian government--and then to get out of the place 
as quickly as we can and let the international community fulfill those 
obligations and functions. And hopefully the establishment of a new 
police and new military leadership in Haiti, supporting and backing a 
civilian Government chosen by the people of that country, will be 
achieved.
  That is a tall order, but I think it is worthy of our support. I do 
not think we ought to duck from it. I do not think we ought to be 
ashamed about it. I think we ought to be proud of it. That is our 
tradition. That is our history. That is what makes our country, Mr. 
President, different from any other place on the face of this Earth. We 
were born in revolution. We appreciate the struggles of other people to 
achieve freedom. That has been our 200-year legacy. We ought not, in 
1994, as we approach the 21st century, shrink from that history, shrink 
from that tradition, shrink from that commitment.
  My hope is that this resolution will be resoundingly supported but, 
more importantly, in the coming days we will find common ground on this 
issue and get behind this President and get behind our military forces 
in Haiti and make it possible for them to get the job done, not to be 
carping, not to be sitting back and going through it detail by detail 
trying to tear this apart. We ought not give any comfort, any comfort 
whatsoever, to General Cedras and his crowd. They are the ones who 
created the problem. They are the ones who have to go. We ought to be 
sitting together finding ways to come to a common understanding and 
common level of support that we can all achieve to be a part of the 
victory that could be democracy restored in Haiti.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wofford). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I consume.
  I would like to begin by saying I appreciate the very articulate and 
passionate defense of the present policy by my friend from Connecticut, 
who is extremely well informed on all of these issues.
  I would like to make a couple of very brief comments.
  First of all, on the subject of Mr. Aristide expressing his gratitude 
to my colleague from Connecticut, I hope he will give him a call soon 
and tell him to express that same gratitude publicly because I think 
the American people are confused and some frustrated by the fact that 
President Aristide has remained silent overall at least as far as this 
aspect of the Haitian situation is concerned.
  As far as leaving the country is concerned, President Carter said 
yesterday it would be a violation of international law to force General 
Cedras from the country. I am not familiar with that aspect of 
international law, but it is hard for me to understand, if General 
Cedras and other military leaders remain in Haiti, how we can get some 
kind of political stability in that country.
  The statements of President Carter and Senator Nunn on the aspect of 
the military leaders not leaving the country were that was something 
they could not address, the issue of them leaving the country was not 
something that they could have gotten agreement on. I believe those 
people have to leave the country, and I think the President needs to 
make that clear.
  As far as the President standing alone is concerned, I believe even 
my friend from Connecticut would agree that any President of the United 
States must get the support of the American people before committing us 
to a military enterprise.
  One of the reasons why I was in strong opposition to an invasion and 
now the occupation is because there are many lessons that we have 
learned throughout history, especially in the Vietnam war, one of which 
is we cannot embark on one of these enterprises without the support of 
the American people. I feel that that support right now is extremely 
tenuous, and the American people are somewhat confused when they hear 
the President of the United States one night say that these are blood-
thirsty, murdering rapists who must leave now and then they are 
described by others as honorable people who deserve an honorable 
retirement, et cetera, et cetera. The American people are 
understandably confused by that.
  Finally, Mr. President, I hope that we will disarm the police. I hope 
we will not see a picture on the front page of the New York Times: A 
coconut vender lay in the street yesterday after a Haitian police 
officer clubbed him to death near the docks in Port-au-Prince. I hope 
that stops. I hope that General Shelton talks to General Cedras today, 
as he said. I hope that General Shalikashvili, Chairman of our Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, comes up with something more innovative than a buy-
back program of weapons in Haiti.
  But the problem is, who do you disarm, and what happens if you disarm 
that policeman? Would then the Aristide followers necklace that person? 
It is a murky, mission-creep situation, Mr. President, which is fraught 
with every kind of danger, which does not have the overwhelming support 
of the American people.
  This situation is eerily reminiscent of the way we went into Beirut, 
where we were welcomed; the way we went into Somalia, where we were 
welcomed; yes, even the way we went into Vietnam back in 1965, and we 
were welcomed.
  We have to complete this mission. We cannot get our men and women 
involved in some kind of civil strife. We have to get out as quickly as 
possible. One of the best ways of doing that is to clearly define our 
role and mission, clearly define what our American military people are 
supposed to be doing and clearly define when that mission is completed, 
and get out as quickly as possible.
  Mr. President, I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator 
from Texas, Mr. Gramm.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank our dear colleague from Arizona for 
yielding.
  Mr. President, I would like to start by explaining the position I 
took as this crisis developed. I would then like then to talk about 
where we are and my feelings as to what we should do. I would like to 
talk about the problems we face and my perception of where they came 
from and how we might deal with them. And then I wish to say just a 
little bit about this sense-of-the-Senate resolution, which is 
basically a figleaf other than the final three lines.
  First of all, Mr. President, I oppose American involvement in Haiti 
not because terrible things are not happening there and not because 
terrible wrongs are not being done. The world is full of wrongs. I 
oppose American military involvement because I do not believe that we 
can right every wrong in the world. When we risk the lives of our young 
people, when we may have to look their parents and family in the face 
and say your son or daughter died in a foreign land, we must be 
absolutely certain we can tell their loved ones what they died for. It 
is not enough that it be for a noble sacrifice, because when Americans 
are sent somewhere and serve bravely it is always a noble sacrifice. We 
must be absolutely certain we can say with good conscience that we 
changed something for the better.
  As virtually every American knows, we have invaded Haiti before. We 
have never had trouble getting into Haiti. We have always had trouble 
getting out. The last time we sent in the Marines we were there for 19 
years. Was anything permanently different when we left compared to 
before we came? I would say it is obvious that the problem we have 
today is living proof the answer to that is no. Invading Haiti has 
never been a fulfilling experience for us because, fundamentally, we 
have not been able to make any permanent changes there.
  So I opposed the invasion. I also oppose the occupation. I never 
thought we were going to incur heavy casualties in the invasion because 
I have supreme confidence in the capability of the American military. I 
have always been worried that in an occupation scenario, American 
soldiers are going to be ready targets for terrorist violence, no 
matter which side the terrorists are on in this conflict. I do not 
believe we have a vital interest in Haiti that is worth the loss of 
American lives.
  I am not going to get into a battle about who is right in Haiti and 
who is wrong. The plain truth is, both sides look bad. We have all 
heard about the military atrocities. We have all heard about the 
terrible things done by the military dictatorship. But I remind my 
colleagues that in Aristide we have a person who Newsweek magazine 
refers to as an ``anti-American Marxist demagog.'' That is a quote. We 
have a person who calls capitalism ``poison.'' That is a quote. We have 
a person who has endorsed mob violence.
  Granted, he has a right as President to advocate policies he is for 
and to talk about policies he is against. But I am a little bit 
confused how the White House can talk about promoting economic 
development yet use American military power to reimpose into power 
someone who calls capitalism a ``disease.'' If there is another path to 
sustained economic growth other than free enterprise and capitalism, 
nobody in the world has yet discovered it.
  The reason I do not want to get into an argument about who is right 
and who is wrong in Haiti is because the discussion would be totally 
unproductive. The point is, no matter who is right and who is wrong, 
our intervention is not going to change the situation. We do not have 
any vital interests in Haiti, in my humble opinion, for which it would 
be worth risking American lives.
  My primary concern today is the well-being of American service men 
and women in Haiti. My number one goal is to see that we protect our 
military personnel, that we do everything we can to assure that they 
have the weapons and the support they need, that we do everything we 
can to protect their safety, and that we bring them home as quickly as 
we can. That is why the last three sentences of this resolution are the 
only sentences that have any real meaning to me, and I suspect they are 
the only sentences that will have any meaning to the American people. 
Those sentences say that we support a prompt and orderly withdrawal of 
all United States Armed Forces from Haiti as soon as possible.
  If the American people could speak with one voice, this is what they 
would say.
  It is proper that we congratulate our negotiating team that went to 
Haiti and who by talking prevented Americans from dying in an invasion. 
I certainly congratulate the three people who carried out that mission. 
Whatever we think of the agreement they made, to the degree that they 
saved one American life, I am not going to criticize what they did. But 
I think the real congratulations ought to go to the American people.
  I think, quite frankly, that the real hero in this whole episode is 
the American public because the American public knew that President 
Clinton had not defined the vital national interests in Haiti. They 
made it very clear that they did not support the President's policy. 
The American people sensed in their wisdom that the President did not 
have a complete plan. He had a plan to get into Haiti, but he did not 
have a very clear plan as to what he was going to do after he got into 
Haiti, and he did not have a very good plan as to how he was going to 
get out. I think the events of the last few days have proven once again 
that the American people are very wise.
  I believe the President was forced to change his policy and call off 
the invasion and try negotiation because the American people did not 
support his policy. So if we are going to congratulate anybody, we 
ought to congratulate the American people.
  In terms of refugees and the problems they have caused us, I simply 
would like to remind people that it was President Clinton who as a 
candidate made a political issue out of President Bush's policy to stop 
the flow of Haitian refugees by returning them home immediately. Unlike 
President Bush, President Clinton was going to allow them the 
opportunity to get into the country. Needless to say, when he took 
public office, what did he expect to happen?
  So after President Clinton had sought political advantage by 
promising that he was going to stop returning Haitian refugees 
immediately, when he took his hand off the Bible, they started coming 
in record numbers. That was a crisis created by the Clinton policy. And 
now we are asking Americans to go to Haiti and to risk their lives to 
deal with a problem it seems to me the President created.
  So where do we go from here? First of all, I have very grave doubts 
that when this whole episode is over we will be able to completely 
separate the good guys from the bad guys and have a happy solution.
  I am going to support our troops in Haiti, and I am going to do 
everything I can to protect them and to bring them home as quickly as 
possible. I did not support the invasion. I do not support the 
occupation. If we stay in Haiti long enough, if we get deeply enough 
involved in this conflict, Americans are going to die in Haiti. We know 
that with certainty. Whatever we can do to hasten the day we bring our 
soldiers home is what I want to do. I do not want to do anything that 
could encourage people in Haiti who might attack or harm our people. I 
want to do everything I can to support our people. I want to protect 
them with a massive use of American military power if we have to do it. 
But I want to bring them home as quickly as we possibly can.
  I am hopeful that the President will declare victory and bring our 
troops home soon, or he will soon realize that his policy was a lot 
more specific on how we get into Haiti than it is on what we are going 
to do now we are there, and it is almost nonexistent as to how we are 
going to get our troops out.
  This resolution says that we support a prompt and orderly withdrawal 
of United States Armed Forces from Haiti. I hope the President will 
take this resolution to heart. If the President does in Haiti what he 
did in Somalia, if he risks American lives in nation building, then 
ultimately this Congress is going to come back and we are going to set 
a date for withdrawal. We are not going to allow American lives to be 
expended in Haiti where we do not have a vital national interest if we 
can possibly prevent it.

  So I congratulate the American people for calling off the invasion. 
They did it, not the politicians. They said ``no,'' and Bill Clinton 
responded by sending a team of negotiators, who were able to work out 
an imperfect deal--maybe even an unworkable deal. But at least 
Americans did not die in an invasion, and since I do not believe we 
have an interest worth dying for there, I am happy that occurred. I 
wish we were not occupying Haiti. I hope the day comes quickly when we 
leave.
  My primary interest today--and it will be until all Americans are 
home--is their safety. Whatever we have to do to make them safe, I want 
to do it. I will certainly support the President in protecting our 
people. But I do not support his policy.
  If I vote for this resolution, I am not voting to congratulate the 
President for creating a crisis and then getting us knee deep into it. 
If I vote for this resolution, I am voting for it because of the last 
three lines that say: ``We support a prompt and orderly withdrawal of 
United States Armed Forces from Haiti.'' I hope it comes soon, but if 
it does not, we will be back on the floor of the Senate, and we are 
going to be voting on a specific date for terminating American military 
involvement.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from 
Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone].
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut 
for his wisdom and leadership on what I think is a very difficult 
question.
  Mr. President, I would prefer not to put my remarks in any kind of a 
political party, partisan context, because I do not think the important 
questions before us should be viewed in that light. It is interesting 
that after the news came Sunday night that President Carter and the 
others had worked out the Port-au-Prince agreement, there were a number 
of questions put to me back in Minnesota, such as, ``Do you think that 
this agreement will help the President, will it help the Democrats or 
hurt the Democrats in these elections?''
  I actually refused to answer those questions. I said I thought they 
are just the wrong questions to ask. The questions we should be dealing 
with on the floor of the Senate and in the House of Representatives 
and, more importantly, in our States and communities, are those that 
have to do with what will be best for American soldiers that are there 
in Haiti, what will best serve United States interests and the 
interests of the people in Haiti. Those are really the questions.
  I also want to start out by following up on an issue that Senator 
Dodd has raised because it is, for me, a very, very difficult issue 
that has become a central post-cold-war issue in these kinds of 
situations. It has to do with the following question: What do we as a 
nation, as a people, do when innocent people are being slaughtered in 
other countries, such as Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti? Under what 
circumstances, if any, ought we to intervene to prevent the killing of 
innocent populations? There are certainly a lot of countries whose 
people face that kind of violence now.
  Mr. President, let me answer that question the way I think most 
people from Minnesota would answer. They would say: Well, Paul, it is 
true that innocent people are slaughtered in a lot of countries. There 
is a tremendous amount of brutality in the world, but we cannot 
intervene everywhere. I think they are right.
  But then, of course, the next question is, does that mean that we do 
not have any involvement anywhere?
  And then if you try to answer that question, well, maybe there are 
some times when we as a country can make a positive difference, in part 
through military action, the question becomes, under what conditions? 
In what countries, under what circumstances, and what decisionmaking 
criteria do you apply? In this case, one important criterion is: when 
we can do it successfully. By this I mean will there be a minimum, or 
no, loss of life, and will our military presence lead to better lives 
for people in other countries? Of course, other criteria apply as well, 
including a calculation of U.S. national interests, the costs and 
benefits of military action, the justice of the cause, the legitimacy 
of the authority by which we take action, the proportionality of force 
to be used, and whether we have yet truly reached a point of last 
resort. These and other considerations are all important, and should be 
examined carefully.
  In relation to the situation in Haiti, I do not think these are easy 
questions at all. So following on the remarks of my colleague from 
Texas, I choose not to put this in a partisan context, to talk about 
whether we should or should not give President Clinton credit. I do not 
think that is really the issue.
  Now, my position about the question of congressional authorization 
was--and I will always operate within this framework, and I felt this 
way on the gulf war and on Somalia even when it was first a 
humanitarian relief operation--that it is important that the President 
seek the approval of Congress for military action. I have said clearly 
that I was disappointed that the President did not come to the Congress 
for that authority. I thought it was a serious mistake.
  On the other hand, I would like to commend President Clinton and 
former President Carter and the other negotiators for their efforts. I 
also would like to thank our courageous and professional troops for 
what they are doing. I think they are in a very difficult position. Let 
us give credit where it is due. I think whenever there are alternatives 
to conflict, alternatives to going to war, alternatives to military 
action, we should explore those. I think that is what the President, 
working with former President Carter, has done.
  At the same time, I do have some serious reservations about the 
arrangement which the President has entered into with the Haitian 
military dictators. I am concerned that the Haitian military will fail 
to honor the agreement, as they did with the Governors Island 
Agreement, and that it leaves the corrupt and brutal Haitian military 
largely intact. This question, Mr. President, must be addressed when 
President Aristide is restored to power.
  I am also concerned that the broad amnesty the agreement provides for 
will likely ensure that those responsible for the brutality will go 
unpunished. Furthermore, the agreement leaves unanswered questions 
about the composition of the Haitian Parliament. Will the pro-Aristide 
legislators elected to office, many of whom have fled, be allowed to 
participate? Will they be allowed back into the country to vote on this 
amnesty question, which according to Haiti's Constitution can only be 
approved by the Parliament? Or will it be controlled by the one-third 
of Haitian Senators elected illegally after the coup? Are they the ones 
that are going to be allowed to develop the amnesty? Finally, I worry 
about the leaders being allowed to stay in Haiti to play a potentially 
disruptive and destabilizing role there.
  I also worry about the civil unrest facing our troops. I am concerned 
that we not put them in the position of having to be just spectators to 
the violence that we saw yesterday, therefore losing credibility with 
the people of Haiti and perhaps becoming the targets of the anger of 
the Haitian citizenry, which assumed that when our soldiers came in, it 
would mean that finally repression will let up. I do think that on 
balance, the presence of our soldiers over the next few weeks will make 
a big difference in giving hope to Haitians.
  The most basic problem is this: without a systematic and 
comprehensive reform of Haiti's military, all our efforts to restore 
President Aristide, and to nurture democratic institutions there, will 
be fruitless. That reform must be vigorously pursued by the 
administration, in partnership with a new Aristide government, at the 
same time we are providing large scale economic reconstruction aid and 
other forms of support for President Aristide's new government.
  I think that there are intermediate steps we can take that are 
prudent and responsible, and that can make a difference, in the coming 
weeks and months. These include immediately vetting and purging the 
Haitian officer corps, establishing an organ like El Salvador's Truth 
Commission, and prosecuting abusers under Haitian law. These are things 
which I think should happen in that country, which will be important 
ways of signaling to the Haitians that a new day is dawning there.

  But for right now, the situation in Haiti is still dangerous and 
still unpredictable. That is crystal clear to all of us. I do not mean 
just all of us in the House and Senate, I mean all of us in the 
country.
  I think that the security arrangements that are being developed now 
by United States forces must take into account the historic tensions 
between the followers of President Aristide and the Haitian military 
and must take into account especially the long history of brutal 
violations perpetrated by those forces on the population. That is 
critical.
  Sometimes it bothers me to no end to hear some colleagues talk about 
the junta and President Aristide and put them in the same category, 
without making a fundamental distinction. This junta and their 
subordinates are responsible for having systematically mutilated, 
raped, murdered, and tortured its citizens.
  For a very long time, both the security forces and the judicial 
system in Haiti have been under the control of a corrupt ruling elite, 
and we should acknowledge that as we develop our public security 
arrangements.
  Mr. President, I also want to focus on what I think is now a most 
difficult and immediate question for us, and that is that our forces 
are there in large number, and the people in Haiti look to us to 
guarantee public order, look to us to make sure that innocents will be 
protected from indiscriminate violence.
  The question is if we rely on those forces in Haiti that have such a 
history of brutality to assure order in Haiti, then I fear it is going 
to put our troops in a very difficult position. That is what we saw 
yesterday. I do not have clear answers to this question, but what I do 
know is that if our soldiers are put in the position of having to stand 
by and watch this repression take place, then they will begin to lose 
their credibility, and I fear that could put our troops at great risk.
  Mr. President, if the human rights situation matters, and is to be 
improved dramatically by our presence--and I think that is in part what 
this was all about, that was one of the main reasons President Clinton 
presented to the Nation for the use of military force--then we must do 
what we can within our mandate to assure Haitians that their fate no 
longer lies solely in the hands of Haiti's military.
  We also, I think, must act quickly to return vastly expanded OAS and 
U.N. monitoring teams to Haiti, along with other independent monitors, 
to reassure Haitians that they are protected. In other words, I believe 
that the times call for a substantial presence of human rights 
observers as soon as possible.
  Mr. President, now that we are there and this mission moves forward, 
I think our efforts should be guided by answers to the following 
questions: Who are we there to protect, from whom? What role, if any, 
will the U.S. forces play in disarming rogue security and paramilitary 
forces responsible for the bulk of violence? What role will U.N. forces 
coming later play? What precisely are the limits to our public order 
responsibilities? Are the limits clear enough to U.S. troops that are 
there?
  I hope that our United States Commander in Haiti, General Shelton, 
will be crystal clear with General Cedras that the kind of violence we 
saw yesterday being perpetrated on civilian supporters of Aristide is 
totally unacceptable, and will urge him to act forcefully to stop it.
  On the resolution itself, I view it as a general expression of 
support for U.S. troops there, and an effort to commend the President 
for peacefully resolving this crisis. I have some concerns that we 
should not end the embargo, especially the freezing of visas and 
assets, until after President Aristide is restored to power. I 
understand the administration will likely lift the economic sanctions 
in a phased, deliberate way. Finally, I continue to believe that, as we 
move forward, we must vote up or down on legislation that actually 
authorizes the deployment of U.S. troops, because I think that is the 
very essence of the way our system operates. Our system of checks and 
balances, and the democratic accountability it ensures, demands it.
  I will always believe when the U.S. soldiers are to be involved in 
military action, and they are either in harm's way or potentially could 
be in harm's way, the way our system of checks and balances works is 
that we here in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, should vote 
and should be accountable. So I certainly would express my support for 
Senator Feingold's approach as well.
  Mr. President, there are some other steps that I think we could take 
to improve the situation in Haiti now. I hope that some screening of 
local police forces is taking place right now because what we saw last 
night was a very, very ugly picture. I certainly think that with 
information provided to the United States from the former OAS and U.N. 
human rights monitors and other sources we can do some prescreening of 
Haitian police to identify and purge the worst of the lot. I think that 
would help and that would be a confidence-building measure.
  Mr. President, I believe, with the exception of a concern I have 
about the timing on lifting the economic sanctions, that I will vote 
for this resolution. I do not think this is an easy question. I am 
concerned about the position that our soldiers are in, and I am, in 
particular, concerned about our soldiers losing some credibility with 
many of the people in Haiti if, in fact, they are put in a position of 
having to stand by and simply watch this repression take place.
  I am not advocating that they should be directly involved in the 
public order mission within Haiti but, by the same token, I believe 
some intermediate steps have to be taken in order to not put them in 
this position.
  I worry about the next 3 weeks. I worry about the next 3 weeks 
because I think if the kind of repression we saw yesterday continues, 
our troops will face serious problems. As I understand this mission, it 
is an effort to restore President Aristide to office, to begin to build 
democracy in that country, and to do it without having to go in and 
knock the door down to do it, without having to have a massive military 
intervention. But we are now on the ground there militarily. And I 
think we must vote eventually to authorize that. I will support Senator 
Feingold and others in an effort to ensure such a vote. And I will 
hope, Mr. President, for the very best, the very best for our soldiers, 
and the very best for people in Haiti as well.
  Again, Mr. President, I hope that some of the steps that I have 
outlined will be acted upon by the administration. We simply have to 
figure out ways and be decisive in such a way that, on the one hand, we 
do not involve our soldiers directly in every single kind of civil 
conflict that now takes place in that country but, on the other hand, 
we do not put them in the position of having to be just spectators to 
this violence that we saw yesterday, therefore losing credibility with 
the people in Haiti and becoming the targets of the anger of the 
Haitian citizenry, which assumed that when our soldiers came in, it 
would mean that finally repression will let up.
  I think the sooner President Aristide is back and the sooner we move 
toward building democracy in that country, the better off the people of 
Haiti will be and the better off we will be.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I will just speak very 
briefly on the issue of Haiti.
  Last week we left the Chamber to permit the observance of Yom Kippur 
and left in a time of uncertainty and concern. We did not know whether 
American troops would be fired upon. We did not know what would happen 
before we again convened.
  We knew, I think, that we would invade. That was rather troubling to 
me personally and to many on my side of the aisle who together urged 
the Chamber to debate this issue in full and to pronounce the 
sentiments of the Senate.
  We were frustrated in that aim. We were permitted a lengthy debate on 
the subject last Wednesday but were unable to bring the measure to a 
vote.
  So, it was with great relief that we returned and I came back from my 
native State of Wyoming to find that American soldiers, sailors, 
airmen, and airwomen had been, although on the way to Haiti, were being 
removed from the role of aggressor and received as peacekeepers and not 
attacked as a hostile invasion force. And this Senator wishes to give 
appropriate credit to President Clinton, President Carter, and Sam 
Nunn, our wonderful, respected colleague, and Colin Powell, a splendid 
American, for their work in bringing that about.
  But, I think the events of the past week amply demonstrated that 
Republican concerns were well-founded. The aircraft were in the air 
when the agreement was reached. There is discussion about whether that 
was helpful or not. Conflict was averted at the last instant, when 
President Carter and his team persisted for a longer period than 
previously planned, in order to prevent a direct confrontation.
  It was a pretty close-run thing. And whatever appropriate credit is 
due to the President and the negotiating team, that came close to 
turning out much differently. Their exertions could easily have been 
undertaken with just as much skill, and just as much diligence, and yet 
events could have turned out far less fortuitously.

  So I urge my colleagues to remember that as we consider the pending 
motion. I, of course, just as my colleagues do, fully and unreservedly 
support voicing our full approval for the devotion and skill of the 
American forces in Haiti.
  I further understand the impulse that we should strive to voice 
commendations and praise here for the work accomplished by the 
President. He certainly has had his share of criticism for his Haitian 
policy to date, and it must be a relief to be able to seek and receive 
some expression of approval at long last.
  Of course, I note there was far less enthusiasm from the 
administration and from the majority party for bringing Haitian issues 
to a vote in this Chamber last week. Now that things seem to be turning 
out at least a little better thus far, votes on Haiti are popular 
again. Had an invasion begun, and casualties been suffered, I expect 
that the enthusiasm to bring Haiti resolutions to the floor might have 
been greatly diminished.
  Which brings me to some personal reservations about this particular 
vote. It is certainly in the rich tradition of ``senses-of-the-Senate'' 
or ``senses-of-the-Congress''--and we have all seen these over the 
years. They are often offered, I hasten to add, by both majority and 
minority Senators with great frequency and zeal. We are in the giddy 
habit of passing unobjectionable ``senses-of-the-Senate'' by votes of 
95 to 5 or 97 to 3 around this place. The language is usually carefully 
and artfully drawn so as to be uncontroversial, and to be ``difficult 
to vote against.'' The key, or course, is that.
  And so we pass these resolutions, certifying our support for one 
group's ``right of self-determination,'' or saluting the admittedly 
fine performance of American soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women, 
or decrying another's ``history of oppression'' or asserting the need 
to respect this or that group's ``minority rights'' and on and on and 
on. And then we have distinguished foreign visitors come into our 
offices or we go there to visit them, and they say, ``What in the wide 
world were you thinking when you passed Resolution X by a 95-to-5 vote? 
Don't you know this creates a serious problem for us, and that our 
parliament is watching these votes occur in the U.S. Senate and the 
Congress and we are deeply affected and disturbed by it? We just don't 
understand `why'.''
  And then the process continues--a foreign policy issue comes before 
the Senate, and debate commences, and then the proponents of one side 
or the other haul out the old ``sense-of-the-Senate'' vote and say--
``remember when we passed this measure 95 to 5? Now you are committed 
to taking the next logical step by voting for our splendid 
resolution.'' And we become prisoners of our own past votes.
  It pleases me--and I mean this sincerely--there is no such 
preconceived agenda here in this instance. But as we vote to commend 
that Haiti action here today, I do want to sound the cautionary note. 
Things may get progressively more difficult in Haiti in the coming 
weeks and months. I deeply hope that we do not, but they could and I 
think they will. At that time, I expect we will hear, ``Aha, where were 
Republicans when we were endorsing the action in mid-September? If they 
had concerns, why did they not voice them then?''
  So I am voicing them now. We still have many questions to answer 
regarding the duration and nature of the mission in Haiti. I have 
indicated I would commend, and did, the President and the three-member 
delegation for what has been accomplished to date. But this is not in 
any way my ``blank check'' of approval for every ``nation-building'' 
activity in the months to come.
  I trust that the record will show that this Senator is most pleased 
and honored to support our troops and to approve the actions taken to 
date. This Senator is furthermore richly pleased to help to convey the 
supportive unity of all Americans who are fully behind our troops now 
that they may find themselves in harm's way. This Senator will work to 
guarantee that support by ensuring that our soldiers have whatever they 
need in the way of funding in order to defend themselves and to 
accomplish their mission once it is better defined.
  At the same time, this Senator will continue to work toward finding a 
more proper and sensible definition of that mission, and ensure that 
our fine fighting men and women are not drawn into political tasks and 
missions that are unachievable because they are not of a military 
character.
  That is the very least we can do, in view of the selfless devotion 
manifested by our armed forces in this and all other missions. As we 
gratefully accept their service, we must not ask them to also do the 
work of legislators, diplomats, and political scientists. That is our 
work, and I trust that my colleagues will be earnestly engaged in it in 
the weeks to come.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dorgan). Who yields time?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and 
ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the Haiti intervention 
resolution.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to yield.
  Mr. NICKLES. I would be happy to.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Parliamentary inquiry. Is there some understanding that 
it be back and forth which side speaks next in the session here? I 
might make that inquiry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator there is no such 
understanding.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. NICKLES. I tell my friend from Montana I will not be all that 
long, probably 12 minutes or so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. Let me say at the outset, Mr. President, I, like all 
Americans, am very pleased that the Haiti invasion was not hostile. I 
was very concerned that we would have paratroopers jumping into Haiti 
and that we would have armed intervention against them; that we would 
have, as General Powell said, young Haitians killing young Americans 
and vice versa. I did not want to see that. I think that would have 
been a disaster. It would have been a catastrophe. It would have been 
fatal for a lot of young Americans. And I am really thankful that did 
not happen.
  I compliment President Carter and Senator Nunn and General Powell for 
their last-minute negotiations. I think it should have happened a lot 
sooner. I do not think we should have been poised on the brink of an 
invasion. I think that was a serious mistake, but I am glad they were 
able to convince the leaders in Haiti to avoid the bloodshed. I hope 
that the bloodshed will continue to be avoided.
  Mr. President, I wish to speak out strongly in opposition to our 
occupation of Haiti. I am not pleased by the fact that we are now going 
to have 15,000 American soldiers occupying Haiti for an undetermined 
amount of time. I am not pleased with our role. I am not pleased with 
the reason why they are there. I am not pleased by this 
administration's policy which has changed on Haiti almost on a daily 
basis. I am really displeased by the administration's policies that 
brought us to the brink of war, threatening countless American lives, 
in my opinion, not for U.S. military or national interests.
  I noticed that President Clinton in a news conference on May 19 
outlined several things of national interest dealing with Haiti. He 
said Haiti is in our own backyard. The United States has a million 
Haitian-Americans. There are several thousand Americans in Haiti.
  Let me touch on that. Sure, Haiti is in our backyard, but so are 
Mexico and Canada, both of which have problems, but we do not invade 
them for the solution. Yes, we have a lot of Haitian-Americans in the 
United States. They are not threatened. That does not change anything. 
It has nothing whatever to do with invasion. An invasion does not solve 
any problem there. There are several thousand Americans in Haiti, and 
their lives have not been threatened. As a matter of fact, the 
potential of a military intervention or invasion probably did more to 
jeopardize their lives than anything. The Americans have not been 
subject to attack. This was not a Grenada where you had the possibility 
of American citizens held in house arrest or students that were in 
danger. The Americans that are in Haiti have really not been 
threatened, and certainly there is no reason for invasion on that 
point.
  The President also stated that drugs are coming through Haiti to the 
United States. If we invade every country that has drugs coming through 
it to the United States, our Army is going to be very busy. Haiti is 
not the most aggressive or not the biggest problem that we have as far 
as exporting drugs to the United States. We have the same problem with 
the Bahamas. Are we going to invade the Bahamas? We have the same 
problem with Mexico, with Canada, and with countless countries.
  The United States faces the continuing possibility of a massive flow 
of Haitian immigrants to the United States. That is primarily a result 
of this administration's policy of a significant tightening of the 
embargo that made life miserable for countless Haitians--not miserable 
for the military junta leaders but miserable for the Haitian people. 
Again, that is the result of the President's past policies.
  I might mention, too, the President's past statements encouraged 
migration from Haiti to the United States, his statements as a 
candidate. He just totally refuted President Bush's statements--oh, we 
are going to let the Haitians into the United States--and as a result 
of those statements as soon as the election was over the boats were 
being built and countless Haitians were coming to the United States.
  President Clinton reversed that policy because, obviously, it was a 
mistake. He wisely reversed that policy and basically adopted the 
previous administration's policy as far as returning Haitians to Haiti. 
But then he changed. He changed, for political purposes, in my opinion, 
because Randall Robinson was on a hunger strike and the Congressional 
Black Caucus was putting pressure on, Jesse Jackson was putting 
pressure on, and so the President again changed his policy and said, 
oh, we are going to hasten Haitian immigration on ships and make 
changes there. And again the number of Haitians coming into the United 
States or fleeing Haiti increased and increased rather dramatically.
  The President also said that, well, it is in our national interest to 
invade Haiti, or occupy Haiti because we are going to restore 
democracy. And again, Mr. President, I find that to be not a 
significant justification for occupying Haiti with thousands of troops 
for an undetermined amount of time and certainly not a significant 
reason for risking a military invasion--an invasion, I might mention, 
according to the reports and listening to former President Carter and 
others, that was already underway. It was happening and maybe was 
within 30 minutes or an hour of actually taking place and costing lives 
of American soldiers.
  Why? To restore democracy? I question that.
  I just make a couple of points. Not all elected leaders are 
democrats. I might mention to my colleagues that ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier 
was elected in 1957, and I think most everybody would acknowledge that 
he was somewhat of a tyrant, and we should not have risked the U.S. 
flag to have kept him in power. As a matter of fact, I think we were 
urging that he would not stay in power.
  I think of Mr. Milosevic, the President of Serbia. I was in 
Yugoslavia not too far from when they were having elections. Those 
elections, in my opinion, were certainly not fair, certainly not the 
most democratic I have ever seen. But I do not think we risk lives, 
after they have elections, saying this is a great leader. I do not 
think he is. He is a tyrant. Hitler was elected at one point.
  I do not think it is in the interest of the United States to risk 
lives to reinstate Mr. Aristide to power. I know the President during a 
news conference talked about 200 years ago. He was making the 
comparison you had countries helping us; we were a new democracy, so 
maybe we should help Haiti. I am thinking, well, people are almost 
thinking of Mr. Aristide as another George Washington.
  That is not the case. People need to look at Mr. Aristide's 
comments--comments from 2 years ago, comments from a few days ago, 
comments from 3 years ago. This is a leader of Haiti who has made a lot 
of anti-United States comments. He has made a lot of more Marxist-type 
comments than you would imagine. He has made comments urging violence 
against his opponents, urging violence to the extent of using the 
practice of necklacing, which is taking a tire, filling it with 
gasoline and setting it on fire to murder his opponents, and talking 
about the sweet aroma of that smell. That speech was made in 1991-- 
1991--not that long ago. And yet we are talking about risking U.S. 
lives to reinstate him into power because he was elected by a big 
margin. I seriously doubt it. I think that is a bad policy.
  Mr. President, do not mistake my comments. I support our troops, but 
I want our troops to come home. I do not think our troops should be 
occupying Haiti. I do not think we should be risking lives, United 
States dollars and prestige to occupy Haiti for an undetermined amount 
of time.
  I might add, Mr. President, I think we are going to be there for a 
long time. I hope that is not the case. I am pleased that the 
resolution we will be voting on is a very significant improvement over 
the original draft I have from Senator Mitchell. It is a big 
improvement. It says, ``supports the prompt and orderly withdrawal of 
all United States forces from Haiti as soon as possible.'' It does not 
mention a timetable. I am afraid that could turn out to be a lot longer 
than we would like. That is not mentioned in Senator Mitchell's 
original resolution. I think it needed to be mentioned.
  I am concerned about United States lives in Haiti. Also, when we look 
at Mr. Aristide, I cannot help but tell you I am appalled by his 
statements that he made yesterday. We did not hear a ``thank you'' to 
the United States. We did not hear, ``We are grateful for your 
efforts.'' Basically, he was condemning the agreement that President 
Carter and Senator Nunn and General Powell negotiated.
  I also cannot help but wonder what Americans would think if they knew 
of the millions of dollars Mr. Aristide has been spending in the United 
States during his exile the last 3 years.
  I have been somewhat appalled to find out that lobbyists have been 
making hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that is coming from the 
money that is Haitian money. That is money from maybe one of the 
poorest countries in this hemisphere, and, yet, Mr. Aristide and his 
lobbyist friends are doing quite well. That bothers me. Maybe it should 
not. Maybe I am picking up something that is not really all that 
relevant in the international scale. But when you find out that 
lobbyists are making $55,000 a month or $300,000 in a 3-month period--
every time that is coming from the Haitian people who are making maybe 
a couple hundred dollars per year--that bothers me.
  We are going to be risking U.S. lives to reinstate him into power? 
That bothers me. I think that is a serious mistake. Mr. President, I 
have to say that it is troubling to see that President Clinton would 
have the national press conference or a press statement and talk about 
all the evils that are going on in Haiti and how bad General Cedras is 
and his group. I might mention some of his comments:

       They have brutalized their people, destroyed their economy; 
     those who resisted were beaten and murdered; dictators' 
     horrible intimidation campaign of rape, torture, mutilation; 
     people starved; children died; thousands of Haitians fled 
     their country and headed to the United States across 
     dangerous seas; Cedras and his armed thugs conducted a reign 
     of terror, executing children, raping women.

  These are the President's comments.
  Now I am looking at 2 days later. Now we see ``General Cedras is now 
our partner in the governance of Haiti. For 1 month we shall be ruling 
Haiti together with a man Clinton assured us last week was given to 
executing its children, raping women, killing priests.'' That is from 
Charles Krauthammer, ``Our Partner, General Cedras'' in the Washington 
Post.
  I just make the point that we are risking lives. It seems to me that 
the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States was trying 
to whip up a real strong hysteria against General Cedras to build this 
up and maybe inflame the sentiments of the country in favor of an 
invasion that the American people did not support. The American people 
did not support it, and they were right.
  Frankly, I think you will find the American people will not support 
the occupation of Haiti. They will support the troops. I support the 
troops. But I do not support the policy of occupying Haiti. I do not 
think that is worth risking U.S. lives. We are going to be confronted 
with a lot of difficult challenges. We will find one group fighting 
another group. Are we going to intervene, or are we going to stand idly 
by? Military forces were standing by idly and watched one or two 
murders happen yesterday.
  How long will we be the police force? Are we going to try to have a 
free democracy and to hold elections? I want elections to be held. What 
happens if somebody tries to hold that election, if we leave, and 
fighting breaks out again? Are we going to send in another 10,000 
troops to stop the fighting? What are we going to do if Haitians start 
fighting other Haitians, or if one Haitian group takes out and murders 
some American soldiers? I am sure we will retaliate. But I hate to put 
them in harm's way to really substantiate a policy that I believe is 
terribly, terribly flawed.
  I think the President's policies have been a disaster. I hope and 
pray for the success and safety of our troops. I think he has put them 
in harm's way unnecessarily.
  I strongly support the resolution that we have before us, at least 
the fifth point that says we support ``a prompt and orderly withdrawal 
of all United States forces from Haiti as soon as possible.''
  Mr. President, I will just conclude. I do not doubt--somebody asked 
me earlier, they said, ``Will you be offering a resolution which says 
they need to be out within 60 days?'' That amendment or that resolution 
will not be offered today and probably not this year before we adjourn. 
But my guess is next year we will be debating and discussing a 
resolution which says our troops should be out within a certain period 
of time because it looks like they are getting bogged down in a 
quagmire, from which we will not be able to leave.
  I hope there will be a peaceful, successful transition of power. I 
hope there will be no lives lost, Haitian lives nor American lives. I 
hope that our troops will be able to return to the United States as 
soon as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am about to yield whatever time my 
colleague from Montana may desire, and then, hopefully, we can also go 
quickly to Senator Pell, and then I believe the Senator from Colorado 
would follow immediately. And I gather the statements from Senator Pell 
and Senator Baucus are relatively brief.
  Mr. President, I cannot resist, because people have talked about you 
should not do any of these things unless you have the full support of 
the American people. I think that is always desirable. But memory 
sometimes fades rather quickly.
  I just went back and pulled up the poll results in the fall of 1990 
prior to the decision to go into the Persian Gulf. Some of my 
colleagues may have forgotten this. If you look at the results, only 38 
percent were in favor of going to war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf; 
27 percent--here is one poll about the President's handling of the 
crisis, President Bush. It had fallen below 43 percent, 27 percent 
lower than in September.
  I only bring this up because I think we had better be careful about 
conducting business based on polls. For those who suggest you cannot 
act at all unless you have the popular opinion with you on every 
occasion, they ought to go back and refresh their memories when it 
comes to some of these other crises, when President Bush acted, and 
depending solely on whether or not what he was doing was always 
popular. It was not at all.
  I yield the time to the Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BROWN. Will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on the particular 
point that the Senator from Connecticut made?
  Mr. BAUCUS. I would be happy to yield at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  Mr. BROWN. I had exceeded my time prior to the comments of the 
distinguished Senator. I wonder if I could not answer the Senator.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I would be happy to reduce my remarks, if the Senator 
will yield to the Senator from Colorado.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana was recognized and 
has the floor.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I want to make a few comments on Haiti.

  First of all, I think the President, along with the delegation of 
former President Carter, General Powell, and Senator Nunn, deserve 
congratulations for avoiding a violent invasion of Haiti. And the men 
and women of the armed services have carried out the operation, up to 
now, with great skill and professionalism.
  I have withheld comment on Haiti over the past few days because I am 
reluctant to interfere with the President, and the Armed Forces as they 
carry out a delicate military operation.
  But I see some dangerous warning signs in the events of the past few 
days. I want to say as clearly as I can that we should make the mission 
in Haiti as limited as possible. We should avoid any long-term 
peacekeeping presence there. We should get the troops out, as soon as 
possible, and let the Haitians begin to solve their own problems.
  First, the man we are returning to Haiti, President Aristide, is 
frankly an ingrate. He is the legitimately elected President there, and 
he should keep his office. But we have no obligation to put American 
lives at risk for that purpose. We have done so. He has not said a 
single word of thanks. Instead, he seems angry that we avoided an 
invasion. It is an outrage. And it calls into question President 
Aristide's reliability as this mission continues.
  Second, our mission in Haiti is beginning to remind me of our Lebanon 
adventure in the Reagan administration, and our presence in Somalia 
during the Bush and Clinton administrations.
  When we commit troops without a clear military goal, political 
factions in the relevant country see it as an opportunity. As in 
Lebanon and Somalia, Haitian factions will use our military presence 
for their own purposes, ultimately to the disadvantage of both Haiti 
and our soldiers.
  Just yesterday, some promilitary Haitian policemen beat an Aristide 
supporter to death in the street, with American soldiers nearby. In 
such a situation, our soldiers must choose between standing still and 
doing nothing, or involving themselves in internal Haitian political 
battles with unpredictable consequences for themselves personally and 
for our country.
  Last week, before the military operation began, retired Col. Richard 
Kern from Livingston, MT, a man who has served in Haiti, as well as 
World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, sent me one of the best, most 
thoughtful letters I have ever received.
  He said:

       In recent years, we have become somewhat casual concerning 
     the employment of U.S. forces. Military intervention once 
     was, and should remain, a case of last resort. Today, 
     however, we seem to consider it as a quick-fix possibility to 
     solve a range of political and economic problems * * *. [But] 
     military force is arbitrary and brutal, and as apt to cause 
     harm to our own interests as to further them.

  As far as Haiti goes, however, Colonel Kern goes on to say:

       For all our efforts there would be no beneficial result. 
     Haiti would still be Haiti, unchanged, and, in its particular 
     way, defiant.

  I believe Colonel Kern is right.
  I am deeply troubled by what I see emerging in this mission. I have 
been quiet up to now, but I think we are headed in a dangerous 
direction, and the sooner we bring our troops home from Haiti, the 
better.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. PELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Pell] is 
recognized.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, over the last few days many statements have 
been made regarding the recent agreement with the Haitian coup leaders. 
Some naysayers have been quick to criticize and others are questioning 
details underlying the agreement. As with any agreement, issues remain 
unresolved and as it is carried out there inevitably will be bumps 
along the road. But we must not overlook what has been accomplished. 
President Clinton avoided bloodshed and the loss of life and 
accomplished--peacefully--our primary goals in Haiti. While we may wait 
a little longer, the democratically elected government will be returned 
to power and the reign of terror will end.
  Even though the President had determined that the use of force was 
justified and the troops were ready and waiting for what would have 
been a relatively simple military operation, he made one last effort to 
seek a peaceful solution to the immediate crisis. In many ways, the 
current situation may be more complicated and difficult than if U.S. 
troops had entered by force as is often the case with diplomatic 
solutions. But President Clinton made the right choice. He did what the 
American people wanted without sacrificing our goals in Haiti.
  Mr. President, I support the pending resolution and congratulate 
President Clinton and the special delegation for showing prudence, 
courage, and wisdom in Haiti.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado, Mr. Brown, is 
recognized.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to express my concerns about our 
involvement in Haiti and to express my strong support for the fifth 
subparagraph under the ``resolves'' of our resolution, that which 
supports prompt and orderly withdrawal of United States Armed Forces 
from Haiti as soon as possible.
  Members of both parties have come together on this resolution, and I 
think it is to the credit of our distinguished chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee and the leadership of both the Republican and 
Democratic sides that we have been able to bring forth to the Senate 
floor a resolution which apparently has very broad support. But I want 
to share a few concerns as we move forward.
  Mr. President, I first comment that it would have been my intent to 
offer two amendments to the resolution that would appear here. First, a 
specific time limit, so that we were not simply talking about a prompt 
and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops, but we would set a date certain 
for the withdrawal.
  Mr. President, my concern about that is that we will indeed be drawn 
into the Haitian adventure, that we may well have American men and 
women who serve our country there injured or killed, and that through 
the inevitable effort to save face, we may be willing to withdraw on a 
prompt schedule.
  So while the commitment to have a prompt withdrawal is important and, 
I think, helpful, it is not as helpful as having a specific time 
certain. That amendment--while others prevailed on us not to offer that 
to this resolution--is one I believe in strongly and one which I will 
offer at another time before this Chamber.
  Second, it had been my intention to offer the Weinberger guidelines. 
I intend to offer those at a later date as well.
  I will summarize those quickly, and I will not take a lot of time. I 
will remind people of what they include. They include, first of all, 
that any time we are going to use U.S. forces, the commitment to combat 
be vital and include a decision that the cause was vital to the U.S. 
national interest.
  Mr. President, this does not mean that we simply have a strong will 
for the outcome. It means that it is vital to our American interests. I 
think that is particularly important here, because what we are weighing 
is not only our interest in seeing a viable democracy in Haiti, but we 
are weighing it against the potential loss of American life. I believe 
Americans rightly believe that the cause ought to be awfully important 
and awfully significant for our national interest before we give up the 
lives of our young people.
  Second, the Weinberger guidelines call for a clear, wholehearted, 
commitment to winning any combat. It is part and parcel, I think, of a 
concern I have that we may well have committed troops into Haiti 
without a clear mission, without a clear commitment to winning it.
  Let me be specific. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon shared in 
the Vietnam responsibility. Each of those Presidents committed troops 
to action in Vietnam without clearly defined objectives and without a 
clear commitment to win.
  Whether one agreed or disagreed with our efforts to preserve 
democracy and freedom in South Vietnam, the fact is that we were 
willing to send men and women to Vietnam and risk their lives and have 
50,000 Americans not come home, without ever committing our country to 
winning that conflict.
  I believe most Americans determined at the end of that conflict that 
it had been a mistake--not a mistake to defend freedom, but a mistake 
to commit our men and women to combat without a commitment to win that 
cause. That is part of where the Weinberger guidelines came out of--our 
mistakes in Vietnam.
  Clear and defined objectives were included in this as well. Of 
course, the final commitment in the Weinberger guidelines is that we 
should only commit U.S. forces to combat as a last resort.
  With regard to Haiti, we have committed combat forces to Haiti, but 
it was not a last resort. Were there other alternatives? Yes. One 
alternative would have been to provide aid and assistance to Haitians 
that wished to free their country themselves. It is a precedent we have 
followed in other circumstances, and it involves our assistance to 
freedom fighting forces without risking U.S. military personnel. But it 
does help people who want to free their country.
  I think it is fair to say that we did not follow the Weinberger 
guidelines in this. We did not do this as a last resort, but well ahead 
of any last resort. I think it is fair to say that the commitment of 
troops into Haiti does not involve clear, defined objectives, and the 
objectives or the timetable is not clearly defined at this point.
  With regard to the vitality--being vital to our national interest--I 
submit that the President has not made that case.
  What we have in Haiti is a failure to learn from our mistakes of the 
past, the mistakes of President Kennedy, President Johnson, and 
President Nixon in Vietnam; the mistakes of President Reagan in Lebanon 
where American troops were committed for what was thought to be a good 
cause and the guards at the gate were not given bullets in their guns 
to protect them. Members will recall that the terrorist truck came 
through the guards at the gate and the guards were unable to stop it 
because they had not been given bullets for their guns, and over 200 
Americans lost their lives.
  This is a failure to have clear objectives, a failure to make a 
commitment to win, a failure to look at alternatives. How many times do 
we have to make mistakes with the lives of young men and women before 
we learn our lesson? The lesson is not that we do not stand up for 
freedom. We do and we should. The lesson is not that given the right 
circumstances we do not go into combat. Given the right circumstances 
we should be willing to stand up for freedom.
  Our successful effort to defend freedom in Kuwait is a good example. 
Earlier my colleague from Connecticut brought up the case of Kuwait, 
but what he failed to mention was in the case of Kuwait President Bush 
went to this Congress, a Democratically controlled Congress, and won 
approval of his policy before he went into combat.
  I intend to offer both those amendments because I think they offer an 
important policy declaration that too often can be missed. One, we 
ought to have clear objectives and we ought to have a commitment to 
win, and another that there ought to be a specific time for withdrawal.
  What all of this boils down to is simply this: We should hold the men 
and women who serve our country in the Armed Forces in high regard. 
They should not be political pawns. Their safety should not be 
sacrificed for political purposes. Preelection specials to boost poll 
ratings should not involve risking the men and women of our Armed 
Forces. We ought to care enough about them that not only do we not use 
them as political pawns but before we trade away their lives we make 
very certain that the cause is important, that it is vital, and that we 
are committed to win.
  If it is not important enough to commit to win, if it is not 
important enough to define our objectives, if it is not important 
enough to stand up for those principles, we should not commit the lives 
of our men and women.
  That is what the mistakes have been in the past. In Somalia it was 
politically convenient to leave them in the country, expose them to the 
risk, but it was not politically convenient to give them the equipment 
and the material to defend themselves.
  Some Members will say, ``Hank, those are harsh words.'' They are 
absolutely true. Read the press clippings of the decision of the 
Defense Department when the field commanders asked for armored 
personnel carriers to carry out the mission that our political leaders 
gave them in Somalia. The decision was there might be political risks 
in sending armored personnel carriers over. So we traded off the 
interests of the men and women who served this country in favor of 
political interests.
  That is just plain wrong. It is wrong for us to be so calloused about 
the lives of our men and women who serve us in the Armed Forces that we 
would place political considerations, political expediency, above our 
duty to those men and women.
  That is what is involved in Haiti. It is a question of whether or not 
we value their lives enough to treat them with respect and to stand up 
for them.
  Those young men and women are willing to give their lives for this 
country and give their lives for our freedom. They understand they may 
be injured or maimed or killed, and they love this country enough to 
face that risk and assume it and take it on. But what they do not 
understand is how in the world we could ask that sacrifice from them 
when we do not even go to the trouble of defining what the mission is. 
How do you get out of Haiti without setting a time limit? How do you 
get out of Haiti without setting clear, specific definitions of what 
our objectives are?
  Those questions are unanswered and they remain unanswered. I believe 
they represent an attitude of callous disregard for the safety of those 
who wear the uniform of this country. We have had enough of this. No 
more should we have the kind of disregard that was shown in Vietnam. No 
more should we have the kind of disregard that was shown in Lebanon. No 
more should we have the kind of disregard that was shown in Somalia.
  We ought to care enough about the people who put on the uniform of 
this country to do our job in the Congress and do our job in 
administration, and that is spell out the objectives; that is stand 
behind them when they go into combat and make sure they are protected 
and, yes, in the police actions make sure there is a time to get out.
  We are going to pass this resolution and perhaps some will pretend 
that it addresses the subject, but it does not. Underlining it is a 
willingness to treat in a cavalier fashion the people who wear the 
uniform of this country.
  Mr. President, I am not going to back off from offering resolutions 
because I believe the Weinberger amendments deserve to be voted on. If 
someone thinks we should send people in combat without spelling out the 
mission, I want them to have a chance to stand up on the floor and have 
a vote taken.
  If people want to expose our young men and women to the danger in 
Haiti without having them given a specific period of time for 
withdrawal, I want them to have a chance to go on record, too.
  I think it is important that we understand that a primary 
consideration here is not just our hopes and aspirations for the people 
of Haiti but our commitment to the young men and women on which our 
freedom depends. If we ever have a generation in this country that is 
unwilling to risk their lives, that is unwilling to stand up for 
freedom, we will lose our freedom. And the surest way I know of to make 
sure American young men and women are unwilling to stand up for that 
freedom is to treat them as we have done in the recent years.
  If we do not meet our obligations to the young people who serve this 
country, how can we ask them to meet their obligations to us?
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dorgan). The Chair recognizes the Senator 
from Arizona [Mr. McCain].
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Colorado 
on his very powerful and, I think, informative remarks about the 
problem of defining the role and mission of the young men and women who 
are serving in Haiti. Everyone supports those young men and women.
  I think he points out very graphically that we also have an 
obligation to those young men and women that we provide them with a 
clear-cut mission, clear-cut rules of engagement so we are not treated 
to pictures such as we saw on the front page of the New York Times 
today and the Washington Post of Haitians being murdered and American 
fighting men and women standing by.
  Mr. President, I rise again because my friend from Connecticut stated 
in his remarks about public opinion, that only 38 percent of the 
American people supported President Bush's effort in the Persian Gulf, 
this Nation's effort led by President Bush. The Senator from 
Connecticut was correct. He just was not in context, because the fact 
is that only 38 percent of the American people did support our 
involvement in the Persian Gulf war initially, which reflected the 
well-known skepticism and caution that is a trademark of the American 
people considering involving ourselves militarily overseas. But there 
is a huge difference. I tried to point it out in my remarks earlier 
today.
  President Clinton basically was prepared to invade Haiti without the 
support of the Congress and the American people, in fact without even 
consulting Congress. It is well known what I tried to do last week to 
get an expression of the sense of the Senate either to approve or 
disapprove of our involvement there. That was blocked, as we all know.
  The difference is that when President Bush was faced with these 
numbers he went to our allies around the world. He spoke to the 
American people. He submitted to this body and the other body for 
debate and discussion an authorization which in the view of some was 
described as this Senate's finest hour, the debate that took place on 
the Persian Gulf war resolution, and he built public opinion so that, 
as I hope my colleague from Connecticut will understand. On a poll 
published on January 14, 1991, in Newsweek: ``Do you think U.S. forces 
should engage in combat with Iraq if Iraq refuses to leave Kuwait and 
restore its former government?'' 61 percent, yes; 29 percent, no. The 
Washington Post-ABC poll, January 6, 1991: ``If Iraq does not withdraw 
from Kuwait, should the United States go to war with Iraq to force it 
out of Kuwait?'' 63 Percent, yes; 32 percent, no.
  So, I hope my friend from Connecticut remembers that, yes, initially 
only 38 percent of the American people supported going into Kuwait and 
the Persian Gulf but at the end of the day before military operations 
started President Bush had gone to the American people, which is what 
President Clinton has not done, and I repeat and I repeated it 25 times 
on the floor of the Senate: You do not go to war without the support of 
the American people. We found that out in Vietnam. Otherwise, it is 
doomed to failure, the great lesson of the Vietnam war with which most 
of us, I believe, are clearly in agreement.
  So what should President Clinton have done and what should he do now? 
He should make a case to the American people, and one of the ways, of 
course, would be an authorizing resolution. There are a number of ways 
that he could do so. We cannot construe U.N. approval for approval of 
the U.S. Congress. We cannot substitute the U.N. Security Council 
resolution for the approval of the Congress of the United States and 
people.
  I want to make clear again that I do not believe constitutionally the 
President is required to do so.
  I do not believe that. That is a debate that goes on amongst 
constitutional scholars. But what I do believe is that you need the 
support of the American people. And how do you get it? Go to their 
elected representatives and have a debate and have a resolution.
  I think that is clearly the way, an integral way, in which President 
Bush was able to change public opinion from only 38 percent support, 
when the invasion first took place of Kuwait by Iraq, to January 1991, 
when, by two separate polls, 61 percent of the American people 
supported and in another one the 63 percent of the American people 
supported. I think we should not ignore that.
  Mr. President, I see no speakers on the floor at this time. So, at 
this time, I suggest the absence of the quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Would the Senator suggest that the time be 
equally divided?
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The absence of a quorum is noted. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I support the resolution offered by 
Senator Mitchell and Senator Dole on Haiti, with two explicit 
reservations. One is on the length of time that United States military 
personnel will be committed to Haiti. And, second, what will be the 
resolution of the status of General Cedras and the others of the 
Haitian military junta who have seized control from the duly elected 
President of Haiti.
  I believe the first resolution clause commending the efforts of the 
President in sending former President Jimmy Carter, retired Gen. Colin 
Powell, and Senator Sam Nunn, to Haiti in an effort to avoid the loss 
of American lives is well founded. I congratulate former President 
Carter and General Powell and Senator Nunn for the results which they 
have achieved. I also commend the President for thinking of that as a 
last-ditch effort to avoid the loss of U.S. lives on that invasion.
  As I said on a number of occasions on the Senate floor, I was opposed 
to an invasion of Haiti. I thought that prior to any such order by the 
President of the United States it was incumbent, under the 
Constitution, that authorization be obtained from the Congress of the 
United States. The President chose not to follow that. I still believe 
as a matter of constitutional law it would have been a very, very 
unwise precedent. But I think the President was wise in taking up 
former President Carter's offer to have the mission go to try to avoid 
a forceful invasion of Haiti.
  I do think that from time to time, as a political matter, some on the 
Republican side of the aisle are a little overly reluctant to commend 
the President. I think commendation is in order for him on this 
particular line. I have found that frequently there is more approval of 
the person who is offering the compliment than those who receive the 
compliment. I think it is important, as a bipartisan matter, that we 
stand together on issues of foreign policy to the maximum extent that 
we can. But I do not like the implicit part of this approach which has 
an open-ended status for American personnel in Haiti.
  American fighting men and women are not trained as policemen. When 
people describe this as a police operation, in an effort to analogize 
it to Korea, in an effort to avoid the necessity for the Congress to 
have a formal declaration of war, they misstate the nature of the 
mission of the American military personnel. That is not to be 
policemen. We have military police and they are trained as policemen. 
But it is not the job of U.S. fighting forces to undertake a police 
operation.
  As we look at this from September 19, the day before yesterday, and 
look into the future, I believe there ought to be some limitation as to 
how long that police operation is going to last, and there ought to be 
a specification as to what other nations are to contribute. When there 
is talk about the police operation lasting as long as until January 
1996, until after the next Haitian elections, I think that is too long.
  There was a great deal of talk in advance about a United Nations 
operation with as many as 20 or more nations participating, and the 
talk was some 1,500 or perhaps 2,000--really the number is as yet 
undetermined. The United Nations force was specifically excluded from 
the first line of attack. I, frankly, did not like that, that it was 
only U.S. military personnel who were going to bear the risk of 
invasion. But now that specific risk has been avoided, although there 
continues to be substantial risk to American personnel in being in 
Haiti.
  We see the reports of yesterday's activities. American soldiers stood 
by while Haitian police put down a demonstration. It is going to be a 
tough assignment, being in Haiti--perhaps not as tough an assignment as 
being in some areas of some of the big cities of America, but our 
personnel will be at risk in being there. And when the resolution says 
in the last paragraph that the Senate ``supports a prompt and orderly 
withdrawal of all United States Armed Forces from Haiti as soon as 
possible,'' I would like to see some specification on when that date 
will be, and some specification on what the number will be in 
comparison with contribution by others in the United Nations. I think 
the Senate and the House, the Congress of the United States, is 
entitled to that information as promptly as possible. I understand it 
cannot be forthcoming by today. There is utility in having the backing 
of the Congress behind our forces. But we ought to know that as soon as 
possible.
  When the resolution says that the Senate ``supports the departure 
from power of the de facto authorities in Haiti, and Haitian efforts to 
achieve national reconciliation, democracy, and the rule of law,'' I do 
support that. But more is left unsaid than is said, because what is 
going to happen to General Cedras and his coconspirators? It is an 
unfortunate, unhappy, and unacceptable consequence that General Cedras 
stays there until October 15, and that he may remain there as a 
political force to undermine the legally constituted authorities in 
Haiti, and that he may in fact run for the Presidency. We know that 
General Cedras made a promise before to give up power and that he broke 
that promise, so his commitments are not exactly things to be relied 
upon.
  When we had a briefing of the Senate, I raised the question with the 
Secretary of State as to what his future was going to be. I got a reply 
that it was up to the Haitian Government.
  General Cedras has negotiated for amnesty and I do not begrudge him 
immunity from prosecution. I do not like it, but I understand the 
nature of that plea bargain. But we do not have a Parliament in Haiti 
now which is constituted which can get that done. The Parliament is 
scattered. Some are said to be in Florida, fearing for their lives. So 
I am prepared to see him avoid prosecution in order to get him out of 
power. But I think it is really unacceptable to see him staying in 
Haiti and seeing him with the possibility of contributing to political 
instability there and perhaps running for elective office.
  So in reviewing this resolution, as it sets forth the whereas clauses 
very briefly on one side of a small sheet of paper, and has the 
resolved clauses on the other, I do support it with those specific 
reservations. But more is unsaid in this resolution than is said in 
this resolution, and until we know definitively how long United States 
forces are going to be called upon to stay in Haiti and what our 
proportional contribution will be with others in the United Nations, 
this resolution is insufficient on its face. Until we know more about 
the future of General Cedras and what the expectations will be about 
his ability to undermine democracy in Haiti, again, the resolution is 
insufficient.
  But this is a much better day, Mr. President, than last Wednesday 
when, at this hour, we were on the floor of the Senate urging a vote on 
a sense-of-the-Senate resolution opposing an invasion of Haiti. At 
least today we do not look forward to a forceful invasion and the real 
risk of loss of life and limb of American personnel. So that is a step 
forward, but there are very many important questions to be answered. 
But as of today, I am glad to lend my support to the resolution which 
has been offered by Senator Mitchell for the majority and Senator Dole 
for the Republicans.
  I thank the Chair and, in the absence of any other Senator seeking 
recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator intend that the time be 
deducted from both sides equally?
  Mr. SPECTER. I do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, as many of the speakers today have noted, the 
resolution which is before the Senate is a resolution which has been 
agreed to by the leadership of both sides. I, therefore, intend to 
support it. But I do feel that before we proceed on voting on the issue 
of Haiti relative to this resolution that we need to address, once 
again, the question of what is our purpose there and why we are in this 
situation.
  As of this date, unfortunately, the President of the United States 
has given no explanation which I find justifiable for the occupation of 
another country, specifically Haiti. And that, of course, is what we 
are doing in Haiti. We are exercising a military occupation on that 
nation. For all intents and purposes, all activities in that nation are 
under our control and the control of our military leadership in that 
country.
  Before we pursued such a course, on a number of occasions I rose on 
the floor of this Senate and asked what is our national purpose there. 
Unfortunately, I do not believe that the President has ever defined the 
national purpose that justifies our going there.
  The original purposes which were outlined were, first, that we had 
significant problems with refugees; second, that the leadership of that 
country, General Cedras, who has been variously called by the President 
on one day a thug and on another day a man of duty, General Cedras has 
broken his word to the United Nations under an agreement that has been 
reached; and number three, we needed to restore democracy in that sad 
country.
  None of those issues raised to a level to justify an invasion and 
they also do not raise to a level which justifies a military 
occupation. Two of those issues are totally specious: The question of 
refugees and the question of word breaking.
  Clearly, the refugees may be a problem from Haiti, but compared to 
the refugee problem which we have with Cuba and the illegal immigrant 
problem which we have with Mexico, the problem with Haiti is minuscule; 
15,000 Haitians came into this country as refugees last year. We are 
talking about tens of thousands of Cubans presently sitting in camps at 
Guantanamo and other places, and we are talking about over 1.2 million 
Mexicans who are illegal immigrants in this country last year. So to 
raise the refugee card is to raise a straw dog.
  In addition, the refugee situation was created by the activities of 
this administration and their inconsistent policies on how to deal with 
the refugees so that at some points we were giving them hope and at 
other times we were not. As a result, the ebb and flow of refugees was 
tied to American policy, not to the Haitian situation specifically.
  The issue of keeping your word is the other logic given for this 
invasion which has now turned into a military occupation. Keeping your 
word in international affairs is something that is often unfortunately 
ignored by many countries, and when you are describing the leadership 
of a country as members of a thuggery class, as the President was up 
until the military occupation occurred, then I think you can expect 
they are not going to keep their word. And if you are going to enter 
into agreements with thugs, you can expect that thugs are not going to 
keep their word and, therefore, I think it is unreasonable for us to 
pursue military action against a country when we know that the 
country's word probably is not any good to begin with under that 
leadership, as defined by the President, which leadership is defined as 
rapists and thugs and murderers. So that is a specious argument.
  The third argument that was given is probably the only one with 
legitimacy, and that is the question of restoring democracy to Haiti. 
Yes, democracy had been taken over by a military coup. We now learn, 
however, in the postinvasion environment, in the military occupation 
environment, that if coup leaders are being characterized not as people 
who acted out of a malicious piracy atmosphere or attitude, as had been 
described before, not as people who are rapists and murderers and 
thugs, but rather men of order, men whose sense of duty and honor, as 
characterized by Senator Nunn and General Powell, by former President 
Carter and, by implication, even President Clinton, it was their sense 
of honor and duty that led them not to pursue a military confrontation 
over the invasion and, equally important, we now learn--at least it is 
represented by one of the delegation to Haiti who accomplished this 
peace agreement--that it was probably the sense of duty and honor of 
Mr. Cedras who saved Mr. Aristide's life during the original coup and 
allowed him to leave the country without being murdered.
  So we find that these people who had originally been described as 
thugs and usurpers of democracy, maybe they are not. I do not know 
whether they are or are not anymore. I am as confused as any other 
American at this point, having no knowledge of these matters.
  We know also before a decision could finally be made by a military 
leadership or even before the military leadership would do it, would 
undertake the position not to confront forces with forces, they had to 
go to what they deemed to be the elected President of that country who 
had been elected by the Parliament who we had maintained was a 
figurehead and get authorization from that president. It was only the 
direction of that President, according to the characterization given to 
us by members of the delegation there, that kept at least one of the 
military leaders from going to the mattress, so to say, and initiating 
a military confrontation. It was their commitment as a military to what 
they perceived to be the civilian authority, which civilian authority 
had been elected, by the way, by the Parliament, to that individual 
elected President by the Parliament, that caused the military leaders 
not to pursue a military course of action. That was the way it was 
characterized to us during the briefing. So the question of democracy 
now becomes even more amok.

  Then you throw on top of that the track record of Mr. Aristide--Mr. 
Aristide, who is a gentleman who has had a history of rather vitriolic 
comment about our Nation, about America and our course of action and 
whether we are truly a democracy; Mr. Aristide, who, when he was 
President, incited and pursued and used the mob as one of his forces of 
political activity, and who, as has been related on innumerable 
occasions, but I think appropriately related over and over again, 
endorsed the concept of using violence against his opponents through a 
process called necklacing, which has been described here and I will not 
go into again, but it is certainly an atrocious act and certainly not 
an act of a democracy; Mr. Aristide, who, since the invasion, has taken 
the position that he is not going to be supportive of the American 
effort or, if he is supportive of the American effort, we have not 
heard about it.
  America puts our people's lives on the line to put him back in the 
position of his Presidency, and we do not even receive an 
acknowledgement that was something that was rather extraordinary and 
might have some scintilla of appreciation from him.
  This is the gentleman whom we justify putting American lives in 
harm's way for, in a situation which in a 24-hour period went from 
being confronting thugs to confronting men of honor and duty.
  So it is very hard for me, as a Senator, to understand how the 
President can claim a national interest which justifies, first, the 
concept of invasion, or the idea of an invasion, but now the idea of a 
military occupation.
  What are the outgrowths of a military occupation of another nation? 
Well, they are considerable. I think the most significant one that we 
have to think about is that once you have militarily occupied a 
country, as we are now doing in Haiti, you become responsible for that 
country and you especially become responsible for the governments which 
follow on in that country because you are going to put them in place. 
In this case, we are going to put Mr. Aristide in place.
  You have to wonder, is Mr. Aristide going to pursue a course of 
democracy once he is back in power? Or will he continue, as he had in 
the past, to pursue a course of promoting mob violence and antipathy 
toward the United States in the most vitriolic way?
  Whatever he does, we, unfortunately, have our fingerprints on his 
Presidency in a manner which is indelible and which is going to carry 
significant cost.
  Second, down the road, we are going to insist on an election. I am 
not sure when the election is going to occur, but I presume part of our 
being there is to have an election. As I understand the fact pattern as 
it now lies, Mr. Cedras is not going to be asked to leave the country, 
although that was originally one of the conditions of this invasion.
  It is possible, I presume, for Mr. Cedras to run for President, and I 
just put this forward as a hypothetical. If Mr. Cedras runs for 
President in an election that we have sponsored and wins the election, 
do we now become the endorser of Mr. Cedras as an elected President of 
Haiti? Or Mr. Biamby? Obviously, that is a potential. These are men of 
significant influence and clearly some popularity in some segments of 
the Haitian population. That is a possibility.
  Those are the types of ramifications you get into when you militarily 
occupy a country and begin the process of nation building.
  Then, of course, we have the more immediate and personal problem 
which is that we see American military personnel on the street of Haiti 
being put in the unconscionable position of having to deal with civil 
violence, having to be policemen, and not knowing what the rules of 
engagement are.
  Before this started there was extensive discussion on the floor of 
the Senate about what the rules of engagement would be, and I remember 
very specifically in a number of interviews the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of Defense, our Commander in Chief, and the Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying listen, this is what the rules of 
engagement are going to be. This is what we are going to do, what our 
troops' authority will be. They will be that they can go in and disarm, 
if they are threatened by forces that confront them; they will be on 
the street, and they will be asked to deal with civil issues of 
violence on the street.
  Yet now we find that while our soldiers are on the street, they do 
not know what their rules of engagement are, and they are put in this 
very impossible and extremely personal situation of watching mob 
violence, of watching police officers beat to death--Haitian police 
beat to death--a person who is described as a coconut salesman, 
according to the New York Times, and not be able to step up and do 
anything about it.
  That is a terrible situation to place an American soldier in, an 
American soldier who is supposed to go into battle with a clear set of 
understandings as to what he is fighting for or she is fighting for, 
and a clear understanding of who the enemy is and how to deal with the 
enemy. You are asking those people, trained in those skills, to be put 
in a situation where they are confronted with confusion, with 
misdirection, with misunderstanding, and with personal situations where 
they are put in a terrible moral dilemma of whether they should step 
forward and act, as they are people of action--these are our soldiers, 
and they know how to act, they know how to use force, to take action as 
people of action to protect an individual who is being beaten--or 
whether they must stand back and watch that event.
  That is the situation our soldiers find themselves in as a force of 
occupation. And it is one, obviously, that is traumatic for them, but 
it is also traumatic for our country.
  It arises from the fundamental failure of the policy which got us 
there. It arises from the fact that we are now militarily occupying a 
country and we do not know why. We do not have a clear explanation of 
why we are there or what the basic framework of the events are that got 
us there, that justify us being there.
  Then we come to the issue of the exit strategy: How do we get our 
troops out? There has been a lot of talk about that, but there has not 
been any clear definition of it. The President has moved on this issue 
in a very amorphous way. Once we hear they are going to be there for 
months. Then we hear they are going to be there for months in force and 
then the U.N. group is going to come in and take their place in force, 
but the U.N. group is going to be made up of 3,000 Americans. Then we 
hear there is going to be training going on with the military police 
and the military for a period of maybe 1\1/2\ years.
  It simply is not clear as to when we are leaving or how we are 
leaving or what justifies our leaving, for that matter. Are we going to 
be able to leave if there is an election and General Cedras is elected 
President? What happens? What happens in that event? There has been no 
definition of policy there either. That policy, again, should have been 
established before we went in.
  It was stated on this floor that it should have been established 
before we went in. In fact, this Senate passed a resolution which said 
it should be established before we go in. Yet there is no clear and 
definitive, or even marginally clear and definitive, exit strategy put 
forward by this administration in Haiti.
  Again, I think it goes back to the fact that the administration does 
not have a fundamental concept of what the policy is in Haiti, what 
drives the national interest that got us in there in the first place, 
because there is nothing strong enough to define it in this situation.
  Then, of course, we come to the issue of costs, costs to the American 
taxpayers. DOD costs for the next 7 months of the Haitian operation 
will be $372 million. On top of that, there will be Coast Guard 
retrieval at sea at a cost estimated to be $187 million. On top of 
that, there is a transportation cost of troops and equipment to Haiti 
of $55 million. On top of that, there is a DOD equipment and training 
cost for participating countries of $50 million. Do not think these 
other countries are coming in and paying for these costs. We are paying 
for them to the extent they are even there.
  In addition to that, we are going to be paying for the training of 
the civilian Haitian forces, $28 million, and a Haitian refugee safe 
haven program of $30 million.
  The costs go on and on and on, and we end up with an estimated total 
of somewhere around $900 million, and that is an open-ended estimate. 
That is the low-ball figure, folks. We are talking $1 billion plus for 
this undertaking.
  Now, I have to go back to the State of New Hampshire, and I have to 
talk to the taxpayers in my State. First I would have to try to explain 
to them the reason why American troops are occupying this country, why 
we have militarily taken over this country. I cannot do that. But 
equally, I have to justify to them where their tax dollars are going.
  The sum of $1 billion would run the State of New Hampshire for a 
year; $1 billion spent in the city of Washington, DC, would go a long 
way towards alleviating some of the violence in this city and certainly 
helping out with the educational system of this city; $1 billion is a 
lot of money. Yes, Haiti is a poor and desperate country and needs our 
assistance. But a lot of this money could be spent well in the United 
States, or maybe it could even be spent on some other foreign issue 
where we could actually define a national goal.
  But in Haiti, we have a lot of trouble justifying the vast amount of 
dollars that are going to be spent for a military occupation. I do not 
have a great deal of quarrel with the money being spent feeding 
Haitians. We are going to be feeding about 2 million Haitians a day. I 
think that is going to have to be done no matter how this process is 
worked out. That could be done through AID. But I have a great 
disagreement with the idea that we are going to spend literally about 
$1 billion just on maintaining our military force there and paying for 
it over the next few years.
  Of course, a considerable amount of money is being spent by Mr. 
Aristide personally here in this country, $1.8 million a month. That is 
not American tax dollars. That is dollars that are Haitian dollars that 
were in frozen assets here in this country.
  I guess the question has to be asked: ``Well, $1.8 million for what? 
We heard that a lot of this money is going to lobbying; $55,000 a month 
is what I understand goes to one lobbyist, a former Member of the House 
of Representatives. He happened to be active in the Western Hemisphere 
Subcommittee of Foreign Affairs in the House. I am sure he is a good 
lobbyist. I know he is a good lobbyist.
  But the fact is that I think that money could be well spent if Mr. 
Aristide wishes to spend it on something a little more worthwhile to 
his own people and maybe even we could feed instead of 2 million people 
2.5 million if we had $1.8 million a month to spend down there.
  So that becomes a question, not a dramatic one but one that raises 
more issues about the viability of the national interest of invading 
this poor and desperate country, and now not invading it but taking it 
over militarily.
  More importantly or equally importantly becomes the geopolitical 
terms of what this does. We have now set up a policy which in two ways 
fundamentally undermines our geopolitical activities. First, we had 
something called the Monroe Doctrine, which has been variously 
interpreted over a number of generations and a number of years. But the 
Monroe Doctrine essentially says that the Western Hemisphere issues 
shall be settled by Western Hemisphere countries, and specifically the 
United States will enforce that fact.
  We now have, however, a military occupation force in Haiti--and it is 
a military occupation, do not look at it any other way; that is what it 
is, just like a military occupation force was in Germany after World 
War II and in Japan after World War II--a military occupation force 
made up with European power and participation, fundamentally 
undermining what has been almost a 200-year policy of this country, 
which is that Western democracies, Western nations, Western Hemisphere 
nations, will settle Western Hemisphere issues, and that we will not 
involve European countries in our problems in this hemisphere.
  So we set a pretty bad precedent there. We have certainly opened the 
door. Granted, maybe it will not be a door ever used. Maybe it is just 
a crack. Maybe I am being too sensitive to the Monroe Doctrine. But the 
Monroe Doctrine is one of those things that served us well in the 
country for a time. I think when an administration departs from it, it 
had better have a darned good reason and explain why.
  The problem with this policy is that this administration has not been 
able to explain its policy and has been confused, to say the least, in 
its presentations to the American people. Then, in addition, we have 
the issue of what was given away at the United Nations to get United 
Nations approval of this invasion. That is still something that sticks 
a bit in my craw because the President has still refused to come to 
this Congress and ask for authority. And yet he did go to the United 
Nations and ask for authority to invade. I do think that he should have 
also come here and asked for the authority to undertake military action 
there.
  The point is that there were some deals made on that vote. We do not 
know what they are yet. We do not know what they are yet. But I am 
willing to bet that some of those deals involved Russia and its role 
with its sister states surrounding Russia. If they did not involve it 
explicitly, it was involved implicitly. The actions of Russia relative 
to the former Soviet Republics and sister nations around Russia and its 
sphere of influence now become a question which we have much less 
legitimacy commenting on when we invade a neighboring state. We are 
going to have a lot of difficulty saying to Russia: Well, you are not 
in a position to go into the Republic of Georgia, for example, and use 
Russian troops in that republic arbitrarily.
  We created a situation where our credibility in arguing or debating 
the issues of international policy has been fundamentally undermined, 
and what for? For no national interest which I find. Yet, we have 
pursued that course and clearly, I think, set in place a sequence of 
events which will probably lead to a new round of what in the old days 
was called sphere-of-influence politics. It was sphere-of-influence 
politics which led to the power politics which led to many of the major 
international confrontations over the years. It has not ever worked 
well, and it probably is not a good time to back into that type of 
diplomacy again. Yet, that is what we have done. We have basically 
backed into a new world order called sphere of influence politics, 
which is an old approach to politics but one which has been proven to 
be a failure over the years.
  So the issues become once again, I believe: Why did we go in; what is 
our national purpose; and how are we going to get out? As of right now, 
there is no clear definition or answer to any of those questions that I 
think is satisfactory to justify 15,000 American soldiers being on the 
ground and occupying the country of Haiti. The American taxpayers are 
paying the cost of that occupation. American prestige is being put on 
the line in the person of Jean Bertrand Aristide.
  There is no national policy which justifies us putting our imprimatur 
on the Government of Haiti that will succeed Mr. Aristide in being 
responsible for that Government for the foreseeable future. If we look 
at the history of Haiti, I think we have to conclude that it is 
unfortunately a sad country, sad not in the pejorative sense, but sad 
just in the sense that it has had hard times, sad in the sense that for 
200 years since it was able to obtain its freedom in a most spectacular 
way--and it is the first nation in this hemisphere, one of the first, 
possibly the first nation, to obtain such freedom from the colonial 
powers--it has been unable to maintain a government that has maintained 
civil order. The society has unfortunately evolved into a society which 
has been inherently violent, and it also has been a society which has 
been unable to produce the economic well-being necessary to give 
prosperity to its people. Rather, it has remained an extraordinarily 
poor place.
  I do believe it is extraordinarily naive for us as a nation to think 
that by going in there and occupying this country by military force--
which is the second time we have done it in this century, the last time 
being for 19 years, from 1915 to 1934--that we are going to change 
fundamentally the culture of Haiti. I suspect that 3 years from now, or 
5 years from now, when we look at Haiti--hopefully, our troops will 
have long been gone for a long period of time by then; hopefully, they 
will have had elections, and hopefully they will still be functioning 
as a democracy in some form-- but I suspect what we shall see is even 
if they do have the trappings of democracy, they will remain a violent 
nation and they will also not be that prosperous a nation. And we will 
have expended, once again, a huge amount of American prestige, 
influence, dollars and--hopefully not--possibly even American lives in 
the pursuit of an activity which has delivered no significant national 
benefit to us, and which, in the time it was pursued, there was no 
significant, definable national interest.

  I continue to have very severe reservations about the actions taken 
in this arena. I obviously support this resolution as it has been 
brought forth. I hope that our troops will be brought home as soon as 
possible.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am going to take a couple of minutes here, 
if I can, to respond to some of the points raised by my colleague from 
New England in his comments here about the situation in Haiti. I just 
want to address a couple of points, some of which are getting repeated 
often enough that I think they are becoming sort of accepted, and that 
is absolutely not the case.
  President Clinton has not retreated or retracted in any way from his 
description of the coup leaders in Haiti. The speech the President made 
last Thursday evening in which he, in my view, appropriately and 
properly described the behavior of these individuals, has not been 
retracted, to the best of my knowledge. Other people have drawn 
different conclusions--and that is certainly their right to do so--of 
whether or not these people are honorable, worthy, or just, or whatever 
other words may have been used to describe them. In fact, we have asked 
whether or not President Clinton retreated at all from his Thursday 
night description of these people, and very candidly, he said he had 
not.
  I point out further, Mr. President, that I think the scenes on our 
television screens over the last 24 hours certainly corroborate the 
description used by the President of the United States in talking about 
these people. Normally, with international media gathered around, 
usually thugs try to operate in the dark of night, clandestinely, in 
order to avoid the reputation that they might otherwise deserve. This 
crowd in Haiti disregards all of that.
  Here you have the entire world sitting there watching--live--as these 
characters with their nightsticks and weapons went out and brutally 
beat to death in front of the world an innocent civilian who was not 
engaged in anything. Of course, American soldiers just watched, because 
of the orders they have been under and the limited numbers that are 
there, and they described it appropriately. These people were doing 
nothing at all.
  So I, first of all, want to make it clear, because it has been said 
by so many that now there has somehow been a change in opinion by the 
administration regarding General Cedras and others. I know that former 
President Carter and others have used words in their own descriptions 
of these individuals, and they have met with them and they know them, 
and they certainly have a right to describe them.
  Mr. President, I have also met them. Earlier this year, I spent some 
4 hours with the high command in Port-au-Prince in the very building 
where a lot of the negotiations took place over this past weekend. I 
also lived near the border in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps 
volunteer a number of years ago. I have visited there on many occasions 
over the years. I have many good Haitian friends. I know the country 
well, and I know its history. They are a proud and independent people 
which is rich in cultural heritage. But they have had a very bleak and 
dismal political history, particularly in the last 50 or 60 years. But 
the history of their fight for independence is truly a noble story.
  My colleague from New Hampshire appropriately and properly said they 
were one of the earliest nations to achieve their independence in this 
hemisphere. In fact, they were the second. We were the first. The 
United States achieved its independence from a colonial power. Haiti 
was the second nation to do so in 1804 and did so by defeating, I point 
out, some of the strongest military leaders in the world.
  Napoleon's son-in-law, Leclerc, defeated them on a battlefield. 
Toussaint L'Ouverture, sort of the George Washington of Haiti, was 
educated in the court of Napoleon by Josephine, and was highly 
sophisticated and articulate. There was Henri Christophe, one of the 
great generals, who was functionally illiterate but a brilliant 
strategist. For those that may have visited Cape Haitien in the 
northern part of Haiti, there is the Citadel, built by Henri 
Christophe, and the Palace of Sans Souci. He was a brilliant strategist 
with a highly disciplined military force. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one 
of the leaders of the Haitian revolution in 1804, was a remarkable 
political strategist and military leader.
  Haiti was the nation that received Bolivar when he was seeking to 
throw off the shackles of colonial influence and power in Latin 
America. They provided a safe harbor for them, helped rearm them, and 
supported them. Haitians fought in our revolution, the American 
Revolution. The only reason we did not recognize their independence 
immediately was because of our own concern that somehow by recognizing 
a black independent nation in this hemisphere we might offer some 
encouragement to slaves prior to our own Civil War. But Haitians fought 
in the American Revolution. That is an established fact in record.
  This is a country of remarkable cultural identity. Some of the best 
art produced in this hemisphere is produced in Haiti. They have a rich 
musical tradition. I hope despite all the bad news in Haiti, people 
might spend a little time studying the history of that nation. They 
have had a rotten political history over the last number of years, and 
they are desperately poor. But do not confuse poverty and desperate 
political conditions for a people that are not proud and independent 
and determined to try and have hope in the future for democracy, 
independence, and freedom. They seek it very, very strongly.
  As I said a while ago, Mr. President, maybe I am a minority of one on 
this issue, but I think real men do fight for democracy. Maybe some do 
not believe that is worthy any longer, that you have to have some great 
strategic purpose here. But I still remember the days when Presidents 
and Congresses thought democracy was worth fighting for.
  I hope our soldiers get out of there. I do not like the fact that 
they are even in there. I wish the problems were resolved through other 
means. But I am not going to stand or sit here idly and listen to 
people talk about the defense of democracy as an unworthy cause. I 
suspect our soldiers down there understand that. They wish they were 
someplace else, and I do not blame them. But they understand it. Do not 
confuse it over the fact that somehow this is not worthy.
  Second, Mr. President, and I am somewhat done strained here because 
some of this information is only available to Members if they seek it 
out through the intelligence sources, but the notion somehow that 
General Cedras saved President Aristide's life is fundamentally, 
totally factually incorrect. That information is available to any 
Member of this body who wants to spend the time to dig out the 
information. The source of that claim that General Cedras saved 
President Aristide's life is General Cedras. That is what he said. But 
I know for a fact--and there is information available to people here, 
if they want to seek it out--that that is just untrue.
  Third, my colleague from New Hampshire said that the acting President 
of Haiti was chosen freely by the Parliament. That is totally untrue. 
He was put in that position by General Cedras. Nobody elected so-called 
President Jonassaint to the Presidency. He was placed there by the coup 
leaders. I point out that this is a guy who claimed credit for the 
airplane that almost ran into the White House, that he somehow willed 
this. That gives you an idea of this character and where he comes from, 
that he is claiming responsibility for somehow directing aircraft at 
the White House.
  (Mrs. MURRAY assumed the chair.)
  Mr. DODD. This is the guy we are told today by some that is a pretty 
responsible individual.
  Madam President, if people spend a little time they might find out 
otherwise.
  Lastly, regarding whether or not President Aristide has been 
supportive of democracy and supportive of human rights, I would refer 
my colleagues and those who may be interested to read the human rights 
reports done by the most reputable human rights organizations in the 
world who made an analysis of the Aristide government. Remember his 
government lasted from February 1991 to the end of September 1991. That 
is when the coup occurred. He had about 7 months in office. That is it.
  But the human rights organizations that examined that administration 
as to whether or not the Aristide government was fulfilling its 
obligations regarding human rights gave him a clean bill of health, a 
perfect one, no. There were problems there certainly. By comparison to 
what you are seeing today it is not even close.
  I would also urge my colleagues, and this is available to them, to go 
back and look at cable traffic between the American Embassy and our own 
State Department in those months. I have read every one of them, every 
one of them, and there are a lot of them, and there is not a single 
derogatory reference. That was the previous administration's 
Ambassador. In fact, there are references to the fact that he was doing 
a pretty good job and they were having a much more cooperative 
relationship. There were still some problems. But President Aristide 
was doing a far better job than I think many have thought.
  But the suggestion somehow this was an administration that was 
committing human rights violations was highly critical of other 
nations, not that that would necessarily be the last point to warrant 
people denouncing this individual.
  We get criticized by some of our so-called best friends around the 
world with some frequency. Nonetheless, there is a strong support here 
not just from my reports here today but from sources of information 
debunking some things being said.
  One thing people have different opinions on is whether or not we 
should have forces there and how soon they come out. I respect that, 
and that is certainly legitimate.
  The information that is factually incorrect gets stated often enough 
and it becomes the truth. It becomes the big lie in a sense.
  So, Madam President, I hope that as to some of these of points anyway 
people will examine the issues once again, and this has been stated I 
know by Senator DeConcini of Arizona, and others, but it deserves a 
brief repetition.
  In late September of 1991 when this coup took place, that threw 
President Aristide out of power, it was the Bush administration that 
was in charge of foreign policy. I would invite my colleagues to read, 
I think, a very good speech given by Secretary of State Jim Baker on 
October 2 before the Organization of American States. It is a very 
strong speech. It does not leave any doubt in my mind about how 
strongly he felt and the Bush administration felt over what had 
happened in Haiti, and it makes it awful clear as well what the Bush 
administration would be prepared to do if sanctions and embargoes and 
other efforts did not work.
  Secretary of State Baker did not say we are going to use military 
force, but Secretary Baker did say there are other additional means 
available to us. For those who knew Jim Baker, and I know him and like 
him--in fact, I have a high regard and respect for the job he did as 
Secretary of State--I do not think he was signaling directly that 
military force would absolutely be used, but Jim Baker was no shrinking 
violet either. When he said ``other means are available to us,'' he was 
not excluding, I will promise you, military force.
  President Bush at that time called the coup d'etat a threat to our 
national security--his words, not mine.
  To listen to some people here talk now that it is President Clinton 
in the White House all of a sudden that is no longer the case.
  So once again I even go back and revisit the history and come up with 
various solutions that might have applied and saved us from the 
situation we are in today, but this began under the Bush administration 
and continued in this administration. These things just did not occur a 
few weeks ago or a few days ago.
  I am not going to spend time to go back and, as I said earlier, to 
act as a so-called Monday morning quarterback and what I might have 
done differently or others might have done differently. I think today 
we need to support the forces that are there and hope they come home 
quickly, hope this agreement as imperfect as it is, but I think an 
agreement that deserves our support, will produce the desired results.
  Again I state emphatically, Madam President, certainly General Powell 
and Sam Nunn deserve great credit for working under very difficult 
circumstances, along with former President Carter, but it was President 
Clinton that created the situation by the use of the threat of the use 
of power and then sending that delegation down at the last hour to try 
and resolve this problem as the President of the United States. I think 
the bulk of the credit goes there. He has now got us in a situation 
where I think there is a very good chance we can resolve this situation 
without bloodshed, restore that legitimate government and bring our 
troops home as soon as possible. I certainly hope that is the result 
and this resolution I think states as well as you can under the 
circumstances those desires. I strongly hope it will be endorsed and 
supported unanimously by this body.
  Mr. DORGAN and Mr. BOREN addressed the Chair.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I will be delighted to yield whatever time 
my colleague from North Dakota desires.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me ask unanimous consent that I may 
speak for 3 minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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