[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 25, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10603-S10648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA SELF-DEFENSE ACT

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, pursuant to the unanimous consent agreement 
on July 20, I now ask the Senate resume consideration of S. 21, the 
Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act.
  I have asked my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, to 
lead the effort this afternoon. Also, will my colleague from Virginia 
be willing to help manage the effort this afternoon?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will be privileged to do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 21) to terminate the United States arms embargo 
     applicable to the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.

       Pending:
       Dole amendment No. 1801, in the nature of a substitute.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of this 
proposal, which I am privileged to cosponsor with the distinguished 
Senate majority leader and a large number of other Senators from both 
sides of the aisle.
  If passed, and we hope it will be passed overwhelmingly, this 
proposal will provide for a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo that 
was imposed against the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and remains in effect 
today, most notably victimizing the people of Bosnia.
  There are times when people speak of this arms embargo as if it were 
Holy Writ, it were descended from the heavens, it were the Ten 
Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.
  The arms embargo against Bosnia is a political act, adopted by the 
Security Council of the United Nations in 1991, when Yugoslavia was 
still intact. It is, in the narrow legal sense, therefore, in my 
opinion, illegal as it is applied to Bosnia because Bosnia did not even 
exist as a separate country at that time.
  But more to the point and ironically, cynically, when adopted by the 
United Nations Security Council in 1991, this arms embargo on the 
former Yugoslavia was requested by and supported by the then Government 
of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, which is to say the Milosevic government. 
And I say cynically because the pattern that was to follow was clear 
then, which was that the Milosevic government was going to set about 
systematically trying to create a greater Serbia and, therefore, 
knowing that Serbia itself, by accident of history, contained the 
warmaking capacity, the munitions, the weapons which were part of 
Yugoslavia, would enjoy essentially a monopoly of force as against its 
neighbors.
  But we took that political act, supported by well-meaning governments 
in the West and elsewhere, as a way to stop arms from flowing into the 
Balkans so as to stop a war from going on, and we have made it into the 
Holy Writ. It is not. It is immoral. It is quite the opposite of the 
Holy Writ. It is immoral and it is illegal; illegal not only for the 
technical legal reasons I cited a moment ago but because it denies--
this political resolution of the Security Council--denies Bosnia the 
rights it has gained as a member nation of the United Nations to defend 
itself.
  What could be more fundamental to a nation as the guarantor of its 
own existence then the right to defend itself? 

[[Page S 10604]]
Yet, this resolution continues to be imposed to deny the Bosnians just 
that right.
  The embargo is illegal and, Mr. President, let me say respectfully, 
it is immoral. It is immoral because it is having an impact on people 
who have done no wrong. This is not some expression, some sanctions 
resolution imposed on a people who have acted against international law 
or against their neighbors. It is imposed on the Bosnians, who have not 
been accused of wrongdoing here. And, of course, more to the point, 
history has shown, since the embargo was imposed in 1991, that the 
Bosnians have been the painful and tragic victims of Serbian aggression 
and, yes, genocide.
  Talk about accidents of history, it is a quirk of fate that, on this 
day, when the Senate goes to this critical issue and debates the 
lifting of the arms embargo, word comes from the Hague that Bosnian 
leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief of staff, Ratko Mladic, 
have been charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against 
humanity by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal 
established in the Hague for that purpose. They are charged with 
genocide and crimes against humanity arising from atrocities 
perpetrated against the civilian population throughout Bosnia and 
Herzegovina.
  This is an indictment. This is a legal instrument of international 
law. The tribunal said today that, in the summer of 1992, Bosnian Serbs 
held over 3,000 Moslems and Croats at the Karaterm Camp.
  From the indictment, ``Detainees were killed, sexually assaulted, 
tortured, beaten, and otherwise subjected to cruel and inhuman 
treatment.'' In one incident, the indictment recalls, machineguns were 
fired into a room filled with 140 detainees, who all died. This is the 
indictment, turned out today by the International Criminal Tribunal in 
the Hague. Karadzic and Mladic are accused of ordering the shelling of 
civilian gatherings, including the May 1995--this is July 1995; the May 
1995, a few months ago--attack on Tuzla, in which 195 people were 
killed, and the seizure earlier this summer of 284 United Nations 
peacekeepers in Pale and Gorazde.
  Karadzic and Mladic are also charged with ``persecuting Moslem and 
Croatian political leaders, deporting thousands of civilians, and 
systematically destroying Moslem and Catholic sacred sites.''
  I am not reading from any advocacy group for the Bosnians. I am 
reading from an instrument of international law, an indictment returned 
today in the Hague by an International Criminal Tribunal authorized by 
the United Nations, charging the leaders of the Bosnian Serb aggressors 
with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
 And as these crimes have been committed, as horrible as they are, what 
wells up inside me--and I know so many of my colleagues here--is that 
we were part of continuing to enforce this arms embargo which denied 
these victims of these war crimes and atrocities the weapons with which 
they could fight back. Just think of how we would feel ourselves if in 
a personal context somebody was attacking our home, our neighborhood, 
our community and for some reason the police were not available, and we 
had no capacity to defend ourselves or to fight back. That is what we 
have done and why it is time finally to lift this arms embargo.

  Mr. President, there always seems to be another reason not to do it. 
First, it was that if we lifted the arms embargo the Serbs would seize 
U.N. personnel as hostages. They have done that already. That reason 
for not lifting the arms embargo is gone, tragically and sadly. Then it 
was said that if we lift the arms embargo the Serbs would attack the 
safe havens and go back to the slaughters that the world saw in 1992, 3 
years ago. We did not lift the arms embargo, and the Serbs have 
attacked the safe havens.
  Now the question is whether there is something happening coming out 
of London last Friday that gives us pause and should make us hesitate. 
Mr. President, I hate to say it, but it is hard to believe that the 
United Nations mission in Bosnia has not been a failure, has not 
collapsed. As for the London communique, I take some small heart from 
it because it is the first sign of a willingness by the Western allies 
to use air power to hold the Serb aggressors at bay, to make them pay 
for their aggression. Nonetheless, at this moment it is simply a 
threat. The London communique is a threat, not a policy calculated to 
end the war. And it is a limited threat, limited as it is to only one 
of the four safe havens that have not fallen to Serb aggression. 
Gorazde will be protected. But what about Bihac which is under fierce 
attack now? What about the great capital of Sarajevo? What about Tuzla? 
Why not them too?
  The threat remains uncertain, although the original stories coming 
out of London on Friday were heartening in that it was said that this 
dual-key approach which has so frustrated the brave soldiers who have 
worn the blue helmets of the United Nations, that this dual-key 
approach which gives the political leadership of the United Nations the 
opportunity to veto the request for air cover and air support from 
NATO, it appeared that this dual-key approach was finally ended, and 
NATO would be able to protect itself without getting approval from Mr. 
Akashi or Secretary General Boutros-Ghali. But there seems to be a 
disagreement about the timing of this.
  In this morning's news it is reported from New York that Mr. Fawzi, a 
spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Ghali, said that the 
airstrikes are to defend U.N. peacekeepers, not to defend the safe area 
of Gorazde, and that the authority to order an attack ``remains with 
the Secretary General for the time being.'' So the dual-key is still an 
approach making even more uncertain the impact of the London 
communique.
  When will NATO air power be employed to strike back? Will it be when 
troops mass around Gorazde that they attack? What are the rules of 
engagement? It remained uncertain in the meeting in Brussels yesterday 
whether the NATO countries could resolve that. But I will say to you, 
Mr. President, that if the threat to protect the safe area is carried 
out, then there is some hope because it will amount to the beginning of 
an implementation of the strike part of the lift-and-strike policy 
which Senator Dole and I and others have advocated since 1992.
  But, Mr. President, what happened in London is no excuse to vote 
against the lifting of the arms embargo, illegal and immoral as it is. 
The embargo stands separate and apart as it in itself is an 
unacceptable act of the international community, and we must repeal it 
and let these people defend themselves.
  Mr. President, the other argument that is being used by some critics 
of lifting the arms embargo is that it will ``Americanize'' the war if 
we lift the arms embargo. And the implication here is that it will lead 
to the placement of American troops on Bosnian soil.
  Let me say here that from the beginning, when Senator Dole and I and 
others began to work on this proposal to lift the arms embargo, we have 
said we do not want American troops on Bosnian soil. We do not have 
enough of a national interest, and there is not enough of a strategic 
opportunity for those troops. And what is more, the Bosnians do not 
want them, and do not need them. They have said over and over and over 
again to us, ``We have soldiers on Bosnian soil. They are Bosnian 
soldiers. All we needed were the weapons, the tanks, the antitank 
weapons, the heavy artillery to help them fight a fair fight against 
the Serbs.''
  So it is ironic to see at this moment the delays and the excuses for 
not lifting the arms embargo and, when we are finally at a point of 
having a strong bipartisan vote in favor of lifting the arms embargo, 
that the reason given by some to vote against it is that it will cause 
the ``Americanizing'' of the war. If it leads to the exit of the United 
Nations--and the United Nations, in my opinion, will exit for many more 
reasons than the lifting of the arms embargo--that will not be anything 
that we have desired, those of us who have proposed this policy for now 
more than 3 years. But why punish the Bosnians, the victims, for the 
error of our policy, for the inappropriateness of our commitments? They 
have been consistent all along. And I think we owe it to the victims to 
listen to them.
  So why say now because the United Nations' forces were sent in and 
the President made a commitment to send 

[[Page S 10605]]
American troops to help extract the U.N. forces if that becomes 
necessary, that is a reason for us to sustain the illegal and immoral 
arms embargo and victimize further the Bosnian people?
  Mr. President, this question of whether the war is ``Americanized'' 
is up to Americans. The President, the Congress--we will decide when 
and where American troops will be sent. This will not happen. 
Automatically lifting the arms embargo does not put us on some slippery 
slope where we inevitably end up with troops on the ground there. Far 
from it; certainly not in combat positions.
  The other argument made is that lifting of the arms embargo will 
``Americanize'' the war because we will have to send Americans there to 
bring the weapons and train the Bosnians. I have two responses to that. 
One is that if it becomes necessary to send Americans to train the 
Bosnians in the use of our weapons, we can do it in Croatia without 
sending them into Bosnia. But I will tell you, Mr. President, many of 
my colleagues here have had the same conversations about this with the 
Bosnians themselves. They say to us, if the arms embargo was lifted 
today, they really do not prefer American weapons. They do not prefer 
our American trainers. They prefer weapons from the former Warsaw Pact 
countries from when Yugoslavia was alive, and on which most of the 
fighters, the soldiers in the Bosnian Army, have been trained. They 
prefer them because they do not need a long period of training. They 
can get the weapons, and in a short time put them onto the battlefield.
  I think what they most hope for is that as soon as this embargo is 
lifted the United States and other countries of the world hopefully--
particularly Moslem countries who are infuriated by the one-sidedness 
of the battle and the way in which the international community has 
sustained that one-sidedness--will contribute funds for the Bosnians to 
use to equip them so as to make this fair play.
  Mr. President, it is true that over the weekend or late last week in 
Geneva, there was a meeting of the Council of the Organization of the 
Islamic Conference, and the foreign ministers of the so-called OIC 
Contact Group on Bosnia and Herzegovina voted that the member states of 
the Organization of the Islamic Conference do not consider themselves 
legally bound to abide by the unlawful and unjust arms embargo imposed 
on Bosnia and Herzegovina which is a United Nations member. The 
ministers said that the burden of justifying the legality of 
maintaining the embargo imposed on Bosnia herself rested on the 
shoulders of the United Nations Security Council. So help may well be 
coming in implementing a lifting of the embargo.
  Mr. President, we have, as we have had all along I am afraid, a 
choice here between the policy that we are advocating of lift and 
strike and a policy of wait and see. And we have waited for 3 years, 
and we have seen aggression continue. We have seen more than 200,000 
people killed. We have seen more than 2 million refugees created. It is 
time to stop waiting and stop seeing, and it is time for us to lift the 
arms embargo and strike from the air in the hope that will finally put 
some pressure on the Serbs that they have not felt up until this time, 
so that they will come to the peace table with the prospect of 
negotiating fairly and accepting a peace agreement for Bosnia that the 
Bosnians themselves, who have accepted every previous peace treaty 
offer, can accept to bring an end to this tragic war. That is a policy 
that I think more than any other which has been tried to date and those 
that have been tried have failed offers even at this late and difficult 
hour in Bosnia some prospect not only for peace, but for the 
resurrection of some credibility, some legitimacy in the institutions 
upon which Europe and the rest of the world must depend in the years 
ahead for security and order; that is to say, NATO, the United Nations, 
and most of all, the strength and leadership of the United States of 
America.
  Mr. President, I note the presence on the floor of my distinguished 
colleague and friend from Virginia, Senator Warner. And I yield to him 
at this time.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, there are no easy solutions to the tragic 
conflict in Bosnia. Throughout Europe and here in the United States 
persons with the most noble intentions have struggled with this program 
to no avail. The Senate has conscientiously searched for solutions. The 
debate knows no party lines, as is appropriate. The various policy 
options facing our Nation change weekly; giving the Senate an excuse to 
sit and wait. I join the majority leader and Senator Lieberman in 
saying: ``No longer, the Senate must act.''
  The course charted by the majority leader offers the best hope for 
the long-suffering people of Bosnia. While I have opposed, over 2 
years, Senator Dole's earlier approaches, he has now amended his 
approach to where I can now join as a cosponsor of the Dole-Lieberman 
resolution. The thrust of this resolution is to lift the arms embargo 
against the Government of Bosnia, but with conditions precedent. The 
current resolution incorporates these conditions which I have, all 
along, regarded as essential to a lifting of the embargo.
  I commend the majority leader and the Senator from Connecticut for 
modifying their original resolution by making a withdrawal of UNPROFOR 
personnel the trigger for a U.S. lifting of the arms embargo. This 
modification addressed my main concern with previous legislative 
attempts, namely, of an immediate, unilateral lift of the arms embargo. 
My earlier concern was for the UNPROFOR troops being in place 
simultaneously with a lifting of the embargo. Such a move by the United 
States would endanger these troops who have been admirably, 
courageously, trying to perform peacekeeping, humanitarian missions in 
Bosnia under most difficult circumstances. I credit this effort with 
saving many lives which otherwise would have been lost to malnutrition 
and illness. Having gone to Sarajevo twice, I saw first-hand the 
efforts of UNPROFOR and UNHCR personnel.
  The Dole-Lieberman resolution sets a responsible course toward 
achieving a goal of recognizing the sovereign right of a nation and its 
people to self-defense. The U.N. Charter so provides. Common law, 
common sense so provides.
  Mr. President, until recently I had held out hope that a settlement 
could be successfully negotiated by the international community to end 
the conflict in Bosnia. It is now obvious that the numerous attempts by 
the United Nations, the
 European union, and the contact group, with U.S. participation, to 
resolve the differences over Bosnia have been thwarted. Despite the 
best efforts and sacrifices of the U.N. peacekeepers, it is clear that 
UNPROFOR is no longer capable of fulfilling its mandate, there simply 
is no peace to keep. What further evidence do we need, given the 
attacks on the undefended ``safe havens.''

  Mr. President, administration officials have just completed their 
second weekend of discussions with our allies and Russia over the 
situation in Bosnia. And what are the results of those discussions? 
More warnings of military action by the international community. This 
form of deterrence has repeatedly failed. Consequently, the Bosnian 
Serbs have intensified their attacks against Sarajevo and the other 
safe havens. Each day, more death and destruction occurs in Bosnia. The 
Senate must act.
  The most recent tragic aggressions by the Bosnian Serbs against the 
so-called safe havens close the door on the valiant efforts of the U.N. 
peacekeeping mission. There remains, in most regions of Bosnia, no 
peace to keep. The Bosnian Serb attacks on Srebrenica, Zepa, Bihac, and 
Sarajevo are a clear illustration of the futility of continuing on the 
present course. It is now time for the international community to make 
the decision to withdraw the UNPROFOR troops, and to proceed with that 
withdrawal in an orderly manner. To continue with the status quo--or 
even worse, to reinforce that status quo, as is being contemplated by 
the administration--would bring additional humiliation to the 
international community, and no hope for an end to the suffering of the 
Bosnian people.
  While I continue to have concerns about the possible adverse effects 
of lifting the arms embargo, I believe that this is the best of the 
remaining available options. For a variety of reasons, the 
international community has 

[[Page S 10606]]
not been able or willing to take the actions necessary to bring an end 
to the conflict in Bosnia. We should at least be willing to allow the 
Bosnians to acquire the weapons they need to defend themselves, in 
accordance with international law. This is what the Bosnian Government 
has been asking for. The United Nations should not continue to stand in 
their way.
  Let us examine some of the main arguments that the administration has 
been making against the Dole-Lieberman resolution. First, we have heard 
repeatedly from administration officials that this resolution will 
force a withdrawal of UNPROFOR. To the contrary, no action will be 
taken under the authority of this resolution until all UNPROFOR 
personnel have been withdrawn
 from Bosnia. We are not asking UNPROFOR to leave. We are certainly not 
requiring UNPROFOR to leave. We are simply saying that when UNPROFOR 
does depart, the Bosnian Government should be allowed to acquire the 
weapons it needs to defend its people and territory.

  Second, the claim is made that this resolution will Americanize the 
war. I disagree. A U.S. move to lift the arms embargo will not 
Americanize the war unless we allow that to happen with subsequent 
action--that is, if we subsequently commit ourselves to equip and train 
the Bosnian army, and provide them with air support. The resolution 
before us specifically states that,

       Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as 
     authorization for deployment of United States forces in the 
     territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose, 
     including training, support, or delivery of military 
     equipment.

  In my view, we are in far greater danger of seeing this war become 
Americanized if we carry through with proposals--as reported in weekend 
press reports--to conduct aggressive airstrikes against Bosnian Serb 
positions as part of the defense of Gorazde. This policy is very ill-
advised. Americans will become directly involved in combat at that 
point--we will be combatants. We are taking sides in this conflict. 
American lives will be at risk--and for what purpose? To shore up a 
U.N. peacekeeping mission which has reached its end.
  Mr. President, history has shown that the use of air power alone is 
not enough to win a war--it is not decisive without a proportional 
ground effort. It sounds appealing--it sounds like a cleaner, less 
risky military operation than ground combat. But it simply will not 
turn the tide of a battle. What clearer precedent do we need than the 
gulf war. For weeks prior to ground operations, air was used, used to 
lessen--not eliminate--the task of ground operations that followed.
  During the gulf war, we spent weeks of massive, unrelenting air 
strikes against Iraqi targets in both Kuwait and Iraq. But that was not 
enough to force an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. It took a large-scale 
ground operation to secure final victory in that conflict. Further, 
this air operation was carried out under terrain and weather conditions 
far, far superior to those in Bosnia.
  And in Bosnia we have additional complicating factors which were not 
present in the gulf war. First, there are over 28,000 U.N. troops and 
uncalculated numbers of U.N. civilians scattered throughout Bosnia. 
Once we start offensive air operations, and become combatants, we are
 subjecting those U.N. troops and civilians to retaliatory action by 
the Serbs. How will we react when the Bosnian Serbs, once again, take 
hostages?

  Past tactics of the Bosnian Serb forces was to colocate heavy weapons 
with the civilian population in Bosnia--next to schools, hospitals, and 
other population centers. Any NATO air strikes would run a very high 
risk of causing collateral damage. How will we react when we see 
pictures on CNN of Bosnian children who have been killed or wounded by 
NATO air strikes?
  And finally, there is the problem the command and control 
arrangements which have reigned in Bosnia--the so-called dual-key 
arrangement. This dual-key usage by United Nations officials in Bosnia 
has resulted in less effective military action in response to Serb 
aggression. This is of greatest concern to all those worried about the 
safety of United States airmen flying missions over Bosnia--this dual-
key arrangement has prevented preemptive air strikes to take out the 
Bosnian Serb air defense system. Scott O'Grady can tell you about the 
consequences of that failure. Will the dual key still be the order of 
the day if we proceed with the air operations agreed to over the 
weekend? Early reports seem to indicate that that indeed will be the 
case. Will the Bosnian Serb air defense network be eliminated before 
United States pilots again take to the skies over Bosnia?
  We should not fool ourselves into believing that an air campaign to 
save Gorazde--this late in the game--will turn the tide in Bosnia. What 
about the remaining safe havens, other than Gorazde? We should not 
allow ourselves to become directly involved in the fighting, 
particularly when there is no clear unanimity among our allies about a 
course of action.
  Mr. President, since the beginning of this conflict, I have 
consistently opposed the use of United States military force as a 
possible solution to the war in Bosnia. Events of recent weeks have 
reinforced this view. I do not want to see American lives expended in 
trying to resolve a conflict that is based on centuries-old religious 
and ethnic hatreds which none of us can understand or in any way can 
justify.
  At this point, we should recognize that the United Nations mission 
has failed, and allow the Bosnians to do what they have been asking 
for--to acquire the weapons they need to defend themselves against Serb 
aggression.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two letters from the 
Bosnian Prime Minister, and a letter from President Clinton be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                            The Republic of Bosnia


                                              and Herzegovina,

                                                    July 11, 1995.
     Hon. Robert Dole,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Dole: Today, the United Nations allowed the 
     Serb terrorists to overrun the demilitarized ``safe area'' of 
     Srebrenica. Helpless civilians in this area are exposed to 
     massacre and genocide. Once and for all, these events 
     demonstrate conclusively that the United Nations and the 
     international community are participating in genocide against 
     the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       The strongest argument of the opponents of the lifting of 
     the arms embargo toppled today in Srebrenica. They claimed 
     that the lifting the arms embargo would endanger the safety 
     of the safe areas. The people in Srebrenica are exposed to 
     massacre precisely because they did not have weapons to 
     defend themselves, and because the United Nations did not 
     want to protect them. Attacks are also under way against the 
     other safe areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       That is why we think it is extremely important that the 
     American Senate votes to lift the arms embargo on the 
     legitimate Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       If the Government of the United States of America claims 
     that it has no vital interests in Bosnia, why then does it 
     support the arms embargo and risk being associated with 
     genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
       It is essential that the elected representatives of the 
     American people immediately pass the bill to lift the arms 
     embargo. This will provide a clear message that the American 
     people do not want to deprive the people of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina of the right to defend themselves against 
     aggression and genocide.
           Sincerely,
                                              Dr. Haris Silajdzic,
     Prime Minister.
                                                                    ____

         Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Office of the Prime 
           Minister,
                                                    July 25, 1995.
     Hon. Robert Dole,
     Hon. Joseph Lieberman,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Dole and Lieberman: I write you today to once 
     again appeal to the American people and Government to lift 
     the illegal and immoral arms embargo on our people.
       Today's vote is a vote for human life. It is a vote for 
     right against wrong. It is not about politics, it is about 
     doing the right thing.
       In just the past two days in Sarajevo, 20 people have been 
     killed while more than 100 have been wounded.
       Brutal, unceasing attacks against the so-called UN safe 
     areas of Zepa and Bihac are taking their toll on the lives of 
     our civilians. The defenders of Zepa have heroically defied 
     the aggressors and fight on and are ready to accept a 
     collective suicide rather than submit to the atrocities we 
     witnessed in the former UN safe area of Srebrenica--from 
     where 10,000 people are still unaccounted for.
       Yesterday, the Bangladeshi UNPROFOR battalion in Bihac 
     requested air-strikes to 

[[Page S 10607]]
     deter and to stop the Serb attacks on Bihac. The Serb forces are 
     attacking from Serb-occupied Croatia, Serb-occupied Bosnia-
     Herzegovina with the full participation and backing of the 
     so-called Yugoslav Army of Serbia-Montenegro. The Bangladeshi 
     request was ignored--I ask myself if this same request would 
     be ignored if it were requested by a British battalion.
       This fact, and the silence about the continuing slaughter 
     in Zepa, Sarajevo and Gorazde only further shows the 
     impotence of the UN and international community which 
     continues to hide behind the fig-leaf of consensus and 
     consultations. News agencies have even reported that members 
     of the French government want to change the map of the 
     Contact Group's peace plan. The reports of these concessions 
     air the same day that those to whom the concessions are to be 
     given, Karadzic and Mladic, are indicted for war crimes by 
     the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
       I wonder how many more Bosnian children must be killed, how 
     many more Bosnian women must be raped, how many more Bosnian 
     men and boys must be executed, how many more Bosnian families 
     must be destroyed, how many more Bosnians must die while 
     waiting in line for water before something is done? The 
     current policies have failed. They died with Srebrenica. 
     There is no line that the Serbs will not cross. It is clear 
     that they will not stop until there are no more Bosnian 
     people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
       Today, the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina received 
     humanitarian aid from a joint Jordanian-Israeli delegation. 
     This act between former enemies shows that Bosnia is not a 
     question of politics and real politik but of humanity. The 
     carnage we have endured thus far is inhumane.
       I must reiterate that the arms embargo is an issue of human 
     life and that it is time to do the right thing. It is not an 
     issue of politics nor of excuses such as training or 
     containment or ``Americanization'' or linkage to other 
     international regimes and decisions. The arms embargo is 
     illegal, it is a failed policy, it is immoral, it is in the 
     interest of only the Serbian war machine, and it is a tool 
     for genocide. The arms embargo is a matter of right and wrong 
     and it must end.
       Our people ask that we be allowed only our right to defend 
     ourselves. It is on their behalf that I appeal to the 
     American people and government to untie our hands so that we 
     may protect ourselves. The slaughter has gone far enough. My 
     people insist that they would rather die while standing and 
     fighting than on their knees. In God's name we ask that you 
     lift the arms embargo.
           Sincerely,
     Haris Silajdzic.
                                                                    ____

                                              The White House,

                                        Washington, July 25, 1995.
     Hon. Robert Dole,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing to express my strong 
     opposition to S. 21, the ``Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-
     Defense Act of 1995.'' While I fully understand the 
     frustration that the bill's supporters feel, I nonetheless am 
     firmly convinced that in passing this legislation Congress 
     would undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement in 
     Bosnia and could lead to an escalation of the conflict there, 
     including the possible Americanization of the conflict.
       There are no simple or risk-free answers in Bosnia. 
     Unilaterally lifting the arms embargo has serious 
     consequences. Our allies in UNPROFOR have made it clear that 
     a unilateral U.S. action to lift the arms embargo, which 
     would place their troops in greater danger, will result in 
     their early withdrawal from UNPROFOR, leading to its 
     collapse. I believe the United States, as the leader of NATO, 
     would have an obligation under these circumstances to assist 
     in that withdrawal, involving thousands of U.S. troops in a 
     difficult mission. Consequently, at the least, unilateral 
     lift by the U.S. drives our European allies out of Bosnia and 
     pulls the U.S. in, even if for a temporary and defined 
     mission.
       I agree that UNPROFOR, in its current mission, has reached 
     a crossroads. As you know, we are working intensively with 
     our allies on concrete measures to strengthen UNPROFOR and 
     enable it to continue to make a significant difference in 
     Bosnia, as it has--for all its deficiencies--over the past 
     three years. Let us not forgot that UNPROFOR has been 
     critical to an unprecedented humanitarian operation that 
     feeds and helps keep alive over two million people in Bosnia; 
     until recently, the number of civilian casualties has been a 
     fraction of what they were before UNPROFOR arrived; much of 
     central Bosnia is at peace; and the Bosnian-Croat Federation 
     is holding. UNPROFOR has contributed to each of these 
     significant results.
       Nonetheless, the Serb assaults in recent days made clear 
     that UNPROFOR must be strengthened if it is to continue to 
     contribute to peace. I am determined to make every effort to 
     provide, with our allies, for more robust and meaningful 
     UNPROFOR action. We
      are now working to implement the agreement reached last 
     Friday in London to threaten substantial and decisive use 
     of NATO air power if the Bosnian Serbs attack Gorazde and 
     to strengthen protection of Sarajevo using the Rapid 
     Reaction Force. These actions lay the foundation for 
     stronger measures to protect the other safe areas. 
     Congressional passage of unilateral lift at this delicate 
     moment will undermine those efforts. It will provide our 
     allies a rationale for doing less, not more. It will 
     provide the pretext for absolving themselves of 
     responsibility in Bosnia, rather than assuming a stronger 
     role at this critical moment.
       It is important to face squarely the consequences of a U.S. 
     action that forces UNPROFOR departure. First, as I have 
     noted, we immediately would be part of a costly NATO 
     operation to withdraw UNPROFOR. Second, after that operation 
     is complete, there will be an intensification of the fighting 
     in Bosnia. It is unlikely the Bosnian Serbs would stand by 
     waiting until the Bosnian government is armed by others. 
     Under assault, the Bosnian government will look to the U.S. 
     to provide arms, air support and if that fails, more active 
     military support. At that stage, the U.S. will have broken 
     with our NATO allies as a result of unilateral lift. The U.S. 
     will be asked to fill the void--in military support, 
     humanitarian aid and in response to refugee crises. Third, 
     intensified fighting will risk a wider conflict in the 
     Balkans with far-reaching implications for regional peace. 
     Finally, UNPROFOR's withdrawal will set back prospects for a 
     peaceful, negotiated solution for the foreseeable future.
       In short, unilateral lift means unilateral responsibility. 
     We are in this with our allies now. We would be in it by 
     ourselves if we unilaterally lifted the embargo. The NATO 
     Alliance has stood strong for almost five decades. We should 
     not damage it in a futile effort to find an easy fix to the 
     Balkan conflict.
       I am prepared to veto any resolution or bill that may 
     require the United States to lift unilaterally the arms 
     embargo. It will make a bad situation worse. I ask that you 
     not support the pending legislation, S. 21.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Bill Clinton.

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am happy at long last to join my 
distinguished colleague from Connecticut on this issue. For roughly 
2\1/2\ years I have been in strong opposition to the efforts by the 
distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, and his coauthor of this 
measure, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, recalling that 
during the gulf war operation when I was the principal sponsor of the 
resolution adopted by the Senate, my distinguished colleague from 
Connecticut was my principal cosponsor on that. So once again we have 
joined.
  I wish to make very clear, Mr. President, I join for the very clear 
reason that the majority leader and the Senator from Connecticut 
changed in a very material way the approach they had initiated some 
2\1/2\ years ago.
  I think it is well worth the time of the Senate to focus on exactly 
what those changes were that led this Senator--and I now believe a 
majority of the Senate--to join in this. As a matter of fact, I am 
hopeful that close to 70 Senators will eventually join on this. I know 
my colleague from Connecticut and I and many others have talked among 
ourselves. These are the conditions that have materially changed this 
approach, in such a manner that it now gains the support of the 
majority of the Senate and indeed many of us. These are the conditions 
under which the United States will terminate the embargo. I read from 
the measure which is at the desk:

       Termination. Section 4. The President shall terminate the 
     United States embargo of the Government of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina as provided in subsection (b) following:
       1. Receipt by the U.S. Government of a request from the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina for termination of the 
     United States arms embargo and submission by the Government 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in exercise of its sovereign 
     rights as a nation, of a request to the United Nations 
     Security Council for the departure of UNPROFOR from Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina.

  That is a very dramatic change. The initiative is on the Government, 
the recognized Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to first petition 
the United States and/or to petition the United Nations for the 
departure of UNPROFOR.
  The second condition under which our President is authorized to act:

       A decision by the United Nations Security Council or 
     decisions by countries contributing forces to UNPROFOR to 
     withdraw UNPROFOR from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  That is very clear. It is an exercise of sovereign rights.
  Now, the Senate received today a letter from the President of the 
United States addressed to the leadership. I have now had an 
opportunity to review that letter, and I regret to say that it is 
written as though the author had not read what is before the Senate 
today. 

[[Page S 10608]]
This letter now appears in the Record in its entirety, and I say to 
those who wish to take the time to examine it--and I hope all Senators 
will--it is a communication from the President of the United States to 
the leadership of the Senate in which he acknowledged that there are no 
simple or risk-free answers in Bosnia. But he goes on to recite a 
procedure that has been abandoned by the proponents of this measure 
before the Senate and, it seems to me, does not recognize in sufficient 
clarity exactly what has been put forth to the Senate.
  So I will address that in greater detail later, but I should now like 
to pose a question or so to my distinguished colleague.
  The criticism leveled at the initiative proposed by the majority 
leader and the Senator from Connecticut centers around the term 
``Americanization'' and that if the Senate were to adopt this it would 
constitute an invitation, an invitation to the Government of Bosnia to 
take the initiative. My recollection is, having met with a series of 
Government officials, including the Prime Minister of Bosnia, they have 
come and specifically asked, asked of individual Members of the Senate 
that this be done in the exact fashion as is laid out in the measure 
before the Senate today. Am I not correct in this?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia is absolutely 
correct, in many ways. First, that the Bosnians have consistently asked 
that the arms embargo be lifted. Second, they have been confronted with 
this question: If you have to choose between lifting the embargo and 
the U.N. forces remaining in Bosnia, which will you choose? And they 
have said clearly lifting the embargo.
  The language of this proposal before the Senate today is intended to 
give some ear finally to the victims and give them the opportunity to 
request, and in that sense to formally require that they request, the 
United Nations leave if that is their judgment as a precondition for 
the lifting of the embargo. And there are those who have said, well, 
they want the United Nations to leave, but they really do not.
  This says that the condition on which the embargo will be lifted is 
if the Government of Bosnia says officially, formally that they request 
the United Nations to leave. Then the embargo will be lifted.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, that is a substantial change from the 
original proposition advanced by the majority leader and the Senator 
some years ago?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Virginia is absolutely correct. If 
the Senator will allow me, I just want to amplify on my answer to that 
question. It is a substantial change, and it is a change that has been 
inserted out of sensitivity both to our allies in Europe and other 
nations that have troops on the ground wearing the blue helmets of the 
United Nations. It is also an act of sensitivity and respect and 
deference to colleagues within this Chamber and, in fact, to the 
administration, which has expressed concern repeatedly on earlier 
occasions when the embargo lifting has been raised about the impact it 
would have on our allies.
  So we are saying here we owe it to our allies, who have had soldiers 
serving bravely in the most difficult of circumstances, essentially 
unarmed in a hostile situation, to give them the opportunity to get out 
of there before we lift the arms embargo.
  I must say to my friend from Virginia that I am particularly 
perplexed, angered by some who now say that the trouble with this 
proposal, S. 21, as substituted before the Senate now, is that it will 
require the U.N. troops to leave as a precondition for lifting the 
embargo.
  Well, we have put it in there, Senator Dole and I and others, to 
respond to the concerns that these same critics offered, issued a year 
ago or so, that just lifting the embargo was not respectful or fair to 
our allies and their brave soldiers on the ground. So the Senator is 
absolutely correct; it is a substantial change from the earlier version 
of this proposal.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, a second question. I have had the 
opportunity to travel to this region four times with various Members of 
the Senate. I was one of the very first to go into Sarajevo, and then I 
accompanied the distinguished majority leader to Sarajevo on a second 
visit. At that time we met with President Izetbegovic, and then, of 
course, the Prime Minister personally has been here in the United 
States I think on two occasions in the last 6 or 8 weeks. I do not 
recall in the discussions--I repeat, I do not recall--that they laid 
down any conditions whatsoever that would place an obligation upon the 
United States of America in the event this arms embargo is to be 
lifted.
  Quite specifically, in my discussions regarding this matter with both 
the Bosnian President and Foreign Minister, they refuted that there was 
any obligation on the part of the United States. However, the President 
of the United States in his letter implies that if such action were 
taken as envisioned by the measure now before the Senate, there would 
be, impliedly, so to speak, an obligation on the part of the United 
States to provide arms, provide training and otherwise Americanize--
that is this trick phrase that has been utilized--this situation.
  I ask my distinguished colleague, in the Senator's discussions with 
the leadership of Bosnia, have they laid down to him any conditions 
whatsoever that would either imply or infer or indeed directly involve 
the United States in a period subsequent to the lifting of the embargo?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, in responding to my colleague from 
Virginia, in all of the conversations I have had with the various 
representatives and leaders of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
there has never once been a condition set for the lifting of the arms 
embargo--never once a condition set. And that is again why I think some 
of those who argue against lifting now are using very stretched, 
tortured, circuitous logic. It is not the Bosnians who have requested 
the United States to come in to help the United Nations out. It was 
obviously not the Bosnians who have made the commitment, a commitment 
which I think is appropriate, but that is for another day, to have 
American troops go in and help the United Nations out.
  The Bosnians have said consistently, ``We have the soldiers. Please 
give us the weapons.''
  Now, I will say, to give a complete answer to my friend, in recent 
conversations there have been occasions when the Bosnian leadership has 
requested, but certainly not said it was an obligation, that the full 
lift-and-strike policy be implemented, which is to say that not only 
should the arms embargo be lifted, but that they would be assisted in a 
transitional period while they are receiving arms if NATO could use 
airpower to keep the Serb aggressors at bay. No obligation ever. In 
fact, I have said to them, because others have said it to me, I said, 
``You understand that people are saying to us, if you lift the arms 
embargo, there will be a bloodbath. You will demand that American 
troops come in.'' They have said, ``No, Senator. Not only do we have 
enough troops on the ground, but how could there be a bloodbath any 
worse than we have already had? So we are ready to take the 
consequences.'' No obligation.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, let me refer to the letter dated July 25 
from the President of the United States to the leadership. On page 2:

       It is important to face squarely the consequences of a U.S. 
     action that forces UNPROFOR departure.

  I will return to that allegation that this is forcing the departure.

       First, as I have noted, we immediately would be part of a 
     costly NATO operation to withdraw from UNPROFOR.

  And that is a matter that the President has addressed previously. And 
it is my understanding that the distinguished majority leader, the 
Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from Virginia, and others have 
indicated that once the framework of such participation by the United 
States in assisting a withdrawal by UNPROFOR is brought to the Senate, 
it is likely that we will support it. Most likely. Certainly speaking 
for myself.
  But I proceed to the second point:

       Second, after that operation is complete, there will be an 
     intensification of the fighting in Bosnia. It is unlikely the 
     Bosnian Serbs would stand by waiting until the Bosnian 
     government is armed by others. Under assault, the Bosnian 
     government will look to the U.S. to provide arms, air 
     support, and if that fails, more active military support.


[[Page S 10609]]

  My question to my colleague: Do you know of any documentation to 
support that assertion by the President of the United States? I do not.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, respectfully, I do not. Clearly they 
are hoping for arms in Bosnia. That is what they most desperately want 
and need. As I indicated earlier, their first choice is to receive them 
from former Warsaw Pact countries, not from us. Second, yes, they would 
like air support in the transitional period. That is up to NATO. But 
they have never asked for more active military support. In fact, 
Senator Dole and I, on every occasion we met with them, have said, 
``Please do not expect that American troops will end up on the ground 
fighting for you in Bosnia.'' And they have said over and over again, 
``Not only do we understand that, we do not want that.''
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. I 
frankly call on the administration to provide the Senate with 
documentation to back that up because I find it contradictory to what 
the President of Bosnia and the Prime Minister of Bosnia have 
represented to individual Senators in our private meetings. There may 
be. There may be such documentation. But I think given that assertion 
in this letter to the leadership of this Senate, that that 
documentation should be brought to the attention of those of us who are 
actively supporting the measure.
  Mr. President, I have a great deal to say, as I am sure others do, on 
this subject. I see the distinguished Senator from California present 
in the Chamber. I know that we spoke earlier when I was consulting with 
her in the hopes that she would support the measure on the floor. Mr. 
President, I yield the floor at this time.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the distinguished 
Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. President, I rise today to indicate my intention to vote for the 
Dole-Lieberman resolution. I want to state what my intent is, and what 
it is solely. My intent is solely to allow an afflicted people to 
defend themselves.
  Last week I stated that I had hoped that a specific course of action 
would result from last weekend's meetings in London. The actions taken, 
unfortunately, are limited to one enclave, Gorazde. They are not well 
defined, and as we have seen, the shelling of Gorazde has been ongoing 
since last weekend.
  Also, last week I spoke about the devastating photograph of a young 
Bosnian woman who decided she could not go on and hung herself from a 
tree. This anonymous image spoke eloquently to me of the desperation 
facing the Bosnian people as they endure rape, torture, summary 
execution, and a litany of war crimes. However, no one knew who this 
woman was, and to this day we still do not. But now at least we have an 
idea of what might have driven her to take her own life.
  According to one witness, a young mother tried in vain to trade her 
life for her 12-year-old twin boys who were taken from her and had 
their throats slit by the invading Serbs at Srebrenica. Later the 
mother tied a scarf to a tree limb and hung herself. Was this young 
mother the woman in the photograph? We may never know. But this story 
tells us all we need to know about what drives a person to such an 
extreme.
  As the stories of the Srebrenica survivors have emerged, the picture 
of the suffering endured by the refugees and the atrocities committed 
by the attackers has become increasingly clear. I want to lay some of 
these out because in recent days news reports and other sources have 
revealed the true extent of the horror. Here are just a few examples.
  On July 17, the New York Times reported several accounts of 
atrocities related by refugees. Two women, Hava Muratovic and Hanifa 
Masanovic, told nearly identical stories of Serb soldiers, dressed in 
uniforms of U.N. soldiers, breaking into a factory where some refugees 
were staying and hauling away a group of teenage boys.
  According to Mrs. Muratovic: ``The next morning I saw a pile of 
bodies next to the water fountain. There were about ten of them, all 
with their throats cut. There was a tree next to the fountain, and two 
other bodies were hanging from the branches.''
  Another woman, Sveda Porobic, told of three apparent rapes. In 
another factory where refugees were gathered, Bosnian Serb soldiers, 
dressed as U.N. peacekeepers, no less, came through the factory and 
dragged away two girls, ages 12 and 14, and a 23-year-old woman. After 
several hours, the three returned. They were crying, naked and 
bleeding, covered with scratches and bruises. One said, very simply, 
``We are not girls anymore.''
  On July 16 the Washington Post reported that a teenage girl found a 
stack of bodies of young men behind a factory. They had been shot with 
their hands tied behind their backs. Near the same factory, two other 
teenagers witnessed 20 men gunned down by a Serb firing squad.
  Three days later, on July 19, just last week, USA Today quoted a 
Bosnian refugee, Zarfa Turkovic, who said she witnessed a brutal gang 
rape at the U.N. camp in Potocari, where refugees had gathered. She 
said that four Serb soldiers grabbed a young woman from among the 
sleeping refugees. ``Two took her legs and raised them up in the air,'' 
Turkovic said, ``while the third began raping her. People were silent. 
No one moved. She was screaming and yelling, begging them to stop.'' 
The rapists stuffed a rag in her mouth and continued raping her.
  Since the day that Srebrenica fell, the U.N. High Commission for 
Refugees has been caring for Bosnian refugees fleeing the Serb armies. 
In Tuzla, UNHCR has been responsible for providing food and shelter to 
thousands of refugees in the last week and a half.
  On July 18, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees released a report 
describing the experiences of a number of refugees, based on interviews 
with those who arrived in Tuzla. I would like to relate a few of the 
most disturbing examples.
  A 60-year-old man and his wife described how the bus that was 
carrying them to Tuzla was stopped by Serb soldiers. The soldiers took 
four young women off the bus and into the woods. An hour later, three 
of the women emerged from the woods. The fourth woman appeared later in 
the town of Kladanj, naked, with only a blanket wrapped around her.
  Buses were stopped by Serb soldiers a number of times along the road 
to Kladanj. Men and boys over age 12 were taken away, along with many 
young women. Most have not been seen since.
  Most alarmingly, a group of refugees fleeing Srebrenica on foot 
through the woods encountered a group of Serb soldiers wearing the 
uniforms and blue helmets of UNPROFOR troops and using U.N. vehicles. 
One Serb soldier called out on a megaphone for the Bosnians to come out 
of the woods. Between 20 and 30 Bosnians, mostly women and children, 
emerged from hiding. The Serb soldiers lined them up on the road, and 
opened fire with machine guns, killing them all.
  None of these reports has been independently confirmed, but based on 
the facts available, these stories are compelling, believable, and 
consistent with documented Serb behavior. There have also been many 
instances of refugees telling identical stories independently.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire text of the 
UNHCR report be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. In recent days, we have seen more substantiated 
reports of atrocities. Dutch peacekeepers present in Srebrenica have 
reported witnessing summary executions of Bosnian soldiers. The U.N. 
human rights envoy told reporters that ``what happened (in Srebrenica) 
cannot be described as moderate violations of human rights, but as 
extremely serious violations on an enormous scale.''
  Yesterday, the Bosnian Foreign Minister called me from Zagreb. He 
told me that as many as 10,000 people are still missing from 
Srebrenica, and that of the 6,000 Bosnian men and boys held hostage in 
a stadium in Bratunac, north of Srebrenica, as many as 1,600 have been 
executed.
  Most startlingly, he indicated that last Monday, the Bosnian 
President offered to peacefully evacuate Zepa. This 

[[Page S 10610]]
offer was turned down by General Mladic. I believe we know the reason.
  If the evacuation had taken place peacefully and under U.N. 
supervision, it would have deprived the Serbs of the opportunity to 
detain and kill all the men of fighting age, and the opportunity to 
rape, torture, and humiliate defenseless refugees.
  To me, it is unfathomable that crimes like these can be perpetrated 
in 1995, 50 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. The names Karadzic 
and Mladic will go down in history with the greatest villains of our 
time. They have led a regime that sanctions, promotes, and encourages 
its soldiers to murder, torture, rape, and humiliate innocent Bosnian 
civilians. They are evil.
  Today, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 
announced indictments of both Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic for war 
crimes. It is my hope that both these men, and numerous other war 
criminals, will be successfully prosecuted.
  I know that every Member of the Senate is outraged by the barbaric 
behavior that has taken place. But for the Bosnian victims of these 
crimes, our outrage is worth little, unless it leads to action. In the 
face of these atrocities, we must make an important decision.
  Our choices are clear: we must either dramatically change the U.N. 
operation on the ground in such a way that it will be able to protect 
Bosnian citizens from Bosnian Serb murderers and rapists; or, we must 
lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian Government, unilaterally if 
necessary, in order to allow the Bosnians to defend themselves.
  But there is one thing we cannot do, and that is nothing.
  Last week, Secretary of Defense Perry, Secretary of State 
Christopher, and General Shalikashvili met in London with our NATO 
allies. They were attempting to devise a response to the collapse of 
Srebrenica and Zepa that will prevent and punish further Bosnian Serb 
attacks on safe areas and defend the civilians in those areas.
  Before these meetings began, I felt that in order to be successful, 
they would have to succeed in radically changing the mission and 
mandate of the allied troops on the ground in Bosnia, giving them the 
wherewithal and command structure to fight effectively that they have 
lacked thus far.
  Unfortunately, I do not feel that the agreements reached in London 
meet that test. I have spoken with the Secretary of State. I have 
spoken with our Ambassadors in London and Paris. And I have spoken at 
length with the Foreign Minister of Bosnia. All of these conversations 
have solidified my view that there has not been a sufficient change in 
the situation on the ground.
  The London meetings only addressed the enclave of Gorazde. It is true 
that a fairly resolute statement was issued regarding a Serb offensive 
on Gorazde. Substantial allied airstrikes will be ordered in response 
to any attack on Gorazde.
  What constitutes a Serb assault on Gorazde? Is this present shelling 
that has been going on since the London Conference enough to provoke 
action? Does a siege that cuts off the flow of humanitarian aid warrant 
airstrikes? Gorazde has in fact been shelled continuously since the 
London conference. Why have the airstrikes not begun?
  Unfortunately, the promised defense of Gorazde only means that the 
Serbs will continue their attacks at Zepa, which I understand has 
finally fallen, Bihac, then Sarajevo, and Tuzla, and then what? In 
fact, the fate of Bosnia is sealed if the enclaves fall--for only 30 
percent of Bosnia remains in government hands today.
  As we debate this resolution, Bihac is surrounded and under attack. 
In this offensive, the Bosnian Serbs are receiving assistance from 
their Croatian Serb brethren--25,000 Croatian Serbs are coming over the 
border to augment the attacking forces. Bihac has received no food 
convoys for two months, and relief flights have been suspended because 
of the shelling. There is virtually no food left in Bihac, and 
residents are able to eat only what they can grow.
  As for Sarajevo, it is perhaps the most important of all the 
enclaves. Its fall would mean the end of Bosnia. Yet, Sarajevo was 
hardly mentioned in London. It is true that since the conference, 
British and French troops from the Rapid Reaction Force have deployed 
around Sarajevo to respond to Serb shelling. But their mission, it 
seems, is primarily to protect U.N. forces. Earlier, in our caucus, the 
Secretary of State indicated that these troops would respond to Serb 
attacks on the civilian population. I certainly hope so.
  As the Bosnian Foreign Minister told me, drawing a line in the sand 
around Gorazde alone is like drawing a line in the sand around one 
solitary sunbather on a beach. It may protect that one sunbather, but 
it ignores everything else on the beach.
  Third, it is not at all clear that the United States and our allies 
have the same understanding about the agreements reached in London. 
While British Foreign Secretary Rifkind, promised a ``substantial and 
decisive'' response to any Serb attack on Gorazde, only U.S. officials 
mentioned the certainty of airstrikes.
  Furthermore, it is entirely clear that Russia does not support a 
policy based on the use of airstrikes to contain the Bosnian Serbs. 
Foreign Minister Kozyrev went out of his way to say that ``no 
consensus'' had been reached in London. How Russia would respond to a 
policy that it does not support is uncertain. This uncertainty may well 
prove dangerous.
  I had hoped that the London meetings would have initiated a genuine 
change to the situation on the ground in Bosnia. I wanted to be 
convinced. But with the weight of all the evidence, I am afraid the 
London conference appears inconclusive, and that the status quo will 
continue.
  The London meetings do not produce a new course of action, and did 
not commit the allies to protect the Bosnians. I am convinced that we 
have no choice but to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnians. I 
prefer that it be a multilateral lifting. It has become painfully clear 
now that no one will defend the Bosnians except the Bosnians 
themselves. If no one will defend them, we can no longer deny them the 
right to defend themselves. And so, I intend to support the Dole-
Lieberman resolution.
  Last year, I opposed a similar resolution, in large part because it 
contained a policy of ``lift and leave''. It would have forced the 
President to lift the arms embargo unilaterally before any effort had 
been taken to extract UNPROFOR from Bosnia. I felt that was unfair to 
our allies, who have troops on the ground there.
  The resolution before us has gone a long way toward addressing those 
concerns. It now contains a ``leave and lift'' sequence, which is very 
important. The President would not be required to lift the arms embargo 
until 12 weeks after UNPROFOR began its withdrawal, and that period 
could be extended in 30 day increments if the withdrawal took longer 
than expected. I believe that this change alters the effect of the 
resolution considerably.
  This is a time for the entire world to feel outraged at the 
atrocities now being carried out with merciless abandon.
 And where is the conscience of the world? In fact, much of the world 
genuinely wants to help. Today, for example, a joint delegation from 
Israel and Jordan are meeting in Bosnia to see what they can do to 
help.

  Let there be no mistake--we are watching the development of a 
``Fourth Reich'' dedicated to the genocide of a people simply because 
they are different. To me, after the events of the past 3 years, there 
is little difference--except in size--between the drive for a pure 
Aryan nation 50 years ago, and that for an ethnically cleansed Greater 
Serbia of today.
  The Bosnian Foreign Minister put it to me so eloquently yesterday 
when he said:

       No one has taken on the job of defending the Bosnian 
     people. UNPROFOR is not a substitute for our defense, and the 
     Rapid Reaction Force is committed only to defend UNPROFOR. We 
     must know that somebody is going to defend us--and that 
     somebody is only us.

  An afflicted people must have the right to defend themselves. This 
resolution signals no more and no less.
                               Exhibit 1

    United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Preliminary 
                 Protection Report No. 1 July 18, 1995

       The following is a report based on initial interviews 
     conducted with displaced people who fled Srabrenica after it 
     was overrun by Serb forces.
     
[[Page S 10611]]



                        i. chronology of events

       11 July--Serb forces overran Srabrenica after days of 
     intense artillery and mortar shelling. Residents and 
     displaced people flee burning houses and head for the Dutch 
     UNPROFOR Battalion in Potocari, about 10 km north of 
     Srabrenica. Others escape toward Sagna Finger on foot heading 
     for Tuzia. Serb forces enter Potocari in the afternoon and 
     disarm Dutch troops.
       12 July--Serb forces began moving by bus people who had 
     escaped to Potocari to Klandanj, about 70 km away. From 
     there, the displaced were forced to move across 6 km of no 
     man's land. They were met across the other side by Bosnian 
     trucks and transported to the Tuzla Air Base. As the number 
     of people swells, UNPROFOR opens a camp settlement inside the 
     base.
       13 July--Thursday Bosnian government agrees to move 
     displaced people massed outside the air base to collective 
     centers.
       14 July--Government says the first elements of a column of 
     15,000 Bosnian soldiers, some of them accompanied by their 
     families arrive in the village of Medjedja after walking 
     across the forested Sapna finger. Four days later, the number 
     of people had reached 8,000. The arrivals were wearing rags 
     and mostly barefooted after their shoes were torn apart 
     during the march. The government says it expects more 
     soldiers and civilians to arrive in Madjedja and requested 
     UNHCR for food and non-food items.
       18 July--ICRC evacuates to Tuzla 87 wounded from a hospital 
     in Bratunac and the Dutch medical facility at Potocari.


                       ii. summary of narratives

       2.1 Random interviews were conducted among arrivals at the 
     tent camp at the Tuzlaa airbase. At the outset, it must be 
     explained that none of the accounts could be independently 
     confirmed. The accounts include incidents of rape, robbery 
     and execution stories were told of families being separated 
     of men and women being taken away by Serb soldiers. Soldiers 
     who escaped across the Sapna finger say the encountered heavy 
     shelling, mine fields, ambushes and massacres along the way 
     to Sapna in which hundreds were either killed or captured.
                            iii. interviews

       1. From Potocari to Kladanj.
       1.1 As civilians, mostly women and children, were fleeing 
     advancing Serb forces, shells fell everywhere along the road 
     to Potocari. One woman claims she saw scores of people killed 
     and wounded in the mortar and artillery barrages. Upon 
     reaching Potocari, the civilians gathered in and around the 
     Dutch battalion camp and in the surrounding abandoned 
     factories. Serb soldiers walked inside the camp and started 
     separating families. Men of fighting age and young women were 
     taken away, according to uniform accounts of the people 
     interviewed.
       1.2 One woman says her husband was stabbed dead before her 
     eyes. She was dragged away to a bus but she managed to go 
     back to look for her husband. Later, she found his body at 
     the garage of a factory. Seven other bodies were lying there. 
     Other women say that as they were waiting to be boarded in 
     buses to Kladanj their husbands were taken away and that they 
     did not know what happened to them.
       1.3 Two women interviewed say men were separated from women 
     as people were being loaded in the buses. They claim that 
     Serb soldiers demanded money from them, but gave nothing 
     since they didn't have any. One woman was separated together 
     with the men because she is a relative of a senior Bosnian 
     army officer.
       1.4 The buses were stopped a number of times along the road 
     to Klandanj. Men who were allowed to leave after the first 
     screening were picked out of the buses and taken away. They 
     include boys aged 12 years and upward and young women.
       1.5 A 60-year-old man and his wife say that in their bus, 
     four young women were taken out into the woods. An hour 
     later, only three of the women returned to the bus. The 
     fourth woman showed up in Kladanj naked with only a blanket 
     wrapped around her.
       1.6 Not only were incidents of robbery narrated before the 
     people were put on the buses, but also as the convoys moved 
     toward Klandanj. Along the route, Serb soldiers would demand 
     the meager belongings and money from the passengers. One Serb 
     soldier slashed the upper lip of a woman who could not 
     produce money. Robbery also was allegedly committed as the 
     people were offloaded at Kladanj.
       1.7 One man says he counted 11 bodies as he walked toward 
     Bosnian-controlled area along a six-kilometer stretch of no 
     man's land. He says they apparently were victims of robbery 
     attempts by Serb forces operating across the no-man's land.
       1.8 Dead Bosnian men in civilian and military clothes were 
     seen scattered along the route to Kladanj. Groups of hundreds 
     of captured Bosnian soldiers, their hands behind the back of 
     their head were all along the route.
       2. Escape to Sapna Finger.
       2.1 Four soldiers interviewed say they were among a column 
     of 15,000 people, including 6,000 women and children, who 
     broke across Serb-controlled areas after Srebrenica fell. 
     They walked through 70 km of forests and faced heavy 
     shelling, land mines and ambushes. Hundreds were reportedly 
     killed and hundreds more were captured.
       2.2 One soldier said the first ambush took place in 
     Jaglici, the day the column left Srebrenica. He says more 
     than 60 people were killed. At Konjevic Polja, the column 
     encountered Serb soldiers in UNPROFOR uniform and using UN 
     vehicles. One Serb soldier with a loudhailer called on the 
     Bosnians to come out. Between 20 to 30 Bosnians, mostly 
     children and women, who emerged out of hiding were lined up 
     on the road. Then the Serbs opened fire with machine guns, 
     killing all of them. The same soldier says he saw about 50 
     Bosnian bodies beside a road toward Cereka. And in another 
     place later on, soldiers stepped on mine fields and that 150 
     were reportedly killed there. At Udrio, 300 to 400 were 
     allegedly killed in an ambush. Another 300 to 600 were 
     reportedly captured. Three other soldiers gave similar 
     stories.
       3. MEDEVAC.
       3.1 Interviews were conducted with four male and five 
     female civilians who were evacuated by car from Srebrenica--
     the Dutch facility at Potacari and the hospital in Bratunac--
     by ICRC. They were among 87 brought to Tuzla at the Norwegian 
     medical center. The males were mostly soldiers who were 
     wounded during the fighting before the fall of Srebrenica and 
     were confined at the hospital there. After the Serbs took 
     control of the town, the patients said they were mistreated. 
     Serb soldiers and civilians entered their rooms a number of 
     times and kicked and beat them up. One 60-year-old man says 
     he was hit by a rifle butt in the chest.
                                                    Alvin Gonzaga,
                                               Protection Officer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from Virginia is 
recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we wish to thank our distinguished 
colleague from California for the very strong contribution to this 
debate. I just want to draw on one point, to make sure I understood her 
correctly, because it coincides with my understanding, and that is that 
the Secretary of Defense, when asked by the Senator, made it very clear 
that these rapid reaction forces, primarily from France and Great 
Britain, which are coming there now, and pictures of which we saw 
moving up into Sarajevo today, are there not to protect the civilians 
but simply to facilitate a protective cover to the UNPROFOR forces as 
they continue to struggle to perform their mission; is that correct?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, if I might comment through the Chair, 
what I learned from our caucus is that what my colleague has just 
stated is true in general, but there is some higher commitment in the 
Sarajevo area. I am not certain of this, but I believe I understood the 
Secretary to say that they would defend against the shelling of 
Sarajevo. I am sure someone will straighten this out for certain later 
in the debate, but that is what I understood today.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, that is another example of the difficulty 
many of us are having in getting an accurate understanding of precisely 
what is the intended use of these forces. We have had hearings in the 
Armed Services Committee and repeatedly we have pressed for these 
answers, and as yet we have not received them.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I may respond very briefly to the 
question of the Senator from Virginia, I was in the same meeting and I 
thought the answer was unclear. I thought the Secretary of State said 
that the rapid reaction forces in the vicinity of Sarajevo were capable 
of responding to attacks against the population there as well as 
against U.N. forces. But it was not clearly their authority to do so at 
this point. And the news wires carry stories today of the British 
troops that are there as part of the rapid reaction forces on the hills 
around Sarajevo saying that their understanding of their mission is to 
respond only to attacks by the Serbs against them, against the U.N. 
forces, and not against the civilian population.
  Mr. President, I want to thank our friend and colleague from 
California for a very powerful statement. It is not just that I am 
honored she will support this legislation before us, but it is the 
strength of the high road that she took in her statement, and I am very 
grateful for it, and it encourages me as we begin this debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me join our colleague from Connecticut 
in commending our colleague from California. Her speech was a very 
moving speech. I think anybody who is not affected by her definition of 
the problem, and the concerns she raised, clearly is not in touch with 
the reality of this situation. 

[[Page S 10612]]

  Mr. President, I rise today in support of the resolution lifting the 
arms embargo. I would like to explain why I believe that the arms 
embargo should be lifted, why I believe the United Nations forces 
should be withdrawn, why I believe that the United States should not 
send ground troops into Bosnia, and why I am convinced that the only 
solution is to allow the Bosnians to have access to the arms that will 
allow them to defend themselves.
  Let me start at the beginning. Like many Members of the Senate, I 
have been to the Bosnian region. I have talked to the leaders of the 
various factions. I have talked to the American military leadership. 
And, like every Member of the Senate, I have sat in on endless 
briefings about our situation in Bosnia and the options we have. I 
think basically it all boils down to this: To be decisive in stopping 
the killing in Bosnia would require at a minimum, according to our 
military leadership, 85,000 combat troops. If the United States of 
America sent 85,000 combat troops into Bosnia, there is no doubt about 
the fact that in that environment, we would take casualties. And if the 
conflict rose in intensity, we could take a substantial number of 
casualties.
  I do not think there is any doubt that if we chose to, we would have 
the military power to intervene. In the process, for the period when 
our intervention was active and where we had troops on the ground, 
there is no doubt that we could temporarily change things in Bosnia. 
But I think one thing that everyone who has looked at this conflict 
agrees on is that the day that America pulled out or the day that a 
larger involvement by the United Nations was withdrawn, nothing 
fundamentally would have changed. And on that day, the conflict would 
reignite.
  I think we all understand that if the United States intervened, or if 
we participated in the intervention with our allies, then ultimately 
the day would have to come when we would have to withdraw. I do not 
believe that the American people are convinced, given that we cannot 
permanently change a conflict that is 500 years old, that we can 
justify the loss of American life in Bosnia.
  I do not believe that the American people support a massive ground 
intervention in Bosnia. I am opposed to it. I think it would be a 
mistake to send ground forces into Bosnia. I believe that the American 
people oppose it with enough intensity that if we did intervene, as 
soon as we started to lose American lives, then the pressure would 
mount for us to withdraw.
  So where are we? I think we have a conflict that America cannot be 
decisive in changing through our intervention for any more than a very 
short period of time. It is not going to make me feel any better and I 
do not think it will make the American people feel any better to add 
American names to the casualty list in Bosnia.
  I think the U.N. mission has failed. The safe havens are not safe. 
There is no peace for the peacekeepers to keep. I believe the U.N. 
forces should be withdrawn.
  I think to engage in intensified airstrikes would simply put us into 
a position where, if they did not succeed, we would be drawn deeper and 
deeper into this conflict. And everything we know about the region and 
the effectiveness of airstrikes in a geographic area like Bosnia tells 
us that airstrikes are not likely to be decisive.
  So what do I think the solution is? I do not think it is a very happy 
solution. I think, first of all, we have to recognize that there are 
limits of power and that, even though we are the most powerful country 
in the history of the world, even though we have greater military 
capacity than any nation in the history of the world has ever had, we 
do not have the ability to fix everything that is broken. We do not 
have the ability to right every wrong, and we do not have the capacity, 
given the unwillingness of Americans to sacrifice American lives, to be 
decisive in Bosnia.
  Therefore, I think we should call on the United Nations to withdraw. 
I think we ought to lift the arms embargo. We ought to allow the 
Bosnians to arm themselves and defend themselves. We have to realize 
that foreign policy involving American military power is not like 
social work. It is not a situation in which we see something wrong in 
the world and we decide to fix it.
  It seems to me we have to ask two questions to guide us in our policy 
with regard to Bosnia.
  First of all, do we have a vital national interest in Bosnia? It is 
difficult to listen to the distinguished Senator from California and 
answer that question no. I think we do have an interest in what is 
happening there. I think the whole world has an interest in it.
  But the second test is, can we be decisive, through our intervention, 
in solving the problem? I think the answer to that question is, 
regrettably, no. I think our intervention in the short run on a massive 
scale could have a short-term impact. But the day we withdraw, the 
problem is going to recur. I do not believe that the American people 
support the use of ground troops, and I do not support it.
  We must recognize that while we have a national interest, and I think 
civilization has an interest, I do not think we have the capacity to be 
decisive in this conflict.
  Finally, never, ever, under any circumstance, could I support sending 
U.S. troops into combat under U.N. command. It is an absolutely 
unworkable structure. The United Nations was never organized to conduct 
military operations, and I, for one, am determined to see that under 
the current structure of the United Nations or anything remotely 
similar to it, we do not put Americans into combat under U.N. command.
   Let me, before I end, respond to a couple of points the 
administration has made. The administration has argued that lifting the 
embargo Americanizes the war. I strongly disagree with that argument. I 
think continuing to threaten to do things we are not going to do 
Americanizes the war.
  I think the Serbs understand that we are not going to send ground 
troops into Bosnia. I think the Serbs understand that, at least to this 
point, we have been unwilling to use massive air power because it would 
not have been decisive and because a massive bombardment using American 
air power would have caused collateral damage, including killing 
innocent civilians, that would clearly have been very large. Even as 
sophisticated as our weapons are, that is likely to happen.
  Instead, we have continued to threaten things that do not menace the 
Serbians. What we have to do is level with our allies and level with 
ourselves in saying some very simple things.
  No. one, we are not going to send American ground troops into Bosnia. 
No. two, the U.N. mission is a failure, and nothing that we are going 
to do is going to change that. The obvious thing to do, the 
humanitarian thing to do, and in the long run the thing that is in the 
interest of the people of Bosnia is to lift the arms embargo and give 
the Bosnians the opportunity to defend themselves.
  That is something that we are not going to do for them. The United 
Nations has been unwilling and unable to do it for them. They 
desperately want to do it for themselves. I cannot in good conscience 
deny them the ability to do that.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.


                            Bosnia Decisions

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we are considering legislation that would 
unilaterally lift the arms embargo against Bosnia on a date certain 
that is established by actions outside the control of the United 
States. A demand by the Bosnian Government for the United Nations 
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) withdrawal from Bosnia would cause the 
lifting of the United States embargo against the Bosnian Government. 
The sponsor of this legislation, Senator Dole, and cosponsors and 
others have argued that UNPROFOR is not effectively protecting the 
U.N.-declared safe areas--and I agree with that--and that it should be 
withdrawn, allowing the Bosnian Government to defend itself and its 
people.
  But, Mr. President, this scenario does not fully reflect ongoing 
developments. There is another option to what is clearly a failed U.N. 
mission, failed because no peacekeeping operation can succeed when 
there is no peace to keep. Last Friday, representatives of the 16 
nations comprising the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] met in 
London to hammer out a coordinated 

[[Page S 10613]]
NATO response to the recent Serb aggression. That meeting has resulted 
in a new policy, the details of which are being finalized today. The 
most important element of the policy is that our NATO allies are 
remaining in Bosnia. They have not seized upon excuses to quit the 
morass that is Bosnia. Our European allies recognize that aggression in 
Europe feeds upon itself and must be met. They recognize that the 
spread of this cancer will eventually threaten the stability of NATO 
nations, through huge refugee flows, black market arms trading, and 
economic instability. They are not leaving the refugees in the safe 
areas with no hope that the West cares about their fate. NATO is 
prepared to take action if Gorazde is attacked. As the discussion 
proceeds in NATO councils, we should soon know if the ``dual key'' 
approach to approving airstrikes will remain in its now modified form, 
or if--as I hope--the retaliatory strikes are to be fully in NATO's 
control. My opinion is that now is the time for the U.N. bureaucracy to 
completely step aside.
  This is a big change for U.N. and NATO policy in Bosnia, and one that 
is not recognized in the legislation we are debating. The U.N. 
operation in Bosnia has been castigated for not truly protecting the 
Bosnian Moslem refugees in Srebrenica, Zepa, and other safe areas. It 
is certainly true that the United Nations was unable to keep those 
towns from being overrun; just as it is true that Bosnian Government 
forces also failed to keep the towns from being overrun. Perhaps that 
is cause for some to call for the United Nations' withdrawal from 
Bosnia. I am opposed to unilateral action by the United States. I 
suggest that it is time to let NATO take over from the United Nations 
in Bosnia. That is the path that is being taken in the recent NATO 
decisions.
  NATO is a fighting force, while the United Nations is not. For the 
four and a half decades since its inception in 1949, NATO has thrived 
as one of history's most successful alliances, serving as a defensive 
shield protecting its 16 members from a massive assault by Warsaw Pact 
armies. The fact that it has never had to fight the Warsaw Pact is 
perhaps proof of its effectiveness. In times of rivalry on trade and 
diplomatic fronts, NATO has been a stabilizing factor in U.S.-European 
relations, a forum where Western countries can air and coordinate 
important global policies of concern such as arms control, 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and instability in the 
region. Now, it is proving to be a forum where, perhaps, a workable 
plan for the tragic situation in Bosnia can be hammered out and 
implemented.
  NATO troops are seasoned and practiced in joint operations. They have 
the equipment, training, and rules of engagement to make them an 
effective enforcer of the decisions announced this weekend. The NATO 
military command is establishing the command and control links and 
decisionmaking rules to guide NATO operations in Bosnia in fulfillment 
of the decisions so recently made.
  But NATO needs time, it needs the opportunity, to prove that it can 
be more effective in Bosnia than the U.N. peacekeepers have been. I 
know that proponents of this legislation will say that airstrikes have 
been tried before, and they have not worked. I do not deny that. But 
previous retaliatory airstrike operations have been bound with so many 
restrictions and such cumbersome lines of control as to be useless. 
Previous airstrikes have required advance notice to the targets that 
were to be hit. They have required a time-consuming and cumbersome 
decisionmaking process that rendered the strikes toothless and not 
timely. They have been conducted by flights of aircraft not necessarily 
suited to the task at hand. And, they have been deterred by the 
presence of hostages at the sites to be bombed.
  These restrictions do not appear to be the case in the retaliation 
that has been outlined for NATO and by NATO. NATO retaliation will be 
swift, it will be at a time and place of NATO's choosing, it will not 
be announced, and it may encompass any Serb military target, including 
command and control centers and headquarters. Our NATO allies with 
forces on the ground have even accepted the possibility that hostages 
may be taken, and have pledged to continue on even in these difficult 
conditions. This is a far cry from the previous ineffective U.N.-
controlled airstrikes.
  Will this be easy? No, I do not think so. Is it important to support 
NATO in this effort? Yes. I think it is very important. Our NATO allies 
have made two points clear: First, they are committed to taking action 
in Bosnia, and remaining engaged there. Second, they have made it clear 
that United States actions to unilaterally lift the arms embargo would 
seriously damage the allied coalition on Bosnia. The United States has 
urged NATO to take on this larger role, and to become more active in 
deterring aggression in Bosnia. They are doing it.
  Mr. President, this legislation does not address the key issue, which 
is the role of NATO in keeping the peace on the European continent. It 
pretends to lift an embargo that the United States has not enforced for 
months, due to compromise language worked out in last year's defense 
authorization bill. Arms and funds to buy arms are making their way to 
the Bosnian Government from sympathetic governments, just as arms are 
making their way to the Bosnian Serbs. A lifting of the United States 
embargo could very well be a prelude to greater American involvement in 
this conflict. Following a formal lifting of the United States embargo, 
shall we expect to see legislation introduced to use U.S. taxpayer's 
funds to supply arms to the Bosnian Government? Such legislation has 
been included in bills in the past, up to $200 million. Some $50 
million in defense articles and services from the Department of Defense 
was authorized to be provided to the Government of Bosnia in the Fiscal 
Year 1995 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (Public Law 103-306), 
subject to Presidential certification. This assistance even may prove 
necessary, if action to lift the embargo weakens NATO's resolve and 
ability to act in Bosnia. After all, why should our allies, who have so 
much more at stake in Bosnia, undertake such risks, when on the heels 
of their consensus, the United States adds a new unilateral element?
  All of us sympathize with the suffering in Bosnia. Nobody sympathizes 
with the suffering any more than I do. I am not blind to it. I hope 
that the new NATO policy will be successful, and will finally let the 
Bosnian Serbs know that they cannot defy the world, take more 
territory, and displace residents in order to create an intolerant 
society. I simply cannot see how this legislation before us today 
improves the situation for the Bosnian
 Government, or for the Bosnian people, or for the hope that the United 
States and its allies can retain a united security policy.

  It is this unilateral action that threatens to ``Americanize'' the 
conflict in Bosnia. If our actions here today on this measure 
jeopardize the new NATO policy in Bosnia before that policy is 
implemented and tested, we may have assumed some responsibility for the 
further deterioration of conditions in Bosnia. If our actions on this 
measure lead to our European allies quitting the field in Bosnia, then 
we may feel more responsible for the fate of Bosnia. If we then begin 
to supply arms, and the Bosnian Government still fails to deter Serb 
advances, and we are urged to supply training, and then intelligence, 
and then advisers, and then more powerful weapons, we will have chosen 
a well traveled path--a path that in our own past has led to places 
like Vietnam and Nicaragua. This is classic incrementalism. It is a 
poor substitute for decisive NATO action.
  Active, decisive NATO operations to deter or retaliate against Serb 
aggression will do more to support the Bosnian victims of aggression 
than will an UNPROFOR withdrawal and a lonely battle fought only by the 
Bosnian Government forces. With our European allies, the United States 
has been involved from the beginning. It is better for Bosnia, and 
better for the United States, for the United States to act in concert 
with our allies, rather than to act alone.
  Mr. President, let us vote to give NATO a chance in a very complex 
and difficult situation. Let us not make that situation more complex 
and difficult. I intend to vote against this bill.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  
[[Page S 10614]]

  Mr. WARNER. Will the distinguished Senator from West Virginia yield 
for a question?
  Mr. BYRD. I yield.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the distinguished Senator.
  The premise, as I listened very carefully to the Senator's very 
eloquent remarks, was that NATO be given the responsibility, given the 
responsibility--and I copied it down correctly--to deter quite this 
situation which would, first, be clearly taking sides.
  The United States is an integral part of NATO, and that leads me to 
the question, if NATO were to be given this authority, in my judgment, 
that would immediately lead to the assumption that U.S. ground troops 
as an integral part of NATO forces called into the battle would then be 
sent into that conflict.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I do not agree with the Senator. He has a 
right to his opinion. He is a very able and long-time Member of the 
Armed Services Committee. I respect his viewpoint.
  I am simply saying that the allies have determined on a course of 
action. I am saying that for us to adopt the measure that is before the 
Senate to unilaterally lift the embargo would be, in a way, jerking the 
rug out from under the allies. I am saying, let the allies take the 
course of action that they have taken, they have decided upon--we do 
not have to pass this resolution today or tomorrow--but let us not take 
action here which may in the final analysis result in exactly what the 
distinguished Senator has expressed concern against, and that is the 
use of American fighting personnel in Bosnia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may ask a second question, if the 
responsibility is turned over to NATO, what would be the likely 
reaction of Russia? Russia has a historical connection with Serbia and 
the cultures associated with Serbia, and speaking for myself, I would 
want to know exactly what their reaction would be before I say, ``NATO, 
you take over this fight.''
  Mr. BYRD. I do not suppose they will like it, but what will be the 
Russian reaction if we lift the embargo unilaterally? What will be 
their reaction to that?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think that has already been stated by 
Russia. They will revert to their historical ties to Serbia and in all 
probability aid Serbia. But to give this situation over to NATO and let 
them take such action, as I took notes here, I as yet have not seen any 
decisive action. This is the whole problem--no decisive action thus far 
by NATO most likely as a consequence of the U.N. dual-key handle on the 
situation.
  Mr. BYRD. Which I am against.
  Mr. WARNER. I understand, Mr. President, very clearly that the 
Senator has made that point. But I do not see the circumstances under 
which--no matter how intriguing our distinguished colleague's 
suggestion might be, I do not see the circumstances where this would be 
turned over to NATO. And if it were, then, in my opinion, we would have 
to participate as an integral partner in NATO both in the ground and in 
the air and on the sea. That is my concern.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that even though I 
hold the floor, I may be permitted to ask a question of the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, is the Senator discouraged by the action 
that will be taken by the NATO allies, the decision that was made by 
the NATO allies on last Saturday and the follow-through which they are 
making today?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, my answer to that----
  Mr. BYRD. Is he not in concert with the decision that was made by the 
allies?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, most respectfully, I am not. I think that 
to begin a very serious air-bombing campaign of portions of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina and possibly extending it on into areas bordering on if not 
Serbia--and that has been mentioned--is a very dangerous mission. What 
is to happen if hostages are taken during the course of this 
bombardment, not only hostages of the UNPROFOR but the U.N. forces 
there associated with the food disposal and disbursements, and 
civilians?
  There has been a long history by the Bosnian Serbs, Mr. President, of 
collocating with targets of opportunity, collocating innocent 
civilians, of chaining hostages, of chaining hostages, Mr. President, 
to the likely targets. And I cannot see the United States being told or 
exercising leadership, bomb and bomb and bomb, while hostages are being 
chained and innocent civilians dragged into the collocation of those 
targets.
  Suppose you were a young American aviator and you were directed to 
bomb a target when you knew full well of the innocent people in the 
vicinity. Mr. President, that policy disturbs me greatly.
  I thank my good friend and colleague. We have served here these many, 
many years together, and on this we have a difference of view.
  Mr. BYRD. We do have. Mr. President, I am sorry that the 
distinguished Senator deplores the fact that the NATO allies have not 
taken any action, and yet he also deplores the decision by the NATO 
allies on last Friday to take action. He says, why have they not taken 
any action? They have not had time to follow through on the decision.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, they have indicated a willingness to put 
the rapid reaction force into positions where those forces can better 
protect UNPROFOR, not stop in any way the killing, the raping of many, 
many innocent civilians.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senator has taken on more than a man-
sized job now when he talks about stopping the raping and killing of 
the innocents. That goes on here in the District of Columbia and 
everywhere else. And that has been going on in the area that we are 
talking about for over 2,000 years. It was from that area that the 
Roman legions were able to get their best soldiers, in Pannonia and 
Dalmatia, Illyria--the area more recently referred to as Yugoslavia--
where, in A.D. 6, some 200,000 Dalmatians and Pannonians revolted and 
massacred thousands of Roman citizens and Roman soldiers.
  We are dealing with an extremely difficult problem here. It is not 
going to be dealt with overnight. And I am afraid--I simply say it is 
my opinion. I may be wrong; I have been found wrong upon several 
occasions in my 77 years. I may be wrong this time. It is my opinion 
that this is the wrong thing to do, to lift this embargo unilaterally.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague for the 
opportunity to have a colloquy together.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank my friend.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I think the colloquy between the 
distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia and the distinguished 
senior Senator from Virginia is probably as illustrative of the debate 
we have here as anything. Without meaning to embarrass either of the 
distinguished Senators, one from West Virginia and one from Virginia, 
they are two of the most knowledgeable Members of this Senate, they are 
two people probably who have observed history, the use of force, the 
trends in history and trends in the use of force as much as anyone, 
certainly longer than the senior Senator from Vermont. It is indicative 
of the agonizing choice here that they are in disagreement on this. 
They are two Senators respected by their colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle and respected by each other and yet they differ on this. That 
is a measure of the strong feelings we all feel about this desperate 
situation.
  It is indicative of the larger issues that underlie this debate. I 
worry, for example, about what will remain of NATO when this is over? 
This is an issue that many of us feel, as does the Senator from 
Vermont, should have been handled by NATO in the first instance, 
starting several years ago. And NATO--which has been supported by the 
United States, maintained by the United States, in many ways led by the 
United States ever since the beginning of the cold war--NATO, when 
faced with its first real challenge, a challenge to show leadership, a 
challenge to deal forcefully with a conflict taking place right on 
their borders, they failed and failed miserably. And it is almost as 
though the meetings in Brussels and the dinners in the chandeliered 
dining rooms and the discussions of 

[[Page S 10615]]
those driven around in limousines and saluted were more important than 
the policy. And I worry that part of the damage of this whole sorry 
episode in the former Yugoslavia, part of the damage may be a wounding 
of NATO itself. I am very concerned that NATO may not be as relevant as 
we go into the next century, just 4\1/2\ years away.
  I say this because I am one who does not assume that NATO is no 
longer needed today, that the Soviet Union has completely disappeared. 
I am not ready to accept that. I certainly accept there have been 
magnificent and significant changes in the former Soviet Union. But 
those things that we feared about the Soviet Union, I would say to my 
friend from Virginia and others, those things we feared I am not sure 
they cannot reappear.
  I applaud the things that have happened in Russia, for example, the 
opening of a far freer press. I certainly applaud the privatization 
that is going on, the efforts toward openness and democracy. I 
certainly hope these changes are permanent, and I have strongly 
supported aid to the former Soviet Union to help them succeed in this 
difficult transition. But I am not ready to accept that Russia is like 
our European allies who we have grown accustomed to throughout our 
lifetime. It is still a country with thousands and thousands of nuclear 
warheads, a country still having difficulty deciding what kind of a 
government it is going to have, and a country with many in positions of 
power who long for the good old days of Soviet privilege and power.
  I do not say that to be overly pessimistic. But I am saying that if 
the Western World is going to stand up for democracy, human rights, and 
the civilian control of military power, then NATO is the place to show 
it. I worry much that NATO may have been so badly damaged by this 
debacle that it will never recover its footing. I hope it does.
  Throughout this debate on the Dole-Lieberman amendment to 
unilaterally lift the arms embargo against Bosnia, there have been 
eloquent and persuasive arguments on both sides. I find myself torn. In 
fact, when similar resolutions as this came up in the past I found 
myself actually supporting the other side at one point, something I 
rarely have done in 21 years. I can think of few issues in my 21 years 
about which I have felt so conflicted.
  I do think there are things we all agree on. The arms embargo which 
was imposed by the United Nations Security Council with strong U.S. 
support was well-intentioned but, I believe, a tragic mistake. It was 
agreed to even before Bosnia declared its independence, at a time when 
very few anticipated the disaster that has since befallen the former 
Yugoslavia. While the embargo has not prevented Bosnian Moslems from 
obtaining arms on the black market, it has provided a military 
advantage to the Serbs by denying the Bosnians access to tanks and 
heavy artillery.
  We also agree that while both sides are guilty of atrocities against 
civilians and prisoners of war, the Serbs have been responsible for the 
overwhelming majority of the atrocities, especially in their hideous 
campaign of ethnic cleansing. We have heard of thousands of women and 
girls raped, thousands of prisoners mutilated and summarily executed, 
civilian targets shelled, even the wounded in hospitals taken out and 
shot.
  If there is anything that would fit a definition of war crimes, it 
has been these atrocities. We have watched as the Bosnian Serbs have 
overrun 70 percent of the territory previously occupied by Bosnian 
Moslems. Even today, Sarajevo and Bihac are under attack. That is 
beyond dispute.
  We also know that an American F-16 was shot down by a Serb missile. 
There was absolutely no evidence that the NATO aircraft, which was 
enforcing the no-fly zone, posed any threats to the Serbs. But yet they 
shot it down.
  I think we all agree that the status quo is completely unacceptable. 
UNPROFOR went to Bosnia to protect civilians, but they were never given 
the mandate, the equipment, or the rules of engagement to do the job, a 
job they were asked to carry out under agreements worked out with 
parties that continuously lied and broke their word.
  It was unconscionable to inject U.N. peacekeepers into a war where 
there is no peace to keep and without adequate means to defend 
themselves. We have watched as the United Nations and NATO have been 
humiliated and weakened as Serb violations of U.N. resolutions were met 
with silence. We have been disgusted as NATO, the most powerful 
military alliance in recorded history, seemed impotent to respond 
aggressively to these outrages.
  We have watched helplessly as U.N. troops were taken hostage, abused, 
and even killed. Bosnians civilians accompanied by U.N. soldiers have 
been seized by Serb soldiers, been taken away and shot. The U.N. 
soldiers have had to stand by and watch this, helpless to stop it. U.N. 
weapons and equipment have been flagrantly stolen.
  The U.N. mission was to protect civilians. While UNPROFOR has saved 
lives, it has fallen far short of accomplishing its full mission. U.N. 
safe areas have proven to be anything but safe. The U.N. dual-key 
approach turned out to be a terrible mistake.
  Finally, I think there is widespread agreement that the response of 
the West, including the United States, to the genocide in Bosnia has 
been a catastrophic failure. We even refused to call it genocide when 
what we watch on television was clearly genocide. The policy of our 
European allies and two consecutive American administrations have been 
timid, equivocal, and ineffective.
  Mr. President, I wish there had never been an arms embargo. But with 
one in place, we now have a real problem of whether to break with our 
NATO allies. Many feel that would be a very serious mistake.
  The Bosnian Government wants the arms embargo lifted. But does it 
want the United Nations to leave? The Bosnian Government has never 
asked the United Nations to leave. That is because they know that, even 
as flawed as this has been, the United Nations is saving lives and is 
getting food and medicine to over 2 million stranded, defenseless 
people. If the United Nations leaves, they know the war will escalate 
and more people will die. Bosnia's Prime Minister wants the United 
States to enter the war, and that is why he supports this amendment.
  I have also listened to those who believe that even large U.S. 
airstrikes aimed at strengthening the U.N. operation would not defeat 
the Serbs. They argue the only way to defeat the Serbs is with massive 
numbers of NATO ground troops, including thousands of Americans, to 
seize territory and defend it. Since the Serbs know that the United 
States is not prepared to undertake such a hazardous, costly military 
operation of indefinite duration in a country where no U.S. security 
interests are at stake, there is a possibility the Serbs will resist 
our air attacks and fight on.
  They may be right. But our Pentagon commanders believe that punishing 
air attacks could swing the balance in this war. And maybe they are 
right.
  And so, Mr. President, it is because there is no easy solution to the 
conflict in Bosnia that we face this agonizing choice. Everything in my 
heart and emotion makes me want to vote to lift this embargo. As I 
talked with the Bosnians themselves, and I hear them say, ``Let us 
fight like human beings and not die like animals,'' I want to lift the 
embargo.
  And if I thought that unilaterally lifting the arms embargo would 
stop the bloodshed there, I would vote for it without hesitation, 
despite, I might say, the unfortunate and even the dangerous precedent 
it would set in rejecting a Security Council resolution that we here in 
the United States voted for and supported. I would do so because I 
believe so strongly that the genocide in Bosnia must be stopped.
  Mr. President, I am one who has said for a long, long time, even when 
our own Government would not say so, that this is genocide. But I find 
that it may well be impossible for me to vote for this amendment 
because our military leaders predict that the bloodshed would quickly 
escalate and that, as UNPROFOR leaves, U.N. troops would be drawn into 
a protracted ground war in Bosnia. That may be inevitable. It may be 
inevitable. But there is still a chance that NATO can prevent such a 
debacle.
  I cannot support the withdrawal of the United Nations when there is 
still a chance that NATO would display the 

[[Page S 10616]]
kind of unity and power that it should have displayed from the very 
beginning of this conflict. I cannot turn my back when NATO may be able 
to redeem itself and be a viable force for bringing about an end to 
this cruel war.
  I believe our first responsibility is to NATO. I say that as one who 
has supported NATO throughout my adult life, as one who believes that 
the West needs a strong leader.
  NATO is our first responsibility, and today the administration and 
our NATO allies are feverishly working to develop a strategy to deter 
further Serb advances on the Bosnian Moslem enclaves.
  I would like to see some time at least elapse following the meetings 
in London this past weekend, while the meetings are continuing today, 
before we vote on the question of lifting the arms embargo.
  I am afraid if we pass this amendment today, we are inviting NATO to 
walk away from Bosnia, and we are saying we do not support a forceful 
NATO response, that we are prepared to see an appalling situation 
become even worse. I think that would be a mistake. I think we should 
give the process underway in London time to unfold.
  Frankly, I was disappointed, as I know many Senators were, that last 
Friday in London, the NATO Ministers only threatened to use substantial 
and decisive force if the Serbs attack Gorazde. Why should that threat 
not apply equally to Serb attacks against the other remaining safe 
havens? They are under Serb assault right now.
  Innocent people have been dying for months. Secretary of State 
Christopher and Secretary of Defense Perry have both suggested the 
enclaves would be covered by the NATO threat, but it is unclear whether 
NATO feels that way. I believe this is absolutely crucial. I have 
discussed this with the Secretary of State.
  I am confident that the administration will continue to push for the 
broadest and strongest rules of engagement for NATO, and that the 
disastrous dual-key policy will end. Frankly, Mr. President, I hope our 
country will never be party to something like this again.
  Any decision to use force will be made by NATO commanders, not U.N. 
bureaucrats, and U.S. ground troops will not be involved except, of 
course, I might say, as we the President has already said, to ensure 
the safe withdrawal of U.N. troops.
  Mr. President, the easy vote for me on this amendment would be to 
vote ``aye.'' That is an easy, visible way for me to cast my lot with 
those suffering in Bosnia, suffering that should never have happened if 
there had not been mistakes made by the West for at least 5 years now.
  I feel for those desperate people as passionately as anyone in this 
Chamber. How could any human being not? But I find it virtually 
impossible to support an amendment which I believe would lead to wider 
war, greater suffering, that would endanger the lives of the troops of 
our NATO allies who are on the ground, and possibly endanger thousands 
of Americans at this moment when NATO is substantially revising its 
policy in Bosnia.
  As I have said, I have been torn by this more than any issue here. If 
the new policy does not work, perhaps I will feel differently, perhaps 
I would vote differently.
  If the decision is made to withdraw UNPROFOR, which is what this 
amendment does, then tens of thousands of U.S. troops will be sent to 
assist their retreat, If that occurs, Americans and U.N. peacekeepers 
will be killed and possibly taken hostage.
  As the leader of NATO we have that responsibility. If we are asked by 
UNPROFOR to help them withdraw, we will have to say yes. I am one 
Senator who would vote to support that, even though it means we will 
put American troops in harm's way. But I cannot support an amendment 
which does not spell out all these risks for the American people. This 
amendment says nothing about the fact that American ground troops would 
likely end up in Bosnia. Perhaps we should vote on that.
  Mr. President, while I have been deeply disappointed by the failure 
of the Western countries to act more forcefully to stop the genocide in 
Bosnia, I have hope that that is changing. I think we and our allies 
have failed badly. The past 3 years will be remembered for horrifying 
brutality met by timidity and meaningless threats.
  Today, NATO has a last chance to redeem itself. President Clinton has 
gone to great lengths in recent days to persuade our national allies to 
act forcefully. There has been significant progress toward a unified 
position. He has urged us to give NATO a chance to prove itself--not 
the U.N. but NATO. I believe we have a responsibility as the leader of 
NATO to stand up for that alliance today.
  For that reason, and primarily for that reason, I will vote no. If 
NATO does not stand up, if the situation does not change, if after the 
conclusion of the discussions in London further Serb atrocities are 
still met with inaction, then frankly, Mr. President, I do not see how 
I could continue to vote no.
  I want to say, again, Mr. President, before I yield the floor, I see 
my friend from Virginia, and I have so much respect both for him and 
for the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia. Hearing that 
colloquy, I could not help but think that they spoke to the things that 
have been going back and forth in my mind.
  I walked the fields of my farm in Vermont, and I have gone back and 
forth and been awake in the middle of the night. I find myself one 
moment saying yes, and the next moment, no. I have gone back and forth. 
This has, frankly, Mr. President, been one of the most difficult votes 
I have cast, even though there is no question in my mind that the 
resolution of the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished 
Senator from Connecticut will pass this body, I suspect, by a fairly 
large margin.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, a question to my distinguished colleague.
  The American taxpayer has been paying this bill, now, in 1993, $138 
million; 1994, $292 million; 1995, $315 million; now at even a higher 
rate, for their participation in the air and in the naval embargo.
  I think it is time that the U.S. Senate stood up for something. Does 
the Senator from Vermont--and I listened very carefully--does the 
Senator advocate a larger role for NATO then, Mr. President? I think 
you are obligated to tell what you want NATO to do. We now have 
dispatches today that Boutros-Ghali, the head of the United Nations, is 
not about to turn this thing over to NATO.
  Let Members not hold out there is a solution by NATO.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senator, of course, is entitled to his 
own analysis of what I said, which of course is not what I said. I have 
spoken on this floor many times and elsewhere for several years, both 
in the past administration and in this administration, saying there has 
been opportunity after opportunity lost by NATO in the past.
  This is not something calling for NATO to act today. It is something 
I have been saying for years, something I have said both to the current 
President and his predecessor. This is not something I am saying up 
here and raising this point. It is a situation where I wish I had been 
wrong in calling for stronger action in the past. It may have had a lot 
more effect. But I see now, as I look back, I was right and the 
decisions made by two administrations were wrong.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I simply conclude by saying that if 
someone has a plan that NATO should carry out, perhaps they ought to 
bring it out here and discuss it. If we have NATO with greater 
involvement, I cannot see how our President can say NATO will continue 
in the air, but no way will we go in on the ground.
  If you bring NATO in and give it full responsibility, then we are in 
this combat on the ground very decisively, in my judgment.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I note the presence on 
the floor of the majority leader, the principal sponsor of the 
amendment. I have been waiting for some time, but if the Senator from 
Kansas, the majority leader, wishes to make a statement, I am happy to 
yield.
  Mr. DOLE. I came to listen to the Senator from Nebraska.
  
[[Page S 10617]]

  Mr. EXON. I hope I will not disappoint the Senator from Kansas with 
my remarks.
  Mr. President, the vote that I will cast on the Dole-Lieberman 
measure on the critical, complicated, and extremely dangerous situation 
in Bosnia is one of the most important, if not the most important vote, 
that I have ever cast in the Senate.
  I will vote no, Mr. President, because I am convinced that this ill-
advised Americanization of the war will gut our relationships with our 
traditional allies, sow the seed for the end of NATO, and make the 
United Nations substantially less of an instrument for the settling of 
disputes.
  To my colleagues, I say vote no. This is not the correct course of 
action. Vote no, I plead--I plead, since I am convinced that this ill-
advised action could turn out to be disastrous for the world and for 
the United States of America.
  Mr. President, last Wednesday I addressed the Senate on the reasons 
why I oppose S. 21, the Dole-Lieberman bill to unilaterally lift the 
arms embargo against Bosnia. Since that time, the United States has met 
with our European allies to assess our collective policy in response to 
Serbian attacks on two Bosnian safe havens. I am convinced now even 
more than last week that passage of S. 21 in its present form would 
only worsen the situation in Bosnia.
  With the deployment of the French and British Rapid Reaction Force 
and the recommitment of the alliance, including the United States, to 
the use of air strikes to blunt Serbian attacks on safe havens, the 
crisis in Bosnia has entered an important new phase that I think we 
should recognize. The alliance is now committed to meet Serb aggression 
against civilian populations with force unencumbered by a restrictive 
dual-key arrangement for authorizing airstrikes. As Secretary 
Christopher said in his July 21 press briefing, the city of Gorazde, 
our most immediate concern, will be defended.
  Unilateral lifting of the embargo prematurely starts a series of 
events in motion that will directly undercut the agreement reached by 
the alliance over the weekend. Lifting the embargo will result in an 
infusion of arms on all sides of the conflict--not simply the Bosnian 
Government, but to all sides--that will only sustain the ability to 
wage war, inflict casualities, and terrorize the civilian populations. 
Removal of the peacekeepers would be inevitable and the dogs of war 
will be
 unleashed, newly strengthened, to carry on the fight until one dog 
remains or there is nothing left alive to fight over.

  As I said during my statement last week on S. 21, I am not a 
supporter of an embargo that hinders the Bosnian Forces in there 
ability to defend themselves. I also question the effectiveness of the 
peacekeepers to fulfill their mission when a peace agreement is not in 
place. We have turned over responsibility of protecting civilians on 
the ground and seeing that convoys of food and medicine get through to 
our allies. We have asked that the French, the British, the Dutch, and 
many other countries shoulder the costly burden of putting their 
soldiers at risk on the ground, while we lament their inability to stop 
the bloodshed and demand that something be done, we suggest by Dole-
Lieberman that we ``courageously'' unilaterally lift the embargo.
  It is disingenuous for the U.S. Senate to be calling for a unilateral 
lifting of the embargo and undercutting our allies when their soldiers 
are the ones dying in an attempt to protect innocent men, women, and 
children. The United States lost 43 men in Somalia in an operation to 
save hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by starvation. The French 
have now lost 42 men in Bosnia since arriving in June 1992. I could 
only imagine the howls emanating from this Chamber had a nation not 
involved on the ground in Somalia decided, contrary to international 
agreement, to supply arms into Somalia that in turn further endangered 
Americans there. Our foreign policy is not made in a vacuum and we must 
be aware of the standards we ask other nations to adhere to when we 
contemplate a course of action that places us at odds with our allies.
  Sure, proponents will say that the situations are not the same and 
that S. 21 provides for a lifting of the embargo after the peacekeepers 
are withdrawn. But the point is that this bill is the impetus for the 
Bosnian Government to demand that the
 peacekeepers leave. S. 21's enticement to remove the shield, now 
reinforced by this weekend's decision, is the promise of arms, a 
promise, by the way, that S. 21 neither fulfills nor addresses. 
Similarly, the bill before us refuses to take into account the need to 
authorize United States forces to assist in the withdrawal of United 
Nations forces from Bosnia. S. 21 is only half of the story. The other 
half of the story no one wants to be bothered with is a lot more messy: 
thousands of United States ground troops in Bosnia extracting our 
allies; increased fighting among combatants as the arms pour in to 
Bosnia and its cities become the battlelines; more brutality; more 
death; and ever-deepening scar of human suffering.

  There are no easy courses of action with respect to our policy in 
Bosnia. No alternative is guaranteed to reach a peaceful and equitable 
settlement. President Clinton has joined our allies in strengthening 
the prospect of bringing the Serb Forces attacking civilian safe havens 
to heel. I have heard none of the proponents of S. 21 suggest that 
lifting the arms embargo and removing the U.N. peacekeepers will reduce 
the fighting. Likewise, the proponents of S. 21 will not tell you that 
by pulling out the peacekeepers protecting the safe havens Serbian 
forces will cease their attacks on civilian populations. That is so 
because we know such a conclusion is faulty, as the events of the past 
have clearly shown. Every one knows the opposite is true. Lift the 
embargo, pull out the peacekeepers, flood the region with more arms, 
and watch the bloodshed rage. S. 21 will prolong the war, not end it. 
S. 21 will lead to more casualties, not less.
  The West's dedication to use air strikes to keep the Serbians at bay 
improves the prospect that the military balance
 will shift to the point that the Serbs cannot exploit their advantage 
in the Eastern Bosnian enclaves, thus hopefully--I say hopefully 
because nothing is assured--leading to a realization that this war 
cannot be won on the field of battle. After all, Bosnian Government 
Forces are numerically superior to the Serb Forces and have been 
retaking land from the Serbs in some of the western areas. Perhaps the 
status quo is the lesser of two evils. But there are no simple 
solutions. We must work with the hand that we are dealt. I believe the 
President's policy and that of the NATO alliance is measured and 
appropriate under the circumstances. It has been totally agreed to by 
our military leaders. This is not Kansas. We can not click our heels 
three times and expect the problem to go away. Our allies are doing 
their best in a very difficult situation. Let us not undercut them. Let 
us not undercut our President as he carries out his constitutional 
authorities as Commander in Chief.

  S. 21 has the allure of cotton candy. But as we know, the sweet taste 
soon disappears and leaves only the threat of tooth decay. Cotton candy 
is not good for you and S. 21 is not good for the cause of peace in 
Bosnia. I urge the Senate to not endorse a course of action that 
resigns us to a cynical view that endorses the rearming of the region 
in a misguided hope that more arms, more fighting, more American 
involvement will further the prospect of peace.
  When tens of thousands of women and children were being brutally 
hacked to death by machetes in Rwanda, I do not recall anyone in the 
Senate taking the floor calling for the need to send arms to the 
persecuted minority in Rwanda to defend themselves. I mention this 
because the Senate has a way of being selective in its indignation over 
foreign policy matters. The Congress has an unfortunate tendency to be 
inconsistent in how we involve ourselves in foreign affairs. So let it 
not be a surprise, if S. 21 becomes law, when at some point in the 
future an ally of ours decides to break out of the Iraqi, Libyan or 
Serbian international embargo and points to our vote today as 
justification for the action.
  The fact is that the present policy has
   the best shot, although I agree it is a long one, of realizing a 
peaceful settlement to the fighting in Bosnia. We hope and we pray that 
that will happen.

  Until we as a Nation have forces involved in there are more than we 
have 

[[Page S 10618]]
now, our indignation over the recent policy decisions in the Balkans 
rings, in the view of this Senator, as somewhat hollow.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, may I ask my colleague, has he had the 
opportunity to read the letter from the Prime Minister of Bosnia 
requesting that this specific action before the Senate today be taken?
  Mr. EXON. No. I have not read that letter. I do not believe, in 
answer to my friend from Virginia, that we should necessarily be swayed 
by such a letter. If the Bosnian Government would make the official 
request to remove the peacekeepers at the proper agency, which I 
suggest is the United Nations, then I think it would be more 
meaningful. Will the Senator from Virginia agree?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I agree. That is precisely what this 
measure before the Senate at this time provides. If I could draw the 
Senator's attention--I am sure he has read it--the distinguished 
majority leader and the Senator from Connecticut revised earlier 
provisions to say expressly that should be done; namely, that the 
Bosnian Government make a formal appeal. This does not constitute a 
formal appeal. But time after time Senators have come up and said the 
Dole-Lieberman measure gives an inducement for them to take certain 
action. They have already made the decision. Here are two letters, one 
July 11 and one dated today from the Prime Minister corroborating 
statements that he made to many of us here in terms of his desire.
  So I say to the Senator, this is not an inducement. This government 
does desire the action recited in the present measure.
  Mr. EXON. May I ask the Senator from Virginia, has the Government of 
Bosnia made a formal request to the United Nations for such action?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it has not as yet.
  Mr. EXON. As I said in my speech last week, I remind my friend from 
Virginia that, if that would happen, that would be the proper means of 
doing it. I do not believe that it necessarily follows that, since the 
Senate had received a letter from the President of Bosnia indicating 
what his intentions are, that necessarily in and of itself justifies 
our taking the action that S. 21 provides.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will simply say I call your attention to 
the measure pending before the Senate in which it says clearly the 
President of the United States shall terminate the arms embargo to the 
Government of Bosnia as provided following receipt by the United States 
Government of a request from the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
for termination of the arms embargo in exercise of its sovereign 
rights. Then it goes on to say decision by the U.N. Security Council or 
decision by countries contributing. So there it is right in this 
resolution.
  Mr. EXON. Will the Senator from Virginia tell me about how our 
allies, who presently have combat troops on the ground at risk and 
being killed, what is their attitude toward the letter that the Senator 
from Virginia is using to justify S. 21? Does he think we should take 
into consideration the commitment of the United Nations, the commitment 
of our allies, the commitment of NATO? Does that have anything to do 
with the situation?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it certainly does. It has a great deal to 
do with it. But at this point in time our President, together with our 
allies, is putting forth a plan which, in the judgment of many, will 
not work to resolve this situation; that is, increased bombing in the 
face of increased hostage taking.
  I call the Senator's attention also to articles in today's press 
which still recite the utter confusion as to whether or not the dual-
key policy has been revised. So it is more and more of the same, while 
the American taxpayer is shelling out more and more dollars.
  But the most significant thing is we are standing by while more and 
more innocent people are being denied the right to defend themselves. 
How many more pictures do we need of this endless stream of refugees, 
of these stories of human atrocities which it is inconceivable to think 
in this century could take place? How much longer must we stand by?
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON. I ask my friend from Virginia if he recognizes and 
realizes, or might even concede that, if S. 21 passes, or if it does 
not, if the Bosnian Government would make its formal request to the 
United Nations that the U.N. peacekeepers be withdrawn, under that kind 
of a scenario, will the Senator from Virginia support the sending of 
25,000 American troops into Bosnia to help extricate the U.N. forces 
there on the ground at this time in great peril?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the President of the United States 
indicated that he will recommend, indeed take action as the Commander 
in Chief to provide, whatever amount is required of our forces to help 
the orderly withdrawal of the UNPROFOR forces. And I would support the 
President.
  Mr. EXON. I thank my friend for that forthright statement. I 
suspected that would be his answer. Will the Senator from Virginia tell 
me if such an authority is granted in S. 21 as presently before the 
Senate?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it is not addressed in this because the 
President of the United States has not come up with any specifics. We 
would be simply trying to deal with an unknown situation. We do not 
know what is to take place. I do not think at this point in time the 
Senate should be addressing a ``what if'' type question. We are 
speaking out in this resolution very decisively as to what should be 
done given the facts as of this moment.
  At a later point in time, I will join others in this body in 
supporting the President in such legislative action as might be 
required.
  Mr. EXON. But not as a part of S. 21?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I do not intend to support it as a part of 
this because it is not timely. We do not know the number of troops. We 
do not know the situation. We have to make, I think, a very careful 
assessment of all factors. Again, this Senator obligates himself to 
support our President.
  Mr. EXON. I would simply point out that I thought it was rather 
interesting that my colleague from Virginia indicates that the 
President of the United States has not suggested that. I would simply 
point out that I think the Senator from Virginia would clearly say that 
the driving forces behind S. 21 are taking little, if any, heed from 
the recommendations of the President of the United States on the matter 
of S. 21. But the Senator from Virginia is insisting that they might 
take heed of a request from the President to authorize a sending of 
troops into Bosnia to extricate U.N. personnel. Is that correct?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, they are entirely separable situations. My 
distinguished colleague and I serve together on the Armed Services 
Committee. We have sat there several times and heard about the plans 
concerning the withdrawal. But they are only conjecture. They are only 
plans. We do not know specifically the circumstances under which such a 
withdrawal would take place. But I again say that I would support the 
Commander in Chief at such time as he comes before the Congress to seek 
whatever authority he feels he needs in addition to that which he 
presently has under the Constitution.
  Mr. EXON. But the Senator from Virginia clearly does not support the 
Commander in Chief in his present efforts, nor does he support our 
allies in NATO and in the United Nations and our traditional allies. He 
does not accept their recommendations with regard to not unilaterally 
lifting the embargo. But I take him at his word in the future.
  Let me say, Mr. President, that one of the most troubling matters on 
S. 21 for this Senator is that I find that many of my closest friends 
and colleagues, including my distinguished friend from Virginia, with 
whom I have had the pleasure to serve for 17 years now on the Armed 
Services Committee, are on the opposite side of this Senator on this 
particular issue. We have a different view in looking at it. I think 
the Senator from Virginia and others that are supporting S. 21 are 
taking an unwise course of action. But I do not for a moment feel that 
they are doing it for other than what they think is best. I just do not 
agree with their judgment on this issue.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I share that. We do have an honest 
disagreement. I see other Senators anxiously awaiting to participate in 
this debate. 

[[Page S 10619]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of the measure, of which I am a 
cosponsor, for the purpose, within the limit of my ability, of 
clarifying some of the issues that have been raised in this debate. 
Specific consideration must be given to the role of the United Nations, 
as against that of NATO, and with regard to the right of individual and 
collective self defense. These are three cascades, you might say, of 
rank from the collective to the regional to the individual state.
  I am very conscious that I am standing on the Senate floor in the 
presence of our revered former chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, who was at the U.N. conference in San Francisco where the 
Charter was drafted, the anniversary of which was observed just 1 month 
ago. He knows this subject as few persons living ever can do. I would 
plead the lesser but not perhaps the irrelevant credentials of having 
been the permanent Representative of the United States to the United 
Nations and of having served in one period as President of the Security 
Council.
  I would first of all go to the subject of whether this action would 
Americanize the war.
  Anyone who was in San Francisco last month, certainly much less 50 
years ago, would know that the U.N. Charter had as its fundamental 
purpose a system of collective security in which the United States and 
the other permanent members of the Security Council would automatically 
be involved in any international conflict anywhere in the world as 
would the United Nations itself.
  Article 24 of the Charter states:

       In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the 
     United Nations, its members confer on the Security Council 
     primary responsibility for the maintenance of international 
     peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties 
     under this responsibility, the Security Council acts on their 
     behalf.

  Now, the point I would wish to make here is that what we are seeing 
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the whole Balkan region right now is 
not an action by the Security Council under article 24 concerning the 
taking of prompt and effective action ``for the maintenance of 
international peace and security.''
  It is another thing altogether. It is an invention, an important one, 
that came in the course of the 1948 Middle East conflict in which U.N. 
volunteers acted as peacekeepers in a situation where there was peace. 
There is not peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it was, as all agree 
now, an incomparable blunder to have sent peacekeepers into the middle 
of a war.
  The Charter provides for warmaking capacity in the United Nations. We 
tend to forget it. Article 45 says:

       In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent 
     military measures, Members shall hold immediately available 
     national air-force contingents for combined international 
     enforcement action.

  It goes on to provide, under article 46, for military planning by the 
Security Council to be conducted with the assistance of the Military 
Staff Committee. It goes on in article 47 to describe the functions of 
the Military Staff Committee with respect to the forces made available 
to it.
  This Congress, the Senate, in 1945, passed legislation stating that 
the President was authorized to make available forces to the United 
Nations under article 45. He was to propose which forces might be made 
available. The Congress was to agree to the particulars--for instance, 
the 10th Mountain, the First Marine Division, the Sixth Fleet might be 
authorized to participate. And Congress having agreed, the President 
was thereafter free to deploy those forces under U.N. direction at his 
own behest without further reference to the Congress. That was the 
depth of our conviction and commitment to assist in collective 
security.
  We do know that the whole arrangement vanished in the cold war. When 
I was at the United Nations amidst the cold war our representative on 
the Military Staff Committee was a colonel. They originally had been 
admirals. After it became clear that the Soviets were not going to 
cooperate--they did not--little by little this idea faded. But now the 
cold war is over, and the first test is before us. And if we meet it, 
fine. If we do not, we shall find ourselves asking what did we go 
through the last three-quarters of a century for? What has been 
accomplished since the time Woodrow Wilson brought the League of 
Nations Covenant back to this body?
  Mr. President, at the San Francisco Conference, there was a specific 
and revealing difficulty. Members of the U.S. delegation were opposed 
to including language on the right of self-defense in the charter for 
fear that such a provision might be used to limit the right of self-
defense. Somewhat the same issue arose with respect to the American 
Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. There were those 
who argued that if you ever list any specific number of rights about 
which Congress may make no law, if you leave one out, you may indicate 
that possibly you could make a law with respect to that right. Wiser 
counsel prevailed, and we have the Bill of Rights, and wiser counsel 
prevailed in San Francisco.
  On May 15, 1945, James Reston described the breakthrough. He said:

       San Francisco, May 15.--President Truman broke the deadlock 
     today between the Big Five and the Latin American nations 
     over the relations between the American and the world 
     security systems.
       After over a week of negotiating, during which American 
     foreign policy was being made and remade by a bi-partisan 
     conference delegation, the President gave to the Latin 
     American nations the reassurance which they wanted before 
     accepting supremacy of the World Security Council--World 
     Security Council it then was--in dealing with disputes in the 
     Western Hemisphere.
       This assurance was announced late tonight by Secretary 
     Stettinius, who said that an amendment to the Dumbarton Oaks 
     proposal would be proposed reading substantially as follows:

  Mr. Reston was not only a great journalist. He had a great friend on 
the Chinese delegation, that we now know, and he quotes:

       Nothing in this charter impairs the inherent right of self-
     defense, either individual, or collective, in the event that 
     the Security Council does not maintain international peace 
     and security and an armed attack against a member State 
     occurs.

  That with very slight changes became article 51 of the charter. And 
that, sir, is exactly the situation which we confront today. The 
Security Council has not carried out its responsibility to maintain 
international peace and security under article 24. An ambiguous and in 
the end unavailing deployment of NATO and other forces as peacekeepers 
where there is no peace has clearly broken down.
  A year ago, I was speaking on this subject on this floor, and I said 
what the UNPROFOR had become at that time. I said:

       But if we are to refrain from helping the Bosnians out of 
     concern for their welfare, let us be candid and call the 
     members of UNPROFOR what they have become: hostages.

  I have visited some of the UNPROFOR forces and found them to be 
courageous to a fault, incredibly self-sacrificing, honorable, 
everything you would want in military men: but hostages even so.
  Now, the question is what if we move to lift this arms embargo which 
I regard as an illegal sanction. It was never directly imposed on 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. How could it be? They have committed no act of 
aggression. They have violated no international law. People say, 
``Well, what about Iran? What about Iraq? What about Libya?''
  The answer, Mr. President, is very simple. In each case, those 
sanctions apply to a country which is in violation of international 
law--invaded a neighboring country, committed international acts of 
terrorism.
  In no sense is there a comparable situation. To make such an argument 
is to equate the victim with the victimizer in this situation. The U.N. 
forces are not capable of carrying out the assignment given them, nor 
are the forces from other countries involved.
  I was in Sarajevo in Thanksgiving of 1992. I made my way into the 
capital through a hail of small arms fire and heavy machine gun fire in 
a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier, was then transferred to an 
Egyptian armored personnel carrier to meet with President Izetbegovic 
and dined at the ceremonial mess with a British officer formerly with 
the Gurkha Regiment.
  That is the international setting in Bosnia, the urge to collective 
security, 

[[Page S 10620]]
but they cannot defend themselves. They cannot make peace. And they are 
sent as peacekeepers where there is no peace.
  In this situation, sir, could I suggest that one of our problems as a 
nation is that we have never fully understood the role of ethnicity, of 
religion, of nationalism in this second half of the 20th century where 
it seemed that the great issue was the impending Armageddon of an 
encounter between the Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist creed and 
the western, liberal, Democratic, free enterprise world. Yes, there was 
that. Heaven knows, there was that. It ended up with the Soviet Regime 
collapsing under ethnic pressures--not that we ever foresaw it but it 
could have been foreseen. Some of us who have worked in this field 
predicted it, wrote about it, but were not heard. Now because the 
Soviet Union is over, there is the impression such tension is over. To 
the contrary.
 To the contrary, we invite, by the actions we now take, a conviction 
in the Islamic world that we will not defend Muslims horribly violated 
by Christian forces from a neighboring country and living also within 
their own country. Even as this London conference was meeting this 
weekend, Islamic nations met to ask what were they to understand the 
world was saying about an Islamic State, the victim of aggression. Were 
they saying it would not be defended and it would not be given the 
inherent right of self-defense? Turkey, a NATO member was at that 
conference.

  The possibility of these events leading to a general encounter 
between Islamic forces in Europe and in the region just beyond in Asia 
Minor is not to be discounted, sir. The possibility of it spreading 
across the vast Islamic areas of the former Soviet Union is not to be 
discounted. Those who discount it could well ask, how did we get into 
this situation we are now in? It has been made clear this is a 
situation that this present administration inherited from its 
predecessor. But in both cases, they have acted in the same way, 
declining to seek an elemental legal principle and, if you wish, a 
moral imperative as well. It seems to me that we should recognize the 
standards we brought to the world.
  That conference took place in San Francisco. The announcement of the 
agreement that produced what would become article 51, was made by the 
American Secretary of State, Mr. Stettinius. These are our standards. 
If we will not uphold them, we will have hugely diminished our position 
in the world, and the world will become a vastly more dangerous place.
  I simply would like to express my appreciation to the Republican 
leader for having seen this from the beginning. I thank him 
particularly for showing me a letter sent just this day to him and to 
his distinguished cosponsor, the Honorable Joseph Lieberman, from the 
Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I will read a few sentences, 
Mr. President, if we cannot hear these things, we are not equipped for 
this time. The Prime Minister notes that:

       Yesterday, a Bangladeshi UNPROFOR battalion in Bihac 
     requested airstrikes to deter and stop the Serb attacks on 
     Bihac. The Bangladeshi request was ignored. I asked myself if 
     this same request would be ignored if it were requested by a 
     British battalion.

  ``I asked myself if this request would be ignored if it were 
requested by a British battalion.''
  Mr. President, it is all there to see. People who cannot see that 
ought to stay away from this work. We have heard not very helpful 
comments from the Secretary General about such matters. But this ethnic 
dimension is not local; it is not Balkan; it is worldwide. And if we 
cannot act in response to its potential for worldwide crisis, we shall 
one day wonder how could we have been so blind.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I will be happy to.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator. May I first thank him for his 
extraordinary statement, if I may say, extraordinary for most of the 
rest of us, but not for himself. Because I have come to appreciate the 
range that he has shown, again, the Senator from New York, in his 
ability to look beyond the events of the day, both backward and 
forward, and to help us understand the significance today of both of 
those points of view.
  I want first to thank him overall for the force of his statement and 
for reminding us of what the history of the United Nations is and what 
has brought us to this day. And of the impact on the United Nations of 
what has happened in Bosnia, second, which was the misuse of the U.N. 
troops to go in where there was war and not peace, in sending them in 
as noncombatants though they were seen as combatants by particularly 
the Serbs. Also, I want to thank him for pointing out what is too often 
missed here as we localize this conflict, but it does go to the heart 
of the genocidal aspects of it, which is that a people are being 
singled out because of their religion, in this case, Moslems. And the 
consequences are broad throughout the world, throughout the Islamic 
world and throughout the world. They have an effect on our relations 
with that great and rising force of Islam in the world.
  I note for the Senator from New York that last week on Thursday, July 
20, the Gulf Cooperation Council called for a lifting of the arms 
embargo against the Bosnians and told the European leaders that it 
wanted to help stop what it called the great tragedy of the 20th 
century. This was followed over the weekend by the meeting that the 
Senator from New York has referred to in Geneva of the Organization of 
the Islamic Conference, which announced it was considering the arms 
embargo to be invalid and was prepared to assist.
  I would like to ask this question of the Senator. Would he care to 
comment for a moment on the impact of this sad story in Bosnia on NATO, 
on what NATO's position has been, and what it suggests to us about what 
will become of NATO in the post-cold-war world?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. NATO will have been engaged in its first military 
action in almost 50 years and it will have been defeated. Just at that 
moment when it seemed to have triumphed by virtue of its capacity and 
presence in the face of the Soviet Union, it will have in fact gone to 
war and will have been defeated. And we will have put it in that 
situation. The aftermath will be demoralization, domestic protest, a 
sense of ``what are we doing?'' And curiously, at just the moment you 
see some sense of the complex issues involved. I note that the 
situation is at such a critical level in Bosnia that the Jewish 
community in Germany asked that German forces be committed to this 
issue. It is genocide.
  And you put not just at risk the whole situation in the Islamic 
world. It is an idea that I do not want to insist too much on, but not 
everyone would know, I suppose, that until recently the third largest 
nuclear power in the world was Kazakhstan. We put that at risk. In 
Turkey, the civil government of Istanbul and of the other major cities, 
including the capital, is an Islamic fundamentalist party, known as the 
Welfare Party, that being a translation into English as such.
  Turkey joined with nations with which it normally has no relationship 
at that meeting which you related. We could see NATO come apart along 
ethnic religious lines. We could see its moral collapse and its 
domestic support disappear because we will have allowed it to be 
defeated by deploying forces never envisioned by the U.N. Charter. The 
U.N. Charter specifically calls for military forces to be made 
available to the United Nations through the military staff committee. 
Statutes enacted on this floor provide that the President of the United 
States can reach an agreement to provide soldiers to the U.N. Security 
Council. And the Congress having approved of this, the President may 
deploy them thereafter without further reference to Congress.
  That was a system of collective security envisioned by the charter. 
At no time were peacekeeping forces envisioned. Deploying peacekeeping 
troops was well intentioned, but a good invention in a situation where 
there was peace, not in the present situation.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may say one thing in the way of a 
question to my colleague. You would not want to, I think, end up with 
saying defeat for NATO given that there are so many Americans, as we 
speak, flying, at sea, and otherwise trying to carry out the missions 
assigned them as part of the NATO forces. NATO has been handcuffed, 
virtually handcuffed, by virtue of the United Nations dual-key policy.

[[Page S 10621]]

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I absolutely agree.
  Mr. WARNER. To say this would go down as a defeat for NATO I am sure 
was not the intention of my distinguished colleague from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I will put it this way: It would not be the intention 
of anybody involved. But the perception might be very different, sir. 
We put NATO in jeopardy by letting it assist in a mission at which it 
cannot succeed.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New 
York for his outstanding statement. I say to my colleagues, I hope that 
we can reach some agreement so we can have a rather early disposition 
of this matter. I think some feel strongly on each side of the issue, 
but the issue has been debated.
  As we speak, I understand there is an all-out attack on Bihac. All 
out. I do not know where NATO is. I do not know where the protection 
is. It seems to me that what may have been a meeting in London to work 
out some plan apparently did not succeed.
  This is an issue that many Members have been speaking on before. It 
was back in the Bush administration, I guess, when I first raised 
questions about what was happening in Yugoslavia. I did not agree with 
my President, President Bush. I said so. Many others said so at the 
time.
  That was 1992. Here we are, halfway into 1995, and I have been 
working with many in this body, primarily the Senator from Connecticut 
[Mr. Lieberman], in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way to bring this issue 
before the Senate, but more importantly, before the American people.
  I do not imagine the average American has really spent a great deal 
of time focusing on what is happening in Bosnia. It is on the evening 
news. It is in the newspaper. It is on the radio. It is tragedy. It is 
suffering. It is rape. It is murder. It is slaughter. We are sensitive 
to that, but it is not close. It does not threaten America. There are 
no American troops involved, except those in NATO.
  It seems to me that we have an historic opportunity--not as 
Republicans, not as Democrats--but as a Senate. I have said for some 
time, we are the one best hope the Bosnians have--right here in the 
U.S. Senate. And then, hopefully in the House.
  In fact, we met this morning with the Speaker in a joint leadership 
meeting and suggested if we could pass this resolution, that maybe the 
House could take it up at a very early date and send it to the 
President.
  I have a different view than President Clinton. My view is if we pass 
this resolution, it will strengthen his hand in developing and shaping 
and directing policy, not weaken his hand, not Americanize what is 
happening in Bosnia.
  It seems to me that we have all known for some time that what is 
happening there is immoral. It is unjust. No doubt about it, it is easy 
to single out the aggressors.
  Today, the International War Crimes Tribunal indicted Bosnian Serb 
leaders Karadzic and Milosevic for war crimes. Maybe that does not mean 
anything. It means somebody else in the world recognizes what is 
happening. This is an independent body.
  Meanwhile, hardly deterred by this indictment, Milosevic is 
supervising attacks on Bihac and Sarajevo. In today's Washington Post, 
a senior State Department official is quoted as saying, ``The arms 
embargo is morally wrong.'' This is a State Department official. This 
same official was quoted last week as saying, ``The dual-key commands 
arrangement between NATO and the United Nations is insane.'' It is not 
a partisan statement. This debate has never been partisan in the sense 
that it was Republican versus Democrats, or the Senate versus the 
President or the administration.
  This is only one individual. Maybe this individual is wrong.
  What does this say about America? Are we willing to go along with 
immoral or insane policies because the rest of the international 
community is doing so? What does it say about us? What does it say 
about American leadership, including the Congress? Are we willing to go 
along with ludicrous commands arrangements that threaten U.S. air crews 
and are seriously damaging the credibility of NATO, that we are 
unwilling to use the influence, power, and prestige of the United 
States to lead the way and to do what is right in an effective way?
  I learned something today from the Senator from New York that I did 
not know about article 51, that we had made the motion or made the 
change or set the policy. It is fairly difficult to tell people there 
is not some inherent right of self-defense as an individual, as a 
nation. That is what this debate is all about. It is not about sending 
Americans anywhere.
  Again, referring to the letter that has been referred to that has 
been received by my colleague and myself from the Prime Minister of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, he said: ``Today's vote is a vote for human 
life. It is a vote for right against wrong. It is not about politics. 
It is about doing the right thing,'' which should be easy for America 
to do the right thing. ``In just the past two days in Sarajevo, 20 
people have been killed, while more than 100 have been wounded.'' After 
a while maybe people become immune, whether it is 10, 20, 50, or 100.
  I hear the voices raised about the U.N. protection forces, that if 
they are withdrawn, there could be American casualties, because I think 
most would support the effort the President has committed himself to, 
to help them withdraw.
  How long will they stay there? This is not an occupation force. Four 
years? Five years? Ten years? How long will the U.N. protection forces 
stay there, and how long will we continue to pay a large portion of 
that, 31 percent, as I recall, as the Senator from Virginia pointed out 
earlier.
  The President asked the Senate last week to postpone the vote. We did 
that, as we should have. The President made the request, and we honored 
that request. The President even suggested maybe the two of us could 
sit down and talk about policy. I am not certain I could talk about 
policy, not having the information, but I am certain that we ought to 
look at the facts.
  I want to say that the President sent a letter today, and he said:

       The passage would undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated 
     settlement in Bosnia and could lead to an escalation of the 
     conflict there, including the possible Americanization of the 
     conflict.

  Now, I have heard that dozens of times in the past 2 weeks. It is not 
that I want to criticize the President. It is not an accurate 
statement. That is not what we are about. That is not what we are 
about. I just want to set out the facts very quickly.
  With respect to negotiations, the 1-year anniversary of the Bosnian 
Government signing a contact group plan has come and gone. Bosnia 
signed it; the Serbs never have. Never have, and probably never will, 
as long as the only repercussions are the huffing and puffing of 
Western leaders and the buzzing of NATO planes overhead.
  As for talks in Belgrade, Milosevic is driving a hard bargain. He 
wants the sanctions lifted but is busy supplying the Bosnian Serbs with 
weapons, as exposed recently by the New York Times, I think, two or 
three Sundays ago. They are getting weapons and troops and other 
support.
  The bottom line is that no negotiation process is in place, and I do 
not think there will be one until the Serbs pay some price for their 
aggression.
  As for escalation of the conflict, the conflict has escalated. More 
United Nations troops are being deployed, and as United States and 
European leaders issue more empty threats, the reality is the 
indecisiveness and ineffectiveness of the West invited the Serbs to 
move rapidly on all the so-called safe havens.
  The London ultimatum on Gorazde has neither stopped assaults in 
Gorazde or curbed the attack in Bihac. I indicated we just had a call 
from the foreign minister, saying it is underway, full force right now,
 and Sarajevo, also. And, as pointed out by the Senator from New York 
and others, there is still bickering over the dual-key approach. Is it 
in? Is it out? Will it work? Will it not work? So we have Boutros 
Boutros-Ghali back doing what he does best, blocking any action against 
the Serbs that might remind the world that they are the aggressors.

[[Page S 10622]]


  But the point I really want to focus on is this Americanization, 
because that frightens the American people. Somebody asked me a 
question at a town meeting this weekend, ``Why should we Americanize 
the war by lifting the embargo?
  I said, ``We are not.''
  But that is the word, that is the official word from some. There is 
no doubt now that our fingerprints are all over this conflict. We would 
not like to think so. I would call it ``this disaster.'' It is 
disaster, it is failed. It is a failed policy. Our fingerprints are on 
Srebrenica, on Zepa. We have not only tolerated, but participated in a 
failed and morally flawed approach. And I do not believe, as the leader 
of the free world, that we can escape responsibility. We are not the 
other countries. We are America. We are the United States. We are the 
leader of the free world--supposedly to provide moral, spiritual, 
economic and, where necessary, military leadership.
  Last fall the Congress passed the Nunn-Mitchell position as part of 
the fiscal year 1995 defense authorization bill. We passed so much I am 
not certain anybody has really gone back and taken a look at that. My 
staff did, went back and showed it to me, reminded me what we said 
then. It has been almost a year now.
  In the sense of the Congress, the section stated: ``The acceptance of 
the contact group proposal by the Government of Bosnia should lead to 
the lifting of the arms embargo.'' The Bosnians accepted the contact 
group. The Serbs never have. The embargo is still in place.
  In the section entitled ``Interim Policy'' it states--this is the 
same thing we passed:

       If the Bosnian Serb faction attacks any area within those 
     areas that have been designated by the United Nations as 
     ``safe areas,'' the President or his Representative should 
     promptly, formally introduce and support in the United 
     Nations Security Council a resolution that authorizes the 
     selective lifting of the Bosnia arms embargo, authorized to 
     allow the provision of defense weapons such as antitank 
     weapons, counter battery radars and mortars to enable the 
     forces of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina to defend 
     the safe areas.

  That was a year ago, and the safe areas as we speak are being 
overrun. Maybe Tuzla will be left. Maybe Sarajevo. Maybe Gorazde. Two 
have already fallen. One is under attack. There is no attempt to lift 
the arms embargo.
  This is what we passed. The Senate passed this. The President 
accepted it. We have not had any selective lifting of the arms embargo. 
There has been no effort to prevent the safe havens from falling. We 
asked the Bosnians to ``turn in your heavy weapons and you will be 
safe. We will protect you.''
  Once they have done that, they have nothing to fight with. They have 
no artillery pieces. They have no heavy weapons. They have rifles 
against tanks--not a fair fight.
  So when do we start? When does NATO strike? When does Boutros 
Boutros-Ghali turn in his key so somebody can make a decision. When we 
have three safe havens left? Or two safe havens left? Or one safe haven 
left? Or no safe havens left?
  This was a policy developed by the British and the French and we 
signed on. We were asked to wait, be patient. I know it does not seem 
like it has been very long since we voted here in the Senate. But let 
us just assume we were in Bosnia all this time. Every day, every day, 
every day the shells were coming in. They were hauling off our 
children. They were murdering our wives. They were raping our sisters. 
Every day, every day, every day we were adding to the death toll of 
innocent people who only wanted a chance to defend themselves.
  It is pretty safe here in the Senate Chamber. And I know we cannot 
have policy made by what we see, images we see on television or in the 
newspapers or reports from commentators who are on the scene. And maybe 
the Bosnian people understand that, well it has been a year, it has 
been 2 years, it has been 3 years--maybe someone will help us help 
ourselves. And while the Bosnian people may understand the 
international community's unwillingness to protect them, they cannot 
understand the unwillingness to allow them to protect themselves. There 
is no way they can understand that.
  If we are attacked in our homes, if we are attacked in our Nation, we 
have a right of self-defense. And, as the Senator from New York so 
eloquently pointed out, that is article 51, now, of the United Nations 
Charter.
  So we have had all the excuses. We have heard them over and over 
again. We heard them in the last administration. I do not know, I have 
listened to the Senator from Virginia ask the rhetorical question about 
NATO. I am not certain what happens to NATO, what the future of NATO 
is. I know they are in a box. But their credibility is on the line, 
too. It has been weakened. There is no question about it. In the eyes 
of the international community, the people--notwithstanding our 
commitment to NATO and the importance to NATO--NATO has been weakened 
because of its subordination to the United Nations.
  So the NATO alliance, I think, is in some jeopardy. The Serbs will 
attack. This is what Secretary Christopher said earlier today, if the 
Dole-Lieberman legislation is passed, ``the Serbs will attack.'' I 
thought the Serbs have been attacking every day. They are attacking 
right now as we debate the resolution--not because we are debating the 
resolution--they have been doing it for a week or 10 days in Bihac.
  They were given a green light in the Bush administration. The Bush 
administration talked about a united Yugoslavia, even after they had 
elections in Croatia and Slovenia. There was no more Yugoslavia.
  So, it seems to me the London conference certainly was not a red 
light for anybody to stop. The green light is still on. The Serbs 
understand the green light is still on, and they are making all the 
headway they can.
  We are also told that if this passes and becomes law, it is going to 
end humanitarian assistance. I think we have heard the Prime Minister, 
Mr. Silajdzic, say from time to time: When you talk about food or talk 
about death, it is difficult. They are living a subsistence existence. 
But the bigger picture is they have no protection. What good is food 
against snipers and heavy shells and death? They have no future. They 
are at the mercy of Western leaders who think they know best. I can 
understand the British. It would be embarrassing if they withdrew. I 
can understand President Chirac. He is new. He wants action; something 
to happen. And they have just lost two more French soldiers.
  I have the highest regard for the members of the United Nations 
protection forces, whether they are from Bangladesh or Great Britain or 
France or Pakistan or wherever.
  So I would just conclude by saying many of us believe that the arms 
embargo is illegal.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is.
  Mr. DOLE. Indeed, an arms embargo was never imposed on the 
independent, sovereign state of Bosnia. An arms embargo was imposed on 
Yugoslavia, which no longer exists, at the request of Belgrade, at the 
suggestion of Britain. And, as has been said here by everybody, Bosnia 
is a member of the United Nations. They are an independent nation. They 
have a right to self-defense.
  But this is not just a vote about Bosnia. It is a vote about America. 
It is a vote about what we stand for, about our humanity, and our 
principles. And I know, probably relentless pressure is coming from the 
British and the French and others of our allies, traditional allies, 
just to stick a little while longer--1 more week, 1 more month. In 
about 2 more months we will be into winter again--2\1/2\ more months. 
And that is when the suffering really begins, when it really begins.
  I know there will be a little hiatus here if the U.N. protection 
force is withdrawn and we lifted the arms embargo. It will be a very 
difficult time for the Bosnians. But it is a very difficult time for 
them now. We have the rapid reaction forces now in place in some areas. 
But let us face it. It has been a fact for weeks and weeks the United 
Nations protection forces could not even protect themselves, let alone 
protect the safe areas or anyone else.
  So it would seem to me this is not a vote about Republicans or 
Democrats or philosophy. It is a vote about what is right.
  Again, as stated by the Prime Minister as he closes his letter, he 
said:

       Our people ask that we be allowed only our right to defend 
     ourselves. It is on their behalf that I appeal to the 
     American people and Government to untie our hands so that 

[[Page S 10623]]
     we may protect ourselves. The slaughter has gone far enough. My people 
     insist that they would rather die while standing and fighting 
     than on their knees. In God's name we ask that you lift the 
     arms embargo.

  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask the Senator, the majority leader, if 
he will engage, perhaps, in a brief colloquy? I would like to take the 
opportunity to ask a few questions, if possible.
  I would like to ask the majority leader--first of all I would like to 
say I think every U.S. Senator shares the anguish and frustration 
expressed by the Senator and by others on the floor.
  The question here is what is the consequence of one step or another?
  I would like to ask the Senator if we could perhaps have a little 
dialog. I think it would be helpful to elucidate this a bit. I would 
ask the Senator if this is the Senator's preferred policy. I heard the 
majority leader talk about American leadership and inaction, and being 
hamstrung by the U.N. I presume there is a policy that is growing out 
of frustration. I would ask him if this is his preferred policy, and if 
it is not, whether or not the Senator would articulate what he would 
prefer to see us doing now that would make a difference.
  Mr. DOLE. Obviously, in my view--and I think the view of everyone--
the preferred policy would have been some negotiated settlement months 
ago, a week ago, or a year ago. But that has not happened. As I said, 
the Bosnians signed on the dotted line with the contact group 
recommendations. The Serbs never have.
  So how long do we wait? There is no negotiating process in place now. 
Preferred options? We have listened to everybody except the people in 
Bosnia. Do they not have any rights? Can they not say, ``U.N. 
protection forces get out. Lift the arms embargo. Let us die for our 
country''? That may not be the best option. People are going to be 
injured. People are going to be killed. They are being injured and 
killed as we speak. There is not any good option.
  Mr. KERRY. If I could say to the Senator, the Senator talked about 
forcefulness and the need to stand up and be a leader. My question is 
this: Is the only leadership that we are offering a leadership that 
effectively says not only will we not give you weapons, not only will 
we not strike, but we will simply lift an arms embargo and you fight it 
out?
  Mr. DOLE. Oh, no. I would go beyond that. I would provide weapons, 
although I understand the Bosnians are much better equipped to handle 
Russian weapons, and will not need as much training. I would train the 
Bosnians. That is not ``Americanizing.'' It would be training in a safe 
place, just as we helped train the Afghans in that adventure in El 
Salvador. So I would go as far as to provide air cover in this little 
hiatus, as I mentioned earlier on.
  But I think the problem was in June of 1993, when President Clinton 
said, ``Let me tell you something about Bosnia. On Bosnia, I made a 
decision. The United Nations controls what happens in Bosnia.''
  That is not an American policy. That is United Nations policy. That 
is not American leadership. I do not know. I see all the people who 
come to our offices. They are just asking for a right to defend 
themselves. That may not be the best policy. But it is a policy the 
Bosnians themselves are asking us to try. It seems to me they are doing 
all the dying. There is not any dying here. Their voice should be 
heard.
  Mr. KERRY. I accept that. I understand that.
  But my next question would then be if the Senate went the full 
measure and Congress passed this, at that point in time does the 
Senator accept the French and British pronouncements that they will 
withdraw completely?
  Mr. DOLE. I am not certain how to accept their pronouncements. If we 
passed this legislation, which I assume the President will veto, we 
would have to override his veto.
  Mr. KERRY. Assuming we would override it and it became the law of the 
land, apparently this British Prime Minister, as recently as yesterday, 
said to the President if this passes the Senate, they will begin the 
process of withdrawal.
  Mr. DOLE. My own view is I think the British Prime Minister may be 
looking for some excuse to withdraw, and it would be nice if he could 
lay it on the United States because we have no forces on the ground. 
But we are, of course, engaged in NATO forces. We have people at risk, 
as we learned a few weeks ago with the young pilot. But I do not know 
whether they would withdraw or not. There is lot of rhetoric out there.
  We have had rhetoric for 3 years, and no results. We can ask these 
endless questions forever, and go on and ask this question. We have 
been asked these questions forever. It seems to me that it is time to 
vote. It is time to send a message. If we lose, we lose. If we win, we 
win. And then it goes through all the other processes. The President 
can decide what to do. But I do not believe that just passing this in 
the Senate is going to cause the British and French to say, ``Oh, that 
powerful U.S. Senate has spoken. We had better get out of here.'' I do 
not believe that will happen.
  Mr. KERRY. I appreciate the Senator taking the time. I would like to 
ask again a couple more questions, if I may.
  Mr. President, I ask the majority leader, would the majority leader 
prefer a policy that went further than what was achieved in London, 
where each of the safe areas was in fact given a guarantee of being 
safe? Would NATO be capable of enforcing that with American air support 
reinforcing French and British troops on the ground and with sufficient 
troops to make real the notion that the international community will 
make a difference? Would the Senator prefer that policy?
  Mr. DOLE. I would prefer that policy. But it is probably not a 
solution. I do not know if it is a policy. I do not think we have a 
policy.
  Mr. KERRY. Would that not be a policy that might not in fact leverage 
the negotiated settlement that would be everybody's desire?
  Mr. DOLE. But that is not what happened in London. We do not even 
know if they have not abandoned the dual-key approach. They have not 
decided what did happen. Bihac is under siege right now by Krajina 
Serbs and Bosnian Serbs, and nothing has happened. NATO is doing 
nothing. The United Nations is doing nothing. Another 15,000 people are 
at risk, and they say, ``Well, that is all; 15,000, take that off; take 
off the other two safe havens that have fallen, Srebrenica and Zepa. 
That leaves three. We will protect whatever is left.''
  By the time they get around to it, there may not be any left. It may 
be a better policy if NATO did not have to be supported. The U.N. in my 
view would be a much better way to do it, as the Senator I think would 
like to do it.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the final question that comes out of that 
is since Bihac is already under attack and Gorazde is already under 
attack, if we were to put into law the notion that all we are going to 
do is lift the embargo, why would the Serbs then not accelerate the 
pace of the attack in order to guarantee that during the interim, 
before heavy weapons can get there, they would finish the job?
  Mr. DOLE. I assume there would be an acceleration. Nobody is under 
the illusion they are going to say, ``Well, let us see. Let us take a 
time out while the Bosnians get ready. Let us have 30 to 60 days while 
people bring in arms and heavy weapons.''
  But the Bosnians are people who understand and comprehend. They 
understand what they are up against. But in understanding what they are 
up against now, take a look at the casualties. Who has been doing the 
dying? It has been the Bosnians--women, children. There has been a lot 
of talk on this floor about the children, that we ought to do more for 
children.
  We are not engaged. We are not asking to send ground forces. I would 
support air cover even during this hiatus, as I think the Senator from 
Massachusetts maybe might, if I understand the question correctly.
  But all I am suggesting is--and I hope the Senator from Massachusetts 
will join us because he has the experience. He is a member of the 
committee. He understands what this is all about. This is about the 
U.S. Senate. It is not about Republican Bob Dole or Democratic Senator 
Joe Lieberman. This is about the Senate and whether or not we have a 
voice and whether or not we 

[[Page S 10624]]
have a role, or whether we care about what happens in the world. We 
believe it is a failed policy, as I did back in the administration of 
the Republican President.
  So I am not here standing and jumping up, saying we had a Democrat 
President and I am a Republican, so I should find some way to find 
fault with this policy.
  I hope that we will have a strong vote. I think it would send a 
message of hope to the Bosnians.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader 
for taking the time.
  I would like to respond a little bit to some of the answers and some 
of the notions, if I may, because I accept what the Senator has said. 
This is not due to him. He has consistently been critical of the lack 
of adequate response, and he has been for a stronger response. I think 
what is really noteworthy is that in his answers, he acknowledged that 
his preference would be to have a stronger allied response, a stronger 
response without dual key, a stronger response with a NATO that is 
capable of immediately impacting events, and a stronger capacity on the 
ground.
  What we have watched is a steady process where the Bosnian Muslims 
have systematically and methodically had the entire fabric of their 
community and life stripped away. But what we are doing is debating a 
resolution that will effectively ratify our own hesitation, our own 
confusion, our own weakness, and even the cowardice of the Western 
world. And what will happen with this resolution is that because it 
effectively says here is what we will do when we can do nothing else--
that is what this amendment says: Here is what we will do because in 
our ineptness, in our frustration, we cannot find another policy. So we 
are basically saying, ``We are going to feel good about your dying.''
  It is interesting that the President of Bosnia keeps saying, ``Give 
us the weapons.'' But he does not say, ``UNPROFOR, get out of here.'' 
He wants the best of both worlds. And there is a reason for that 
obviously, which is precisely why the British and the French have been 
reluctant to go along with lifting the embargo, because they understand 
how they could get trapped in a worse war if the weapons are coming in 
on both sides and they are there supposedly trying to keep peace.
  Now, the Senator is absolutely correct. The reason this equation has 
been so crazy on balance is that there has been a gutless process 
wherein the civilian leadership of the U.N. itself has been unwilling 
to guarantee what it originally gave as a guarantee. So we disarmed 
people. We gave them the notion of an enclave that was safe. We 
promised humanitarian assistance. And we pretended that their presence 
would act as the leverage to try to get a peace agreement when in fact 
we, never being willing to respond, annihilated our own leverage and, 
in fact, invited more and more aggression by the Serbs.
  So we have a lot of blame to make here. But the question we ought to 
be asking ourselves today is are we going to come here now and codify 
that blame, codify our own guilt into a policy that effectively says we 
are prepared to wash our hands of this?
  In effect, this amendment will stand for all of history to say that 
not only were we so craven as to not find a policy but we were ready to 
codify our own helplessness. The majority leader has acknowledged it. 
He said his preferred policy is to be tough. His preferred policy is to 
guarantee that we can make them pay the price of violating the safe 
zones, of shooting against innocent civilians who go out to get water 
at a fountain or cross a street. Are we so helpless in the front of 
that that all we can do is turn around and say, ``We are going to give 
people the capacity,'' not even the weapons, not even the training? 
That is not in here. There is no strike in here. There is no long-term 
aid program like Afghanistan in here. This is the abandonment 
amendment.
 But it is cleverly written. It is cleverly written to only take place 
if the President of Bosnia goes to the United Nations and says, 
``Leave, UNPROFOR.'' Or if UNPROFOR is out after a period of time. So 
in effect the proponents can stand there and say to everybody, well, we 
are really not doing anything except if the President wants us to or if 
UNPROFOR has already left, and then what are we doing?

  Is this really our response to what is happening in Bosnia, to come 
up with an amendment that has two condition precedents, two triggers, 
both of which effectively wind up saying a message, neither of which 
does a darned thing to change the situation and meet the needs of 
people today? But we are going to pretend that this somehow meets 
needs.
  Those who favor this approach somehow suggest that someone--we do not 
even say who--just putting arms into the Bosnian Moslem hands is going 
to affirmatively change the equation on the ground, and it is going to 
make us feel better simultaneously. The truth is that it promises to do 
neither.
  Let us be very clear, Mr. President. Lifting the embargo, as the 
Senator from Kansas said, will not stop the killing. It will probably 
increase the killing. And it is everybody's guess as to how much and 
how fast.
  I wonder what America is going to do if this becomes law. And we 
ought to act responsibly on what we pass around here with a notion that 
it might be law and not just pass it on for others to deal with by veto 
so a minority can kill it and people can walk around and feel good. 
Because if this does become law, we will have unilaterally breached an 
international agreement.
  I am not suggesting we should keep the embargo, incidentally. I voted 
to lift it last year for the simple reason that I thought it might 
change the equation at that time and we were sending a message. It did 
not and we have not. But now we are talking real. Now we are talking a 
very different situation.
  It is clear that just lifting it at some point in time in the future 
is not going to meet the needs of now. It does nothing to provide for 
the immediate needs of any of those enclaves that the Senator listed as 
being under siege or being next to be under siege. But it will result 
to an absolute certainty, if it becomes law, in the withdrawal of 
humanitarian assistance, the withdrawal of the U.N. effort, and the 
shifting to the United States for having made this choice a future 
responsibility for whatever it is that flows.
  Now, I cannot predict what it is that will flow, but I think most 
people here have a pretty good sense that there is going to be a lot 
more killing. If the people think that the CNN images of refugees were 
bad in the last few weeks, wait until all of the U.N. effort is out and 
the population is left to the whim and will and fancy of people running 
around with guns desperate, all of them, to stay alive.
  Then what will the U.S. response be? Will the Senator come back to 
the floor and say, ``Well, at least they are dying with a gun in their 
hands?'' Will the Western world response be, ``Well, this is OK because 
they are able to make a choice?''
  I do not think so. I think, on the contrary, the probability is that 
Moslem countries will not tolerate what might be going on and maybe 
they will become more deeply involved. And perhaps it will then spread 
across another border. Perhaps all the unthinkable things that we never 
stopped to think about before World War I and World War II take place. 
Who knows? Will it spread to Macedonia? I do not know. I do not have 
the answers to that. But I know wise people exercising good judgment 
with respect to foreign policy should not just take a step and throw 
their hands up in the air and say we should not try to think those 
things out and measure what the consequences are.
  It is hard for me to believe that a Senate that is so filled with 
people who want to be tough about what is happening with respect to 
Serb behavior and who understand that we should be responding more 
forcefully would come to the floor with anything but a resolution 
seeking that kind of a response. This is not a policy for the now. This 
is a policy that is an epitaph for Bosnia, and it basically says, ``We 
ignored you for a few years. Then we lifted the embargo after we did 
you damage. And we wished you good luck. Have a nice war.''
  That is the impact of this. At the very moment that our allies that 
we have spent, what, 45, 50 years building an alliance with to make a 
NATO work 

[[Page S 10625]]
are saying ``do not do this,'' we are prepared to unilaterally pull the 
rug out from under them.
  It does not make sense. We are prepared to deal a major blow to a 
NATO that has already dealt itself a blow, obviously. But Tuzla still 
stands. Gorazde still stands. Sarajevo still stands. And all of those 
people in those cities are safer today for that fact and for the 
presence of the United Nations than they would be without it.
  Who will come to the floor in a few months and explain away those 
people who are lost when we claim responsibility that the world will 
quickly give us for having pulled the rug out from under this 
international effort? And what happens when one of our allies comes to 
us and says, ``Hey, you know, we don't really like that embargo on 
Iran. We are tired of the embargo on Iraq. We really don't agree with 
you on what we are doing to Qadhafi, and, by the way, North Korea is 
your problem; you people figure out what to do with the nuclear 
weapons.'' All of those things can flow as a consequence of the 
unilateralness of what we are doing. I would love to see the embargo 
lifted.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. KERRY. I will be delighted to yield for a question.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Does the Senator agree that there is a difference 
between the embargoes or sanctions applied to Iran and Iraq, which are 
lawbreaking countries, as opposed to an embargo placed on a country, 
Yugoslavia, which does not exist, now enforced against Bosnia, a 
section of that former country, independent, a member of the United 
Nations, having committed no violation of international law or U.N. 
resolutions?
  Does the Senator not agree that there is a difference there?
  Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. There is a profound difference. And I agree 
completely with the Senator. As I was just starting out in the last 
sentence when I broke to answer the question of the Senator, I was 
saying we should lift the embargo. It makes sense in terms of article 
51, in terms of the law, in terms of the equities. But we should not do 
it unilaterally.
  Now, that is where we get caught in the Catch-22 that has confounded 
everybody for the past months because every time we turn around and go 
to the French and the British and say we want to do this, we are told, 
``No, if you do that, we are going to leave.'' And so we do not do it, 
and we pull back, and we go around in this circle.
  I think that what has changed in the last week or two is the 
recognition, hopefully, that the situation is, indeed, untenable and 
that we cannot continue in the form in which we are. And the President 
has made that about as clear as a President of the United States can 
make it. The President has been forthright in saying this policy is not 
working. He has been forthright in acknowledging that the dual key is a 
terrible mistake and we must never do that again. He has been 
forthright in acknowledging that we have not adequately been able to 
respond because we have had a proportionate response rather than a 
disproportionate response.
  So I think the President has pretty much laid the policy of the past 
months on the table and said it is changing.
  Now, I listened to the Secretary of State today say to us point 
blank, there is no more dual key. The NATO commander on the ground has 
the ability to make the decision, if he observes an attack, to call in 
a strike.
  In addition to that, the French and the British have put howitzers up 
on Mount Igman. They have put additional troops, Legionnaires up in the 
hills around Sarajevo. They have strengthened their own capacity. And 
so suddenly, in the face of their willingness to do all of this, we are 
going to turn around and say, ``Sorry, folks; the United States of 
America says time to cut.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KERRY. I will be happy to yield for another question.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I read to the Senator from an Associated Press article 
written today, dateline Washington, Barry Schweid, diplomatic writer, 
quoting Ahmed Fawzi, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Boutros-
Ghali, saying that ``authority to order an attack'' in Bosnia ``remains 
with the Secretary General for the time being,'' and that there was 
general agreement at the allies' high-level meeting in London that 
``the dual key arrangement remains in place.''
  Mr. KERRY. Let me just say, if the Senator wants to suggest to me 
that the Secretary of State lied to the Democratic caucus today, then 
do that.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Obviously, I would not say that.
  Mr. KERRY. I will not accept whatever Mr. Boutros-Ghali is putting 
out to the press.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I have an extraordinary respect for Mr. Christopher.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. Boutros-Ghali does not have the ability to stop the 
NATO commander from doing a strike if the NATO commander--the NATO 
commander does not report to him, the last time I understood it. If it 
is our understanding that the NATO commander has the capacity to do the 
strike, I am confident when he radios Washington with the appropriate 
messages, he is going to strike notwithstanding whatever Mr. Boutros-
Ghali said for the purposes of international U.N. political 
consumption.
  Now, I agree with the Senator that is part of the problem here. It 
always has been. And when we were at the meeting at the White House the 
other day, a number of us suggested to the President that it is 
imperative to be out from under any control factor in the clearest 
terms. If we cannot do that, then I would agree with the Senator we 
have to find an alternative solution.
  But I would still respectfully say to the Senator, the alternative 
solution is then, hopefully, not to throw up one's hands and say we 
cannot do anything. I think then the appropriate solution is to say 
NATO and willing nations must assume what the United Nations is either 
unwilling or incapable of doing. Now, that is my preference before we 
come to the floor of the U.S. Senate and ratify an abandonment.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator not agree this is not the first time 
we have come to the floor? This is not an issue of first impression. We 
have been coming to the floor for 3\1/2\ years once war broke out in 
the former Yugoslavia saying, how can we justify not allowing one side, 
the Bosnians, who wish to defend themselves, to have the weapons? Would 
the Senator not agree that the United Nations and NATO have had all 
sorts of time to prove that they can be effective? And in all that 
time, the Bosnians have been ultimately defenseless and have been 
slaughtered?
  Mr. KERRY. Let me say to my friend from Connecticut, whose concern 
for this is as passionate as anyone's in the Senate, that he is 
absolutely correct. We have been here, done that, seen that, said that. 
And that is part of what is feeding the frustration that every Member 
feels today. But as far as I know, that is not a predicate for 
suggesting that we should personally step in, step in in a way that now 
unravels whatever potential is left of minimizing the loss of life.
  I believe the Senator will also acknowledge that every step of the 
way, when we were serious about a strike, we made a difference. That is 
how we secured the safe zones in the first place, if everybody goes 
back to think about it. It was the fact of airstrikes that gained us 
this notion of safe zones. And each time we stepped up to bat, the 
Serbs have stepped away from the plate or off the field.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Would the Senator not agree that----
  Mr. KERRY. I just want to say to my friend, why should we ignore that 
history? This is not a big place. Four million people, 600,000 on this 
side, 2 million on one side. What are we talking about here? This is 
not Russia. This is not Vietnam where there were 77 million people. 
This is not the same kind of struggle. We are not talking about 
becoming involved in the civil struggle. We are talking about 
delivering humanitarian assistance. We are talking about guaranteeing a 
safe zone. Those are the two most minimalist things that you can 
conceivably ask for under the laws of warfare. Is the Western World 
incapable of living up to the most minimalist standard of protection 
under the laws of warfare? Are we incapable of taking this incredible, 
mighty war machine and putting it to use to guarantee that trucks can 
go down a road, that we can keep people from a certain perimeter from 
picking 

[[Page S 10626]]
off an old woman who goes to a drinking fountain? I do not believe we 
are that incapable. I am not going to come to the Senate floor and 
ratify an effort that literally puts into law that lack of capacity and 
will. I think it is wrong.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. The answer is that--
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. We are clearly that capable, but we have been 
unwilling.
  Mr. KERRY. Why not be willing today?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. How can we continue to justify delay, while those 
older women going to the drinking fountain are getting hit by Serbian 
shells? We will not--the Bosnians themselves have the ability to defend 
themselves. We are not intruding ourselves in. We are finally getting 
ourselves out.
  Mr. KERRY. Let me ask the Senator, are there any weapons provided for 
in this resolution? Yes or no.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. No.
  Mr. KERRY. Is there any strike provided for in this resolution?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. We leave that to the President and our allies.
  Mr. KERRY. The Senate is going to be big and brave and take this big 
step that does not provide a weapon.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, I will be 
glad to join with him, as soon as this measure passes, in introducing a 
package authorizing aid to allow the Bosnians to buy weapons that they 
need. There is an outstanding resolution----
  Mr. KERRY. I say to my friend, in the U.S. Senate that is the kind of 
thing that could take 6 months, a year to pass maybe. What would happen 
in the meantime? Here is this great effort that says we are going to 
guarantee them weapons. Who is going to provide the heavy weapons and 
artillery and the antitank weapons? Who is going to provide the tanks 
themselves if they need them? Where are they coming from?
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. KERRY. Besides, let me ask this. How are they going to get in? 
Because I am told they can only arrive by ship. If they arrive by ship, 
they must cross Croatia, and there is no guarantee that the Croatians 
are going to permit that. So where are we?
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KERRY. For a question.
  Mr. WARNER. Addressing the Senate, the Senator said if you pull back 
the UNPROFOR, then all war breaks out. That infers that UNPROFOR is 
there to protect the civilians. And I strongly take disagreement with 
my colleague and good friend. UNPROFOR is there for the reason only to 
deliver food and medicine. They did not go equipped with the armaments 
to defend either themselves or the other people.
  Mr. KERRY. Let me say----
  Mr. WARNER. We made a terrible mistake, Mr. President, in calling 
them ``safe areas'' when we did not put in place such military 
equipment as to make them safe should they be attacked. And if UNPROFOR 
is there solely to protect themselves and to carry out their limited 
mission--limited mission--of delivering food and medicine, the Senator 
is wrong in saying, if you pull them out, all war breaks loose.
  Mr. KERRY. Let me say to my friend from Virginia, that is not in 
keeping with what safe havens were. We did guarantee safe havens.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, did we put in the weapons to carry out 
that guarantee?
  Mr. KERRY. No.
  Mr. WARNER. The answer is ``no.''
  Mr. KERRY. No. Because not one U.S. Senator, myself included, I 
think, will put American troops on the ground. And the British and the 
French were not prepared to put additional troops in at the time. Now I 
think that equation has changed.
  But the truth is, and the Senator from Virginia knows this well, the 
safe zones were designed to protect civilians. That was the concept. In 
fact, we said to people, give us your weapons. We disarmed them in 
order to protect them, and then never followed through with sufficient 
capacity to do that. But the concept was that they would be safe in a 
safe zone.
  Mr. WARNER. But----
  Mr. KERRY. I will say to my friend, I do not think it is the 
responsibility of an American to be on the ground in Bosnia without a 
peace agreement. I accept the notion we should be part of legitimate 
peacekeeping if there is an agreement. But this is, after all, not 
World War I or II. And it is Europe's backyard. And I have no guilt nor 
shame, no restraint whatsoever in suggesting that the majority of the 
responsibility on the ground belongs with Europeans. And if they are 
willing to carry that, I am willing to support the notion that a young 
American should go in harm's way in air support and logistical support. 
And I think that is the appropriate balance.
  Now, absent a British or French willingness to do that, then maybe we 
are left with nothing more but to do this epitaph resolution. I do not 
believe we have exercised that full measure of diplomacy yet. I do not 
think we have come to that point yet. And if we have, it is a sorry 
state of affairs. As Pope John Paul said, this represents a defeat for 
civilization. But it has not happened yet, notwithstanding the horror, 
notwithstanding all that has gone on.
  Now, I am not suggesting that we can make peace. I am suggesting we 
can guarantee the most minimalist notion that we have carved out, which 
is the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the protection of a few 
safe havens.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield for a question.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, may I remind my colleague that his 
emphasis is on air power to protect the safe havens. The last time, Mr. 
President, we used that air power to any degree, hostages were 
immediately taken. People were strapped to the targets and the air 
power dissolved.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to my friend, that is because we 
have basically been searching for 3 years or more for a no-risk policy. 
And every balancing act that we have made in each equation that we have 
come up with has been sort of the minimalist, the minimalist of what we 
can achieve on the ground without upsetting Yeltsin, the minimalist of 
what we do without getting Croatia at a point where they move too much, 
the minimalist of what we do with respect to Milosevic in Serbia, the 
minimalist of what we can get out of the French, and the minimalist of 
what we give ourselves. That is the history, all of which from our 
point of view has been geared essentially to be no risk.
  Now, I do not think there is such a thing. And I do not think the 
Senator from Virginia believes there is either. Nobody knows it better 
than he as a former Secretary of the Navy and as a former marine. There 
is a reason young Americans put on the uniform. There is a reason we 
have a standing military. And we make judgments, or we are supposed to, 
about the different tiers of interest that we have as a nation. 
Sometimes that interest rises to vital national security, a challenge 
to our way of life, and we go all out.
  Sometimes it arises just to ease security interests. Sometimes it is 
only a national interest. Sometimes it is only an interest.
  I respectfully suggest that with each of those different tiers, you 
may or may not be willing to risk a patrol plane, you may be willing to 
put a bomber wing on the line, you may put a squadron, company, or 
division. You make those decisions. We have essentially tried to avoid 
all of those.
  I do not think you can resolve this problem in any way that is 
satisfactory to the NATO commitment, to the civilized notion of who we 
are as a country and where we should be going, and certainly, to the 
history of Europe, without assuming some risk.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I conclude--and I see other Senators very 
anxious to speak--by saying that if it would be minimalist after 
minimalist throughout this time, this diplomacy, this inaction has 
denied the people of Bosnia the most fundamental thing, the right to 
defend themselves. This is a right which is founded in the common law 
which has been honored by mankind since the earliest hours and which 
was enshrined as article 51 in the U.N. Charter. That is what this 
measure does.
  Mr. KERRY. I say to my friend, in a sense it does that. In an 
emotional kind of litmus test, a written sense, it does that.
  The reality is that it does a lot more than that. It does a lot more 
than that. It is not just us making this decision. 

[[Page S 10627]]
For better or worse, we engaged with the United Nations; for better or 
worse, NATO involved itself with the United Nations; for better or 
worse, our allies are involved; and mostly for the better, it is they 
that are on the ground, not we.
  They are saying this is not the preferred way to go. It is a 
Frenchman who was buried yesterday. Mr. President, 42 or so Frenchmen 
have died.
  Now, I suggest that we cannot just come here in a vacuum and be 
insensitive to the implications that are far more complicated than this 
resolution permits for. What bothers me so much about this resolution 
is it is so attractive on its face. It is so easy. We basically say it 
will not happen unless the President of Bosnia asks it to happen, and 
it will not happen unless the troops are coming out.
  Everyone understands there is a different message in it, really. We 
should not be debating on the floor how we withdraw. We should be 
debating on the floor how we summon the will and the capacity to put 
together a structure that can win for the Western world the capacity to 
leverage a settlement.
  Now, that may be long in the doing. One of our greatest problems is 
that for 20 years nobody believes any longer in our staying power. Most 
countries have come to believe through Somalia, through all of our 
debate, that all they have to do is put us to the test. I rather 
suspect that is one of the reasons why Saddam Hussein went the distance 
that he did. It seems to me that at some point, if we are going to put 
an end to that legacy, we will have to be prepared to assume or define, 
at least, a certain amount of risk.
  I am willing to understand that this is fraught with pitfalls. There 
is no guarantee that we may set a certain limit of the risk we are 
willing to assume and may not be able to get beyond that. Boy, I would 
rather do that, Mr. President, than turn around and ratify our 
helplessness, which is effectively what we are doing today.
  I say, there is no certainty at all that weapons will get through 
Croatia. None whatever. There is a certainty to the fact that 25,000 
American troops are going to go in to get everybody out. That, there is 
a certainty of.
  So when people say this is not a way to Americanize the war, let me 
say, if you are the British and you are already apprehensive about this 
policy, or you are the French and you think you have been abandoned by 
an ally who wants to unilaterally do something, there is no finer 
excuse than to be able to turn around and say, ``OK, you guys have your 
own program; you go in and help us get out, and it is your ball game.''
  Then what happens if, while we are getting out, a lot of helpless 
women and children come running up to Americans because there are 
people killing them and chasing them in the background; are we going to 
stand and watch as we get out? What are the rules of engagement going 
to be for the young soldiers? What will happen if someone wants to lure 
them into some kind of a fire fight? And then when we lose people, we 
feel we have to retaliate against one side or the other?
  I think it is a hell of a lot better, I say respectfully, to be there 
with the defined purpose of delivering humanitarian assistance and 
helping to protect a safe haven than worrying about how we are getting 
25,000 of our troops back out. I think for history's sake, we would be 
better off taking that position than the road we are about to go down.
  I am in favor of trying to lift the embargo on a multilateral basis. 
I wish we were changing this in a way that set up a structure for a 
multilateral process and for some diplomatic leverage with an attempt 
at a cease-fire and an ability to enforce and reinforce this kind of 
effort.
  My belief is that the administration understands the difference in 
this equation today. My belief is that we must put this London meeting 
to the test. For the U.S. Senate to not even have the patience to allow 
the next few days to play out before we step in with an arrogant club 
is to somehow ignore both our relationships as well as common sense.
  Other colleagues are on the floor. They want to speak, Mr. President. 
I have other comments, but I did not expect to go on at this point in 
time.
  Mr. PELL.
   Mr. President, I share the deep frustration many of my colleagues 
have expressed during the course of the Senate's debate on the Dole-
Lieberman bill. Whatever the outcome of the vote on this bill, all of 
us agree that the behavior of the Bosnian Serb leadership is dreadful. 
The International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague has also 
acknowledged this. It has, in fact, just issued indictments against 
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Bosnian Serb military 
commander Ratko Mladic for crimes and abuses committed earlier in the 
Bosnian war. The Serbs' most recent offenses--their utter disregard for 
the U.N. protected-safe havens--outrages us, and make us want to do 
something in response. Where proponents and opponents of the Dole-
Lieberman legislation disagree, however, is what that something should 
be.

  At the urging of the United States, the contact group countries have 
agreed to do something in response to the atrocious Serb behavior. 
Details still need to be worked out, but this much is clear: earlier 
this week, the allies delivered an ultimatum to the Bosnian Serb 
commander that any threat against Gorazde will be met with 
disproportionate air strikes. Secretary Perry has made clear that the 
policy adopted for Gorazde could quickly be adopted to other areas 
should they come under attack. At the same time, British and French 
troops--part of the rapid reaction force--are working to open a key 
humanitarian supply route into Sarajevo.
  These new efforts have just begun, yet by passing this bill today, 
the Senate is saying that we are not willing to give them a chance. As 
President Clinton said in a letter today to the distinguished minority 
leader opposing this bill, ``Congressional passage of unilateral lift 
at this delicate moment will provide our allies a rationale for doing 
less, not more. It will provide the pretext for absolving themselves of 
responsibility in Bosnia, rather than assuming a stronger role at this 
critical moment.'' I would add that in passing this bill, we not only 
undercut the policy, but in so doing, we put at risk the brave U.N. 
personnel on the ground.
  The troop contributing countries, the U.N. Security Council, indeed 
the Bosnian Government have all made the judgment call that the United 
Nations should remain and redouble its efforts in Bosnia. None of those 
parties is asking for a U.N. withdrawal at this time. They know that if 
the United Nations were to pull out altogether, any areas of Bosnia 
which are now stable and well supplied due to the U.N. presence would 
likely face a humanitarian disaster. This is particularly true in 
central Bosnia. In his letter to Senator Daschle, President Clinton 
points out that ``for all its deficiencies UNPROFOR has been critical 
to an unprecedented humanitarian operation that feeds and helps keep 
alive over two million people in Bosnia.'' The President, our NATO and 
U.N. allies, and indeed the Bosnian Government have balanced the 
potential catastrophe of a U.N. withdrawal against the current tragedy, 
which has led many to call for a complete U.N. pullout. They have 
decided not to advocate a U.N. withdrawal at this time. Yet by passing 
this bill, the Senate is unilaterally calling for the United Nations to 
leave. That does not come without cost.
  I would remind my colleagues that the United States has committed to 
helping our allies withdraw from Bosnia as part of a NATO effort. So, 
in essence, by passing this bill, we are triggering the commitment of 
up to 25,000 United States troops to Bosnia to help with that 
withdrawal. We need to be clear about what we're voting for.
  This bill advocates, indeed would precipitate, a U.N. withdrawal from 
Bosnia followed by a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo. I do 
believe that if and when a decision is made to withdraw UNPROFOR, the 
arms embargo will de facto, be lifted with the support of our allies. 
That is as it should be. We are just not at that point yet.
  As I argued last week, if we pass this bill, it will inevitably be 
perceived as the beginning of a United States decision to go it alone 
in Bosnia. It is naive to think we can unilaterally lift the arms 
embargo, and then walk away.
  Another serious concern I have about this legislation is that it says 
that the lifting of the embargo shall occur after 

[[Page S 10628]]
UNPROFOR personnel have withdrawn or 12 weeks after the Bosnian 
Government asks U.N. troops to leave, whichever comes first. Basically, 
this legislation gives the Bosnian Government--the power to end United 
States participation in a U.N. imposed embargo. While the Bosnian 
Government does indeed have the right to ask UNPROFOR to leave, we 
should not abdicate to the Bosnian Government the power to trigger a 
unilateral lifting of the embargo.
  I have been somewhat torn about how to vote on this matter, and have 
not made my decision lightly. Like my colleagues who support this bill, 
I want to do something to alleviate the suffering of Bosnian civilians; 
to make the Serbs pay for their brutality; to tell them that aggression 
will not be rewarded. I am not convinced, however, that we will achieve 
those goals by passing this legislation. Indeed, we could make things 
worse, at great risk not only to the besieged Bosnians, but to the 
United States and our European allies. I reached this decision too, out 
of respect for our President's request that we not move ahead with this 
legislation. I will therefore, with some reluctance, vote against the 
Dole-Lieberman bill. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the 
President's letter on Bosnia be printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                              The White House,

                                        Washington, July 25, 1995.
     Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
     Democratic Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing to express my strong 
     opposition to S. 21, the ``Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-
     Defense Act of 1995''. While I fully understand the 
     frustration that the bill's supporters feel, I nonetheless am 
     firmly convinced that in passing this legislation Congress 
     would undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement in 
     Bosnia and could lead to an escalation of the conflict there, 
     including the possible Americanization of the conflict.
       There are no simple or risk-free answers in Bosnia. 
     Unilaterally lifting the arms embargo has serious 
     consequences. Our allies in UNPROFOR have made it clear that 
     a unilateral U.S. action to lift the arms embargo, which 
     would place their troops in greater danger, will result in 
     their early withdrawal from UNPROFOR, leading to its 
     collapse. I believe the United States, as the leader of NATO, 
     would have an obligation under these circumstances to assist 
     in that withdrawal, involving thousands of U.S. troops in a 
     difficult mission. Consequently, at the least, unilateral 
     lift by the U.S. drives our European allies out of Bosnia and 
     pulls the U.S. in, even if for a temporary and defined 
     mission.
       I agree that UNPROFOR, in its current mission, has reached 
     a crossroads. As you know, we are working intensively with 
     our allies on concrete measures to strengthen UNPROFOR and 
     enable it to continue to make a significant difference in 
     Bosnia, as it has--for all its deficiencies--over the past 
     three years. Let us not forget that UNPROFOR has been 
     critical to an unprecedented humanitarian operation that 
     feeds and helps keep alive over two million people in Bosnia; 
     until recently, the number of civilian casualties has been a 
     fraction of what they were before UNPROFOR arrived; much of 
     central Bosnia is at peace; and the Bosnia-Croat Federation 
     is holding. UNPROFOR has contributed to each of these 
     significant results.
       Nonetheless, the Serb assaults in recent days make clear 
     that UNPROFOR must be strengthened if it is to continue to 
     contribute to peace. I am determined to make every effort to 
     provide, with our allies, for more robust and meaningful 
     UNPROFOR action. We are now working to implement the 
     agreement reached last Friday in London to threaten 
     substantial and decisive use of NATO air power if the Bosnian 
     Serbs attack Gorazde and to strengthen protection of Sarajevo 
     using the Rapid Reaction Force. These actions lay the 
     foundation for stronger measures to protect the other safe 
     areas. Congressional passage of unilateral lift at this 
     delicate moment will undermine those efforts. It will provide 
     our allies a rationale for doing less, not more. It will 
     provide the pretext for absolving themselves of 
     responsibility in Bosnia, rather than assuming a stronger 
     role at this critical moment.
       It is important to face squarely the consequences of a U.S. 
     action that forces UNPROFOR departure. First, as I have 
     noted, we immediately would be part of a costly NATO 
     operation to withdraw UNPROFOR. Second, after that operation 
     is complete, there will be an intensification of the fighting 
     in Bosnia. It is unlikely the Bosnian Serbs would stand by 
     waiting until the Bosnian government is armed by others. 
     Under assault, the Bosnian government will look to the U.S. 
     to provide arms, air support and if that fails, more active 
     military support. At that stage, the U.S. will have broken 
     with our NATO allies as a result of unilateral lift. The U.S. 
     will be asked to fill the void--in military support, 
     humanitarian aid and in response to refugee crises. Third, 
     intensified fighting will risk a wider conflict in the 
     Balkans with far-reaching implications for regional peace. 
     Finally, UNPROFOR's withdrawal will set back prospects for a 
     peaceful, negotiated solution for the foreseeable future.
       In short, unilateral lift means unilateral responsibility. 
     We are in this with our allies now. We would be in it by 
     ourselves if we unilaterally lifted the embargo. The NATO 
     Alliance has stood strong for almost five decades. We should 
     not damage it in a futile effort to find an easy fix to the 
     Balkan conflict.
       I am prepared to veto any resolution or bill that may 
     require the United States to lift unilaterally the arms 
     embargo. It will make a bad situation worse. I ask that you 
     not support the pending legislation, S. 21.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Bill Clinton.

  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). Does the Senator yield the floor?
  Mr. PELL. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have been listening to this debate for 
the last 2 hours and I find the debate to be somewhat disassociated 
from the resolution we are being called upon to adopt. We have had it 
said that we are talking about American leadership. We are talking 
about American prestige. We are talking about America's willingness to 
assume its proper role in the world.
  Yet, when I look at the actual language of the resolution, 
particularly on page 5 where it states, ``Nothing in this section shall 
be interpreted as authorization for deployment of United States forces 
in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose, including 
training, support or delivery of military equipment,'' that is not a 
heroic call to action. That is not a statement that stirs men's blood 
with a commitment to the protection of the innocent.
  I believe that what we have before us is a resolution which 
essentially is an abdication of some of the most basic national 
interests of the United States of America. What are those interests 
that will be affected by the proposal of the United States to 
unilaterally lift, and therefore abrogate, the resolution of the United 
Nations which had prohibited the international community from supplying 
additional arms to the former Yugoslavia?
  I suggest that we have at least five national interests at stake in 
this debate tonight. One of those is the national interest in terms of 
the protection of our fighting men and women. Do we wish to place U.S. 
military personnel, especially ground troops, at risk?
  Interest No. 2 is to contain the conflict and not allow it to become 
the catalyst of an even larger war in the Balkans and in southern 
Europe.
  Interest No. 3: We have an interest in preserving the integrity and 
capacity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  Interest No. 4: We have an interest in the international community 
respecting international agreements.
  Finally, we have an interest in the capacity of the United States, 
given the reality that we are a government of divided responsibility, 
and therefore the necessity of the executive and the legislative to 
work with some degree of harmony and mutual respect in order for the 
United States to be an effective force in the world community.
  I believe all five of those important goals are placed at risk 
through the adoption of this resolution.
  What I think is interesting about those goals is, if you think of 
them as concentric circles, only the first two of those relate directly 
to circumstances affecting Bosnia. The other three are more generic 
interests of the United States. And it is somewhat gratuitous that the 
circumstances in Bosnia are the basis of those interests being placed 
at risk.
  Let me just comment briefly as to why I believe each of those five 
interests are jeopardized by the adoption of this resolution. Our first 
interest is to avoid the unnecessary placing of U.S. military personnel 
at risk. There are a series of comments that have been made. Our 
closest allies in NATO, who do have military personnel on the ground in 
Bosnia, have stated repeatedly--and, I think, unequivocally--that it is 
their intention to withdraw from 

[[Page S 10629]]
Bosnia if the United States unilaterally lifts the arms embargo. I 
believe they are sincere in that statement.
  The United States has made a commitment that if they do withdraw, we 
will provide up to 25,000 troops, to provide them cover while they are 
withdrawing. So the effect of adopting this resolution to unilaterally 
lift is that our allies will withdraw and that we will facilitate that 
withdrawal with up to 25,000 U.S. ground troops. So we have directly 
countered one of our interests, which is to avoid placing U.S. troops 
at risk on the ground.
  Second, containing the war. In my judgment, which is not particularly 
meaningful--but in the judgment of virtually every serious student of 
this issue, from the leadership of the United States military to our 
diplomatic leadership--they have all stated that if the arms embargo is 
lifted, it will precipitate an urgent move by the Bosnian Serbs to take 
advantage of the military circumstances as they now exist before those 
advantages are compromised by armaments reaching the Bosnian Moslems. 
So there will be an escalation of the conflict.
  There will be additional weapons introduced into the region and they 
will not all be the weapons that the United States might be prepared to 
introduce. Although this resolution explicitly indicates that we are 
not committing ourselves to provide any additional training, support or 
delivery of military equipment to the Bosnian Moslems, the Russians are 
not so circumspect. A news item from Tass, the Russian news bureau, 
dated July 12, states that the Russian Duma, the Russian Parliament, 
has condemned the new NATO bombing raids on the positions of the 
Bosnian Serbs near Srebrenica.
  Since this time, that former safe haven has fallen.
  According to the statement of the Duma, these bombardments have 
created a situation where armed provocations by the so-called Moslem 
Croatian Federation, unrestrained by the West and NATO, cause response 
from the Serbs which is always followed by a unilateral use of power by 
NATO.
  The Duma resolution goes on to call for the Russian participation in 
the lifting of the arms embargo for purposes of providing arms to the 
Bosnian Serbs.
  So we are going to have the Russians providing military equipment to 
the Serbs, the United States assumedly providing military equipment to 
the Moslems--a major escalation of the conflict within Bosnia, creating 
the potential of a serious overflow of this conflict into an already 
tinderbox adjacent area.
  This has the potential of a major conflagration throughout the 
Balkans and southern Europe, even the potential of drawing into that 
conflict Greece and Turkey, two of our NATO allies. So if one of our 
objectives is to try to contain the war, if that is why we have 400 
United States military troops in Macedonia, the adoption of this 
resolution and all of the things that are likely to flow from it will 
have exactly the opposite effect.
  Third, it is in our interest to preserve the integrity of the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization. That is an organization which is already 
under serious pressure as a result of events in Bosnia. This would 
raise that pressure. We have been besieged by our French and British 
allies not to unilaterally lift the embargo because of the greater 
danger that it will pose for its troops that are on the ground. We are 
going to be called upon, if this resolution is adopted, to protect our 
NATO allies by assisting them in withdrawal. I fear one of two things: 
I fear that we either will--or I fear that we will not--vote on an 
amendment to this resolution which will specifically authorize the 
United States to place some 25,000 troops in Bosnia in order to assist 
our NATO allies in their withdrawal.
  I fear that we would debate that because I fear that it will fail. In 
fact, I have a reason to believe that gives me confidence that the 
amendment would fail. Therefore, the Senate would be sending a 
statement to our NATO allies that we are not going to honor our 
commitment to protect them. I am distressed that we would not debate 
that amendment because it indicates I think the fundamental level of 
timidity which is part of this resolution that we are calling for 
actions that have very high probable consequences and yet are not 
willing to accept affirmatively the implications of those 
responsibilities. So in so doing we place our NATO alliance at risk.
  Fourth, is the respect for international agreements. This is not the 
only international agreement in which the United States has joined with 
the rest of the international community in adopting.
  Let me just refer to one of those other agreements; that is, the 
agreement that the United States led the Security Council in adopting 
on August 6, 1990, imposing on Iraq a sweeping set of sanctions. What 
are those sanctions? A ban on the import of any product originating in 
Iraq. This primarily relates to oil which is 90 percent of Iraq's 
exports. A worldwide freeze on Iraq's financial assets; a ban on all 
weapon sales to Iraq; a ban on any exports to Iraq with the exceptions 
of food and medical supplies.
  On September 25, 1990, to those set of sanctions was added an 
additional prohibition on civil air activity. That is an international 
agreement of which we are a party. There have been tremendous pressures 
on that Iraq embargo. Iraq has offered to Russia, France, Germany, and 
other countries huge quantities of oil at discounts, lucrative 
contracts for oil exploration and industrial redevelopment. Thus far 
our allies have resisted those entreaties. They have resisted them 
because Iraq has not lived up to its obligations, including its 
obligation to allow full surveillance of its capacity to produce 
weapons of mass destruction, weapons which already have destabilized 
the Middle East, and have the potential to do so again.
  It is very much in our interest that this embargo against Iraq be 
honored by all of the world's countries. Yet, what moral ground do we 
have to continue to urge that they be honored if we have just 
unilaterally breach the United Nations' embargo which was arrived at 
with equal solemnity relative to the provision of armaments in the 
former Yugoslavia?
  Mr. President, I think we are about to shred our moral capacity to 
lead the world and to ask the world to follow the rule of law and 
international obligations. And there is no country which will pay a 
dearer price for that than will the United States of America.
  Fifth, and finally, Mr. President, I believe we have a great stake in 
the capacity of this Government of the United States of America to be 
able to function in international affairs.
  When I was a boy growing up in a home, the father of which had been 
born in Croswell, MI, our political hero was Senator Arthur Vandenberg 
of Michigan. Senator Vandenberg accomplished much in his life and in 
his public career. But the thing for which he is best known is his 
cooperation with President Truman in the critical years after World War 
II in fashioning a bipartisan foreign policy for the United States 
which did in fact allow us to lead, to lead in a very difficult period 
of 45 years until finally the Soviet Union crumbled.
  That standard of cooperation is, I fear, one of the real potential 
casualties in the adoption of this resolution. If I can use as the 
example that commitment that the United States made to our allies to 
provide up to 25,000 troops to help extricate them from Bosnia should 
that be called upon, I imagine what happened was that a representative 
of this Government, possibly at the highest level, the President 
himself, possibly at the level of the Secretary of Defense or the 
Secretary of State, in a meeting with our allies reviewed a series of 
contingencies. We were trying to encourage our allies to put troops 
into Bosnia as peacekeepers in hopes that they would play a positive 
role both in the humanitarian relief of the besieged people of Bosnia 
but also in the containment of the level of violence that had been 
occurring. One of those concerns of our allies before they would make 
that commitment is what would you do in the event that we have to 
remove our troops and our troops are under military siege? And we 
committed that as part of their obligation to go in, that we would 
assume the obligation to help them get out. That was a commitment that 
was made in the name of the United States of America through our 
Commander in Chief and President. 

[[Page S 10630]]

  If we are unwilling to now honor that commitment, as I fear the 
implications of this resolution is that we are so unwilling, I believe 
we strike a fundamental and maybe lethal blow to not only our world 
leadership but also our capacity to function as a Nation attempting to 
establish a singular credible policy position in the world.
  So, Mr. President, I fear that we have much at risk here to the 
United States' national interest. And as a U.S. Senator and as a U.S. 
Senate, I think that is where our principal focus should be. What is in 
our national interest? It is not in our national interest to adopt a 
resolution that would cause us to abrogate a solemn international 
agreement which had the result of placing the United States troops at 
risk, has the potential of causing this serious conflict in Bosnia to 
become an even greater fire throughout southern Europe. It is not in 
our interest to see the integrity of NATO put at risk. It is not in our 
interest to see a diminution of respect for international agreements, 
and it is not in our interest to see the necessity of bipartisanship in 
foreign policy development and implementation rendered by this action.
  So, Mr. President, I think this is a serious moment for the Nation 
and for this Senate. I would strongly urge that this resolution be 
substantially modified, and failing such modification be defeated.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we have in a rather informal way managed 
this afternoon's very important debate on this issue. I know speaking 
with the majority leader, and the distinguished Senator from 
Connecticut, myself and others, we will urge the Senate to vote 
tonight.
  So I would hope that Senators who are desiring to address this 
important matter would find the opportunity, if they so desire, to come 
to the floor as soon as possible.
  I see the Senator from Texas. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate on the 
floor tonight. It seems to me that we are all looking at the same fact 
situation. But we are coming at it from a very different vantage point, 
and with the same facts we are coming to very different conclusions.
  One side says this is a failed U.N. peacekeeping mission, and that we 
should shore up the United Nations and escalate the effort that the 
United Nations is making. The other side says this is a failed U.N. 
mission, and within the constraints of our commitment it is time for us 
to withdraw.
  Mr. President, I am in the second category. The time has come for us 
to get the United Nations out and let the Bosnian Moslems have a fair 
fight. We have stood by and watched while the well-armed Serbian forces 
have waged war against the Bosnian people that has made us cry at night 
watching what has happened.
  The fall of Srebrenica, and the ethnic cleansing which followed, 
provides convincing evidence of the failure of this current policy. The 
Serbs are not going to negotiate. They have demonstrated that they 
believe they have more to gain by fighting than negotiating. Absent a 
military threat, the aggressor Serbs have no reason to negotiate in 
good faith.
  We have debated this issue for over a year now, and we have watched 
the situation in Bosnia continue to deteriorate.
  History will not judge us kindly if we continue to withhold from the 
Bosnians the means to fight for their own freedom. Our action has not 
been one of neutrality because the effect has been to keep the Bosnian 
army from defending themselves with the same kinds of arms that the 
Serb aggressors have had. The time has come for us to end this debate, 
withdraw the U.N. forces, and lift the arms embargo once and for all.
  The old adage said, ``It is preferable to die fighting on your feet 
than to live begging on your knees.'' It is clear the Bosnians have 
made their choice. They have been bravely fighting on their feet for 
months, but they have been severely limited in arms. The Bosnians are 
not asking us to arm them. They are not asking for American troops to 
defend them. They are simply asking to be allowed to fight their own 
fight. It is unconscionable for us to continue to deny them that basic 
right to fight for their survival.
  What we have is a bloodstained policy which denies them the means of 
defending themselves, and it is one which we can no longer countenance.
  Two months ago, I stood on the border of Macedonia and Serbia. I was 
standing side by side with our Americans with U.N. blue caps. They were 
at an outpost watching the border to make sure that this fight did not 
spread. I returned to the United States to find that our administration 
was considering requests from our allies which will only draw the 
United States deeper and deeper into an implacable situation. We are 
being asked to help increase and reinforce the U.N. mission in Bosnia, 
more airstrikes, and a larger U.N. ground force. For us to participate 
in such a plan would be a grave mistake.
  We are considering increasing the U.N. involvement when the message 
could not be more clear. What we are doing is not working. The last 
thing we should do is increase that commitment.
  I have been opposed to sending ground troops into Bosnia, and in 
light of recent developments, my resolve is even stronger. Any decision 
to involve United States forces in additional air support roles would 
take us two steps closer to a United States ground presence in Bosnia.
  I heard the Senator from Massachusetts earlier today saying maybe it 
would be a balance, that we would provide air cover and airstrikes for 
our allies who would be on the ground.
  I do not think that would be a fair balance, Mr. President. The 
shootdown of Capt. Scott O'Grady served to remind us that providing air 
support is not without cost. It has the potential of getting us more 
deeply involved in this conflict.
  We are now drawing up operational plans for airstrikes should the 
Serbs move on Gorazde. We are on the brink. The U.N. is conducting a 
peacekeeping mission in a region where there is no peace. The U.N. is 
paralyzed, unable to respond and unwilling to retreat.
  Two weeks ago, the Bosnian Serbs attacked the U.N.-designated safe 
area of Srebrenica. They rounded up the men for ``questioning.'' They 
threw women and children out of their homes and onto the roads--no 
food, no water. The tales of the acts of barbarism committed by the 
Bosnian Serb forces are now being reported by the United Nations. One 
U.N. official said the Serb actions constituted very serious violations 
of human rights on an enormous scale that can only be described as 
barbarous.
  Using artillery and armored vehicles, the well-armed Serbs quickly 
overran Zepa and now they have turned their sights on Bihac, Gorazde, 
and Sarajevo.
  For some time, this administration has argued that their reluctance 
to lift the arms embargo stems from a fear that if the arms embargo 
should be lifted, the Bosnian Serbs would only be encouraged to go on 
the offensive and press their attack on the Moslems.
  This line of reasoning, Mr. President, is frustrating and beneath the 
standards of our great Nation. The Bosnian Serbs are on the attack. 
That should be obvious to any casual observer. The Serbs are oblivious 
to what the U.N. is doing because they have seen only empty threats and 
rhetoric. The refugees fleeing Srebrenica and Zepa provide ample 
evidence of the failure of this embargo where only one side of the 
conflict is armed.
  I remember my meeting with the Prime Minister of Bosnia when he was 
here just a few weeks ago. He was bemused. He said, ``I keep hearing 
the United Nations say there are two sides to this war.'' He said, 
``There are two sides all right. One side is shooting and the other 
side is dying.''
  That is two sides, but it is not a fair fight, and we must do 
everything in our power to let them have a fair fight without U.S. 
presence in that fight.
  The bill we are debating acknowledges what we all know, that the 
United Nations can no longer function in Bosnia in anything but a 
limited humanitarian role. Since this bill links termination of the 
embargo to United 

[[Page S 10631]]
Nations withdrawal, the Bosnians and those participating in the United 
Nations will make ultimate decisions as to when and under what 
conditions the United Nations would withdraw and the embargo would be 
lifted.
  By linking United Nations withdrawal to the lifting of the arms 
embargo, the Serbs will be on notice that should the U.N. leave, they 
will get the fight they have been seeking, but it will not be with 
unarmed women and children, unarmed men. It will be a fair fight with 
armed Moslem soldiers.
  The United Nations is an effective peacekeeper when two sides to a 
crisis want peace. That is not the situation in Bosnia today. As the 
frustrated Bosnian Foreign Minister said so eloquently following the 
fall of Srebrenica, ``The U.N. troops have become a hindrance, a clumsy 
reminder of the U.N.'s failure.''
  It is time for the U.N. to abandon this failed mission, not because 
they did not try but because the tide was not right. I urge the 
President to turn away from this recent shift in American policy and 
instead of encouraging the United Nations to increase its activities, 
we should lift the arms embargo so the Bosnian Moslems can defend 
themselves and allow our allies to decide if they want to leave.
  One Bosnian official said last week, ``We have never seen the United 
Nations do much more than talk. We have given up on anyone from the 
outside coming to our rescue.''
  Mr. President, we can no longer leave the Bosnians defenseless. It is 
time to recognize the failure of our current policy and to do what it 
takes to provide the Bosnian Government the right to defend its own 
people from aggression. The United States has acted unilaterally 
before, and we will again. We must lift the arms embargo. Vice 
President Ganic said, ``We are dying anyway. Let us die fighting, 
fighting for our country.''
  I think the time has come for this Senate to remember our own 
heritage. Over 200 years ago, we fought for our freedom. ``Give me 
liberty or give me death'' was the rallying cry of our soldiers. We 
should remember the sacrifices that our forefathers willingly made 
because they cared so much for freedom. And we should heed the pleas 
that come from a country far across the ocean, a country that wishes to 
fight for their freedom, their liberty, their families, and their 
future generations.
  Mr. President, we must step out of the way and let them have a fair 
fight. I hope my colleagues will give overwhelming, bipartisan support 
to finally taking the stand that we have talked about and debated and 
danced around for months on end while other people have paid the 
ultimate price of enduring rape and ravage and murder, and let us let 
them have the ability to take what is left of their country and defend 
it with the honor they are seeking.
  I thank the Chair.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wish to say that I listened very 
carefully to the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Texas, and I 
think it brings another very important perspective to this debate.
 I wish to express my congratulations.

  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.
  Mr. NUNN. I wonder if the Senator from Virginia would let me give a 
5- or 6-minute explanation of the amendment. I want to get the 
amendment on the floor.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I would be pleased to yield to the Senator 
from Georgia. I would like to have the opportunity to seek recognition 
at the conclusion of his remarks.
  Mr. BIDEN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, is the Chair in the position, since so many people are 
wishing to speak, to, in a sense, unofficially acknowledge the order in 
which we are standing on the floor? I think it might make things 
appropriate. I know the Senator from Michigan was here before the 
Senator from Delaware. The Senator from Delaware was here before other 
people.
  My inquiry is, is there an attempt on the part of the Chair to 
recognize people in the order in which they are sitting on the floor 
waiting to be recognized?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is beyond the power of the Chair.
  Mr. WARNER. There has been an informal arrangement purely based on 
comity among Senators, since this matter was introduced at about 2:15, 
to follow much what the Senator from Delaware has suggested. I just 
think if we recognize among ourselves, without any request for action 
from the Chair, that the Senator from Virginia has been waiting, he 
recognizes that the Senator from Georgia desires to lay down an 
amendment and speak for a few minutes, the Senator from Michigan, and 
then the Senator from Delaware, that seems to me----
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia has just made a 
statement I could not propound in the form of a question. I thank him.
  Mr. WARNER. We thank the Chair.
  Mr. NUNN. I thank the Senator from Virginia for yielding to me on 
this. I would like to discuss two amendments, one very briefly and the 
other amendment in detail.
  The first amendment that I had intended to propose to this Dole-
Lieberman bill, Mr. President, would have made it very clear that the 
President of the United States is authorized to use United States 
military forces for the purpose of assisting in the withdrawal of 
UNPROFOR personnel from Bosnia and Herzegovina provided, No. 1, that 
the Secretary-General of NATO requests the participation of U.S. forces 
and certifies that such participation is necessary for the successful 
completion of the operation; No. 2, the withdrawal operation will be 
carried out under NATO operation control and using NATO rules of 
engagement; No. 3, participating NATO forces will not be unduly in 
danger to remove the military equipment of the UNPROFOR forces; and, 
No. 4, the North Atlantic Council decides to conduct the operation.
  That was one of the amendments I intended to introduce. I do not 
intend to introduce that amendment now. I think the amendment would 
enjoy substantial support on the floor. There would also be opposition 
without any doubt. The President has not sent up a request, and without 
a request or at least an expression from President Clinton and his 
administration that they would welcome this kind of authorization, I do 
not think it is really appropriate to ask our colleagues to vote on 
that kind of authorization at this time.
  I do add, though, Mr. President, that everyone should understand--and 
I hope the American public understands--that the amendment that we are 
debating, the Dole-Lieberman resolution, basically encourages the 
United Nations to withdraw from Bosnia. In encouraging the United 
Nations to withdraw from Bosnia, the enticement is very clear--the 
unilateral lifting of the arms embargo, as the amendment is currently 
drawn, if the United Nations withdraws after a request by the President 
of Bosnia. So that gives the President of Bosnia an incentive to make 
that request.
  Now, I think for the Senate, we need to understand that if the U.N. 
forces withdraw, President Clinton has clearly said publicly--I am not 
sure it has been focused on all over the country--but it is clear that 
the President of the United States has committed to send U.S. military 
forces if requested by NATO to assist in the withdrawal of U.N. and 
NATO forces.
  I happen to believe the President is correct on this. I believe that 
we do have an obligation if there is a withdrawal and if we are needed. 
If, of course, withdrawal can be accomplished in a peaceful way without 
U.S. forces, then that would suit all of us better. But if we are 
needed, we have had two Presidents, President Bush as well as President 
Clinton, who have encouraged our allies to go in there on the ground. 
The United States has not sent ground troops. But we have had President 
Clinton encourage, even to this day, the U.N. forces and the forces of 
our NATO allies to remain on the ground. And for them to get in 
difficulty on withdrawal and for the United States not to come to their 
assistance, as already expressed publicly and 

[[Page S 10632]]
privately by the President of the United States, in my view, would deal 
a lethal blow to the alliance we have been part of since World War II.
  So I think no one should make any mistake about it here on the floor 
of the Senate. The Senate of the United States is going to have to face 
up to this question at some point if there is a withdrawal. And the 
Dole-Lieberman amendment anticipates, in fact encourages, withdrawal.
  I had hoped we would join this issue on the floor. I know that there 
are a number of Senators who agree with me on both sides of the aisle. 
I know that the Senator from Kansas, Senator Dole, and Senator 
Lieberman have both indicated that they would support this general type 
resolution. I am not talking about this specific wording. But there are 
Senators who would oppose it. But at this stage, without a request by 
the President, or without at least an expression by the President that 
he would encourage this kind of proposal at this time, then, in my 
view, it is not appropriate to present it for a vote at this time. But 
it cannot be avoided. At some point we are going to have to face up to 
it. And I hope the Congress of the United States will understand what 
is at stake here. Far more than the question of Bosnia, what is at 
stake is U.S. leadership, United States commitment, and the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization itself were we to choose not to support 
the President's commitment here and not to help our allies.
  Mr. President, I do intend to send another amendment to the desk. We 
made a few changes in it. I have talked to the Senator from Virginia, 
Senator Warner. I ask that Senator Graham, the Senator from Florida, be 
added as a cosponsor of this amendment. This amendment I will describe 
briefly and when it is retyped with a couple of small changes, 
technical but important changes, then I will send it to the desk as 
called for in the unanimous consent order.
  Mr. President, this amendment that I will send to the desk in a few 
minutes has two aspects. First, it adds a new finding that reiterates 
the position of the contact group that was first expressed in July 1994 
and maintained ever since. And that is that the U.N. Security Council 
termination of the Bosnian arms embargo would be unavoidable as a last 
resort if the Bosnian Serbs continue to reject the contact group's 
proposal.
  Mr. President, the contact group is composed of Britain, France, 
Germany, the United States, and Russia. This is a statement they issued 
in July of 1994. And I want to repeat that the contact group itself 
said that the termination of a Bosnian arms embargo would be 
unavoidable as a last resort if the Bosnian Serbs continue to reject 
the contact group's proposal. Of course, we all know the contact 
group's proposal has continued to be rejected by the Bosnian Serbs.
  Second, this amendment adds a new provision that would require the 
President, President Clinton, to immediately introduce and to press to 
a vote in the U.N. Security Council a resolution offered by the United 
States to terminate the Bosnian arms embargo on a multilateral basis if 
the Bosnian Government requests the withdrawal of the U.N. forces or if 
the troop-contributing countries or the Security Council decides to 
withdraw the U.N. forces from Bosnia. The resolution would provide that 
the Bosnian arms embargo would be terminated no later than the 
completion of the withdrawal of the U.N. forces from Bosnia.
  Mr. President, I believe that it is important to set up a mechanism 
as a part of this bill to ensure that the Clinton administration seeks 
to achieve a multilateral lift of the Bosnian arms embargo if the 
events stipulated in the Dole-Lieberman bill for triggering the embargo 
should occur. In other words, the Dole-Lieberman bill now visualizes a 
unilateral lift of the embargo if these events are triggered. What this 
amendment would do is insert that, before that unilateral embargo was 
lifted unilaterally, the President would go to the United Nations 
Security Council and seek a multilateral lift. I emphasize, this 
amendment would not delay the Dole-Lieberman unilateral lift, because 
that is now not going to occur until after the U.N. forces have been 
removed from Bosnia, pursuant to either their own decision or pursuant 
to a request from the President of Bosnia to the Security Council.
  Mr. President, if the Dole-Lieberman amendment is enacted into law, 
it would result, as it now stands without this amendment, in the 
unilateral lifting of the Bosnian arms embargo upon the withdrawal of 
the UNPROFOR in Bosnia. That might happen even if my amendment were 
adopted. I will make that clear, also. But we would at least first seek 
a U.N. multilateral lift, which I think most people in this body prefer 
as the first choice.
  This arms embargo was established with the concurring vote of the 
United States during the Bush administration. It has been complied with 
throughout by the Clinton administration. Mr. President, I think it 
would be an unfortunate precedent if the United States, a permanent 
member of the U.N. Security Council, a member who has been the 
strongest supporter of various arms and economic embargoes on countries 
such as Iraq and Libya, which continue to this day, was to lift the 
embargo unilaterally on Bosnia without at least first going to the 
Security Council and asking for a multilateral lift before we take 
unilateral action.
  Mr. President, it seems to me that if the decision is made to 
withdraw the U.N. forces from Bosnia, then the Security Council should 
be receptive to a lifting of the Bosnian arms embargo on a multilateral 
basis. And I repeat, the contact group, composed of Britain and France 
and Germany and the United States and Russia, have issued a statement 
last year saying as a last resort they believe the United Nations 
Security Council should lift the embargo. That indicates at least 
implicitly some support in that group when we get down to the last 
resort.
  Mr. President, if we are not close to the last resort in Bosnia, we 
are very, very close to it. I think we are close to it if we are not 
already there. Our allies who have troops on the ground in Bosnia and 
who have resisted the termination of the arms embargo because it would 
endanger their troops, should be willing to vote for such a resolution 
once their troops are out of Bosnia. If we can get a multilateral lift 
in the Security Council, it would be a much better, much improved 
situation for the United States because we would not meet ourselves 
coming back on such critical embargoes as Iraq where there is strong 
sentiment by some members of the Security Council to lift that embargo 
and where we resist lifting that embargo. Mr. President, I hope that we 
will support this amendment.
  The contact group has been on record for more than a year that the 
arms embargo should be lifted by the Security Council if the Bosnian 
Serbs continue to reject the contact group's proposal. As I said, that 
is what they have done. Surely, the continued rejection by the Bosnian 
Serbs, coupled with their repeated violations of the humanitarian laws 
of war, merits a positive vote by all members of the contact group for 
such a resolution and, I also believe, for the Security Council to make 
this same decision.
  I realize there is no assurance that such a resolution would be 
adopted by the U.N. Security Council. I also realize that it is 
possible that Russia, or one of the other permanent members, would be 
in a position of vetoing this resolution. But I do believe that even if 
it is vetoed, there is no reason we should continue to avoid a vote. We 
ought to at least have the Security Council vote, and we ought to make 
at least some effort to have a multilateral lift before we strike out 
on our own.
  I would have preferred that the administration would have pressed for 
a vote on the resolution it submitted and supported last year, and that 
resolution was submitted by the Clinton administration pursuant to the 
Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, which 
called for a multilateral lift of the Bosnian arms embargo.
  The President committed to us in conference last year that he would 
introduce and support such a multilateral lift effort in the Security 
Council. However, the administration did not ask for a vote. They did 
introduce a resolution and they did support it, but they did not ask 
for a vote. So there still has not been a vote at our request on this 
key issue.
  I realize that diplomats like to avoid unpleasant confrontations. I 
realize the United States does not like to be on 

[[Page S 10633]]
the losing side of a U.N. vote in the Security Council, but I believe 
in this instance, it is imperative that we press this resolution for a 
multilateral lift to a vote and at least find out where every member of 
the Security Council stands. And if a member of the contact group who 
is also on the Security Council objects to this resolution, if it is 
introduced by the Clinton administration pursuant to this amendment, if 
this amendment is adopted, or if the member of the Security Council who 
is also on the contact group vetoes the resolution, then they should 
answer the question, What did you mean when you agreed to the contact 
group statement that in the event of continued rejection by the Bosnian 
Serbs of the contact group's proposal for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a 
decision in the United States Security Council to lift the embargo as a 
last resort would be unavoidable?
  If there is a veto, then at least we would hopefully get some 
explanation as to what that contact group statement meant when it was 
issued last year.
  Finally, Mr. President, I emphasize that this amendment does not 
interfere in any way with the operation of the Dole-Lieberman bill. The 
Dole-Lieberman bill requires that the Bosnian arms embargo be 
terminated upon the withdrawal of the U.N. forces from Bosnia. That 
withdrawal will take some time.
  We received various estimates from our military ranging from 7 to 22 
weeks for the completion of a withdrawal operation. Best case, about 7 
weeks; hopefully, worst case about 22 weeks. That leaves ample time, 
even under the 7-week estimate, for the Security Council to carefully 
consider and vote on a United States resolution to multilaterally lift 
the arms embargo on the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  Mr. President, I certainly welcome support on this amendment. Again, 
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Florida, Senator Graham, 
be added as a cosponsor. I hope there will be other cosponsors as the 
debate continues.
  I yield the floor and, again, I thank my friend from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ROBB. At the outset, I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a 
cosponsor to the amendment of the Senator from Georgia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ROBB. Madam President, as we watch the sovereignty, independence, 
and territorial integrity of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
wither under Serbian attack, we are faced with a very difficult choice: 
Stay the course with the U.N. and allied forces on the ground in the 
hope of limiting the bloodshed and containing fighting as best we can, 
or breaking with the current policy and letting the Bosnian Army defend 
itself.
  I am troubled by the fact that we treat Bosnia and Herzegovina as a 
barren wasteland, not as a country. We have slipped so far into a 
policy of sustaining and occupying U.N. force in the Balkans for the 
sake of rebuffing Serbian aggression that we shut aside the views and 
aspirations of Bosnian Government officials, Prime Minister Silajdic 
among them.
  Madam President, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a living, breathing 
country, represented in Washington, at the United Nations and around 
the world. We should respect and listen to the views of its officials 
and not ignore them.
  Like many of our colleagues, I met recently with the Prime Minister, 
and he angrily intoned that our policy of militarily straitjacketing 
his forces made us complicit in the Serbian slaughter of the Bosnian 
people.
  While I took very strong issue with his point that we were serving as 
a partner in genocidal crime, his message was unmistakable: We and the 
international community are standing in the way of a free and 
independent country seeking to fight for its very survival on its own 
territory and terms.
  I understand those who caution us about the consequences of letting 
weapons flow to the Bosnian Government forces. They argue that a lift-
and-strike policy does not consider the battlefield incineration that 
might follow. But I believe that we should leave these decisions in the 
hands of Prime Minister Silajdic and other Bosnian leaders.
  The Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, like Serbia, Croatia, and 
any other sovereign nation, should be allowed to exercise its right of 
self-defense under article 51 of the U.N. Charter, and our policies 
should not interfere with that fundamental authority.
  There are no painless options before us. Ultimately, there are 
substantial risks, and we have to be prepared to assume some of them. 
With no peace to keep in the former Yugoslavia, however, I believe a 
policy of simply muddling through is a prescription for failure. It 
extends the war indefinitely and provides no hope or answers to the 
Bosnian people on how the community of nations intends to help defer 
Serbian aggression. I advocated pushing our allies much harder earlier 
to change course, but they have clung to a policy of defending the 
status quo.
  As the situation on the ground has worsened, we have failed to 
respond decisively in any way. Given that bleak outlook, I have 
consistently supported an approach in the past that allows the Bosnian 
Government to defend its people and territory. We have voted on seven 
separate occasions on the arms embargo question and, in each instance, 
I have supported giving the Bosnian Army the military capability to 
defend itself. And I will support legislation again tonight that I 
believe provides the only real chance for eventually establishing a 
permanent and lasting peace in the Balkans, and that is by lifting the 
arms embargo.
  I should note, however, that while I share the goals of what is 
likely to be a majority of my colleagues regarding the lifting of the 
embargo, I am deeply troubled by the invasive means by which we 
encroach on Presidential authority.
  On war and peace issues, I have long advocated placing our trust and 
support in the hands of our Commander in Chief.
  This legislation, admittedly, challenges Presidential authority 
outright and sets a bad precedent for our intervention in executive 
branch prerogatives. But we have been urging this course of action 
literally for years now, and yet the genocidal slaughter continues.
  Madam President, I feel Congress ought to exercise its oversight on 
matters of national security with great caution and be particularly 
sensitive to actions that might have the effect of micromanaging 
foreign policy or usurping the President's constitutional 
responsibilities.
  I have tried to support Presidents of both parties on defense and 
foreign policy decisions, and I want to continue to do so in the 
future.
  Serbian atrocities, beyond the pale, however, force the Senate to act 
today. Ethnic cleansing, gang rapes, hostage-taking of noncombatant 
peacekeepers, and pillaging the eastern enclaves of Bosnia, demand an 
unequivocal United States response. In that case, it is lifting the 
arms embargo.
  An affirmative policy of lift and strike will clarify to Serb 
marauders that their military campaign is ultimately a futile one and 
that a negotiated settlement is the only way out.
  For now, Serb gunners and soldiers have no incentive to lay down 
their arms. They brazenly march ahead. Srebrenica last week, and then 
Zepa, Bihac today, and Gorazde tomorrow, fighting a defenseless enemy.
  Bosnian Government soldiers, lacking the wherewithal to fight back, 
retreat and scatter. UNPROFOR stands as an idle force nearby, if 
anything, helping Belgrade's aspiration for achieving a greater Serbia. 
While UNPROFOR certainly deserves credit for supporting humanitarian 
missions, the war-torn Balkans, separating the combatants and 
attempting to deter atrocities, I do not see how the international 
community can afford to keep peacekeepers in a region where there is no 
peace. The role of UNPROFOR has gone from keeping the peace to 
regulating the war. It is time for a change.
  Secretaries Christopher and Perry, for whom I have enormous personal 
respect, visited us again today and said now is not the right time to 
unilaterally lift the embargo. 

[[Page S 10634]]

  Time is running out on the Bosnia people. If not now, when? The 
escalation of events these last few days with Bihac under attack today, 
underscores 3 years of failure to achieve a peaceful settlement.
  Madam President, this civil war, in my view, must ultimately be 
resolved by the different groups within the former Yugoslavia. We 
should conduct a policy that provides the greatest incentive for both 
sides to peacefully negotiate their differences at the bargaining 
table.
  To wit, I believe the United States should first press our allies for 
the expeditious withdrawal of UNPROFOR; second, lift the arms embargo 
multilaterally, if possible, unilaterally, if we must; third, continue 
to isolate the Bosnian Serbs politically and economically; fourth, not 
harbor any illusions about the consequences of lifting the embargo.
  We cannot duck the question of whether United States forces--up to 
25,000, in some scenarios--will be required near and in Bosnia to help 
extract UNPROFOR.
  President Clinton has pledged to support UNPROFOR's emergency 
extraction. In my judgment, this is the right thing to do. We ought to 
go on record supporting him in this regard. In that regard, I certainly 
support the Senator from Georgia.
  With emergency extraction, however, come risks. Both the Bosnian 
Serbs and the Bosnian Government forces could choose to interdict the 
UNPROFOR withdrawal. Given the narrow and fragile transportation routes 
in Bosnia, either side could do much to accomplish this goal.
  Closer examination suggests that neither side has a compelling 
incentive to prevent UNPROFOR's withdrawal by force. The Bosnian 
Government would be loathe to attack its potential supporters, and 
although the Bosnian Serbs are benefiting immensely from UNPROFOR's 
indecisiveness, they would have no rational reason to delay UNPROFOR's 
departure.
  We must accept, however, that lifting the embargo will not and can 
not mean the end of United States involvement. The Bosnian Government 
will request that the U.S. provide airstrikes to stem a Bosnia Serb 
advance. It is reasonable to expect that the United States will need to 
continue the equivalent of Deny Flight to keep the skies free of 
Bosnian Serb air power. The United States may have to take an active 
role in supplying the Bosnian Government with arms and equipment, 
intelligence, and training, and the United States will have to supply 
extensive humanitarian assistance by airdrops and other means to 
compensate for the departure of the humanitarian assistance personnel.
  The Balkans conflagration may well get worse before it gets better, 
implementing a lift and strike plan, but it is going to end sooner due 
to it, and it will save many innocent victims in the long run.
  These, Madam President, are not attractive options. There are no 
attractive options before the Senate.
  Accordingly, Madam President, I believe that the United States should 
lead by example and not be deterred by protestations from our allies on 
lifting the embargo unilaterally if they choose not to join us.
  The time has come to give the Bosnian Government a fighting chance. I 
hope the Senate will send that message in resounding fashion. I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas has the floor.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I am happy to yield to the Senator 
from Virginia if he has a question.
  Mr. WARNER. I simply wish to address the Chair and those present. We 
are following an informal order. The Senator from Michigan has waited 
for about an hour and a half. Somehow it has worked out for 5\1/2\ 
hours.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I think it is good to follow an 
order. I know the Senator from Michigan was here before I was on the 
floor and I am happy to yield at this time to the Senator from 
Michigan.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Madam President, I wonder if I could get in line.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, what we have done before is just 
recognize Senators. The Senator from Maine has been here for some 
period off and on.
  Perhaps, without seeking ratification by the Chair, just among 
ourselves, have a comity by which the Senator from Michigan be followed 
by the Senator from Kansas. The Senator from Delaware, very definitely, 
has been here.
  Mr. COHEN. I object, because none of us will get to speak.
  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, maybe he will learn something.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator from Michigan, Delaware, Kansas, Rhode 
Island, and then Maine.
  Mr. CHAFEE. The Senator from Maine was here before I was.
  Mr. WARNER. We will reverse that. The Senator from Arizona is behind 
that group.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator restate that.
  Mr. WARNER. We will first recognize the Senator from Michigan, 
followed by the Senator from Kansas, followed by the Senator from 
Delaware, followed by the Senator from Maine, followed by the Senator 
from Rhode Island, and then the Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Madam President, did we get a firm commitment that the 
Senator from Delaware will be in his usual crisp style?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan has the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator from Michigan yield for a unanimous-
consent request?
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I yield.
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order of recognition be 
as described by the Senator from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield.
  Mr. BIDEN. I say to my friend from Maine and from Rhode Island, had 
they listened to the Senator from Delaware 2 years ago, we would not be 
having this debate today.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Madam President. I also thank the Senator 
from Kansas for yielding. I promise for my part to be quite concise 
here tonight.
  I rise today in support of S. 21, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-
Defense Act of 1995. I do so because I believe it is past time for us 
to allow the Bosnian Government to defend itself against naked and 
cruel aggression. The United Nations has failed to protect this state, 
NATO has been prevented from effectively protecting this state, and the 
valiant peacekeepers on the ground have been placed in the impossible 
position of keeping the peace where there is no peace to keep. Under 
these circumstances, the United States cannot continue to abide by an 
embargo that punishes the very people it was meant to protect.
  I did not always believe that lifting the arms embargo was necessary. 
Previously, I considered the introduction of yet more weapons to this 
war to be destabilizing and capable of pushing the conflict outside of 
the former Yugoslavia.
  However, this is no longer the case. The arms embargo has not been 
observed by all sides. Because of these violations, the Bosnian Serbs 
possess a disproportionate number of heavy weapons and as a result 
possess a clear military advantage that cannot be overcome by the 
courage, numbers, or moral authority of the Bosnian Government; it can 
only be met by similar arms.
  When we recently me with the Prime Minister of Bosnia, he stated ``We 
do not want American, French, British or any other country's boys to 
fight for Bosnia. Our own boys are willing to fight for our country. 
The problem is we do not have the means to defend ourselves.'' It is 
the arms embargo that is denying the Bosnians those means, and it is 
the arms embargo that must end.
  Mr. President, I believe a full discussion of this issue must also 
include Croatia. The Bosnian-Croatian Federation represents one of the 
strongest mechanisms to bolster Bosnian sovereignty, and must not be 
forgotten. Strong democratic institutions are taking root in Croatia, 
and the Croatians in Bosnia are capable of helping secure similar 
liberties in Bosnia. I am concerned that lifting the embargo on Bosnia 
alone will kill this federation in 

[[Page S 10635]]
its infancy and with it, one of the strongest allies the Bosnians may 
have.
  For the Croatians to feel capable of assisting in the defense of 
Bosnia, they must also feel capable of defending themselves. Therefore, 
if we are to claim the Bosnian Government is entitled to have access to 
the arms necessary to defend themselves, then so too are the Croatians. 
I commend Senators Hatch and Gorton for also raising this important 
consideration, and would welcome efforts to address this issue.
  But the whole of the Balkans is not the issue before us today, it is 
Bosnia alone. With Bosnia, we must act now. To continue to sit idly 
while the Bosnian Moslems are systematically evicted from their homes, 
rounded up like cattle for forced relocation, and uniformly persecuted 
simply because they are Moslem is wrong. The United States has the 
capacity to provide the means necessary for Bosnian self-defense, but 
has for too long remained on the sidelines, using as an excuse one 
thing after another, primarily the inaction of multilateral 
institutions which were never designed to meet such threats, and which 
are not and may never be capable of doing so.
  I did not come here today to say this administration is totally to 
blame for the tragedy in Bosnia. Mistakes were made before, and 
contribute to the problems we face now. However, the current 
administration has broadened these problems because of its failure to 
enunciate a clear set of national security interests in Bosnia, a set 
of goals to protect those interests, and a decisive plan to achieve 
those goals.
  This is the very essence of foreign policy, and yet the 
Administration has been unwilling and incapable of formulating even 
this basic building block so vital to the protection of our national 
interests.
  Where this has led the United States is a policy of mindless 
reaction. We repeatedly find ourselves responding to the latest crisis 
in the Balkans, wondering which course to take next instead of taking 
deliberate action intended to achieve a precise set of goals. So I 
think now is the time to develop a strategy that will give us the 
capacity to make wise decisions that will stand the test of time.
  We must not allow such short sightedness to happen again. Some day 
soon, we could very well find ourselves facing an even more serious set 
of decisions concerning Bosnia or some other part of the world--the 
issue of sending American troops into harms way. Making such decisions 
without a strategy in place is a prescription for disaster. Hence, the 
value of staking out a clear path to follow.
  So let today or tomorrow, whenever these votes shall come, be the 
watershed. Let us first decide today to restore the right of self-
defense to the people of Bosnia. Hopefully this will provide that 
government the means necessary to bring about a just and lasting peace. 
But we must be prepared for the next crisis, and that requires our 
immediate examination of the complete issue, and our role in its 
resolution.
  I applaud the bipartisan leadership of the majority leader and the 
Senator from Connecticut in addressing the problems we face today. I 
look forward to their continued leadership in defining our long-term 
interests and plans in the Balkans to avoid these crises in the future. 
But for today, I call on my colleagues to support this effort and bring 
to the Bosnian people an opportunity to fight for their country, their 
people, and their land.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, the Senate has returned once again 
to the question of whether the United States should act unilaterally in 
lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia. We debated this course before and 
rejected it for what I believed then, and I still believe, were 
compelling reasons.
  I listened with great interest to the amendment that was put forward 
by the Senator from Georgia, [Mr. Nunn], about some language that 
would, indeed, begin to make it a collective action on the part of the 
Security Council and with our allies. This approach may be something 
that will improve, although I hope not unduly confuse further, the 
language in the bill. It seems to me that does open possibilities, but 
I would like to explain why I still share deep concerns about 
unilaterally lifting the embargo.
  I well understand--in fact, I share--the sense of frustration and 
anger that underlies this legislation. Time after time, we and our 
allies have failed to find a consensus for acting on the pressing and 
horrific situation in Bosnia. Time after time, we have been cowed and 
buffaloed by the Bosnian Serbs and by Serbia. We have appeared, and 
have been, indecisive, ineffective, and divided.
  It is, therefore, no surprise that unilateral American action has 
great appeal to many Senators and will, I do not doubt, be approved by 
a large number of Members of the Senate at the end of this debate. That 
may make us feel better. But I am not at all sure that it means it is 
the right solution.
  I have enormous respect for the bill's authors. The majority leader 
and my colleague from Kansas, [Mr. Dole], has been a firm, consistent, 
and powerful advocate for clear and concerted action in Bosnia, as has 
his coauthor, the Senator from Connecticut, [Mr. Lieberman]. This is a 
bipartisan effort. It is not a partisan effort.
  Given the President's failure to produce a consensus with our allies 
for such action, it may well be that Congress must step into the breach 
by dictating a go-it-alone American strategy. If so, I think we should 
not fool ourselves about the realities that may follow.
  All the old arguments against this course are still valid, I believe. 
In acting unilaterally, we are breaking the kind of international 
agreement that we have needed before and we may need again. We are 
creating a precedent for others to thumb their noses at the 
international community. In acting alone, we are directly undercutting 
our allies, primarily the British and the French, who have troops on 
the ground in Bosnia. Those troops will be the first targets of what 
could be a steadily escalating conflict, as the Serbs seek a decisive 
victory before Bosnia can obtain the heavy weapons to prolong the war. 
In acting alone, we may force the total abandonment of humanitarian 
relief. But despite the profound flaws of the current effort, and they 
have been significant, its elimination would create enormous hardship 
and disaster in the short run. Finally, in acting alone, we will give 
force to our failure of leadership. Madam President, this may be, in 
some ways, the most significant and subtle aspect of this.
  Far from demonstrating America's willingness and ability to lead the 
west, unilateral action is the final concession that we can find no one 
willing to follow us. The full impact of that admission may not stop in 
Bosnia. It could be felt for a long time to come in NATO and other 
multilateral organizations that are vital to our national interests.
  Against these very real dangers, supporters of this legislation raise 
the argument that since we, our allies and United Nations cannot defend 
Bosnia--which we clearly have not--then Bosnia should be allowed to 
defend itself by lifting the arms embargo. It is a compelling argument, 
made more effective each day as the allies and the U.N. forces appear 
more and more ineffective.
  We have all felt this as we have watched food convoys be turned back 
because there was a Bosnian Serb tank blocking the convoy, and rather 
than stand up and say, ``This food delivery is going to get through,'' 
it turns around and retreats.
  Certainly, Bosnia has the right to defend itself. What it lacks is 
the ability to defend itself. This legislation, by itself, cannot 
create that ability. That can only happen as Bosnia obtains armaments 
and supplies and then trains its forces in their use. That will take a 
great deal of effort and money--which we here may or may not be willing 
to provide--but most of all it will take time.
 and not that that is not also important. But we have to recognize that 
it will take time. There is going to be a certain period of time in 
there in which the armament--the large armament and the capability to 
do so--they will still be trying to put it in place. And the population 
that we most want to help can be at risk.
  The reality is that the only time left to Bosnia may be that 
purchased by the international community. Clearly, the U.N. protection 
force [UNPROFOR] 

[[Page S 10636]]
has not and cannot serve that purpose in any effective way and its 
mission should be ended.
  Whether the current shift of policy will produce an effective 
replacement for the U.N. force remains to be seen. There is 
considerable confusion and many conflicting signals about the role of 
NATO air power and the new rapid reaction force being put in place by 
Britain and France. It is possible that this new policy will never 
evolve into an effective force but I believe we must not cut off that 
possibility prematurely.
  If in passing this legislation we undermine that international 
effort, we may prove that it is still possible to make the situation in 
Bosnia even worse.
  Madam President, this legislation is well intended. The anger and 
dismay of its authors is well founded. It may be the right thing to do, 
but I do not believe so and I will oppose it as it presently is 
presented.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I understand the unanimous consent order 
was that I was to be recognized next. My colleague from Maine has asked 
whether or not he might be able to go first. I ask unanimous consent 
that I be able to yield to him since he was next in line and then have 
my opportunity to speak when the Senator from Maine finishes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Hearing no objection, without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine.


                  The ``Uniting for Peace'' Amendment

  Mr. COHEN. Madam President, let me thank my friend from Delaware, and 
especially in view of the fact that I expect that he will engage in a 
very passionate recitation which may start out to be 15 minutes but I 
suspect will extend long beyond that time. I say that having been the 
beneficiary of many of his speeches here in the Senate and in many 
cases having been enlightened as a result of his taking the floor.
  Madam President, let me just respond to some of the comments offered 
by my colleague from Georgia who has not offered yet but has outlined 
an amendment that I believe goes a long way toward addressing the 
concerns of the administration and many of our colleagues in the Senate 
over the implications of a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo in 
Bosnia.
  The administration has made the point, I believe, to the Democratic 
caucus, to the Republican conference, that if we lift the embargo 
unilaterally, the United States is then going to be endangering the 
viability and the continuing force of U.N. sanctions on Iraq and Libya. 
So to deal with this concern, Senator Nunn is proposing--or will 
propose--an amendment that directs the President to seek a vote in the 
U.N. Security Council on lifting the embargo as the President has said 
he would do and as the Senate urged him to do last August in the Nunn-
Mitchell amendment.
  I might point out that Senator Nunn was on the floor last year in 
August asking the President to go to the United Nations to seek a 
resolution on this. And, of course, the President went but did not seek 
a vote in order to lift the embargo.
  Senator Nunn's amendment aims to achieve a multilateral action. The 
amendment does not in any way, as he said, impact upon the provisions 
of Dole-Lieberman. It simply strives to give the greatest possible 
international support of U.S. policy.
  Here is my concern. If the Nunn amendment is accepted and becomes 
part of the bill, once UNPROFOR decides or is asked to leave, the 
President would then go to the United Nations and seek a multilateral 
lifting of the embargo. Then, obviously, that resolution could be 
vetoed by one of the members of the Security Council. I think it is 
reasonable to expect that. I think it is inevitable it would occur.
  At that point, as I understand the legislation, the President would 
be required to automatically lift the embargo unilaterally as soon as 
UNPROFOR's withdrawal from Bosnia is complete. Once he has made the 
effort under the Nunn approach to go to the U.N., and it fails, because 
either they fail to take action in the U.N. Security Council or a 
permanent member vetoes it, then under the Dole-Lieberman bill the 
President will be required to lift the embargo unilaterally.
  It raises an issue that we have to contend with. If the Security 
Council undertakes consideration of the measure and a permanent member 
of the Security Council vetoes it or prevents it from coming to a vote, 
then under terms of this legislation, automatically the President will 
be forced to lift the embargo. Does that not flout the U.N. Security 
Council? That is one way of interpreting it.
  What I suggest as a possible option--and it is something that we 
ought to consider during the course of this evening, and if the matter 
carries over until tomorrow, we can consider it at that time as well--
is to consider requiring under that scenario that the matter be taken 
directly to the General Assembly. Under existing procedures, the United 
Nations does have a way to bring this matter before the General 
Assembly.
  The ``Uniting for Peace'' resolution was created at the initiative of 
the Truman administration during the Korean war. It has been a part of 
U.N. practice and procedures since 1950, and basically it works as 
follows. If the Security Council is unable to act on an issue affecting 
international peace and security because of disagreement among the 
permanent members of the Council, consideration of the issue can be 
moved to the General Assembly. This is done through a procedural 
resolution in the Council, which is not subject to a veto.
  Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who was the father of the ``Uniting 
for Peace'' idea, said at the time of its adoption, ``The General 
Assembly can and should organize itself to discharge its responsibility 
promptly and decisively if the Security Council is prevented from 
acting.''
  The 1950 resolution, itself, states that ``the failure of the 
Security Council to discharge its responsibilities on behalf of all the 
Member States--does not relieve the Member States of their obligations 
or the United Nations of its responsibilities under the Charter to 
maintain international peace and security--(S)uch failure does not 
deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relive it of its 
responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of 
international peace and security--.''
  In the event of a failure by the Security Council to counter a threat 
to international peace and security, the resolution states that ``the 
General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately--.'' The General 
Assembly's powers in such circumstances are far-reaching. The 
resolution for example, states that the Assembly can call on Member 
States to take ``collective measures including, in the case of a breach 
of the peace or act of aggression, the use of armed forces when 
necessary.''
  It has been pointed out during the debate that in each of the last 
two years, the General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly and without 
dissent to lift the embargo. This has been to no avail, however, 
because the Security Council has primary authority on questions of 
international peace and security. But once the Council has failed to 
act because of a conflict among the permanent members and the Uniting 
for Peace process is invoked, authority shifts to the General Assembly 
to take the matter up.
  I suggest that this is one option we may want to consider. I realize 
it may pose some difficulties for Members; namely, if we take the 
matter to the General Assembly and the General Assembly 
overwhelmingly--as it has done on two prior occasions--votes to lift 
the embargo, are we not setting a precedent that other efforts will be 
made to invoke the General Assembly's authority on measures that we 
might not like to see go forward? That is an issue we have to contend 
with.
  I might point out that use of this procedure is, in fact, not 
unprecedented. This procedure has been used at least eight times. It 
was used by the United States in 1950 to respond to a Soviet veto of a 
resolution regarding North Korea's aggression. Subsequently, the 
``United for Peace'' mechanism was invoked to support international 
action in the Suez crisis; also in response to the invasion of Hungary 
back in 1956; the Lebanon crisis of 1958; 

[[Page S 10637]]
the crisis in the Congo in 1960; and the question of Bangladesh in 
1971. It was used again after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. A 
resolution was introduced to condemn the Soviet Union for that 
invasion, but a veto was cast by the Soviet Union and the matter was 
taken to the General Assembly.
  So in the event that the Nunn amendment does not include my provision 
or in the event that the Nunn amendment is not tabled, then it would be 
in order to take up the second-degree amendment that I would like to 
offer. s
  Let me just give you a few reasons why I think we should give this 
second-degree amendment serious consideration. First, it would serve as 
a means to enable the members of the U.N. to exercise their right and 
obligation under the U.N. charter to maintain international peace and 
security even if the Security Council fails to act.
  Second, it would allow the United States to act in conjunction with 
the more than 100 U.N. members states who have voted during the last 2 
years for the General Assembly resolutions urging the lifting of the 
embargo.
  Third, it would recognize the importance of multilateral action in 
this critical area. As such, I believe it meets the objections the 
administration and a number of our colleagues have raised during the 
course of this debate regarding the damage that a unilateral lifting of 
the embargo would cause to the credibility and integrity of the United 
Nations system. We would be going to the General Assembly where, with 
overwhelming support, lifting the arms embargo would be undertaken as a 
U.N. action. It would not be a unilateral lifting, as would result 
under the Dole-Lieberman bill, even if it is amended by Senator Nunn.
  And fourth, let me suggest that it perhaps reduces the likelihood of 
a veto in the Security Council because all the permanent members would 
be on notice that the United States is going to seek to refer the 
matter to the General Assembly.
  For each of these reasons, I would respectfully ask my colleagues to 
consider it this evening. I think it adds to the Nunn resolution. It 
does pose the issue of whether or not we want to see this procedure 
invoked when it may be adverse to our interests. That is something with 
which we have to deal. My basic question would be whether or not we 
want to be in a position to obtain multilateral action in lifting the 
embargo, when we know that one or more permanent members might veto or 
will exercise a veto in the Security Council. If a veto is to be 
exercised, then going to the Security Council is really a futile act. 
And second, the bill would require the President automatically to then 
go and unilaterally lift the embargo. With my second-degree amendment, 
the matter would be brought to the General Assembly to take action on a 
multilateral basis. I believe that would be preferable to taking 
unilateral action ignoring the U.N. Security Council.
  So I thank my colleagues for their deference, especially the Senator 
from Delaware for his consideration. This is only a proposal. I would 
ask my colleagues to consider it during the course of the debate. I may 
not offer it. But I have talked to Senator Nunn about it, and we share, 
I think, mutual concerns about the procedure we are now invoking in 
going to the United Nations. But I think it is a worthwhile endeavor on 
our part to give it serious consideration. I now yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, as the Chair observed, many of my 
colleagues have commented on my passion on this issue. In the last 2\1/
2\ years I have probably risen in the Chamber a dozen times to speak on 
this issue. I know they do not mean to suggest otherwise, but I do not 
apologize for my passion on this issue.
  In the 23 years I have been here, there is not another issue that has 
more upset me, angered me, frustrated me, and occasionally made me feel 
a sense of shame about what the West, what the democratic powers in the 
world, are allowing to happen.
  I have on two occasions, with a year interval between, visited 
Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia. This does not make me qualified for 
anything other than explaining the depth of my concern and anger on 
this issue. I have been in and out on more than one occasion in 
Sarajevo and Tuzla and other safe areas. I have seen, as many have on 
television, and I personally have interviewed in the camps, people who 
literally as a consequence of the cleansing left--literally, not 
figuratively--their elderly mother on a frozen mountaintop to die 
because it would have slowed up the whole family to continue with her.
  I, quite frankly, never thought that--as a young Senator arriving 
here when I was 30 years old with a traditional education both in 
undergraduate and graduate school with a focus on history--I would ever 
stand in the Chamber of the Senate and hear people refer to the policy 
of ethnic cleansing in anything other than a historical context. I 
never thought I would stand in this Chamber and read accounts and 
hear--not from Senators but in the general discussions--about how the 
Bosnian Government and the Bosnian people are trying to sucker us to 
get involved.
  I remember reading about people saying that the Jews in the Warsaw 
ghetto were trying to sucker us into a war against Germany. We have a 
way in this modern day to make the victim the aggressor. We make loose 
use of terms about this being a civil war.
  The fact is that Bosnia is an independently recognized country--
recognized by the United Nations and this country--that is being 
aggressively moved upon by the neighboring country of Serbia.
  I hear people say in the media, in the councils of Europe, and even 
to some extent on the floor of the Senate that the Bosnian Government 
and the Bosnian military are Moslem.
  When I first raised this issue for my colleagues--and I say not with 
a sense of pride but with a sense of futility, that I believe I was the 
first to raise this issue with my colleagues several years ago--it was 
not a Moslem government. It was a multiethnic government.
  In Sarajevo I met with the government that at the time was made up of 
over a third Bosnian Serb, about 20 percent Croat, and the rest Moslem. 
All these people are Slavs. They are Croatian Slavs. They are Moslem 
Slavs. They are Serbian Slavs. It is not as if you read the press here 
and speak to Western leaders and it sounds as though we are talking 
about the Government of Iran in Bosnia--or Moslem fundamentalism. All 
you have to do is walk through the markets and the cafes. On one 
occasion when I was there, the bombing had ceased and the people were 
out. You saw Moslem men drinking liquor, and Moslem women, none of them 
wearing veils. It is not a fundamentalist Moslem society. These are 
people for whom, when the Ottoman Empire defeated them two different 
times, including the Hapsburg Empire, the deal was made. If you want to 
own property in what is now Bosnia, if you want to do business, you 
must be a Moslem. So people converted.
 This is not some occupying nation. This is not a leftover from the 
Ottoman empire. These are Slavs, all Slavic people. And here I am on 
the floor of the U.S. Senate defending and arguing for a resolution 
that was the same resolution that we passed in the last months of the 
Bush administration. We passed overwhelmingly a law urging the 
President to push to lift the arms embargo, and authorizing President 
Bush to be able to directly send $50 million worth of American military 
equipment to the Bosnian Government. We passed that. That is the law 
today, the law. The President needs no authority to send weapons. We 
passed it.

  I stand on the floor and listen to my colleagues talk about the fall 
of the safe areas. Do you know how those safe areas became safe areas? 
The contact group got together and said, ``I will tell you what, we 
will make a deal with you Bosnians defending yourself in Srebrenica and 
Zepa'' The two that I mentioned already have fallen. ``Here is the 
deal. You give us the weaponry you have, and we will tell the Serbs you 
are no longer a danger. And we will protect you. We will disarm you. We 
are not only going to stop arms from coming in to you, but we are going 
to disarm you.''
  And the Bosnian Government said OK, if that is what protects those 
folks. And then the United Nations understandably--and I will not take 
the time to explain why I think it is understandable--stood there and 
watched 

[[Page S 10638]]
the Serbs come in and overrun the safe areas.
  How many years on this floor have we heard, ``If you lift the arms 
embargo, we are going to lose the safe areas''? You saw what the 
Senator from Arizona spoke to on the floor last week. He held up a 
picture, I think from the New York Times, showing U.N. military blue-
helmeted personnel sitting on their weaponry watching the Serbs in 
Srebrenica divide the women from the men, to send the women to rape 
camps, and take the able-bodied young men and send them off in another 
direction to prison camps, and then load everybody else up on a truck 
who was old and infirm and not suitable for rape or work and banish 
them to a third ``safe area.''
  Then I hear today from the administration and others on this floor 
that what Senator Dole is proposing is not a policy. Let us review what 
the policy of the contact group, of which we are a part, has been. And 
I challenge anyone at all within hearing distance of this discussion to 
correct me if I am wrong or they think I am wrong. What is the policy 
of the contact group? One, negotiate a settlement. Two, in the 
meantime, guarantee the safe areas. That is the policy, beginning, 
middle, and end.
  Now, let us examine it. When we joined the contact group--and we had 
not been a member of the contact group--we said we are joining because 
we had a commitment, made public, from the contact group members that, 
if in fact the contact group arrived at what they believed to be an 
equitable settlement, that they would present that settlement, which is 
essentially a division of Bosnia, to both the Bosnian Government and 
the Serbs in Pale, and whoever rejected the contact group settlement 
would ``suffer the repercussions.''
  So guess what? We signed on. We came up with a proposal. I argued 
against it because it called for the partitioning of Bosnia, in effect, 
essentially 51-49. Presented to the Bosnian Government, they accepted 
it. Let me remind all my friends, they accepted it. And the Serbs, 
meeting in Pale, their self-appointed ``parliament'' rejected it.
  And what did we do? We suggested maybe we have to ease the arms 
embargo--ease the economic embargo on Belgrade to get Milosevic to put 
more pressure on Karadzic to accept. And then we said we are going to 
use airstrikes. Remember? That is what we said.
  Well, obviously, the policy of a negotiated settlement is not on the 
Serb agenda. That is not part of what they are contemplating. And 
obviously we, the West and the contact group, did not fulfill our 
commitment. We reneged. And as they say in court, ``Check the record.'' 
We reneged. Nothing bad happened, directly or indirectly, to the Serbs.
  Then we are told--and I hear it time and again--``You know, we cannot 
lift this embargo. Even if the Bosnian Government had weapons, they 
would not know how to use them.'' Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, 
the same Bosnian young men were in the same army as the Serb young men. 
There was universal conscription until the breakup of Yugoslavia. They 
are fully as capable. They need no help. They can do it themselves. 
They are not a bunch of folks who are not ready to fight. I heard 
someone say today--and because I am not sure whether it was intended to 
stay in the room or not, I will not mention the name --that he recently 
made a commencement speech at a major university, and his predecessors 
had made similar speeches at that university 20 years earlier and were 
greeted with signs saying ``get out of Vietnam,'' and this particular 
person said, ``The irony was I was greeted with signs saying `get into 
Bosnia.' How ironic. Cannot we learn our lesson?''
  The lesson is very different. Vietnamization was never a possibility 
because the Vietnamese people did not support it. Yet, unlike Vietnam, 
the Bosnian Government said only one thing, ``Do not send us your men. 
Do not come and fight for us. Let us fight for ourselves.'' All those 
of you who think you are Balkan scholars, read the literature. I heard 
2 years ago on this floor, ``We cannot do anything in Bosnia. They are 
the same forces, the Yugoslav forces that held off the Germans.'' I 
might remind you most of that holding off was done by Bosnians in 
Bosnia. They were Yugoslavs, but it was in Bosnia. These tough fighters 
do not all live on the other side of the Drina River. The point is that 
these folks are fully capable, have a long history of both a will and a 
capability of defending themselves.
  But what have we done in the name of peace? We have said, ``If you 
defend yourselves, you will widen the war.'' Translated --we would 
rather 300,000 of your people get slaughtered in genocide than have the 
rest of us run the risk of a widening.
  The second part of the policy--protect the safe areas. Well, does 
that need to be spoken to? There will be no safe area, Madam President, 
within 6 months. That is the plan. That is how the West is going to 
save its conscience, because if we dally around enough, do not let them 
fight for themselves, at the end of the day there will be nothing to 
protect. We will say, ``Oh, my God, my God, what an awful thing has 
happened.'' The Secretary of State said today, ``Many mistakes have 
been made. We would not do what we did again,'' in terms of policy.
  Well, we are doing what we did again and again and again and again 
and again.
  Madam President, I was told 2 years ago on this floor that airstrikes 
do not work; it does not make any sense. Yet, we are told today that 
the reason why we do not need this bill, I say to my friend from 
Connecticut, is that in London they set down the law--bang. The contact 
group said, ``If you, the Serbs, go at Gorazde, we will massively 
retaliate with airstrikes. It's going to work now.'' Do you not find 
that amazing? When asked, by the way, ``Why Gorazde, why not Tuzla, 
too? Why not Bihac? Why not Sarajevo?'' ``Well, we intend that is 
probably going to be covered,'' I think was the response.
  Even a kid like me from Delaware can figure this one out. How did all 
of a sudden the threat of massive airstrikes take on a utility and 
capability it did not possess for the last 2\1/2\ years? What has 
happened? Was there a revelation? Did the Lord come down and say, 
``Mend your ways. You can do it if you have the will"? Is that what 
happened? And if it did happen, Madam President, I respectfully ask the 
opponents of this amendment, why only Gorazde? Why there? Why nowhere 
else?
  Madam President, this is not a policy. As I have said on this floor 
before with regard to arms control, we, the U.S. Congress, are not in a 
position, nor were we institutionally designed to formulate foreign 
policy. But, Madam President, we know enough to know when one stinks. 
We know enough to know when one is recognized as a failure. We are 
institutionally constructed to be able to acknowledge that.
  Madam President, the Secretary of Defense said to us today, ``if you 
lift the arms embargo, three things will certainly happen.'' I wrote 
them down because I found them so fascinating.
  First, the loss of the enclaves will occur. I assume that means if we 
do not lift the arms embargo, then there is at least a chance the 
enclaves will not be lost. Two are gone out of five now. What will keep 
the others from going?
  Everybody understands the way this works, right? It goes like this. 
Since we did not sign onto the policy in the first place of putting the 
U.N. forces in there, and they went ahead and did that, then we, the 
United States, are now obliged to be there if the U.N. concludes that 
they should no longer be there.
  Let us go through this again. The U.N. was placed in there when 
Western nations concluded that is what they should do. We said, ``OK, 
if that is what you want to do, but we don't think that is going to 
work.'' Then, from the time I first introduced the lifting of the 
embargo 2\1/2\ years ago, I was told, ``No, if you lift the embargo, 
the U.N. forces will leave and everybody will be slaughtered.''
  Then that took on a new twist in its maturation. Now it goes like 
this: ``U.N. forces are sent in, we lift the embargo, U.N. forces go 
out, we then must go in because we have committed to take the U.N. 
forces out.'' Therefore--talk about the tautology--if you vote to lift 
the arms embargo, you are committing ground troops to fight in Bosnia. 
We are being ``suckered in'' 

[[Page S 10639]]
was the phrase used today. Is that not amazing? How did we get there?
  Had we listened and the arms embargo lifted, you would probably have 
a stalemate on the ground by now, and probably have a settlement. 
Obviously I cannot guarantee that, and we could have a wider Balkan war 
as well. Only history would be able to tell that had we acted. But now, 
Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, and Bob Dole--who are arguing against putting 
any American forces on the ground--are told that if we prevail, we are 
the reason America has to take over the war in Bosnia.
  Madam President, the second thing the Secretary said today was that 
if we lift the embargo, we will damage the alliance. Tell me how you 
save this alliance? Tell me why, I say to any of the people up here, 
they should continue to spend $100 billion a year for NATO when there 
is no Soviet Union and they cannot even stop ethnic cleansing in their 
own back yard?
  Third, I am told, they will send ground forces into Bosnia if we lift 
the embargo.
  Madam President, I am tired of all of this, and I am sure you are 
tired of hearing me over the last couple of years repeat these 
arguments. But ask yourself the following question: If air power and 
the threat of it will work to save Gorazde, why only Gorazde?
  Another argument is that the Bosnian Army cannot fight, it would have 
to be trained and equipped. For example, the Secretary of Defense said 
today, if we lift the arms embargo, we will be in the position of going 
to war with our allies because we will be attempting to break the 
embargo through French lines to get in American tanks.
  Whoa,--this is ridiculous. Madam President, the same people who say 
these folks cannot fight are the same people who worry--on this floor 
and in the press 2 months ago--that the Bosnian Government is at fault 
because of the gains they made in Bihac. Remember? They were becoming 
too powerful. They beat the Serbs initially. All of a sudden the issue 
was that they are too powerful. This is going to make Milosevic mad. 
Milosevic is now going to cross the Drina River. But now we are told, 
if you lift the arms embargo, they cannot use the weapons anyway. Well, 
let us see, let us see.
  I do not want American ground forces in Bosnia. I respectfully argue 
we would not even be talking about the possibility had we not signed on 
to a failed policy of putting UNPROFOR in there in the first place.
  And, Madam President, lastly--my friend from Rhode Island is waiting 
to speak and I will yield with this comment--we are told now that if we 
lift the arms embargo, all these terrible things are going to happen.
  I ask my colleagues to ask themselves, if we do not lift the arms 
embargo, is anyone going to protect the safety areas? If we do not lift 
the arms embargo, is anyone going to protect the part of Bosnia that is 
not already occupied by the Serbs? If we do not lift the arms embargo, 
is the alliance going to be fixed up, right quick? If we do not lift 
the arms embargo, is the United Nations going to become a credible 
institution again in terms of peacekeeping?
  If Members can answer yes to three of those four, do not lift the 
arms embargo. But if Members cannot answer yes to three of those four--
and I think you cannot answer yes to any of them --then I respectfully 
suggest that the Senate majority leader and the Senator from 
Connecticut are correct.
  We tried this how many times, I say rhetorically, to my friend from 
Kansas, over the last 1\1/2\ years? There is no more time, Madam 
President. Time does not work for these people. Time is not on their 
side. They will all be dead by the time the West decides to do anything 
at all about this problem.
  I do not apologize for the passion. I do not even apologize for the 
time, but I do apologize to the people of Bosnia. I do apologize to the 
women in those rape camps. I do apologize to those men in concentration 
camps. I do apologize. For we are not to blame. But we have stood by--
we, the world--and watched in the twilight moments of the 20th century, 
something that no one thought would ever or could ever happen again in 
Europe. It is happening now.
  If we do not do anything now to help them fight for themselves, I 
ask, when are we going to do anything? I ask the rhetorical question, 
do you think we--we, being the West--would be doing this, do you think 
we would be as indecisive, do you think we would be as timid, do you 
think we would be putting a rapid deployment force in who has an 
express purpose to defend only the peacekeepers there, not the civilian 
population, do you think we would be doing that, if, in fact, these 
were not Muslims? Do you think we would be doing that if this was a 
Christian population? Maybe we would, Madam President, but I have a 
feeling the reason why the world has not responded in Europe is because 
they are Muslims--the same reason we did not respond in Europe--because 
they were Jews.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator from Rhode Island yield for a moment 
very briefly?
  Mr. CHAFEE. I yield.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I simply want to thank the Senator from Delaware for 
his remarks. He was teased a bit about how long he was going to speak. 
As far as I am concerned, he can keep on speaking. He saw the 
situation, as he has many others, very clearly from the beginning.
  On several occasions before, as he has tonight, he has spoken with 
great eloquence and power. His voice pierces the stillness of this 
Chamber with the power of truth. I just want to say how grateful I am 
for his support of this measure and how proud I am to serve with him 
and to call him a friend. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, in previous debates over major foreign 
policy matters, I have been reluctant to challenge the President 
through the legislative process, whether the President was a Republican 
or a Democrat. It is that there is always danger in the Congress, the 
Senate in particular, or either branch, actually, in legislating 
foreign policy, especially the details of foreign policy.
  I came to this debate with a great deal of skepticism about the Dole-
Lieberman proposal, to lift unilaterally the arms embargo in Bosnia. My 
voting record in the past on this issue reflects the skepticism that I 
have. Like all Americans who have witnessed the events in Bosnia in the 
past weeks, I am outraged by the continued brutal campaign carried out 
by the Bosnian Serbs against the people of Bosnia. What has taken 
place--there have been scores of atrocities, execution, ethnic 
cleansing, and the kidnapping of soldier-age men on trumped-up 
charges--these are all undisputed facts that have been brought home by 
very courageous journalists in the Balkans.
  Through all of this, the Serbs have scorned the views of the United 
Nations and have shelled safe area after safe area. The question the 
Senate faces today and tomorrow is, How does the United States respond 
to these horrors? What can we and our allies do to end the war and the 
suffering, and to restore legitimate authority to the sovereign 
Government of Bosnia and secure a lasting peace in the Balkans? 
Needless to say, these goals have been elusive since the war began 3 
years ago.
  Previously, I have been supportive of the U.N. policy, which has been 
endorsed by the Clinton and the Bush administrations and our allies. 
The policy is to try to protect Bosnian Moslems from Serb aggression 
through the establishment of six ``safe havens'' in Bosnia, which are 
towns and cities in which the civilian population and humanitarian aid 
deliveries would be defended by the U.N. protection force, UNPROFOR. 
With the United Nations maintaining at least a modicum of stability in 
Bosnia, negotiations could take place in search of a lasting political 
settlement to some very serious and longstanding disagreements.
  I have been opposed to U.S. unilateral lifting of the arms embargo in 
the former Yugoslavia, a move that would undoubtedly and understandably 
result in a serious rift with our allies by endangering the lives of 
their participating troops in UNPROFOR.
  I have come to the regretful conclusion that the U.N. mission in 
Bosnia has failed. I do not think we ought to pin much hope on it for 
the future. After 3 years of very-well-intentioned and courageous 
attempts to halt the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia, we cannot 
ignore the facts. First, the six 

[[Page S 10640]]
U.N. safe areas are anything but safe. Srebrenica has already fallen to 
Serb forces. Zepa is on the verge of falling. The other four, 
especially the northwest enclave of Bihac, are subject to heavy 
shelling from the Serbs.
  The United Nations mission of protecting the Bosnians is further 
discredited by additional atrocities such as ethnic cleansing on the 
part of the Serbs.
  UNPROFOR is having a hard enough time protecting itself, never mind 
the long-suffering Bosnians. Finally, the U.N.'s failure is illustrated 
by the chronic Serb attacks on humanitarian aid deliveries since the 
inception of the U.N. mission.
  While I am encouraged by the allied declaration recently in London 
last week to reinforce the U.N. contingent in Bosnia, I have great 
doubts this will prove to be a successful, long-term solution. Indeed, 
it appears unclear whether any safe area other than Gorazde will be 
defended. We have heard a number of different accounts as to whether 
NATO forces must still obtain U.N. permission before retaliating in 
response to continued Serb attacks.
  It has also become clear that earnest, well-intentioned diplomatic 
efforts have failed in the Balkans. These efforts, largely through the 
contact group--what is the contact group? The contact group is composed 
of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia--these 
efforts have simply not produced an agreement all sides could accept. 
The most recent contact group peace proposal in which the Serbs would 
be given 49 percent of Bosnian territory was accepted by the Bosnia 
Government but rejected by the Bosnian Serbs.
  Given their overwhelming military advantage, the Serbs have shown 
little willingness to agree to any diplomatic solution that falls short 
of their goal of creating a greater
 Serbia out of the internationally recognized sovereign nation of 
Bosnia.

  So strong is the evidence pointing to the failure of the U.N. mission 
and diplomatic efforts in Bosnia, that despite my stated inclination 
not to legislate foreign policy, I believe that Congress ought to step 
in and require the Clinton administration to move in a different 
direction. After much reflection, I am convinced that the only logical 
choice we have in Bosnia is to give the Bonsians what they currently 
lack and what they desperately seek: the ability to defend themselves 
through lifting the U.N. arms embargo. There is no doubt that this 
embargo, imposed in 1991, even before the establishment of the nation 
of Bosnia, has overwhelmingly worked to the benefits of the Bosnian 
Serbs, who inherited massive amounts of arms and equipment from the 
former Yugoslav army. In fact, the Bosnian government army is more than 
double the size of the Serb army, but has fared poorly in trying to 
defend its nation, largely due to the embargo-caused lack of equipment.
  I have serious concerns that the infusion of heavy military equipment 
into Bosnia could cause the war in the Balkans to spread. That is a 
possibility. But I am at the same time convinced that an equitably 
equipped Bosnian military would halt the Serb advances and eventually 
force the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table. It is, after all, the 
goal of the world community to see a settlement to the Balkan War 
agreed to at the negotiating table. Whether a Bosnian military success 
will take 1 week or 1 year, no one can say for sure. We certainly 
cannot take such a military escalation lightly. But, in the end, I have 
concluded that unless we are willing to settle for continued 
frustration over failed U.N. peacekeeping and diplomatic efforts in 
Bosnia, we simply must give the Bosnians the opportunity to defend 
themselves against unending Serb aggression.
  My support for lifting the arms embargo only comes with the very 
significant modification made to the Dole-Lieberman bill. The proposal 
now only provides for lifting the embargo after the U.N. has left, or 
12 weeks after a Bosnian request that they leave. This change should 
mollify those of us who were concerned that last year's proposal was 
understandably opposed by our allies, whose troops constitute the bulk 
of the U.N. Protection Force,
  Mr. President, I do not take this vote lightly, not do I believe that 
a military solution has to be the best course of action for Bosnia. 
However, 3 years have passed since the U.N. arms embargo was imposed on 
the former Yugoslavia, and the situation there is as bad as it ever has 
been. The unending bloodshed, suffering and horrors inflicted on the 
Bosnian people call out for a change in course. I believe it is time 
for the United States to lift the arms embargo.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I know that Senator Dole did not plan 
debate on the resolution that is being presented to us to take place 
today for any particular reason. I think it is of more than passing 
interest, however, to note that two things happened today which lend 
urgency and cogency to the passage of this resolution.
  The first thing that happened today was that General Mladic, the 
chief of the Bosnian Serb armed forces, and President Karadzic, the 
President of the so-called Bosnian Serb Republic, were indicted today 
by a war crimes tribunal for crimes against humanity, two of the few 
times, to my knowledge, that individuals have been indicted for war 
crimes since the end of World War II. The reason why this is 
particularly compelling is that still the administration policy is one 
of avowed neutrality and a refusal to take sides in what we all know 
has been a terribly uneven conflict.
  There is no doubt in my mind that General Mladic and President 
Karadzic are guilty of war crimes of the most unspeakable kind. It, 
again, makes clear that we cannot remain neutral in a war in which one 
side is exterminating the other and is helped dramatically in doing so 
by the continued enforcement of an arms embargo that ensures an unequal 
situation on the battlefield.
  The other thing that happened today is that another so-called safe 
area, Zepa, fell to the Bosnian Serbs. We will see, probably, on 
television tomorrow and in the newspapers, the same thing we saw a week 
or so ago when Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs. First comes the 
separation of men between ages 16 and 65, where they are taken to be 
``screened'' for war crimes. Following that, young women are removed 
for the obvious purposes. And, following that, of course, those who are 
left are herded out of town in the most unspeakable and brutal fashion.
  The thing that makes this tragedy different--in fact, totally 
different--is that standing by, observing these unspeakable atrocities 
being perpetrated, will be the very troops that were sent there to 
protect them, the very United Nations Protection Forces, which is their 
name, wearing blue helmets, who promised them that if they went to the 
safe area and if the Bosnian military removed themselves and their 
equipment, that they would be protected by the United Nations 
Protection Forces.
  The moral there is that there really are worse things than dying. 
There really is something worse than military defeat, and that is the 
degradation and humiliation and dishonor in the most Orwellian and 
bizarre scenario of the very protectors standing by and watching those 
who were to be protected being subjected to unspeakable horrors.
  Both of those events today, the indictment for war crimes of the 
Bosnian Serb leadership and the fall of Zepa, are compelling, yet 
certainly not the only reasons why the Dole-Lieberman resolution should 
be agreed to and with an overwhelming majority. The question is no 
longer whether the resolution will be agreed to. The question is 
whether it will acquire 67 votes or not, which, as we all know, is 
sufficient to override a veto.
  What is wrong with the policy in Bosnia? We all know that it is an 
attempt to pursue a policy which is fatally flawed. Simply put, as has 
been said on this floor by many on many occasions, it is an attempt to 
keep peace where there is no peace, ignoring the lessons of Beirut, 
ignoring the lessons of Somalia, where we went in with the best of 
intentions but were unable to keep a peace where no peace existed.
  I have to, in all candor, describe that one of the reasons why the 
American people are so badly confused about this issue--yet are so 
deeply moved--is because of the lack of leadership from the President 
of the United States. I believe the President of the United States, in 
almost every instance, should be the steward of our foreign policy and 
our national security policy. 

[[Page S 10641]]
But when there is a lack of coherent leadership from the executive 
branch, sooner or later the legislative branch will step into that 
breach, and that time has come.
  The American people do not know what our policy in Bosnia is. Let me 
tell you why.
  On August 5, 1992, the President of the United States said:

       If the horrors of the Holocaust taught us anything, it is 
     the high cost of remaining silent and paralyzed in the face 
     of genocide. We must discover who is responsible for these 
     actions and take steps to bring them to justice for these 
     crimes against humanity.

  That was August 5, 1992.
  On August 6, 1992, the President said:

       We cannot afford to ignore what appears to be a deliberate 
     and systematic extermination of human beings based on their 
     ethnic origin. I would begin with air power against the Serbs 
     to try to restore the basic conditions of humanity.

  On October 1, 1992, the President said:

       While Mr. Bush's administration goes back and forth, more 
     lives are being lost and the situation grows more desperate 
     by the day.

  On February 10, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       You know about it. The rapes of the women. Murders of the 
     children. All these things you have read about. We have got 
     to try to contain it. I can tell you folks we are not going 
     to make peace over there in a way that is fair to the 
     minorities that are being abused unless we get involved. If 
     the United States now takes a leadership role, there is a 
     real chance we can stop some of the killing, some of the 
     ethnic cleansing.

  That was on February 10, 1993.
  On March 26, 1993, the President said:

       We are going to do everything we can to put out a full 
     court press to secure agreement of the Serbs. I think we have 
     a chance to get a good-faith signing. We have to give that a 
     few days before we up the ante again.

  On April 25, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       Remember in the second war, Hitler sent tens of thousands 
     of soldiers to that area and never was successful in subduing 
     it, and they had people on the ground.

  On May 7, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       I think we have to take stronger steps. I would think these 
     fights between the Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims and the 
     Croats, they go back so many centuries, they have such 
     powerful roots that it may be that it is more difficult for 
     the people on the ground to make a change in their policy 
     than for their leaders.

  On May 14, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       Our interest is in seeing, in my view at least, that the 
     United Nations does not foreordain the outcome of a civil 
     war.

  On May 21, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       There may be some potential down the road for something to 
     be done in connection with a peacekeeping operation. But I 
     think it is something we have to be very skeptical about. We 
     do not want our people in there basically in a shooting 
     gallery.

  On June 15, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       Let me tell you something about Bosnia. On Bosnia, I made a 
     decision the United Nations controls what happens in Bosnia.

  On October 20, 1993, the President of the United States said:

       The conflict in Bosnia is ultimately a matter for the 
     parties to resolve.

  On February 10, 1994, the President of the United States said:

       Until these folks get tired of killing each other, bad 
     things will continue to happen.

  On May 3, 1994, the President of the United States said:

       We should never forget that there are tonight people in 
     Sarajevo and Tuzla who are alive because of the actions taken 
     by NATO working with the United Nations. I did the best I 
     could. I moved as quickly as I could. I think we have shown a 
     good deal of resolve.

  On August 11, 1994, the President of the United States said:

       It has been my long held view that the arms embargo has 
     unfairly and unintentionally penalized the victims in this 
     conflict and that the security council should act to remedy 
     their injustice. At the same time I believe lifting the 
     embargo unilaterally would have serious implications going 
     well beyond the conflict in Bosnia itself.

  On June 5, 1995, the President of the United States said:

       It's tragic. It's terrible. But their enmities go back 500 
     years. Do we have the capacity to impose a settlement on 
     people who want to continue fighting? We cannot do that 
     there. So I believe we are doing the right thing.

  Last week, Mr. President, on the occasion of the fall of Srebrenica, 
the President of the United States said:

       I think we ought to go right back in there and retake 
     Srebrenica.

  Mr. President, that is why the American people are confused. We do 
not have a consistent or coherent policy as regards the tragedy in 
Bosnia, and that is why this resolution, this binding resolution, is 
going to receive overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle.
  Mr. President, today my friend, Senator John Kerry, called this 
resolution ``the abandonment amendment.''
  There is but one honest response to the Senator, and that is the 
following: we have no need to authorize the formal abandonment of the 
Bosnians; we abandoned them long ago.
  Let no one tell the Senate that the ``London Communique'' represents 
some hope that the West will spare the Bosnians from further Serb 
conquest. All that communique represents is the further abdication of 
U.S. leadership in the Atlantic Alliance. The parties to that 
communique cannot even agree that the utterly failed ``dual key'' 
command structure has come to a long overdue end.
  All that was confirmed in London is that the United Nations and NATO 
will preside for a little while longer over the ruthless extermination 
of the legitimate government of Bosnia.
  We have promised an aggressive defense of Gorazde from the air. Zepa 
fell today, and the U.N. only seeks to negotiate the evacuation of the 
city. When Bihac falls, we will be reminded that NATO only promised to 
defend Gorazde. When Gorazde is again besieged, air strikes will be 
called in and their magnitude will fall somewhere in a range between 
utterly useless and inadequate. Gorazde will fall and the United States 
Government will blame it on the UN or Great Britain or France. But the 
fault will lie as much with us as it does with Boutras Galhi or John 
Major or Jacques Chirac.
  The plain truth, Mr. President, is that no Western government has any 
intention of fighting for Bosnian sovereignty. Our interests are not so 
severely threatened by the war in Bosnia that we would make such a 
bloody sacrifice for that cause.
  UNPROFOR will hold on for a little longer until the Bosnian tragedy 
plays out a bit further. Then the United States Armed Forces will 
evacuate them. That is an absolute certainty. No one should dissemble 
any longer about the viability of UNPROFOR. It is over, and only a fool 
cannot see that.
  Mr. President, yesterday Assistant Secretary of State Richard 
Holbrooke offered perhaps the most mystifying defense to date of the 
administration's opposition to lifting the Bosnian arms embargo. From 
Secretary Holbrooke we learn that the administration agrees that ``the 
arms embargo is morally wrong,'' but they don't think that United 
States refusal to participate any longer in that embargo is ``the right 
solution.''
  Mr. President, when has doing the morally wrong thing become the 
right solution. The United States has always tried to temper the 
dictates of Realpolitik with a little human compassion, a little regard 
for the Rights of Man. Have we now reached a point where the United 
States of America, the greatest nation on earth, the greatest force for 
good in human history, Lincoln's ``beacon light of liberty'' can only 
respond to another nation's claim of its right to defend itself with 
the complaint that we are trapped by diplomatic circumstances--in an 
Alliance whose strength is directly commensurate to the strength of our 
leadership in it--we are trapped by diplomatic circumstances into doing 
the ``morally wrong'' thing? By God, I hope not. I hope not.
  As I said in an earlier statement, I don't know if the Bosnians can 
prevail in this conflict if we withdraw UNPROFOR and lift--at this late 
date--the unjust, illegal, and ill conceived arms embargo. I cannot 
predict that the Bosnians will recover enough territory to make an 
eventual settlement of that conflict more equitable. I cannot predict 
that the Bosnians will mount anything more than a brief impediment to 
the Serbian conquest of all of Bosnia. But they have the right to try! 
They have the right to try. And we are obliged by all the principles of 
justice and liberty which we hold so dear to get out of their way.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  
[[Page S 10642]]

  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, this debate is one of the most emotional 
debates I think that I have had the opportunity to witness and in any 
way be involved. I think it is one of the major foreign policy issues 
of our time and probably the last major foreign policy problem that the 
world will face in this century.
  I must say, as I listened to the debate, in particular the remarks 
made by the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden, the emotion that he put 
into those remarks and the strong personal feelings he expressed, I 
think summed it up about as well as anyone could. I think it summed up 
the frustration, it summed up the morality issue, the political issue, 
and made us all reflect on what a terrible crisis this is.
  I have some concern standing here and speaking, because if words in 
this Chamber could solve the world's problems, I guess they would have 
been solved many times over.
  So I have some trepidation in trying to add. As Lincoln said at 
Gettysburg, there is little to add or detract, to pay due respect for 
what they did, referring to those who died at Gettysburg.
  In other words, words cannot express what is happening in Bosnia. 
There is no way you can capture that in debate in this Chamber.
  I wish to compliment Senator Lieberman because he has been steadfast 
on this issue for many months, as has Senator Dole, the majority 
leader. The two of them have been very outspoken in particular, and 
others have as well, on the arms embargo issue, even early on before 
this has reached this crisis proportion.
  I can remember both of these Senators being very outspoken and 
eloquent on the issue of the arms embargo and the right of self-
determination for the Bosnian Muslims. So I wish to publicly thank 
Senator Lieberman and Senator Dole for their leadership.
  I should like to add a few remarks to express my feeling as well, 
knowing full well, considering the eloquence of many of the people who 
have preceded me here to speak today, and probably will speak later, 
there is not much one can add other than to express his or her own 
personal outrage and disgust, contempt, frustration, whatever the words 
might be, to describe it.
  I would start by saying I think the word dilemma is probably 
appropriate in the sense that this is a world dilemma; it is a U.S. 
dilemma; it is a U.S. foreign policy dilemma; it is a dilemma certainly 
for the participants in that war; it is a moral dilemma; it is an 
ethical dilemma; and certainly it is a political dilemma for whomever 
happens to be in the White House or in the Congress, in Government at 
the time.
  I rise in very strong support of this bill introduced by Senators 
Dole and Lieberman to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian 
Moslems. It is the right thing to do. It has been too long in coming, 
but it is the right thing to do.
  Bringing this matter before the Senate is long overdue. Perhaps, had 
we had this debate in this kind of public policy forum, we may have 
brought it to a head a lot sooner. Perhaps if the Senator from 
Connecticut and the majority leader, the Senator from Kansas, had had 
their way, we might have saved some lives, had this embargo been lifted 
back in the days early on when the Senators were talking about that.
  The illegal and immoral policy of denying people the capability to 
defend themselves must stop. It must stop. If we are not going to 
intervene, which we have made the decision not to do, in terms of 
ground forces, then we ought to lift the embargo and allow people the 
right to self-defense.
  How can anyone, seeing what is happening now in Bosnia, dispute that? 
It is time to lift the arms embargo against the Government of Bosnia. 
The United Nations policy toward Bosnia--there is no other way to say 
it--is an unmitigated disaster--all well intended, the greatest motives 
in the world, no question about it. I admire the soldiers who went 
there and the countries that sent them there. But they were not given 
the tools to do the job. They did not go in as a fighting force, and 
they did not go in as a protecting force, Mr. President. They are not 
fighting, and they are not protecting either. They need to get out, and 
they need to get out right away.
  Our acquiescence of this policy, indeed, our active enforcement of 
it, is not only wrong, it is absolutely unconscionable, unconscionable 
that we would tolerate the sending of a force under the auspices of 
protection, not engage, not stop the atrocities but simply stand by and 
allow them to happen.
  Every day, every minute, as we speak on the floor, the situation gets 
worse. As I sat watching the Senator from Delaware, listening to his 
very eloquent remarks, I wondered how many people died in Bosnia while 
he spoke. I wonder how many people will die in Bosnia before we 
complete this debate, not because the United States of America or the 
allies did not go in and intercede and fight the war for them, not 
because of that, but because they were not armed, because they did not 
have the opportunity to protect themselves or defend themselves, to 
defend their women, to defend their children, to defend the very men 
who have been hauled away and imprisoned and executed.
  Every day, every single day that we participate in this embargo, this 
whole action becomes more reprehensible, more unconscionable, more 
unethical, more immoral--every single day, every single minute that we 
continue this policy.
  As I reflect upon this, I say to myself, it is easy to criticize, but 
there are many times when we make policy mistakes. I am sure many of us 
have made mistakes here with our votes on policy matters. Many 
Presidents, past and present and future, have made and will make 
mistakes in the future. But this one, this one is costing lives every 
day. Every single day lives are lost because of this policy.
  Article 51 of the United Nations Charter affirms Bosnia's inherent 
right of self-defense as a sovereign nation. That is very clear. 
Sovereign right, in article 51, of self-defense--self-defense. It does 
not say in there that we have to defend them or anyone else has to go 
defend them. It says to defend themselves. It says self-defense. Yet, 
the arms embargo prevents them from exercising this very basic right. 
So it is not just a matter of not intervening to help someone. It is a 
matter of preventing them from helping themselves.
  That is why it is immoral, and that is why it is unconscionable. No 
matter how strongly you feel about this, how can anyone condone such a 
policy which denies the Bosnians the capability for basic self-defense? 
How can we participate in a policy that leaves them utterly vulnerable 
to territorial conquest and ethnic cleansing?
  I hate that phrase, ``ethnic cleansing'' because the word ``cleanse'' 
has a pure meaning to it, something good. It is not ethnic cleansing; 
it is murder. Let us call it what it is. Let us take the term out of 
the vocabulary, the vernacular. It is murder, it is rape, it is 
extermination. That is what it is. It is brutality. Ugly words, ugly, 
dirty words. Not good, clean words.
  Mr. President, the United States has no business, in my opinion, 
making matters worse by intervening in this conflict. At least that has 
been the policy decision that has been made. It is the overwhelming 
feeling of the majority of the American people that we do not have 
military interests and we do not have economic interests and we do not 
have an alliance and relationship to enforce, and it is not our battle 
to fight. You have heard all the arguments. It is not our place to deny 
innocent Bosnian victims the ability to defend themselves either.
  If I were to give a comparison, Mr. President, I would say this would 
be the equivalent of you seeing a terrible crime being committed, say a 
murder, several murders. You call the police, and the police come. And 
the victims who are being preyed upon by this murderer or murderers try 
to come to the police for aid, and the police simply stand by and watch 
it all happen.
  That is what is happening. It is the exact same analogy there. There 
is nothing different about it. So, blue uniforms of the policemen; blue 
hats of the United Nations. They cannot do anything about it. They are 
not doing anything about it. Therefore, why create the impression that 
somehow they are going to help and be able to help these people?
  It is not the United Nations' battle either although the so-called 
U.N. protection forces are currently deployed in several so-called safe 
havens. I think the term ``protection forces'' is another 

[[Page S 10643]]
misnomer, misnamed. They are not protecting anybody. So why call them 
protection forces? Again, it is the vocabulary, the vernacular, the 
semantics, to help mislead the world that somehow these people are 
protecting the Moslems.
  And safe havens. Think of that word as we talk about vocabulary. Safe 
havens. People are being butchered, raped, dragged out of their homes 
in safe havens. And that is what we continue to call them. That is the 
term that is still being used. Gorazde, Zepa, safe havens, even though 
in many cases the safe havens have been overrun. It is completely 
misleading to even use such terms. U.N. forces are not equipped to 
protect the designated areas. And these areas are certainly not safe.
  The truth is, the truth is--and this is harsh--but U.N. forces are 
nothing more, Mr. President, than a speed bump for the Serbian forces 
who are overrunning these positions at will. That is all it is, a speed 
bump. Bloop. Out of the way. Seizing hostages wherever, whenever, it 
suits their needs and using those hostages by placing them next to 
military targets, in a sense saying, go ahead, bomb us. It is a 
disgrace and embarrassment to the world and to our country.
  No one likes to stand here and say that. We witnessed it once in our 
history in Vietnam and now we are seeing it again. And if we get into 
this country, it will be Vietnam 10 times worse.
  And perhaps the most telling example of just how preposterous this 
whole situation is, Mr. President--this has really got to me 
emotionally--is recently U.N. troops, UNPROFOR troops, came under 
attack, not by the Serbs, but by the Moslems. Why were they attacked? 
They were attacked because the Moslems wanted their weapons to protect 
themselves. They wanted to take the weapons from their protectors, so 
that they may be able to confront the Serbs. If that did not convince 
you to support Senator Dole and Senator Lieberman and their endeavor, I 
do not know what else could possibly convince you to do it. When the 
U.N. force is incapable of defending the victims of Serbian aggression 
and even preventing them from defending themselves, it is clear that 
this policy is a failure.
  The report on this was very brief, did not give a lot of detail. But 
you cannot help but wonder just what happened in that little exchange 
when the Moslems confronted the U.N. forces to take their weapons. Did 
they fight the Moslems? Did they voluntarily lay them down and give 
them up? I did not see a lot of detail on that. It would be interesting 
to know just how that little exchange took place.
  Mr. President, the only reasonable strategy--the only reasonable 
strategy--is to terminate further escalation of military involvement, 
terminate it, move out the U.N. forces, lift the arms embargo against 
the Bosnian Moslems, and we ought to establish a timetable to fully 
withdraw the U.N. forces within the next 3 to 4 months, followed by an 
immediate lifting of the embargo.
  I want to be very clear on my position that I oppose the introduction 
of American ground forces for this conflict for the same reasons so 
eloquently stated by Senator McCain a few moments ago. There is no 
mission. And without that mission being very specific, you are not 
going to get the job done. And when you go in, what is your mission? 
Kill all the Serbs? Then what? Partition the country? Line up along the 
borders, not allow anybody in or out? For how many years? For 100 
years? For 1,000 years? Two days? They have been fighting for centuries 
there. It is ethnic fighting. How do we police it? Do we plan to stay 
there forever?
  I have no objection to the use of American communications equipment, 
command and control assets, to support a withdrawal of U.N. forces. 
Maybe that will be necessary. I personally believe that the Serbs would 
welcome withdrawal of the U.N. forces. I do not think they want them 
there. I think they would welcome it, and I think resistance may be 
overstated in terms of how much resistance they would give if we 
announce tomorrow that the U.N. forces were leaving.
  The U.N. forces should be immediately withdrawn, followed by the 
lifting of the embargo. Let those who are being heinously persecuted, 
let them meet destiny on their own terms, not on somebody else's terms, 
Mr. President. Let them meet their own destiny on their own terms. And 
let them meet that destiny from behind their own weapons, not cowering 
behind the ruins of some unsafe haven, waiting, hoping, praying that 
somebody in a blue helmet is going to come in and provide them 
protection. Let them meet destiny on their own terms with their own 
weapons. We do not have the legal or moral authority to play policeman 
in this centuries-old conflict. Least of all do we have the moral 
authority to do it when we go in there under the auspices of a 
protection force and then do not protect anybody. That makes it worse. 
That compounds it. Let us step back, allow the Moslems the dignity and 
the capability to defend themselves.
  It would be nice to read about a few successes with the Moslems as 
they do have the opportunity to meet at least with some weaponry to 
allow them to meet this enemy on some reasonably equal terms on the 
battlefield. It would be nice to witness that and read about that and 
see that take place. And it can take place if we would stop this insane 
policy. And it is insane.
  This is exactly what this legislation does. At present the military 
equation is completely one-sided, totally one-sided. The Dole-Lieberman 
bill will enable the Moslem forces to better defend themselves and even 
the playing field until a mutually acceptable peace settlement can be 
reached.
  Mr. President, that is the least we can do. That is the least we can 
do. No one, least of all this U.S. Senator, likes to stand up on the 
floor of the Senate and admit that a foreign policy, no matter what 
President it is, or how many Presidents developed it, is a failure.
  This is not, particularly, a direct hit on this President. This is a 
foreign policy failure. It perhaps goes back before the beginning of 
his administration. There is enough blame to go around. This is not a 
blame game. This is much bigger than that. This is a moral issue of the 
highest magnitude, and I think that when historians look back on the 
close of this century, this will be one of the big moral issues, 
international moral issues that this country has faced. It is not too 
late to have history judge us in a positive way, but it is getting 
there. It is getting there, Mr. President. And we have to lift the 
embargo. The U.N. forces out, lift the embargo and we can at least make 
an attempt to correct a terrible injustice.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I know there are a number of speakers who 
still want to speak this evening. We are also trying to reach an 
agreement, which I think we can request momentarily. Maybe not. It will 
be in just a few moments. So if I can just interrupt the Senator from 
Idaho later on.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from Idaho [Mr. 
Kempthorne].
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, just a few miles from where we stand 
is a brand new museum, a museum that opened just in the last couple of 
years. And yet while it is a new museum, it has become one of the most 
well-attended museums and locations anywhere in the Nation's Capital.
  When citizens go to this museum, immediately you sense the hushed 
tones by which they experience what is inside this museum. You realize 
that they are experiencing shock and revulsion. They cannot believe 
what they are seeing, because this museum is the museum of the 
Holocaust, and it gives evidence of the atrocities that took place some 
50 years ago. People go to see this, but they cannot believe what took 
place. It is against our moral fiber to even think that humans could do 
this to other humans.
  This was done because of ethnic cleansing. These atrocities were 
genocide. It was an attempt to wipe out an entire race of people.
  At the conclusion of walking through this museum, you have the 
opportunity, if you wish, to buy books or mementos about what you had 
just experienced and seen. One of the little items that you can buy is 
this button, this button which is a pledge, a pledge of mankind once 
they had realized what had taken place 50 years ago. The button says 
``Never Again.'' ``Never again.'' 

[[Page S 10644]]

  I do not know how many times I have gone to gatherings, large 
gatherings here in the Nation's Capital, where we discuss what took 
place 50 years ago. I have listened as speakers, with great emotion, 
invoked that pledge ``Never Again; Never Again.'' and the audience, in 
great emotion, erupts because that bond of the pledge has been 
reaffirmed.
  I say this, Mr. President, because it is happening again. It is 
happening in a place called Bosnia. Ethnic cleansing and genocide is 
again running rampant as they try to exterminate a race of people.
  We say, ``Never Again.'' We pledge that. But do we mean never again 
or do we mean never again except; never again maybe; never again. It is 
easier to say, I say to my friends, never again when you put it in the 
context that you are referencing something that happened 50 years ago, 
and so you are safe because you have that many years separating you 
from what was happening versus what action is called for now.
  But we need to make that same pledge right now and say ``Never Again 
Now.''
  Recently, Senator Dole hosted a meeting where a number of Senators 
gathered, and we met with the Prime Minister of Bosnia. One of the 
things that the prime minister stated was, ``We can understand 
neutrality. We can respect if the United States of America says this is 
not our war and, therefore, we will remain neutral. But,'' he said, 
``what we cannot understand is that you deny us the opportunity to have 
the weapons so we can defend ourselves.''
  He said, ``That is not neutrality. We do not want your boys to fight 
our battle on our land. We have boys. We have young men. We have men 
who will fight the battle on our soil. But, please, allow us so that we 
can arm the men and the women of our country so that we can defend 
ourselves.''
  This idea when we see that they capture the safe havens and then say, 
``Women and children this way, load them up, we are going to transfer 
you, and then we want to take the men and the young men and the boys 
and you go this way, and we're going to take you to a stadium and we're 
going to hold you there.''
  Then, as we all know, they are executing them in the name of what? 
Ethnic cleansing? We said, ``Never Again.'' Are we simply historians or 
do we mean it?
  We have been told, ``Don't lift the embargo. Don't lift the embargo 
because the forecast of the scenario that it would bring about would be 
dire consequences for the future of the Bosnians.'' They do not have a 
future. While we talk about this, while we think about this, they are 
dying; they are dying.
  We have a moral obligation to allow the Bosnians to defend 
themselves. You would not deny it to anyone. I personally, Mr. 
President, do not feel that I could ever again in the future attend any 
gathering and invoke that pledge, ``Never Again,'' to the response of 
an audience if today I turned my back on lifting the arms embargo on 
the Bosnians. That would be morally wrong, and I would be a hypocrite.
  Therefore, I support the Dole-Lieberman amendment or measure that 
will lift this arms embargo, and I commend Senator Dole and Senator 
Lieberman for the action that they have generated to bring us to this 
point where we stand on the eve of finally doing what is right.
  It does not mean they will stop dying, but it means they can at least 
defend their parents, their wives, their children. I also want to 
commend Senator Feingold who early on, when he arrived as a freshman 
Senator, also was at the forefront of this issue, and I was proud to 
join him at that point.
  Mr. President, this must not go on.
  Mankind has established a pledge: Never again. I uphold that pledge. 
I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I rise for a second time in support of the 
Dole proposal.
  Current policy in Bosnia is a failure. Bosnian Moslems continue to be 
driven from their homes under a horrific policy of ethnic cleansing. 
Atrocities are escalating. U.N. peacekeepers, while well-intended, have 
been unable to stop it and have themselves, tragically, ended up as 
tools for Serb aggression. Our allies are paralyzed and the unrest 
threatens to destabilize the entire region.
  It is time for the West to extricate itself from this failed policy 
and undertake a different course of action. S. 21 offers a sound and 
just mechanism to do so. Under this legislation, the arms embargo 
against Bosnia would be lifted only after one of two conditions have 
been met: a request by the government of Sarajevo for the withdrawal of 
the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, or a decision by the U.N. 
Security Council to withdraw the UNPROFOR.
  However, President Clinton has threatened to veto this legislation. 
He seems to fear that a change in course would leave America 
responsible for dealing with this conflict. This does not need to 
happen.
  The Bosnian Government is not asking America to send its ground 
troops to fight against the Serbs. The Bosnians only want access to 
weapons and supplies that will enable them to more effectively counter 
what everyone I know recognizes as aggression.
  The best approach now is to shift away from a policy that has only 
painfully and dangerously protracted the war, to a strategy structured 
around two clear objectives. The first is containment; that is, 
restricting the spread of the fighting. The second objective is the 
establishment of the balance of power necessary to stop Serb 
aggression. Toward these ends, America and its allies must work closely 
for the nations surrounding the conflict. The West must withdraw its 
peacekeepers, and we must allow the Bosnians to arm and defend 
themselves.
  The passage of the Dole proposal--I do hope that it will pass--is the 
first step in implementing such a strategy. It warrants our support.
  I hope the President will reconsider his opposition. It is not a 
carte blanche to the President. He must live up to its responsibilities 
as our Commander in Chief. The President must present the American 
people a coherent strategy toward ending this conflict.
  Mr. President, let me add that I support the amendment to be 
submitted by the Senator from Georgia. That amendment would require the 
President to request the U.N. Security Council to lift the arms embargo 
against Bosnia before the U.N. unilaterally lifts that embargo.
  I believe this amendment is consistent with the motivations behind S. 
21 and would reinforce our interests within the United Nations and 
among our allies.
  Mr. President, the vision among our allies has led to paralysis and 
appeasement in Bosnia. Consequently, it is even more urgent that we are 
not divided at home.
  As I stated last week, strong congressional support behind S. 21 is 
absolutely essential. Combined with the President's support and 
leadership, S. 21 will be a first step toward a more effective strategy 
to end the aggression of atrocities now unleashed in Bosnia.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise this evening to speak in opposition 
to the Dole-Lieberman legislation.
  Mr. President, its intent, to change the direction of the United 
States policy in Bosnia, is good. For me, the language of this 
legislation is too ambiguous. To make a case it is ambiguous, Mr. 
President, I need only summarize the arguments of four Senators, myself 
included, two of them in favor of the bill and two of them against.
  Senator Moynihan argued in favor. He wants the U.S. to stay involved 
because he believes it is in our interests to do so. Senator McCain 
argued, as well, in favor. He wants the U.S. to become less involved 
because he believes that Americans do not see our interests 
sufficiently engaged to commit ground forces. Senator Exon, on the 
other hand, argues against. He is against it because he wants the 
United States to stay more involved, and he believes it is in our 
interest to do so.
  I am here this evening arguing against, for the same reason cited by 
Senator McCain when he declared his support, which is that I am one of 
those who do not want the United States to take the military lead, 
because I do not believe it is in our interest to do so.
  Mr. President, this has become one of those great polarized debates 
where if you declare you are opposed to this legislation, people 
immediately say, well, 

[[Page S 10645]]
you are for doing nothing. I received calls into my office today from 
people who were saying, if you are not for Dole-Lieberman, you are for 
genocide. That is how this argument is being framed here in America, 
unfortunately, at this moment.
  I do not argue that we should become uninvolved. The United States 
cannot afford to turn its back on the events in the Balkans. Americans 
are appalled by what we see there, and thank God we are. Ethnic 
cleansing, intentional killings and terrorizing of innocents, and 
arrogant disregard for international law, all of these have provoked us 
to the point that some of our citizens believe it is time for America 
to choose sides and enter this war on behalf of the Moslem minority.
  Unfortunately, too many commentators and observers who want to pursue 
a unilateral course of action try to leave the impression that those 
who prefer an alternative would like the United States to do nothing. 
The United States must lead, Mr. President, in a clear, defined, and in 
this case, limited way.
  For the past 4 years, beginning with the careless diplomatic 
recognition in 1992 of Croatia and Bosnia that led to a grisly and 
hate-filled war with Serbia, we have been trying to exercise 
leadership. After ignoring or not hearing the warning signals coming as 
early as 1988 from knowledgeable sources that ethnic hatred would erupt 
after the Communist grip was loosened, our first action, one of 
diplomacy, probably made matters worse.
  Still, we did not walk away from our responsibilities. We helped 
negotiate an end to the fighting between Croatia and Serbia. After the 
people of Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for independence, Bosnian Serbs 
formed an insurgent government. Thus began a bloodthirsty move to 
control territory by means of a cruel device known as ethnic cleansing.
  While we recognized the deep and longstanding hatreds, we could not 
stand aside, Mr. President, and have not stood aside for the last 4 
years. Our response has been in part humanitarian, with relief flights, 
medical care, and international efforts to break the siege on the city 
of Sarajevo. Our response has also been diplomatic, with round after 
round of discussions, the most notable of which were led by former 
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
  Our response, Mr. President, to be clear, has also been military. 
Americans, though we have withheld support for Americans going in on 
the ground, peacekeeping forces, our sailors are in the Adriatic, our 
airmen in Avellino, Italy, and our soldiers in Macedonia have been 
regularly and daily risking their lives.
  Those who say that the United States has made no military commitment 
have to devalue the lives of those who, in fact, are regularly out 
there on behalf of the United States of America and on behalf of those 
who are being terrorized in Bosnia, risking their lives.
  If we measure success as an end to the violence and killing, there is 
no question, Mr. President, that we have failed. If success is measured 
as a reduction in both, we have not failed.
  That we have not turned our backs should likewise be apparent. This 
is not Nazi Germany where we ignored the overwhelming evidence that 
something terrible was going on. We have ignored nothing; its just that 
nothing we have been willing to try has stopped the killing.
  We are frustrated by apparent impotence. We want success like we had 
in the Gulf War or Haiti or even for a while Somalia. We want this 
thing to be over. We want to be free of the images like the 20-year-old 
woman who hanged herself after being driven from what we called a safe 
haven in Srebrenica. We want to be free of what seems to be a policy 
that stumbles blindly down one diplomatic path after another tripping 
wires that explode into more and more killing.
  The Dole-Lieberman legislation is a response to that frustration. The 
goal of this proposed law is to change the course of our currently 
policy something I wholeheartedly agree needs to happen. Specifically, 
the law proposes that we do two things: direct the President to lift 
the current arms embargo which has had the unintended consequence of 
making it more difficult for one side--the Bosnian Government--to fight 
for their country, and bring about the withdrawal of the United Nations 
peacekeepers.
  If this resolution encouraged the multilateral lifting of the arms 
embargo, and if it authorized the President to deploy U.S. forces to 
lead an orderly and honorable withdrawal of the United Nations, I would 
support it. But according to the news of the past week, British and 
French forces in Bosnia are more aggressive than ever before. The 
British have inserted two batteries of artillery into the Sarajevo 
area. The French conducted a massive mortar attack over the weekend. 
According to news reports, the French responded to the death of two of 
their soldiers by using a one-bomb airstrike Sunday against the house 
of a Bosnian Serb leader in Pale. Now that our allies are committed and 
actively engaged, it is not the time for us to pull the plug on them. 
They should get to vote on withdrawal. If they choose it, we should 
lead it.
  Let me explain why I cannot vote for this legislation in its current 
form. First, it suffers from the same defect as the administration's: 
It is ambiguous about purpose and objectives which, of course, 
encourages Senators to vote ``aye'' and explain their vote anyway they 
choose. Second, it may prohibit the United States from honoring its 
commitment to provide ground support for the evacuation of United 
Nations peacekeepers. Such a prohibition may broaden the appeal in the 
Senate; it does not broaden our appeal in the world.
  Defining an objective in the former Yugoslavia is neither morally 
easy nor objectively precise. Defining an objective forces us to decide 
if we are going to establish a principle which allows us to lead but 
does not require us to take the lead with our Army, Navy, Air Force, 
and Marine Corps in every world dispute, violent outburst, or tragedy 
involving human rights abuses. I believe we must establish such a 
principle. As difficult as it may be to weep for rather than fight in 
every battle, to do otherwise would be a mistake.
  The principle should be: only if the interests of the United States 
are at stake should we take the lead with our military forces. What we 
are witnessing in Bosnia is a civil war with the
 potential of spreading to other Balkan countries. The combatants, and 
especially the Serbs, are guilty of gross violations of human rights 
and the laws of war. The Intelligence Committee, in fact, intends to 
hold open hearings on this very subject. But we are not witnessing the 
Holocaust or the rise of the Fourth Reich. Such references exaggerate 
and do not help us decide what we must do.

  Our interests in Bosnia include the following:
  First, prevent the conflict from spreading to other areas.
  Second, preserve the territorial integrity of a nation recognized by 
the United Nations.
  Third, prevent ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses.
  Of these three, only the first qualifies as a vital interest. If 
either Greece, Turkey, or Russia became directly involved, we would be 
at war. The second and third are more limited, and for obvious reasons 
more difficult to limit. Indeed, some would risk a larger war in order 
to satisfy their desire to do something--almost anything--about them. I 
believe we should limit this risk.
  Again, saying we are not going to take sides in a war to preserve 
Bosnia's territorial integrity or to prevent ethnic cleansing and human 
rights abuses does not mean we should stand aside and do nothing.
  Before we rush to judge the United Nations peacekeepers harshly we 
should remember and pay tribute to their bravery. It is not their fault 
that diplomats and political leaders have issued hollow threats or 
passed toothless resolutions. It is not their fault that a so-called 
dual key mechanism that was devised as a safety check has provided more 
safety to the Bosnia Serbs by denying much needed and oft-requested 
NATO airplanes to United Nations forces so they could carry out their 
mission.
  The broad consensus required to keep the United Nations together 
works fine if there is a peace to maintain. If peace breaks down and 
force is needed, this broad consensus is no match or substitute for 
individual courage and a military code of honor. Both of these 

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are what is needed to end the violence in Bosnia. And, it will take 
courage on the ground to seize and hold territory; bravery from the air 
can only support, not secure the victory.
  Two examples of courage were reported by New York Times writer Mr. 
Roger Cohen on July 16, 1995. Mr. Cohen's story reveals two important 
truths. Our United Nations peacekeepers have been very brave and we 
will need such bravery on the ground if we are to persuade the Bosnian 
Serbs and the Bosnian Government to negotiate an end to their fighting.
  In March, 1993, Lieutenant General Phillipe Morillon, who was the 
commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia, went to Srebrenica when 
it was under attack by Bosnian Serbs. He declared he would not move 
until the survival of its people was assured. In Mr. Cohen's words: 
``It was an irrational act. Confronted by this stubborn general, the 
Bosnia Serbs desisted from their onslaught and Srebrenica survived for 
another 28 months.'' When it fell 10 days ago, almost no stubbornness 
was revealed to the Bosnian Serbs by the Bosnian Government troops who 
were armed and outnumbered their attackers. They did not fire a shot.
  On May 27, 1995, the day after NATO air strikes near Pale, the 
Bosnian Serbs began taking hostages and using them as human shields. 
Faced with the prospect of killing United Nations peacekeepers the U.N. 
high command decided not to order further air strikes.
  Lieutenant Gilles Jarron, a member of the French Foreign Legion and a 
U.N. officer in Sarajevo, show no such reluctance. Along with 11 other 
Legionnaires he defended a U.N. weapons collection site in a Serb-held 
suburb. Eighty Serbs armed with rocket-propelled grenades and a T-55 
tank gave the peacekeepers 5 minutes to give up.
  But, according to Mr. Cohen:

       Lieutenant Jarron called his commanding officer. There was 
     little question the legionnaires would all be killed in any 
     battle. The last order he received from Colonel Jean-Louis 
     Francheschini was, ``From this moment on, make sure that 
     every French life is paid for dearly by the Serbs.
       Every evening, as the stand-off wore on and the Serbs 
     failed to carry out their threats, the soldiers read each 
     other the code of the Legionnaire: The mission is sacred. You 
     execute it to the end, at any price. In combat you act 
     without passion or hatred. You respect your defeated enemy. 
     Never do you abandon your dead, your injured or your arms.

  This is the behavior that wins wars. That seizes ground and holds it. 
Air strikes alone will not work. President Clinton's air strategy will 
likely fail. According to the President:

       The only thing that has worked has been when they thought 
     we would use disproportionate air power. This allowed us to 
     move their heavy weapons into pools. If we adhere to this 
     tougher policy, we can be successful at negotiating.

  In an account of the battle that occurred on Mount Igman over the 
weekend, again after the French had taken two casualties, the French 
launched an attack and included the use of 122 millimeter mortars, 84 
rounds launched into Serbian positions. And those who observed it said 
that ground attack was more impressive and did more damage and did more 
good for our cause than all the airstrikes together thus far in this 
war.
  I fear that a tougher air policy, in the absence of a tougher ground 
policy, will make matters worse once again.
 At this stage we are inching close to a declaration of war against 
Serbia, an action we must not allow to happen unless and until we 
intend it.
  When we threatened air strikes on February 9, 1994, which did lead to 
the withdrawal and turning over to the United Nations of mortars, 
artillery pieces and other heavy weapons within a 12.4 mile range of 
the center of Sarajevo, the Bosnian Serbs were wary of testing NATO's 
mettle. Our warnings of air strikes were repeatedly vetoed by Mr. 
Boutros-Ghali, the U.N. Secretary General, who is ultimately in command 
of the more than 20,000 European and other peacekeeping troops in 
Bosnia. Seeing that NATO's mettle was soft, the Bosnian Serbs and the 
Bosnian Government have both retaken their weapons and have resumed 
heavy shelling of Sarajevo, Gorazde, Bihac, Zepa, and Srebrenica.
  This time we are told things will be different. There is good reason 
to believe they will be different. First, the Rapid Reaction Force--
formed in response to the taking of hostages in May--has begun to 
demonstrate a resolve the Bosnian Serbs have not seen from U.N. forces. 
Importantly and correctly the French and the British are taking the 
lead in this effort. The French have lost 44 soldiers in Bosnia. They 
do not want to withdraw. We have lost none, and we do. The moment when 
the U.N. is moving stronger forces into the heart of the conflict is 
precisely the wrong moment to pass a law which would compel U.N. 
withdrawal.
  Second, the President has pressed for different operating procedures 
when carrying out NATO air attacks. NATO is asking that U.N. ground 
commander in Bosnia, General Rupert Smith, alone be given the authority 
to request these attacks from Admiral Leighton Smith, the NATO 
commander for this area. This would mean that neither General Janvier, 
the U.N. Commander for all forces in Bosnia and Croatia, nor Secretary 
General Boutros-Ghali would have the power to veto this request. Of 
course, airstrikes should not occur at danger-close distances to U.N. 
peacekeepers, and it should be easy to transmit this information to 
strike pilots. But the dual key will hopefully be laid to rest.
  As we debate this resolution tonight, and as the intensified fighting 
around Bihac makes more likely a renewal of open warfare between 
Croatia and Serbia, I am hard pressed to consider a better course of 
action than continuation of an even stronger U.N. presence. It is 
apparent that none of the parties is yet ready to negotiate seriously: 
all of them believe they can achieve their aims on the battlefield. 
Outside support is already getting through to the combatants, even to 
the Moslems. The flow of weapons will grow to a flood when the embargo 
is lifted, and all the parties will be much better armed. The departure 
of the U.N. will mean no international effort to get food to besieged 
areas and no international witnesses to war crimes. Most importantly, 
it will mean no international effort to halt or contain the fighting 
and America's principal interest here is to contain the war.
  A weak, passive United Nations--and I refer to its political 
leaders--has done a mediocre job in accomplishing these tasks, not just 
in Bosnia but throughout Yugoslavia. You can be sure in the absence of 
the U.N., these tasks would not get done at all. It is too easy for us 
to vote out of frustration and send the message, get the United Nations 
out of Bosnia and let them all fight it out. But think what the 
situation of civilians would be in a no-holds-barred war involving 
Serbia and Croatia as well as Bosnia.
  No option is ideal.
   There may come a time in fact when the Dole-Lieberman legislation is 
precisely what this country ought to be doing.
  There is pain and risk involved in all of the options.
  But in looking at those options, a larger, better armed, more 
aggressive UN force, backed by NATO airpower not subject to a dual key, 
is the best course of action. Now the United Nation's spine is being 
stiffened by the increased commitment of two of our oldest allies, who 
have already made significant sacrifices but are willing to do more. 
Now is not the time for unilateral United States action that would 
force them out and leave the Bosnians, and many others in the former 
Yugoslavia, without aid or witnesses, defenseless in a brutal ethnic 
civil war. I will vote against the legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROTH. 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. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am a strong supporter of the Dole-
Lieberman legislation, and have spoken on a number of occasions about 
the moral and strategic imperative to lift unilaterally the arms 
embargo on Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am confident that the legislation will 
pass, and am pleased that the 104th Senate will finally go on record to 
do the right thing in this intractable situation. My only regret is 
that the Dole-Lieberman legislation does not include a mandate to 

[[Page S 10647]]
lift the embargo on the Republic of Croatia as well.
  Today we are all focused on the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by 
Bosnian Serb rebels against the Bosnians. But the same patron, 
President Milosevic of Serbia, is complicitly supporting the Croatian 
Serbs' campaign of terror against Croatia as well. Though we expect to 
aid the Bosnians with our legislation today, we can only effectively 
address the entire Bosnian crisis if we seek a regional solution. That 
means including Croatia in the equation, and in this case, it means 
lifting the embargo against Croatia as well.
  One of the successes the Clinton administration has had in this 
conflict has been the March 1994 Washington Accords which secured 
American support for the Moslem-Croat Federation and the Bosnia-Croat 
confederacies. The Federation recognizes the need for a regional 
solution, an alliance where Serb forces are confronted by the united 
forces of the Bosnian and Croatian militaries. It also acknowledges 
that both states would be more viable if they can be united. Indeed, in 
order to receive the arms we are supporting tonight, they will have to 
be shipped through Croatia. Why would we want to pit these countries 
against each other when together they have a better chance of defeating 
the Serb aggressors?
  I am a proponent of lifting the embargo, Mr. President, because I 
believe that it is the only way to enable the Bosnians to effect the 
balance of power on the ground against the Serb aggressors, and thus 
negotiate in seriousness. Lifting the embargo on Croatia would help 
achieve the same goal by strengthening the credibility of the military 
threat against the Serbs, and expedite the transport of weaponry to 
Bosnia.
  Since we will not be voting on the embargo against Croatia tonight, I 
hope that as the Administration begins to think about implementing our 
legislation, it will take the practical path and lift the embargo 
against Croatia as well.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, the issue before the Senate is 
whether to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is one 
of the most important debates on the floor of the Senate this year. 
This vote has the potential to dramatically change the course of the 
war in Bosnia.
  The international community has made a good-faith attempt to make the 
current policy in Bosnia work. The United Nations, through the United 
Nations Protection Forces, known as UNPROFOR, has tried to minimize the 
loss of life in Bosnia, to provide humanitarian assistance, to protect 
Moslem refugees in U.N.-dedicated safe areas, to contain the fighting, 
and to prevent this conflict from spreading into a wider regional war.
  Between 1992 and the last few weeks, the United Nations was able to 
contain the violence and the casualties. UNPROFOR has enforced a no-fly 
zone over Bosnia. The United Nations has enforced zones around urban 
areas where heavy weapons were excluded. The United Nations airlifted 
food and medical supplies to civilian population, conducting the 
largest airlift of humanitarian supplies since the Berlin airlift. And 
while there have been despicable attacks against civilians since 
UNPROFOR has been in Bosnia, these policies have dramatically reduced 
the loss of life. In 1992, 130,000 people perished in the war in 
Bosnia. In 1994, 3,000 people died.
  But the fragile stability that UNPROFOR provided over the last 3 
years has been shattered. The policy is not working. The so-called safe 
areas of Srebrenica and Zepa have already been overrun. UNPROFOR cannot 
protect the civilian populations in the safe areas or anywhere else it 
is deployed in Bosnia because it is not equipped as a fighting force. 
UNPROFOR's mission is to provide humanitarian assistance. It does not 
have a mandate to confront or push back Serb forces. It does not have 
the manpower or the armaments to protect civilians in a war zone. Even 
the new Rapid Reaction Force, which is moving into positions on Mount 
Igman above Sarajevo, is charged with opening and securing routes into 
Sarajevo for the delivery of humanitarian aid, and stopping Serb 
attacks against U.N. personnel and U.N. assistance convoys. The Rapid 
Reaction Force is not mandated to stop Serb assaults against civilians. 
UNPROFOR cannot stop Serb aggression. It has not been able to halt 
ethnic cleansing--the massive movement of refugees--the rapes of women, 
and the rounding up and disappearance of military-age men.
  Mr. President, the terrible pictures of Moslem refugees we see in the 
newspaper of Bosnia are not new. The other day, there was a photo on 
the front page of the Washington Post of two middle-aged women walking 
out of Srebrenica into Moslem territory. They were each pushing a 
wheelbarrow. In one wheelbarrow was an old man; in the other was an old 
woman. Better than any words, this photo crystalized the ethnic 
cleansing the Serbs have forced on the Moslems. It is the women, the 
children, and the elderly, who continue to suffer the most. But, Mr. 
President, we saw the same pictures 3 years ago. Today, the pictures 
are of refugees from Srebrenica. Earlier, the refugees were from Banja 
Luka, and other towns now under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army.
  Today, we are again hearing reports of women disappearing. Serb 
soldiers are approaching groups of refugees, and pulling young women 
away from their families. The Serbs are using rape to terrorize. They 
are also using rape as a tool of genocide--to impede the birth of the 
next generation of Moslem children. The violence against women in this 
war is horrific, and cannot go unpunished. But as I stand here on the 
floor, I recognize that we have heard these reports before. Mr. 
President, in March 1993, 2 months after I arrived in the U.S. Senate, 
I signed a letter to Secretary Christopher with 30 of my colleagues 
requesting information on the State Department's plans to fund medical 
and psychological assistance to the women of Bosnia who had been 
victims of rape and forced pregnancy. March 1993, Mr. President. And in 
July 1995, we are hearing the same cries for help.
  Not only has the United Nations been unable to protect civilians, it 
has also been unable to put an end to this conflict. In March 1993, the 
Vance-Owen plan was negotiated and presented to both parties. The 
Moslems signed the plan; the Serbs rejected it. The Contact Group of 
nations--the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia--
presented the peace plan of July 1994. Again, the Moslems accepted it; 
it was rebuffed by the Serbs. These plans extracted major concessions 
from the Moslem side. They were proposals that rewarded aggression. But 
in the interest of their people, the Bosnian Government felt compelled 
to accept them. The Bosnian Serbs, however, have been unwilling to 
agree to an internationally mediated plan to divide up the territory.
  This situation has muddled along, because there is no consensus on an 
alternative course. The continuing Serb attacks on the U.N.-safe areas, 
however, make it impossible to continue trying to muddle through. 
Moreover, I am convinced that the strategy developed in London this 
weekend will not be sufficient to bring both parties to the negotiating 
table. Both human rights considerations and our own national interest 
require us to change our policy in Bosnia.
  Mr. President, the United States cannot allow the systematic abuse of 
human rights to continue unchecked. The American people will not accept 
it. I have received dozens of phone calls from people in Illinois over 
the last few days expressing their outrage over the human rights abuses 
in Srebrenica. One gentlemen who called me is a physician. He spent 16 
months in eight concentration camps in Bosnia. Now he is trying to put 
his life back together in Chicago. He is a lucky one, Mr. President, 
because he is out of the horror.
  But it is not only compassion that requires us to change our policy 
toward Bosnia. Our national interests demand it. Because of the arms 
embargo, one side is able to dictate the pace and outcome of this war. 
The United States cannot allow such naked aggression to continue. The 
Serb success in using military force to gain territory and forcibly 
move ethnic populations sends a signal to other would-be dictators that 
military force is a better option than political negotiations. This is 
the wrong signal.
  The war in Bosnia is causing profound tension in the NATO alliance. 

[[Page S 10648]]
  Our NATO allies, especially Britain and France, have substantial ground 
troops in Bosnia. The opposition of these governments to lifting the 
arms embargo reflect their justifiable concern toward the safety and 
well-being of their soldiers. I am very concerned, however, that 
continuing the status quo will only increase the tensions between the 
United States and our European allies.
  This war is also causing tensions between members in the eastern part 
of NATO. While the historical resentments between Greece and Turkey are 
an ongoing issue within NATO, the Balkan war is exacerbating these 
tensions. Greece has traditionally had a strong relationship with 
Serbia. Turkey, a secular Moslem country which has tried to condemn the 
Bosnian conflict without making mention of religion, is finding it 
harder to keep silent on the religious aspect of this war. The 
implication is that if the Bosnians were Christian, the West would be 
doing more to protect them.
  This religious argument is a very important component of how the 
Bosnian conflict is viewed in many circles in the Moslem world. A front 
page article in yesterday's Washington Post reports that moderate 
Moslem governments that are allies of the United States, including 
Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, are under pressure from their citizens to 
come to the aid of the Bosnian government not because a fellow member 
of the United Nations is in need, but because the principal victims in 
this war are Moslem. Fundamentalist circles in these countries who 
argue in support of the Bosnian Moslems are gaining the moral high 
ground. The Bosnian conflict is increasingly being viewed in religious 
terms. It is in the national interest of the United States to minimize 
the perception that the West is forsaking the Bosnians because of their 
religion.
  These tensions, coupled with UNPROFOR's failure to curb Serb 
aggression, or prevent ethnic cleansing and human rights atrocities, 
lead me to conclude that the status quo cannot be sustained.
  In my view, either the international community must defend Bosnia, or 
we must make it possible for the Bosnians to defend themselves. And 
since the first option is not politically viable, the only choice left 
is to withdraw UNPROFOR and lift the arms embargo. In a speech this 
past April in Chicago, the Bosnian Ambassador to the United States, His 
Excellency Sven Alkalaj, was very clear: ``If we must choose between 
UNPROFOR and arms, we can only choose arms.'' The Bosnians are not 
asking the United States or any other country to defend them. They 
simply ask for the right to defend themselves.
  There will only be an end to this conflict if aggression is met head 
on. As long as one side is free to wage war without meeting any counter 
force, the aggression will continue. UNPROFOR has no mandate to counter 
the attacks against civilians. Worse, the presence of UNPROFOR provides 
a shield against NATO air strikes. UNPROFOR's presence on the ground 
prevents the one thing that could make the fighting come to an end, and 
bring both sides to the negotiating table--the balance of power.
  Only if there is a balance of power can there be a political solution 
in Bosnia. This cannot be provided by the United Nations, or the 
countries of the West. Only the Bosnians themselves, properly armed, 
can provide a balance of power.
  The Bosnian Serbs will not negotiate as long as they think they are 
winning on the battlefield. As long as UNPROFOR remains in Bosnia, one 
side is in a position to use aggression without consequence.
  Mr. President, we need to change that equation. The Serbs must learn 
that they cannot wage war on non-combatants in markets and bread lines 
with impunity. They need to know that they are not going to be 
protected from the horrendous human rights violations they are 
committing.
  Mr. President, pulling out UNPROFOR and lifting the arms embargo is 
not without significant risk. These consequences have already been 
outlined on the floor. The President has committed up to 25,000 U.S. 
troops to help extricate UNPROFOR. Our troops would go into Bosnia for 
a short, well-defined mission, under NATO command. The possibility of 
casualties, however, cannot be underestimated. Removing UNPROFOR will 
leave Moslem refugees at immediate risk. Under this scenario, the 
humanitarian situation will certainly get worse before it gets better. 
And, finally, the increased intensity of the fighting between Serbs and 
Moslems escalates the possibility of a wider regional war.
  I believe that these serious consequences must be weighed against 
allowing the present situation to continue. The current Serb policy of 
taking UNPROFOR soldiers hostage, and overrunning safe areas cannot be 
allowed to continue. Two years ago, these actions, in total defiance of 
the United Nations, might have meant a considerable escalation that the 
international community would have wanted to avoid. But today, these 
acts have not only occurred, they have not met any counter force.
  Mr. President, the UNPROFOR mission is untenable. It does not have 
the resources or the armaments to enforce peace. It does not have the 
will to enforce peace. The mission, as it has been mandated, can only 
function if all sides are willing to stop fighting. UNPROFOR cannot 
keep the peace when one side wants war. UNPROFOR cannot protect the 
enclaves from serious assault. UNPROFOR cannot protect women from rape 
or men from disappearing. There is no consensus to turn UNPROFOR into a 
military unit capable of defending the enclaves or the innocents. The 
only conclusion is to lift the arms embargo.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, in considering the legislation pending 
before the Senate today which requires the President to unilaterally 
lift the arms embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina, I am struck by 
the following question: What is our goal?
  My colleagues have stated that we can no longer stand by and watch 
the Bosnians continue to be slaughtered by the Serbian army. By lifting 
the embargo, we are giving the Bosnians the means to stand up and fight 
the Serbs on an even footing. In their minds, we are helping to prevent 
further killing of Bosnians. But are we really doing that or are we 
contributing to more bloodshed, more killing, and more ethnic 
cleansing?
  As I have said several times in the past when the Senate has been 
faced with this issue, lifting the arms embargo will not guarantee 
peace. It will only widen the war and guarantee more deaths on both 
sides. Lifting the arms embargo contingent on the removal of United 
Nations Protective Forces does not take into consideration humanitarian 
concerns. It will not lead to greater protection of civilians and 
refugees in the safe areas. Rather it will lead to further violence 
against them.
  While I agree that the international efforts of the United Nations 
have faltered in recent months, I do not believe that lifting the arms 
embargo is the appropriate response. To be honest, short of full scale 
military intervention, no one in the international community has a 
comprehensive solution to ending the conflict in Bosnia. Although some 
may see lifting the arms embargo as the only solution right now, it 
does not get us any closer to finding a comprehensive solution or to 
bringing the war to a close.
  It is still my opinion that the only way to end the war in Bosnia is 
to bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear against the Serbs and 
their allies. We must begin by making a greater effort to cut off 
Serbian access to arms. Only by choking off their ability to conduct 
the war in Bosnia will we be able to bring them to the negotiating 
table.
  Again, I return to my original question: What is our goal in lifting 
the arms embargo? What are we trying to achieve? I do not believe 
anyone in this body truly believes that any kind of humanitarian or 
peace-bringing goal is accomplished by this ill-fated action. For that 
reason, I will once again oppose this legislation.


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