[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 190 (Thursday, November 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17840-S17841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 BOSNIA

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about 
Bosnia.
  Three nights ago the President of the United States went before the 
American people to make the case for sending 20,000 American soldiers 
to help implement the peace agreement that was recently drawn up and 
initialed in Dayton.
  I listened, as did millions of other Americans, and I heard the 
President lay out his reasons for doing something no one really wants 
to do, not even he. The decision that he made was not an easy one. As 
we have come to know all too well over the past few years, there are no 
easy answers to end the bloody conflict in Bosnia that has consumed so 
many lives.
  Over the past 72 hours all of us have weighed this question, and 
discussed the options before us with the administration, with our 
constituents, and deep within our own conscience. I submit to you that 
when push comes to shove this is going to be a vote of conscience, a 
vote of conscience here in the Senate, and a vote of conscience in the 
House of Representatives.
  While the details of the implementation plan have not yet been 
finalized, and as the President noted, there are critical questions 
that still need to be answered about how this mission can be 
accomplished effectively and with the greatest attention to troop 
safety, it is now clear to me that the American people and the Congress 
must and should support the President.

  To do otherwise, I believe, is to show a divided nation and send a 
signal throughout a world where 30 wars are now in progress that the 
American people forfeit our leadership role as the moral force for 
freedom and responsibility in the world.
  Over the past 4 years, while America and our European allies have 
quibbled about responsibility, the war has continued unabated. Amid the 
often self-inflicted charges of hand-wringing and finger-pointing as to 
whose war is it, who should lead, whose backyard is affected, two 
inescapable facts come home to me. One is something that the British 
statesman Edmund Burke said two centuries ago. We should all listen to 
what he said.
  I quote: ``The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for 
good men to do nothing.''
  And, second, in the words of George Santayana, ``Those who forget 
history are doomed to repeat it.''
  Mr. President, it is time for good men and women to stand up, and 
America must lead.
  To those who know history, this area of the world is no stranger to 
conflict. In 1878, 117 years ago, Benjamin Disraeli said in the House 
of Lords in Great Britain:

       No language can describe adequately the condition of that 
     large portion of the Balkan peninsula--Serbia, Bosnia, 
     Herzegovina, and other provinces--political intrigues, 
     constant rivalries, a total absence of all public spirit . . 
     . hatred of all races, animosity of rival religions and 
     absence of any controlling power . . . nothing short of an 
     army of 50,000 of the best troops would produce anything like 
     order in these parts.

  Disraeli's observation is as astute today as it was in 1878, but over 
the past 4 years the war in Bosnia has taken an enormous toll: a 
quarter of a 

[[Page S17841]]
million people dead; the systematic rape and torture of thousands; 
ethnic cleansing; concentration camps; over 300 graves with more than 1 
body in them; war crimes; thousands still unaccounted for; 2 million 
homeless; and the fear of a spreading conflict.
  Not since Adolf Hitler has the world seen such atrocities.
  When our children and grandchildren look back on this day, they 
should not have to ask, Why did we not act when we had a chance to make 
a difference? Why did we not learn from the lessons of the Holocaust?
  America is the strongest nation in the world. As new nations fight 
for survival, as ethnic groups fight for their rights, as the leaders 
of fledgling nations fight for democracy and as people suffer 
atrocities, we must be careful as to how and when and where we make a 
difference. But if we can make a difference, and if it is important to 
our interests, I believe we should.
  We have an interest in this peace. Some might say we did not have 
such an interest before Dayton, but post-Dayton we most certainly have 
an interest in this peace. We have brokered this peace. We have a 
chance for peace to succeed. We cannot turn our backs because if we 
turn our backs on a chance for peace, what we are going to go back to 
is the systematic torture and rape and ethnic cleansing and atrocities.
  When the assault took place on Srebrenica, the moral argument truly 
hit home. And after all, there are still thousands of men and boys 
unaccounted for since the Serbs took over Srebrenica.
  I have used this picture standing next to me in this Chamber before. 
Today I use it again. This young Bosnian woman from Srebrenica looks 
very normal--her skirt, her sweater--with one exception: She has hung 
herself. She is hanging from a tree. Rather than further endure the 
atrocities, the rape, the torture, the mayhem, she hung herself.
  What we stand for as a nation is not letting things like this happen. 
What we stand for is doing something about it. And we have done that 
before. Our men and women have fought two wars in Europe--World War I 
and World War II. America was not threatened then, but we fought for 
some of the same reasons that we brokered a peace in Dayton that now 
has an opportunity to succeed, if we have the will, the unity, and the 
disposition to see that peace succeeds.
  So my argument today is really the moral one. We can have a peace 
succeed at this time if we have the resolve as a free, strong country 
to see it through.
  Once again, I would recall what Edmund Burke said many years ago and 
paraphrase it: Bad men flourish when good men refuse to stand up.
  It is true, as many have said, and there is no question that there is 
a price to pay. The question is, Should we pay that price? And what 
happens if we do not?
  Let me begin with what happens if we do not. If we do not, we know 
that our allies will not go in. Since the arms embargo has just been 
lifted by the U.N. Security Council, we know that all sides will have 
greater access to arms. The Bosnian Government most probably will get 
arms from Moslem nations, and possibly from the United States as well. 
And the Bosnian Serbs will gain arms from Serbia and quite possibly 
from Russia.
  There is a significant danger that what has been a largely self-
contained conflict could spread, drawing in Croatia and Serbia as full 
participants--and we have seen the might of the Croatian Army--and then 
to nearby nations, such as Macedonia and Albania. From there our NATO 
allies, Greece and Turkey, could find themselves drawn in. And the 
threat of a major European conflict will be drastically increased.
  The mission that has been proposed is not without risk and it is not 
without cost. No military mission ever is. But it is a risk, I think, 
the leader of the free world must take.
  My continued support for the President's plan will be contingent upon 
the details of the mission. And I want to go into that for a moment.
  Our task over the next few weeks is to ensure that this mission is 
achievable, and that our troops are given everything they need to allow 
these highly trained forces--and they are very highly trained--to do 
what we know they are capable of as the strongest, best-equipped, best-
trained military force in the world.
  There are certain aspects of this plan that are fundamentally 
necessary to ensure success. First, as I have said, the United States 
will take the lead, but we will not be alone. We will provide one-third 
of the troops; our allies will provide two-thirds.
  Second, the command will be unified and straightforward. U.S. and all 
other troops will operate under the command of an American general, 
General Joulwan, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. This mission--
Operation Joint Endeavor--will be an exclusively NATO-led mission. The 
United Nations will not play a role.

  Third, our forces will be operating under robust rules of engagement. 
They will respond with immediate and overwhelming force to any threat. 
Anyone who threatens our forces will not receive a proportional 
response. They will, quite simply, be taken out.
  Here I want to commend the President for his clarity and strength. I 
echo his words that if anyone threatens U.S. troops, ``We will fight 
fire with fire--and then some.''
  Tomorrow, the Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am a member, 
will hold hearings on the plan to implement the peace agreement. The 
Armed Services Committee will also have an opportunity. Today, the 
House International Relations Committee is having that opportunity.
  We will have an opportunity to examine the terms of the peace 
agreement in depth, and to discuss the commitment of the parties to the 
agreement. President Clinton has made it clear that there will be no 
peace implementation force unless all parties sign the peace agreement.
  There are other concerns that also must be thoroughly addressed: the 
precise definition and limits of the mission; the avoidance of mission 
creep; a well-thought-out exit strategy, and the President has 
indicated four areas which will be used as the determining factors of 
when the mission has been successfully completed; the relocation of an 
estimated 2 million refugees; how to deal with anonymous sniper fire.
  We now know that there will be an international police task force set 
up, separate from the peace implementation force, to handle policing 
duties. There will be a body set up to handle the relocation of 
refugees. And we now know that the parties themselves will participate 
in efforts to remove the large number of landmines.
  All of these questions, though, must have more answers, and I believe 
they are in the course of being presented.
  As many of my colleagues have noted in recent days, the President has 
the constitutional authority to deploy these troops without 
congressional approval. The President, however, is seeking the support 
of the American people and of Congress for this mission. We must work 
with him to ensure that this mission is successful, but we can do no 
less than to support him.
  Three weeks ago, as Bosnian, Serb, and Croatian leaders hammered out 
this peace agreement, in another part of the world a great peacemaker 
and world leader was felled by an assassin's bullet. I was very sobered 
by the fact that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave his life for peace. 
More than anything else, I think this shows the risk that making peace 
in a historically troubled area carries with it. And so his death 
serves as a reminder that leadership in the search for peace has a 
price.
  I remember something that President Kennedy once said, that ``America 
would pay any price, bear any burden, and suffer any hardship in the 
cause of liberty and peace.'' I think that really says it all. We have 
an historic opportunity to help achieve peace where there has been far 
too much war. We cannot pass up this chance for peace.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.

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