[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 189 (Wednesday, November 29, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17758-S17760]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PEACE AGREEMENT IN BOSNIA

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday when I was on the floor I made 
some comments which I do not think were very clearly understood because 
I was assuming some people were aware of some of the problems that have 
existed since the initialing of the peace agreement in Bosnia.
  It has been very disturbing to me, after having been over there, to 
feel that most people are laboring under the misconception that there 
is in fact a peace. The President himself in his message to the Nation 
said, ``Now the war is over.'' I just wish the President would go over 
there and see that the war is not over.
  But since that time, there have been some articles which I would like 
to read, and then submit into the Record. One is from the Los Angeles 
Times of November 25, just a few days ago.
  ``On Friday, November 24, approximately 200 Bosnian Government troops 
looted a U.N. base in the Bihac''--that is right over here, Mr. 
President, on the Croatian border--``manned by a Bangladeshi battalion. 
They fired machine guns over the heads of the peacekeepers and carried 
off food, fuel, and equipment including nine armored vehicles. The 80 
peacekeepers returned fire''--keep in mind that while all of this is 
happening they are firing and returning fire--``but were forced to 
retreat. The Bosnians were taking advantage of the imminent withdrawal 
of U.N. forces to make way for NATO troops''--which gives you an 
indication as to what would happen even if we were able to stop this 
obsession that the President of the United States has in sending troops 
into Bosnia and were able to try to get them withdrawn.
  Also, a Reuters publication on the same day, on Friday, the 24th, 
says, ``Also on Friday the 24th, U.N. officials reported that Croat 
forces burned and looted houses''--these are Croat forces--``in areas 
located in central and northwest Bosnia. Houses were burned and looted 
in the city of Gornji Vakuf''--which is this area right in here--``in 
central Bosnia and also in the cities of Mrkonjic Grad, and Sipovo''--
which is this area right in here.
  If you look, the major part of the activity is taking place in this 
section right of Bosnia. This is the section in which the United States 
would have forces.
  I have often wondered, and have not been able to get an answer from 
anyone, as to who drew these lots for us; why we have the French over 
here and the British over here, but we would be right here--virtually 
everything north of Sarajevo up to and including Tuzla, and a corridor 
that would go through here, which is one of the most contentious areas.
  This comes from the New York Times article of the 27th: ``On Sunday, 
November 26, angry groups of men stoned and flipped over U.N. vehicles 
passing through Serbian sections of Sarajevo.''
  Sarajevo is an area that is divided up between Croats, Serbs, and 
Moslem forces, each with their own checkpoints.
  Also according to the New York Times: ``As of November 26, a total of 
210 peacekeepers have been killed in the 4 years of conflict in the 
former Yugoslavia.''
  Mr. President, these are identified as peacekeepers. If you will 
remember, one of the major concerns that we have is that the President 
is putting our forces into a situation that is ideal for what we call 
``mission creep.'' That is, you go in with one idea. Say you are going 
to go in, as we are going in, to keep the peace. Obviously, there is no 
peace to keep. But still they call them ``peacekeepers.''
  When the President made his speech he was very careful to use the 
word ``implementation.''
  So it has already crept from peacekeeping to peace 
``implementation.''
  The Times article goes on: ``In Bosnia itself, 107 have been killed, 
most by the former Serbs but some by the Muslims. Serbs have repeatedly 
used peacekeepers as hostages to secure their aims.''
  Further, in the same article: ``In the past NATO has been able to 
respond to attacks on peacekeepers with air strikes on Serbian 
artillery and other positions. Now this is less of an option because 
the multinational troops will be mingled with the civilian population 
especially in places like Sarajevo, where about 10,000 troops are to be 
deployed.''
  ``The NATO operation is billed as one where superior Western 
firepower will obliterate any obstacles. But the NATO led force will 
not be threatened mainly by organized resistance, but by angry women 
and children, lone snipers and renegade bands of armed men determined 
to thwart a plan that would drive them from their homes and negate all 
they have fought to achieve.''
  We are talking about people who have fought each other for nearly 4 
years. And I stood on the streets of Sarajevo and saw those areas where 
they have pounded the residential areas and have obliterated them. Many 
of the people who are there now are not the people who lived in 
Sarajevo before. They were not there back during the Winter Olympics 
that we remember so fondly in such a beautiful thriving city as 
Sarajevo then was. They are people who came in there as refugees. Once 
the people were driven from their homes, they were no longer livable 
for individuals who had those homes, and now refugees have come in.
  So we are dealing now with two groups of people that are going to be 
problems--assuming that we are successful in going in there to achieve 
some type of peace.
  Col. Thierry Cambournac of NATO, deputy sector commander of Sarajevo, 
said he feared that the soldiers could get drawn into conflicts in 
urban areas 

[[Page S 17759]]
they will patrol. A quote from the colonel: ``Our biggest concern is 
the population in these areas will revolt.''
  Their concern is not whether one of the organized factions, whether 
it is Croats or Serbs or the Moslems, are going to be a problem. It is 
instead the people who have been driven from their homes. In fact, the 
mayor of this suburb said, and this is a direct quote, ``We will still 
fight, and if the multinational force tries to drive us from our homes, 
or take away our right to defend ourselves, there will be no authority 
on Earth''--no authority on Earth--``including the Serbian authorities, 
that can stop us. We will not leave, we will not withdraw, and we will 
not live under Muslim rule.''
  Now, we get back to the two groups of people, the groups of people 
that have fought for homes. And what does that mean when they have a 
peace? They assume they can continue to live in their homes. But, no, 
that is not the way this works because if they happen to be a Serbian 
family in a home that is now designated by this group that met in Ohio 
as a Croatian area, then they will be driven from their homes.
  I used to be the mayor of a major city in America, Tulsa, OK. You do 
not make statements like this unless you mean it. He says we will not 
leave. So we now have a new faction, rogue faction if you will, that 
will develop from people who are living in homes, fought for homes they 
feel are theirs now, and now we come along and say, ``You have to 
move.''
  What is the other group? We hear about 2 million refugees that are 
scattered all throughout this region. I think it is closer to 3 
million. When I was over there, they were identifying close to 3 
million refugees, but let us be conservative and say 2 million 
refugees. These are people who have been driven from their homes--a 
second group of people. These people were driven from their homes. When 
they hear there is a peace accord, what does that mean to a refugee? It 
means he can go home.
  So what happens to those people? Are they Serbs? Are they Bosnian 
Serbs? Are they Moslems? Are they Croats? We do not know. And it does 
not really matter what they are because they are going to become rogue 
elements. Our intelligence community has already identified nine rogue 
elements. We have the Iranians; the mujaheddin; we know they are in 
there right now; we have the Black Swans which are mostly Moslems; we 
have the Arkan Tigers; we have special forces.
  So, Mr. President, we are not dealing with three people sitting 
around a table in Dayton, OH, agreeing about what they are going to do. 
I seriously doubt that the star of that show, the one who was supposed 
to be the most difficult to swing into a peace posture, Milosevic, is 
really speaking on behalf of those Serbs in Bosnia because those people 
are considered Bosnian Serbs, and they consider themselves to be 
independent.
  When I was in Sarajevo, there is a little town located right here 
called Pale. This is the town where they supposedly had the Christian 
Science Monitor journalist who had been held hostage for a period of 
time, and we were getting ready to go over there to help bring him back 
when we found out in fact he was not there. But one thing we did learn 
is that when you close those checkpoints, you are in another world, and 
those people do not have their allegiance to Milosevic. They do not 
have their allegiance to Tudjman or in many cases even Karadzic because 
they are people who are now holding themselves out to be independent.
  So I would just repeat to the President, who in his speech said the 
words ``the war isn't over,'' I have yet to find--there are only two 
Members of Congress, to my knowledge, who have been up into this 
northeast sector, the sector where the President is proposing to send--
and as we are speaking today is sending--American troops on the ground. 
They are Senator Hank Brown from Colorado and myself.
  Yesterday, we had a chance to address the Senate about what has 
really happened up there. It is not very pretty. In fact, we went via 
British helicopter, at very low attitude, never getting over 1000 feet, 
in a blizzard, all the way from Sarajevo up to the Tuzla area, going 
back and forth, and really being able to look very carefully at all of 
this land.
  Everything between Sarajevo and Tuzla is not like the Rocky 
Mountains, not like we think of mountainous regions. It is straight up 
and down. There is no way you could have even any kind of a light 
armored vehicle penetrate and travel through those roads, leave alone 
120 M1 tanks they are talking about bringing from Hungary, down across 
the Posavina corridor and into the Tuzla area. Once they go into the 
Tuzla area, the terrain will not allow them to go any further.
  We have seen articles, many of which I have here, published recently 
about the mines, about the roads. They talk about the roads coming down 
from Hungary into the Tuzla area where 120 M1 tanks--there is only one 
bridge in the entire area that is going to be able to hold up an M1 
tank. Up in Tuzla, General Haukland, a Norwegian general who was in 
charge up there, said that another element that you are going to have 
hostile are the very people we are supposedly trying to protect and 
trying to achieve peace for. Those are the individuals who will be mad 
because we have torn the roads up, the same roads they need for 
commerce and freedom of movement.
  I have never seen a proposed mission as doomed for failure as this 
one. We do not know who the enemy is. We are dealing with the mentality 
of people who fire on their own troops, murder their own people so they 
can blame somebody else. I do not know why anyone would not come to the 
conclusion that, if you are going to fire on your own troops so you can 
blame some other faction, you would certainly fire on American troops 
trying to remove you from your home.
  It is my understanding--from the sketchy information we get from the 
agreement that has been initialed--that there are two conditions under 
which we will withdraw our troops. One is at the end of 12 months.
  Now, since I have not heard anything to the contrary since the Senate 
Armed Services Committee met, when we had Secretary Christopher and 
Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, all said that in 12 months we will be out of there. 
And I asked the question, you mean we are going to be out of there 
regardless? If we are in the middle of a huge war, if we have 
entrenched ourselves within the civil war that has been going on for 
500 years, we are about to win it, and that 12 months is over, we 
withdraw? Absolutely, they said, we are going to withdraw in 12 months, 
and it is over.
  I do not think there is anyone who has studied military history who 
can point to a time when we have had a time deadline as to when a 
withdrawal will take place. It is supposed to be event-oriented: After 
this happens and this happens and we are successful, then we will 
withdraw. That is not what we are saying. We are saying we will 
withdraw in 12 months.
  The other condition is withdrawal in the event of ``systemic 
violations.''
  Mr. President, I have asked for many times a definition of ``systemic 
violation.'' What is a systemic violation? The administration speaks in 
vague terms about this. They say if you take the Croats or take the 
Serbs or take the Moslems as the three major factions, and if it is 
obvious that one faction is going to break the peace accord that we 
assume is going to be signed and is going to be acknowledged, then that 
would constitute a systemic violation.
  Well, we already know that there are nine or perhaps more rogue 
elements out there. How is our soldier, who has been trained over in 
Germany to fight in this type of terrain, how is this soldier who is 
fired upon going to know whether that firepower is coming from the 
Croats, the Serbs, the Moslems or is coming from some irate families 
who do not want to leave their homes or from some refugees who want to 
go home or the Black Swans or the Arkan Tigers or the mujaheddin?
  This is the problem we have here. Nobody can answer these questions. 
And yet systemic violation means we pick up our toys and go home. And 
what is going to happen on the road home? The same thing that you are 
seeing over here as we are making a transformation from a U.N. 
peacekeeping operation to a NATO operation that has not been well-
defined. They are firing on so-called ``peacekeeping'' troops. And we 
are not really sure who will be firing on our troops. Now, if it 

[[Page S 17760]]
could happen now during a cease-fire, it certainly can happen later. I 
have been disturbed for 2 years about this because 2 years ago--and I 
do not think it served any useful purpose--when I was serving in the 
other body, serving on the House Armed Services Committee, one of the 
top individuals came in and said that one of the first things that 
President Clinton said when he came into office was that he wanted to 
do airdrops into Bosnia. And I asked the question, in this closed 
meeting at that time--it is all right to talk about it now--I said, 
``Well, let me ask you a question. They have been fighting over there 
with all these rogue elements, with all these factions. How do you 
know, if we are dropping our stuff in there, if it will be in the hands 
of the good guys instead of the bad guys?'' The answer of this official 
was, ``Well, we don't know.'' Then he hesitated and looked over and 
said, ``You know, I'm not sure we know who the good guys and the bad 
guys are.''

  We have clearly taken sides. We are now saying that we are in a peace 
implementation posture where we are supposed to be neutral. We are 
going in with a NATO force that is declared to be neutral, yet we have 
taken sides clearly against the Serbs. That is where our air attacks 
have gone. I think it would be very difficult for us to go in and say 
we are truly neutral in this case.
  I guess the reason that I am going to continue talking about this for 
as long as we are in session is that each hour that goes by, Mr. 
President, we become more in peril. More of our American lives are 
endangered because, as we are speaking today, they are taking the 
troops--the troops that have been trained and the advanced troops who 
are going in for logistics purposes--and they have already been 
deployed from Germany up to Hungary, down south toward the Tuzla area 
that has been assigned to us, having to go through such hostile areas 
as this part of Croatia, this part of Serbia and, of course, the 
Posavina corridor which we already talked about.
  That means that if it is an hour after this or a day after this, 
there are going to be several more--how many are there right now? I am 
embarrassed to tell you, Mr. President, I do not know. I am a Member of 
the U.S. Senate. I am a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
I am a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and yet I do not 
know. And it is a highly guarded secret.
  We read different articles in the newspapers about how many are over 
there. We hear calls from people at home that say that they have heard 
from their son or daughter who is being deployed or was deployed 2 or 3 
days ago. And there is no way of knowing.
  But we do know this: That the clear strategy of the President of the 
United States is to get as many American troops over there as possible 
before there is any vote that takes place in this Senate so that he 
will put us in a position of voting against our troops that are on the 
ground, which he knows we do not want to do. And so he is holding us 
hostage in Congress.
  One thing we have not talked about is the cost of all of this. Talk 
about being held hostage. We have gone through these humanitarian 
gestures in Sarajevo and Haiti and all the rest of the things that are 
part of President Clinton's foreign policy. And while we do not 
authorize them, they come around later and say now we have to have an 
emergency supplemental appropriation. We passed one out of this body a 
few weeks ago for $1.4 billion. And that was for the things that were 
taking place in Haiti and Somalia. And those were exercises that we 
opposed in a bipartisan way in both the House and the Senate.
  So I anticipate that if the President is successful, as it appears he 
is going to be--it may be a fait accompli. Maybe it has already 
happened. Maybe we cannot stop it. So our troops are going to be sent 
out over there, not 20,000, not 25,000; we know it will be closer to 
40,000 or 50,000, at least. Then we will be faced one of these days 
with a supplemental appropriation request for not $1.5 billion but for, 
according to the Heritage Foundation and some other groups, somewhere 
between $3 billion and $6 billion.
  It means if we do not then appropriate that in an emergency 
supplemental appropriation, it is going to come out of the military 
budget. And we are already operating our military on a budget that is 
of the level of 1980, when we could not afford spare parts.
  So, Mr. President, I want to impress upon this body that the war is 
not over over there, that they are killing people today as we speak, 
that all this hostility is taking place in these areas, along with all 
we know about in the sector referred to as the northeast U.N. sector 
where we will have our troops.
  I have been up there. I do not think there is one person so far who 
has been north of Sarajevo and up through Tuzla who says that we should 
send young American lives into that area. I have never personally seen 
any more hostile area in my life. I have never seen anything that looks 
like that.
  There is no way we can use the armored vehicles. And it is very easy 
to understand now, in studying our history of World War II, how the 
former Yugoslavia was able to, at a ratio of 1 to 8, hold off the very 
finest that Hitler had because of this very unique area of cliffs and 
caves, this hostile environment, where the President of the United 
States is sending our young soldiers.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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