[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 139 (Thursday, September 29, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  2100
 
                                 HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Roemer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Buyer] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor tonight to discuss 
an issue that has been discussed a lot here on the House floor, not 
really in forms of debate, not in forms of hearings that have occurred 
in any of the committees except for one recent discussion today in the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs room on the Torricelli bill, or actually 
resolution.
  I came to the floor to discuss Haiti. The only way I can really begin 
to discuss Haiti is starting with the history of Haiti. Then I want to 
discuss the President's foreign policy, some indecisions at the White 
House, the characterization of problems with regard to Haiti 
intervention, I will list 3 points. Then I want to discuss where we go 
from here.
  Haiti, we have to understand, was established in 1804 after a slave 
revolt against the French. It was ruled by ex-slaves. The political 
system was full of problems from its inception. Twenty-two different 
dictators ruled Haiti from 1843 to 1915. Of these, only one served out 
his term. Many were forcibly removed from office, three died in office, 
one was blown up, one was poisoned, one was hacked to death and one 
resigned. Between 1867 and 1910, there were 8 United States military 
interventions in Haiti to save foreign lives and property.
  In 1915, President Wilson sent the United States Marines when 
Haitians revolted, dragged their then President from his palace and 
killed him. Three thousand marines occupied Haiti and met some 
resistance. The marines began a long term of nation-building projects 
building roads, installing sewer systems, had a telephone system, 
forming and training and leading the Haitian police force and running 
vital governmental functions. A revolt of peasants from 1920 to 1922 
resulted in 3,000 Haitians and 1,400 Americans dead, so history says. 
This caused public opinion both in Haiti and in the United States to 
turn against the occupation. In 1934, the marines left Haiti, no more 
prosperous in the democratic forum than it was in 1915.
  Haiti continued to suffer through a series of dictators until 1957 
when six regimes rose and fell in 1 year. On the edge of civil war, 
Francois Papa Doc Duvalier took over power. This began a corrupt and 
murderous regime that was so infamous that President Kennedy cut off 
aid to Haiti in 1963. Papa Doc turned over power to his son Baby Doc in 
1973 and the atrocities continued until 1986 when Baby Doc was forced 
into exile. From 1986 to 1991, six more regimes came and went until 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected in early 1991 only to be overthrown 
by a military coup later that same year.
  That is the history of Haiti. Let me shift to the President's foreign 
policy and I will return to the history.
  President Clinton's foreign policy is based on an idea of enlarging 
democracy. One of President Clinton's national security staff Morton 
Halperin wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs last year that:

       When people attempt to hold free elections and establish a 
     constitutional democracy, the United States and the 
     international community should not only assist but should 
     guarantee the result.

  He also wrote in this article of guaranteeing democracy that an 
international guarantee clause will be credible only if key countries 
including the United States commit to using force to restore or 
establish constitutional democracy.
  The spell this out, when you read this article, you get a good 
blueprint of the President's foreign policies, especially with regard 
to Haiti. The analogy is, here in the United States, we have a 
guarantee clause in our Constitution. The guarantee clause would be 
that when there are other States out there, if there is a State that 
seeks to change from a republican form of government, the guarantee 
clause will ensure that all other States will make sure that that State 
that seeks to change is not allowed and will guarantee a republican 
form of government. That is what we have in our Constitution.
  What Mr. Halperin is suggesting is that in our international 
agreements, we should have a guarantee clause. Now, think about this. 
We have a guarantee clause in our U.S. Constitution. Morton Halperin 
suggests that we should have international guarantee clauses in these 
agreements. So if there is a country out there that wants to turn 
democratic, the credibility from an international guarantee clause 
would be the use of force. So in order for that to occur in his thesis 
he says that we, the United States, must give up our unilateral 
abilities to act in the world and only move in a multilateral force. 
What that means is that we in the United States would give up our 
unilateral abilities and move to the United Nations and allow the 
United Nations to move in a multilateral force to guarantee democracy 
abroad in other countries who seek to be democratic. That is exactly 
what is occurring with Haiti.
  I encourage anyone to read Morton Halperin's article on guaranteeing 
democracy. You begin to understand what is occurring in the White 
House. I do not question the sincerity of the President or his national 
security advisers on what they are trying to do. If you read this 
article, you begin to understand much better how thy are seeking their 
process. I do not agree with it. I do not agree at all with it. But you 
begin to understand much better where they are coming from.
  I think it is difficult to establish a consistent and workable 
foreign policy that is based on such a utopian ideal. In 1991, the 
United States went to war in the Persian Gulf not only to stop the 
aggressor nation from overwhelming the peaceful neighbor of Kuwait, but 
also to protect the world's oil supply and to seek stability in a 
region of the world in fact which was unstable. In doing so we 
protected one autocratic regime, Saudi Arabia, and rescued another, 
Kuwait. These were not democracies, yet this action was in our United 
States vital national security interest.

                              {time}  2110

  In 1992 Algeria was about to elect a Moslem fundamentalist government 
that was hostile to the United States. The military overthrew the 
fundamentalists. I doubt that it would have been in America's best 
interests to uphold this democratic fundamentalist regime.
  In Nigeria last year the elected civilian leader was jailed by the 
military, yet we did not intervene in that nation, and the military 
remains in charge.
  If we follow this utopian ideal set out by Mr. Halperin, which they 
are following at the White House, we could find ourselves engaged in 
many places throughout the world. I believe we should return to a 
pragmatic foreign policy that is based on protecting America's vital 
national security interests. American military forces should only be 
deployed when those interests are truly threatened, and also to protect 
and save American lives abroad.
  In remarks to the National Press Club on November 28, 1984, then-
Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger outlined six criteria for the 
use of force overseas. He called it the Weinberger doctrine. The 
Weinberger doctrine was at that time drafted by a young general who was 
moving through the ranks rather quickly by the name of Colin Powell. It 
set forth that, first, vital national interests must be at stake. 
Second, troops should be committed with the intention of winning. 
Third, we should have clearly defined military and political goals. 
Fourth, we should size our forces to accomplish our goals. Fifth, the 
military commitment must have the backing of the American people. Last, 
and sixth, the forces should be committed as a last resort.
  President Clinton I believe has violated most of these principles of 
the Weinberger doctrine with his recent intervention in Haiti. In 
addition to being based on the unachievable utopian ideal of Morton 
Halperin's theories, Clinton's foreign policy is dangerously 
multilateral. It is obvious from this most recent intervention and from 
the previous one in Somalia that he is more interested in the approval 
of the United Nations than the opinion of the American people and that 
of the elected representatives here in the U.S. Congress.
  Many of us on both sides of the aisle have been asking for debates. I 
asked for hearings in the Armed Services Committee. I did it in May, I 
did it in June, I did it in July, I did it in August, and I did it in 
September. Those hearings do not come, and it is completely 
unfortunate.
  The problems with the Haitian intervention, one point I would like to 
make is that there are no clear vital national security interests in 
Haiti. This intervention will not solve the economic, social and 
political problems in Haiti. You cannot restore democracy in a place 
where it never was in the first place.
  The military forces should be used when our vital national security 
interests are at stake and American lives are threatened. Haiti cannot 
be compared to, as I read in the press, and as the President sought in 
justification, cannot be compared to Panama where at that time one 
United States officer was killed, one military family kidnaped the 
canal threatened with major drug trafficking and the declaration of war 
even against the United States. And in Grenada, a Russian financed, 
Cuban-built airfield under construction, 800 U.S. students threatened 
by the shoot-to-kill night curfew. At no time has Haiti presented a 
security threat to the United States or the stability of the region, 
not only within our own hemisphere, not only within our own continent, 
but not even in the Caribbean.

  The so-called crisis I believe was created by President Clinton, who 
then forced a situation where Clinton's credibility was on the line. 
The Presidents political credibility I believe is the worst possible 
reason to risk Americans lives. This is no time I believe for the 
administration to thump their chest for having taken one of the poorest 
nations in our hemisphere. While it has always been accepted that our 
forces could enter Haiti easily, it is difficult to see how we can 
expect our forces to accomplish the long-term mission of nation 
building.
  Point No. 2 is that returning Aristide to power does not mean 
democracy in Haiti. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a defrocked priest who 
has embraced Marxism and is anti-American. Aristide is no George 
Washington. Two days before he was ousted in a coup he gave the speech 
of which many have talked, advocating the use of necklacing for his 
political enemies. Aristide has actively and passively supported his 
followers taking violent revenge upon political opponents and even 
those in the Catholic Church in Haiti. It has been Clinton's support 
for Aristide's unwillingness to even consider amnesty for General 
Cedras that has brought this crisis to a head. The Governors Island 
Agreement had a clause that guaranteed Cedras amnesty. Aristide 
withdrew his support for this amnesty. Aristide withdrew his support 
for this amnesty after the agreement was signed. Cedras subsequently 
refused to sit down as called for in the accord.
  Aristide has been a reluctant and ungrateful supporter of the United 
States actions in Haiti. After 3 days of silence following the landing 
of U.S. troops he has only said thank you. He has given speeches, but 
you can tell in his tone. After pressure from the administration and 
full honors on arrival at the Pentagon with a 21-gun salute has brought 
about his comments.
  According to the Washington Post, Anthony Lake and Strobe Talbott 
return Aristide as a way of distancing the administration from the 
policy of supporting brutal military leaders in Latin America, because 
they were friends of big business or anticommunism.
  William Grey III, the White House special adviser on Haiti and former 
Member of this body, did state that ``We used to put in place 
characters like Cedras in order to keep characters like Aristide out.''
  The third point I would like to make is that the United States is 
conducting a form of liberal colonialism in Haiti. I first heard the 
Senator from Indiana, Dick Lugar, talk about this new era of 
colonialism, and I think he is right. President Clinton has conducted a 
military operation to install someone who is an anti-American defrocked 
priest as president. The operation is full of inconsistencies. 
President Clinton allowed former President Carter to turn General 
Cedras from being the thug into America's new partner in maintaining 
order in Haiti. Cedras says he will not leave and Aristide says he must 
go. Folks, this creates a lot of real problems. The U.S. forces are 
stuck right in the middle and mission creep sets in.
  First United States forces are not allowed to interfere to stop the 
Haitian police from beating civilians. They have to just stand by and 
watch the brutality. Then they change the orders. Now our forces are 
charged with maintaining civil order. United States troops will now 
disarm the Haitian military and police, then protect the military and 
police from angry Aristide supporters who want revenge. U.S. troops 
will protect the Parliament so it can meet and vote the amnesty called 
for in the Carter agreement or else Cedras will not sit down and 
Aristide will not return.
  To quote one of the recent columnists, ``We are in Haiti to restore 
democracy to a country that never had it, to build a civilian-
controlled military where it had never existed and to create a secure 
environment for peaceful transition of power among murderous rivals.''
  What really concerns me is placing the U.S. military in the middle. 
It is hard to predict in a country such as Haiti the volatility between 
warring factions.

                              {time}  2120

  We cannot forget the lessons that occurred with the mission creep in 
Somalia, when you take the military and you place them in the position 
of being now a referee, and that at some point in time then having to 
choose a side as they walk into the street, and they see fighting or a 
gunburst.
  How is that 19-year-old private going to make a decision on who is 
the good guy and who is the bad guy? You see, you have to exercise some 
good common sense here. I believe the sooner the U.S. military gets 
out, the better. The sooner we can establish an environment for which 
Mr. Aristide returns, we get out, and a peacekeeping force in an 
international capacity goes in, the better, because, you see, when the 
United States moves in and places themselves on the side of Mr. 
Aristide, they have chosen sides, and once Aristide comes back into 
power, things are going to happen.
  Even Mr. Aristide may try, in his efforts to stop any activities, any 
murderous conduct or terror, it is going to happen. There have been 
people who want to get back, revenge, seek retribution.
  Now, where does that place our military? How about Cedras' followers, 
taking potshots at our military?
  You see, it really concerns me. I will exercise common sense. When 
you come from Indiana and a basketball State, when our military comes 
in and plays the part of a referee, you cannot choose sides, because 
when you choose sides, you become a target.
  Let us say there is a basketball game between Indiana and Notre Dame, 
I am going to be the referee. Now, what protects me between the 
players, or like the soldiers, the players on the floor in that arena 
and from the fans is my neutrality. So during that game I can make all 
the calls and nobody gets too upset. They might a little bit, because 
they see that I am neutral, but now if I come to the game already being 
on the side of Indiana, wearing an Indiana T-shirt, I say I am already 
for Indiana, I want Indiana to win, and I am going to promote Indiana, 
and then I am going to take the floor.
  First of all, Notre Dame is going to think something is up. Then when 
I am on the floor, Notre Dame is on a breakaway layup, I have had it 
with this guy who does all the scoring, so I trip him and throw him 
into the wall. I tell you what, I have no neutrality whatever. I have 
shown what side I am going to be on. I am not neutral.
  U.S. troops cannot participate in peacekeeping missions. They are not 
neutral. They have already established a side, Aristide's side. So they 
become targets to other factions, and that referee becomes a target not 
only by Notre Dame, now also upset, but also from Notre Dame fans who 
definitely want to throw me out of the arena.
  So we have to be very careful in this era of multilateralism. I do 
not care if it is Haiti, I do not care if the President wants to live 
up to his commitment and puts troops in Yugoslavia, if we conduct air 
strikes and dropping bombs and being seen as an enemy, you cannot put 
United States troops on the ground, put them in peacekeeping missions, 
and call them neutral if they have already decided which side they are 
going to be on, because they are targets. So we have to be very, very 
careful.
  I think we have been very fortunate so far on the limited loss of 
life. I note we had lost one military officer.
  I guess, really, where do we go from here? I am not a Member of this 
body who just likes to bash. I think it is very important. I think it 
would be wonderful if we had more open debates and discussions and a 
more democratic process really in the House to really get in and debate 
matters of policy.

  You see, I was one that was pretty upset when I constantly asked for 
hearings on the Committee on Armed Services with reference to let us 
debate Haiti, let us debate it, let us talk about it--let us debate it, 
let us talk about it, let us exhaust our ideas, and it never happened. 
And then as soon as we have a peaceful entry of Haiti, immediately 
rushed to the House floor is this vote, a vote to commend the 
President, commend Carter--former President Jimmy Carter--and Senator 
Sam Nunn, and Gen. Colin Powell, and to commend the troops.
  You see, I was pretty upset about that. I really felt that was 
politics, and I would not participate in it, and I voted ``present.'' 
You see, it is pure politics. All of a sudden we can rush to vote 
something to commend, but no, let us not debate and discuss the 
ramifications of military intervention of Haiti.
  President Clinton right now has placed our military in an impossible 
situation, but I think one from which we can discern.
  Now that our forces are in Haiti, there are a few good options, 
whether we stay or leave. United States forces are in Haiti. Their 
stated mission is to ensure the Haitian military complies with the 
provisions of the Carter agreement, ensure the safe return of President 
Aristide, and provide for parliamentary elections, facilitate the flow 
of humanitarian aid, ensure the return of Haitian refugees from 
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
  Today the Committee on Foreign Affairs passed on a party-line vote, 
27 to 18, a bill sponsored by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Torricelli], authorizing the United States military to stay in Haiti 
until March 1, 1995, and limiting its role to protecting United States 
citizens, stabilizing security, and helping provide humanitarian aid.
  While I oppose this military intervention in Haiti, I have serious 
reservations about setting a ``date certain'' for our withdrawal. 
Setting a date will create a situation on the ground in Haiti that will 
hamper our military's ability to conduct any type of operation, 
including an orderly withdrawal. Setting a date may unnecessarily 
endanger our troops already on the ground in Haiti by allowing 
opposition forces to lay low until we leave before rising again to 
create more unrest. We saw that in Somalia.
  Given the situation, we need to ensure the swift transition of power 
from the coup leaders to a legitimate government. With this being 
accomplished, our forces should not remain in Haiti to referee the 
hostilities between the two rival groups.
  I have cited that example. You see, we have already chosen sides. We 
cannot just move in and say, ``OK, now they are going to be 
peacekeepers.'' It is time to move out.
  Our mission, the missions in Haiti, should be limited, clearly 
defined, and achievable. We should not become involved in the long-
term, open-ended mission such as nation-building or restoring 
democracy. These are utopian ideals that involve the long-term reform 
of the entire Haitian culture.
  Given Haiti's history, it is highly unlikely we could succeed. It is 
certainly not a mission for our Armed Forces, so we should do what is 
responsible and prudent, and that is to get our troops out as soon as 
possible from Haiti.
  Mr. WELDON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BUYER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. WELDON. I thank my colleague for yielding, and I appreciate his 
taking out this very important special order this evening.
  This has been a continuing effort on the part of many of our 
colleagues in the House to bring forth facts that we would like to 
debate openly on the House floor as well as in committee on Haiti but 
have not been given that opportunity.
  I know my colleague and friend who sits on the Committee on Armed 
Services, as I do, shares my feelings that we have an obligation as 
members of the Committee on Armed Services to especially watch out for 
the safety and well-being of our troops.
  The special concern we have, as we have had in Desert Storm and even 
when our troops have been deployed out here domestically as they were 
with Hurricane Andrew and other sites, is to make sure we are doing 
what is in their best interests, and I think it is probably safe to say 
that the majority of our colleagues who sit on the Committee on Armed 
Services are not happy with where we are in terms of Haiti.
  I want to discuss a couple of points and build upon some issues that 
the gentleman raised this evening in the remaining time, if he will 
allow me.
  The first is, I think, the misconceptions that have been brought 
forth to the American people and Members as to why we are in Haiti. The 
President and our U.N. Ambassador and our Secretary of State made a 
series of speeches where they maintained that one of the prime reasons 
for going into Haiti was to stop the boat people from coming in, to 
protect our country from illegal immigration. I would submit if that is 
our policy perhaps we should invade Mexico, because we have far more 
illegal immigrants coming across the border from Mexico than have ever 
come in from Haiti.
  But be it as it may, we have to look at why are these boat people 
coming to America. I think we have to go back to November 12, 1992, 
when then-candidate Bill Clinton made the following quote while George 
Bush was the President of the United States, and he said, ``I think 
that sending the refugees back to Haiti is an error, so I will modify 
that process. I can tell you I am going to change that policy.''
  Now, here is a candidate for the Presidency of the United States 
stating publicly his criticism of then-President George Bush because he 
was stopping the boat people, and this candidate for the highest office 
in the country said, ``When I am elected, and if I am elected, I will 
change that policy, and I will allow the boat people to come in.'' Yet 
2 years later, after the boat people are coming in, he says, ``We are 
going to put our troops in Haiti, because we have to stop the boat 
people from coming here.''
  Part of the reason why we are where we are today in regard to Haiti 
is because of the President not having a consistent policy when it 
comes to our relationship with Haiti.

                              {time}  2130

  The second thing that has really bothered me about this whole 
operation, besides the fact that we have not been able to have a full 
debate before putting our troops into harm's way, was that the 
President, when he spoke to the American people that Thursday evening 
before the mission moved into Haiti, made the case this was going to be 
a multinational effort, in fact this was not going to be America alone. 
In fact, he boasted of the fact that 24 countries had agreed to join 
this effort, they were going to be supplying troops and dollars and so 
forth.
  Most of us knew that was not the case because all of our key allies 
had denied the request to go in with us; Canada, Great Britain, our 
European allies did not want to put any of their troops in harm's way 
and, in fact, would not cooperate in the Haitian effort.
  In fact, here we are now, 11 days after the occupation of Haiti by 
some 19,000 troops--as I mentioned earlier today--I had the opportunity 
in a hearing yesterday on the Armed Services Committee to ask Deputy 
Secretary of Defense John Deutch exactly how many of our allied 
cooperative nations were involved in the Haiti mission as of that date. 
As of yesterday there were 19,000 American young troops all throughout 
Haiti; the total amount of other nations amounted to 24 individuals--
not 24 nations, 24 people. When I asked him where those 24 were, he 
went on to say in front of the committee that those 24 were in the 
headquarters building in Port-au-Prince.
  Mr. Speaker, that really bothers me because here we are being led as 
a nation to believe that this really is a multinational effort, that we 
are sharing the responsibility, when nothing could be further from the 
truth.
  Secretary Deutch went on to tell us in committee that there will be 
additional commitments of troops and some are being trained right now 
for the police part of this operation, not for the initial military 
occupation.
  But he also told us, and this leads to another major concern that I 
have, that America will bear the full cost of this operation. We will, 
the taxpayers of this country, pay the full cost for all of those 
troops that go into Haiti with us. The United Nations will not pay that 
bill; Haiti will not pay that bill; Aristide will not pay that bill; 
the American taxpayers will pay that bill.
  When I asked Secretary Deutch what that amount of money would be, he 
hemmed and hawed and said, well, there was one figure floating around 
in the Pentagon that talks about an amount somewhere near $800 million 
but he doubted that it would go that high.
  Most of us who sit on the Armed Services Committee know full well 
that the internal documents of the Pentagon show that, depending upon 
how long we stay in Haiti, that figure could rise to $1.5 billion.
  Here we are talking about not enough money for some of the basic 
domestic problems we have in this country. We are talking about not 
being able to extend unemployment comp benefits to people that are out 
of work; we are talking about not having enough money to meet some of 
the other concerns that Americans have, student loan funding for kids 
who want to go to college. Yet we are going to spend $1.5 billion of 
our taxpayers' money to fund the Haiti operation, where many of us 
believe 6 months after we leave Haiti we will find the country in 
exactly the same situation we found it, as we outlined by my colleague, 
Mr. Buyer, here tonight. That has been the policy and the history of 
Haiti throughout this century.
  So cost, in fact, is a big factor in terms of how long we are 
staying. But there is another issue that has not been raised much that 
needs to be talked about. This President did something in Haiti that 
undermines a basic foreign policy objective of this country throughout 
this entire century. One of the most hallowed principles of American 
foreign policy has been to keep the military power of other nations out 
of the Western Hemisphere. From the Monroe Doctrine to the 1947 Rio 
Treaty setting up a hemispheric cooperative military force, every U.S. 
administration, Republican and Democrat, during that time period has 
insisted that no other nonwestern hemisphere nation come into our 
hemisphere to help militarily in terms of a threatening situation. Yet 
that is exactly what we have done here.

  Just this past week, the President announced that even Russia would 
be sending troops to Haiti. Many of the most learned foreign policy 
experts in this Nation now feel that we have made a grave error. We 
have opened the door and established a precedent for other military 
operations, not just in the Western Hemisphere, but we have also--
supposedly behind the scenes--agreed to an understanding with Russia 
whereas we will not object to their activities in the former Republic 
of Georgia.
  So there are foreign policy implications well beyond Haiti that 
unfortunately have been overturned with our current mission there.
  My key concern right now, Mr. Speaker, is how are we going to get our 
troops out of Haiti? I was over in Somalia in January after we sent our 
troops in that fall to allow the relief supplies to get to the starving 
people in Mogadshu and Baidoa and the rest of the impoverished nation.
  While we were in Mogadishu, we were at the United States command 
center meeting with General Johnston, Once again, the 10th Mountain 
Division was in Somalia, and as they are doing now in Haiti, they did a 
fantastic job there. In our discussions with General Johnston, we said, 
``When do you expect the United Nations to take over so that the United 
States troops could come back from Somalia.'' What he told us was that 
he had not heard from or seen anyone from the United Nation. We all 
know that it was not until May of that year that we began to see U.S. 
troops come home.
  Unfortunately, we did not turn over the entire command. We allowed 
4,500 of our troops to stay. We denied the backup support they needed 
that was requested by one of our on-scene generals. and in September of 
that year we lost 20 young Americans to the point we were not even able 
to go in there and retrieve their bodies in downtown Mogadishu after 
they had been attacked, and their bodies were dragged through the 
streets of that country.
  Many of us fear the same thing could occur in Haiti.
  A question that I asked of General Sheehan and the Deputy Secretary 
of Defense at our briefing 2 days ago, I said it is not a question of 
when General Shalikashvili determines we should turn it over, that is 
the easy part. We have confidence in our generals, in our military 
leadership. The question is not when General Shali is ready to turn 
over command, the question is when will the United Nations be ready to 
take over the command in Haiti?
  As of this moment we see we no U.N. activity, we see no U.N. 
multinational force moving into place, and we see articles like the one 
that was in the Boston Globe just this past week saying we could have 
extensive involvement in Haiti through the year 1996.
  If that occurs, we continue to subject American young men and women 
to possible attacks like the one we saw today, where five innocent 
citizens were killed. We also see a larger and larger dollar figure in 
terms of the amount of money we are going to have to spend to keep the 
Haiti operation viable.

  And we do this at a time when we are cutting back on the readiness of 
our reserve forces, cutting back on the amount of training and steaming 
hours and flying hours for our military because our defense budget is 
already being squeezed in such a hostile manner.
  Mr. Speaker, there are just too many things here that do not add up. 
But what really bothers most of the colleagues that I have talked to in 
this body is what appears to be the long-term understanding of why we 
are going into Haiti in the first place.
  I know that all goes back to the series of internal U.N. memos 
prepared by the U.N. special envoy, Dante Caputo. In those documents 
released during the summer on ABC-TV and the Wall Street Journal, two 
internal memos where Dante Caputo was writing to Boutros-Ghali telling 
him about what the U.S. ultimate goal was and what our intentions were, 
as well as the notes from the two meetings that Dante Caputo attended 
with both U.S. administration officials, including Strobe Talbott, and 
other officials from other allied nations. Those documents clearly show 
as far back as May of this year that the U.S. intent was not to solve 
this problem diplomatically but rather to resort to a military action.
  I have placed the Dante Caputo memos and internal notes into the 
Congressional Record in their entirety on two separate occasions, in 
early August of this year, when I first got them, and again the first 
week of September to focus attention on these memos.
  I have done talk radio shows all across the country, CNN live debates 
to let the American people and our colleagues understand that here was 
the U.N. special envoy to Haiti telling us we are going to experience 
what we are now experiencing, that President Clinton in fact was going 
to have our troops enter Haiti sometime before the end of the summer 
or, at the very latest, by the November elections. And that is in black 
and white in these special documents.
  The documents further stated that Dante Caputo's impressions were 
that the United States actually stopped, and held back, and put a brake 
on the actual negotiated settlement in terms of Haiti's leadership and 
actually wanted to see a military involvement to help bolster the 
President's political standing.

                              {time}  2140

  All of this, Mr. Speaker, is in black and white, and that is what so 
enrages me.
  We have tried to see whether or not these memos are true. We have not 
had anyone refute them, but two startling things have happened.
  The first, Mr. Speaker, was in August when the gentleman from Texas 
[Mr. Fields], the ranking member of the Committee on Merchant Marine 
and Fisheries that oversees the Coast Guard, of which I am a member, a 
ranking member of a subcommittee there; Jack Fields held a briefing in 
his office with eight of our colleagues. We had the Commandant of the 
Coast Guard present. We had other members of the Coast Guard personnel, 
and we had one of the top assistants to the President's national 
security team from the White House. At that meeting were other Members 
of this body. I asked him very specifically in August, ``What is the 
administration's response to the Dante Gaputo memos which say we're 
going to be in Haiti militarily within a matter of weeks and months?''

  His response to me, in front of all of our colleagues, was, ``No 
comment. The President and the administration have no comment. Not 
denying them, not saying they're false, simply no comment.''
  The second thing that is of concern in relation to these memos is 
that, when the President decided to go into Haiti a week ago Sunday, 
the next day, on Monday, Dante Caputo announced that he was resigning 
from his post at the United Nations, and in his resignation statement 
he referred to the fact that he was so upset with the policy that the 
United States had taken in regard to Haiti, that clearly this had been 
our objective all along and that he saw it coming, that we, as a 
nation, really had no intent of allowing a negotiated settlement to 
occur.
  So here you have the same man who was in these meetings who wrote 
these internal memos to Boutros-Ghali now having the integrity to 
resign his position because of America's action, and what did our 
President do? He did not invade Haiti on a day that we were in session 
when we could vote. He waited until we were in recess for the Jewish 
holiday, and on that Sunday evening, when he knew we would not be in 
session, he ordered the planes to take off with our troops.
  Mr. Speaker, someone has to answer the Dante Caputo memos because in 
my opinion they are a time bomb waiting to explode because, if they are 
true, what, in fact, they say is, that the President and this 
administration entered Haiti for purely political purposes to enhance 
the President's image in terms of being a world leader. It is clear. It 
is in the memos. They are in the Record. In fact, our colleague 
inserted them in the Record again this evening.
  Nowhere in the history of this country have we ever seen a Commander 
in Chief commit our troops to enhance his political standing, and 
certainly not without a full debate in this body and a vote in this 
body, yet that is what is happening.
  I was hoping, as many of my colleagues were hoping, that we would get 
a chance to ask Strobe Talbott or Warren Christopher, our Secretary of 
State, directly as to what their response was to the Caputo memos. The 
Committee on Armed Services briefing, which was held 2 days ago, was 
supposed to have three witnesses. The witnesses were supposed to be 
John Deutsch, who showed up; General Sheehan, in charge of operations 
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who showed up; and Strobe Talbott 
representing the State Department. Strobe Talbott's name tag was on the 
table, but Strobe Talbott never showed up for the 2-hour briefing with 
members of the Committee on Armed Services. Even through he was not 
there, Mr. Speaker, I asked the questions about the Caputo memos 
because they have to be answered.
  Now the Committee on Foreign Affairs had held a hearing the day 
before. Strobe Talbott showed up for that hearing, and he was asked 
about the memos, and in published reports today in the Washington 
papers he denies knowing anything about them and, furthermore, denies 
any conversations with Dante Caputo that would suggest what Caputo 
wrote to Boutros-Ghali that America's motives were less than honorable 
in terms of our position with Haiti.
  Mr. Speaker, what this leads to is a simple conclusion: Someone is 
lying. Either Dante Caputo, the U.N. special enovy to Haiti, is lying 
when he said as far back as May 23 of this year that we had no intent 
of involving Haiti without a political involvement--I mean a military 
involvement--or else Strobe Talbott is lying. Mr. speaker, the American 
people deserve to know the truth; Members of this body deserve to know 
the truth; and constituents of ours across the country, and especially 
our Armed Forces, deserve to know the truth.

  Mr. Speaker, I would say to you that during the 8 years I have served 
on the Committee on Armed Services I have used every moment of my time 
to fight for the best interests of our military. I have been to every 
place that we have sent them to make sure they are properly protected, 
they have the best equipment, their morale is up. But I can tell you 
right now, today, that while I support them unequivocally--I will do 
anything to assist them in Haiti--but I know it is only a matter of 
time before we see additional casualties in Haiti. We have already had 
one young military personnel that has been killed. We do not know the 
events surrounding his death. We think it is a possible suicide, but 
that has not been determined yet. We know today we had five civilians 
that were bombed by hand grenades. We are going to see more of this 
occur.
  Mr. Speaker, at the very least this body has to debate this issue. We 
have been told we will debate it next week, 2\1/2\ weeks after we 
entered Haiti. That is unacceptable.
  What also has offended me with the President is when he stood up in 
the national news conference the day after the vote in this House 
Chamber last Monday in terms of supporting our troops and said to the 
media, ``I was very pleased that the House of Representatives voted 
overwhelmingly today to support our position in Haiti,'' and then the 
White House came on CNN later on and said, ``No Democrat opposed that 
measure.'' Mr. speaker, I called CNN and had them correct that on the 
news that evening, which they did, because, as we all know, that 
resolutions was not one to support the President's Haiti policy.
  That resolution said two things. It said this Congress recognizes and 
supports the efforts of Jimmy Carter's team that went down to Haiti to 
avert a military armed intervention in Haiti, and for that we were very 
happy and thankful, and the second thing that resolution said was that 
we support our troops. There was no mention in that resolution of 
support for President Clinton, yet he said publicly on TV that he hoped 
the Senate would pass a resolution also supporting him.
  In fact, during the debate on the House floor that day on that very 
resolution there were 34 Members of Congress who spoke in the well or 
at one of the microphones. These are people who did not insert their 
comments in the Record. Fourteen of those Members are Republican, and 
all 14 Republicans said they were voting for the resolution and 
supporting it but they did not support the President's policy. Twenty 
Members, of the Democrat Party, also spoke on that resolution and 10 of 
them, half of them, expressed reservations during their comments in 
regard to the President's policy of committing our troops there. So 24 
of 34 Members of this body who spoke on the House floor on that 
resolution said unequivocally that we have concerns with the 
President's policy. Many of them said they would like to have an up or 
down vote as to whether or not we should commit our troops there.
  Now our troops have been there 11 days, still in harm's way, no end 
in sight, no game plan, and we are talking about a vote and debate next 
week. Mr. Speaker, I think this policy is wrong. I think it 
is outrageous, and it scares me because I have constituents who are in 
Haiti wearing our uniform, especially in light of what I feel to be an 
unhonorable way to go in there in light of Dante Caputo's memos saying 
that our total initiative all through the summer was to have a military 
occupation occur.

  Mr. Speaker, I would hope that our colleagues would continue to 
express outrage on this issue. I would hope that at some point in time 
one of our committees could have Dante Caputo come before that 
committee, and I have asked for that on the Committee on Armed 
Services. I have written to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dellums], the chairman, and also to the ranking member, the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] asking them to invite Dante Caputo to 
come in and testify as to the veracity of his memos and the internal 
notes, as well as the reason why he resigned, and to respond to Strobe 
Talbott's testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs 2 
days ago that said that that was not in fact what he said to Dante 
Caputo and was not the impression that he left him.
  Mr. Speaker, someone is lying. Someone is lying, and that lying has 
allowed us to put our troops in harm's way, and we have got to get to 
the bottom of what our real motives are. More importantly, we have to 
obtain a timetable as to when those troops are going to be brought 
home.

                              {time}  2150

  Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to again remind our colleagues that may 
be listening tonight, and our constituents, that they can obtain copies 
of the Caputo memos--and there are 13 pages of them--from the 
Congressional Record. It has now been inserted three times, including 
today, so they can see for themselves and read for themselves what in 
fact the United Nations said we would do, that in fact we are doing at 
this very point in time in Haiti with our military troops.

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