[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14156-H14162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HISTORY OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] is recognized for 60 
minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dornan]. I do not think there is anybody on the floor who knows 
history, accurately, as my friend from California.
  Mr. Speaker, why is it so important, the time of the Field of 
Blackbirds, the time the Turks took over the Serbian Empire? What 
significance does that have for us, today, Mr. Speaker? From 1389, June 
28 to June 28 in 1989, kind of the start of the problems we have in 
Bosnia-Herzegovina, in former Yugoslavia, because on June 28, 1989, 
Slobodan Milosevic, remember he is the Serbian out of Belgrade, spoke 
to national Yugoslavia and spoke about a former and a greater 
Yugoslavia.
  At the same time and even prior to this, in 1980, prior to the 600th 
anniversary of the time of Yugo and the Field of Blackbirds, the 
Croatians, Franjo Tudjman spoke of the same Croatian national goals for 
Yugoslavia, which included the eviction of Serbs occupying the greater 
Croatia. The problem with that, we do not believe that either Milosevic 
or Tudman wanted an all-out war. It would cost too much and too much 
bloodshed. What they did want is as much of the Croatian and Serbian 
Empire for themselves under a greater Yugoslavia than they had. The 
problem was that at the same time, it kind of got out of hand. The 
Bosnian Moslems that we associate, again, primarily with Sarajevo, were 
kind of caught in the middle of this thing. They were the minority. 
They were forced, I believe, into a shotgun wedding with the Croatians, 
but quite often, the Moslems, the Bosnian Moslems, found themselves at 
odds with both the Croatians and with the Serbians, and both groups 
were killing the other.
  At a time when the Moslems thought that they had no one to turn to, 
the United States did not support them, the Croatians were beating up 
on them, the Serbians were beating up on them, they accepted with open 
arms the Middle East Mujaheddin groups, and there are over 4,000 of 
them there today.
  This is one of the groups we are very concerned about. This is not 
the Bosnian Moslems, the more moderate. This is the Islamic terrorists 
and fundamentalists that come out of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, 
and some of the other Middle East countries. They are sworn to a 
national Jihad.
  Germany sees its economic future in the hands of the Balkans. Greece 
is also concerned about further expansionism into Greece by the Turks 
and the Turkish Moslems, so it is a problem. The Germans, Croats, and 
Slavs are Roman Catholic. The Turks, the Bosnians, the Macedonians and 
Montenegrans are primarily Moslems. The Russians and Serbs are Orthodox 
Catholics.
  Now let me back up just a little bit in time, Mr. Speaker, from going 
from 1389 to 1989 in the history when this was significant to both the 
Croatians and the Serbians, when Serbia was taken over by the Ottoman 
Turks. During World War II, and this is prior to Pearl Harbor in 1941, 
Germans attacked and invaded Yugoslavia itself. the Serbians united 
with Russia and the United States. Let me repeat that. The Serbians 
united with Russia and the United States.
  There were two primary groups that fought with the United States and 
with Russia. They were the Chetniks, led by Micholevic, that were 
interested in a greater Yugoslavia; and then there was Tito, who was a 
Russian Communist, who was there to promote primarily Russian 
communism; two factions, but all fighting against the Nazis.
  The Croatians and most of the Moslems fought with the Ustase in 
support of Nazi Germany. Germany built a concentration camp at 
Janocevic and killed 1.5 million Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies. During the 
1980's Croatian nationalism movement under Tudjman, and the Croatians 
adopted, and this is now back at 1980, you can imagine the concern of 
most of the Serbians and some of the Moslems when the Croatians donned 
the old uniforms of Nazi Germany in the nationalistic movement which 
Tudjman was pushing on the other side of the Serb nationalistic 
movement, and the fears cam to fruition.
  I recently attended, last year, a banquet in which over 400 allied 
U.S. pilots were giving homage to the Serbs. Why? I remember the old 
Humphrey Bogart movies when the underground got our allied pilots and 
French pilots and the British pilots and United States pilots, most of 
them were with the Army Air Corps at that time, but they got out 
through the underground, our allied pilots. In 1990, France and Great 
Britian allied themselves with Croatia against their cold war enemy, 
because after the war, Russia in the cold war also became the warring 
enemy with the United States.
  As early as 1991 Tudjman, again, Tudjman with the Croatians, and 
Milosevic with the Serbians, hoping to actually avoid a war in 1991, 
sat down and sought out a reconciliation at Kraziavo. They split 
Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia, much like the Ohio 
agreement had done over the last month. The West insisted, however, on 
a Bosnia-Herzegovina Moslem state, which suited the goals of 
Izetbegovic, again, the head of the Bosnian Moslems. It also suited the 
radical Islamic movement.
  The Dayton agreement also splits the area, but guess who is in 
disconcert with that agreement the most? Izetbegovic, because again, it 
splits up Bosnia-Herzegovina, primarily between the Serbs and the 
Croatians, and gives the Moslems not the Moslem state that they 
originally wanted.

                              {time}  2130

  General Lewis MacKenzie, former head and commander of the United 
Nations, and I quote, ``Izetbegovic wants the entire country back.'' 
Now, this is General Lewis MacKenzie, the Canadian and head of the U.N. 
forces. In testimony before the Committee on National Security, when 
asked if he would commit United States troops in Bosnia, he added, ``I 
would not touch it with a 10-foot pole.'' At the same time the media 
reports from Bosnia and Sarajevo supported President Clinton against 
the Serbs.
  In 1994 and 1995, Bosnian Muslims established the Mujahideen Third 
Corps. Today there are over 4,000 radical Islamic fighters in 
organizations in Bosnia, and many of those, Mr. Speaker, have 
integrated into the regular forces. So when they talk about, in the 
agreement, they are going to eliminate those forces, those are the 
forces that are sworn to fight against the United States.
  Brigadier General Bastimas, commander of the U.N. military observes 
in Bosnia, and General MacKenzie have said that it was a Muslim who 
provoked the Serbian attack on Garazde. Brigadier General Bastimas 
criticized the United States media campaign and President Clinton's 
failings to recognize the Muslim trap set in Sarajevo.
  Another thing that bothers me, Mr. Speaker, is that the press jumps 
out, and we say we are going to treat all sides equal, but yet we have 
the biggest dog in town. If there is an incident and the press jumps on 
it and the President reacts, let me give you a couple of examples.
  The press reported that the 40 Muslims killed in Sarajevo was through 
a Serbian Shell, mortar. The French, the Russian and the British bomb 
experts have stated, and I can publish and show you the articles and 
submit them for the Record, that it was a Muslim preplanted bomb, that 
they just so happened to have photographers there, 

[[Page H 14157]]
that they just so happened to have the cameras there, so that they knew 
that they were going to lose Bosnia-Herzegovina; and these are not the 
Bosnian Muslims, these are the radicals, that set a bomb to go off so 
that the United States again would go after the Serbs and they would 
get a bigger piece of the pie.
  Remember, Mr. Speaker, when the press said that Captain O'Grady, who 
was shot down in his F-16 during the helicopter rescue that the Serbs 
fired at him. General Shalikashvili in testimony before the Committee 
on National Security testified that Captain O'Grady was not shot at by 
the Serbs, he was not shot at until after he got over Croatia.
  These are the kinds of things that immediate reaction, when we are 
going to go and hit somebody and follow the media and take a look at 
that, it concerns me. Because I think that General MacKenzie also 
testified before the Committee on National Security, and my friend Mr. 
Dornan was there. He said that what will happen is that these 
fundamentalist groups will fire a shell from the Serbian side and blame 
it on the Serbians just so that they can get more bargaining power.
  Izetbegovic is the biggest loser in Ohio. Let me read here a direct 
quote. I quote from Commander Abu Al-Ma'ali; he is the commander of the 
Mujahideen in Bosnia. ``To all of you Muslims of the world, we send you 
our appeal, which we have reported and are still repeating, to rise up 
in support of your brothers and remove the obstacles from around you.
  Those attempts are led by the United States in the Crusade West. We 
know that we will have a day in which to fight, and I quote, ``The Jews 
and the Almighty grant us victory.'' And we also know the best soldiers 
will fight the Christians. We disbelieve in the United States and its 
allies; we disbelieve in the transgressors and their religion, and we 
will have relied only on Al-Ma'ali.


  I would like to make it very clear, Mr. Speaker, we are not talking 
about Muslims. There are as many radicals within the Christian faith as 
there are, when we look at Israel that recently had the tragedy there, 
when we look in our own country, when we look at the Muslims across in 
the Middle East, there are as many fine Muslims as there are 
Christians, but these are radical groups we are going to have to 
contend with, Mr. Speaker, and it scares me.
  I would yield to my friend; I have gone on for a little bit with the 
history of this. I have more in my hour, but I would be happy to yield 
to the gentleman, and then I will continue with some of this education.
  Mr. DORNAN. Excellent. Mr. Cunningham, I think, because you and I are 
substantially in agreement on this and have emphasized different 
aspects in the name of freedom, of trying to educate our colleagues, 
whoever is sitting in the Speaker's chair, and this gentleman and I, 
Mr. Longley, as a marine lieutenant colonel active reservist in 
uniform, on summer drill, was in the NATO headquarters when we were 
both briefed, he on active duty, me as a visiting double Chairman of 
the Committee on Intelligence and Military Personnel of the Committee 
on National Security, and we both heard everybody in agreement from all 
NATO nations in attendance; there were about 7 or 8 represented out of 
the 16.
  When I asked about the provocations from all sides and would one side 
do something to make another side look bad, they all nodded in 
agreement that it was a very gnarly situation.
  Now, a few days after we were briefed, I went with Congressman Greg 
Laughlin of Texas to meet with Akashi, who has now been, I guess 
``fired'' is the nondecorous word, he has now been sent back to New 
York, probably with a big raise. They have another U.N. representative 
sitting there in the U.N. headquarters in Zagreb, Croatia.
  While we were with him on Friday, August 25, I guess I saw the 
Speaker pro tempore on the 24th, we warned him, Mr. Laughlin and 
myself, I was the leader of the CODEL, so I went first, that he was not 
qualified. Mr. Yasushi Akashi picked targets. I was sitting there 
thinking about LBJ picking targets for you as a naval combat pilot or 
the attack pilots below you that you were mid-capping, and I said, you 
are not qualified. He all but said, well, how did you like the targets 
I picked, the ammunition dumps last April?
  I said, wait a minute. You mean the outhouses with some small arms 
ammo that blew up around Pale? I said, those are not targets, we are 
talking about Brcko, and blowing up huge massive concentrations of 
ammunition. We are talking about hitting communication sites and 
everything.
  That next Monday on the 28th, the mortars hit Tuzla. Some people 
think the mortars were fired provocatively by Muslims. I do not know if 
they are agents provocateur, as Jane Fonda used to like to say, they 
were Croatian Bosnians, or whether the Serbian Bosnians did it with or 
without checking with Belgrade. But people were blown all over the 
marketplace. Dozens wounded, several dozens died on the spot before 
they could get medical aid.
  That was the 28th, and by the 30th, as we were about to leave the 
country for Milan, the bombing started. I said to my CODEL three escort 
officers, Greg and myself, look, let's get the embassy van and head 
back to Aviano. It is just a 3-hour drive across northern Italy. Let us 
be there when the pilots come home from those strikes. While we were 
there in the operations center, the French plane got shot down.

  Now, that is a fighter pilot, and I am a peacetime fighter pilot. You 
know there is a brotherhood in the air for allies, and years and years 
after the war, even between former enemies. Those are our brothers up 
there, those two Frenchmen. That Mirage could have been a 2-seat F-15E; 
it could have been a 4-man EA-6B Intruder or Prowler, it could have 
been a Navy bird.
  The first airplane I greeted back was a Navy bird with a reservist, a 
Marine Captain, an active duty Navy, and an active duty Navy reservist 
and, I mean a reservist on reserve duty from the States, a mixed 4-man 
crew that had just flown a 6\1/2\ hour mission controlling that very 
French plane that went down.
  Now I am told at the Pentagon this morning, early morning briefing, 
that our Pentagon at least suspects the two French pilots have been 
murdered.
  Now, the Serbs did have them, the Bosnian Serbs, because they 
released photographs that he had taken of the two Frenchmen. I showed 
them to you the other day and their legs looked like they had mild 
sprained ankles or something, or maybe they shot them in the legs so 
they would not escape, but they looked in pretty good shape.
  One of them reminded me of you, Captain Frederique Chiffot, two Fs. 
He is looking at the camera with a grimace like, I am resisting, I will 
hang on; looked like a typical tough Frenchman in the Foreign Legion or 
the gendarmerie. This guy was great.
  So they may be murdered. Why? Why could they not be turned over? 
Where was Milosevic's role?
  Here is what I want to present. We are right now in healthy 
disagreement on this, on what we do tomorrow. First of all, I am 
getting jockied to run by the conference. Let's assume the whole 
audience of 1.7 million and our great Speaker pro tempore stayed with 
me through the night. I got 20 calls tonight, is Dornan going to speak 
again?
  Here is what I told them last night. I turned in the letter of 50 
plus, 64, I demanded a conference, I was told we could not have it 
today, we would get it tomorrow morning and we would discuss this for 
an hour or two hours, closed doors, no staff except Newt's and the 
majority leader Armey staff; and now I am told that we have my 
conference and it is going to be at 5 o'clock, but something is wrong 
with that, because we are going to adjourn with legislative business at 
4, there are no votes on Friday, there are no votes on Monday.
  Bob Dole's deal where all the liberal journalists are saying, what a 
courageous guy, finally is through pandering to the Christian Right, 
way out on a limb, what an act of courage, what a great guy. What a 
great guy, McCain, again, he got Hanoi all normalized and wrapped up, 
now he is way out on a limb with Dole, and here he is Gramm's national 
chairman. Gramm, taking a role of leadership against this; it blew up 
in Dole's face today.
  Did my friend from San Diego or did my friend from the great State of 


[[Page H 14158]]
Maine, as Maine goes, so goes the Nation, did you know that Bob Dole 
and McCain got so far out in front of their troops that no other 
Republicans joined them, except Dick Lugar, none, that they had a 
revolution that Paul Coverdell said, I am not going to be a 
coconspirator in this nightmare.
  So do not you smile, Mr. Abercrombie. We have problems over here, 
too, so do you. We do not want any more of you guys just yet, I know it 
is breaking your heart.
  So let me tell you more about our problems. You think you have got 
problems in the Democratic Caucus, let me tell you about the Republican 
Conference. So my pal Bob Dole, who earned the right to do anything he 
wants in this country, he served all of his life, he is way out in 
front trying to support Clinton and here is the question I want to ask 
America tonight. Duke, you came here in 1988, right?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. 1990.
  Mr. DORNAN. You were----
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I retired from the Navy in 1987.
  Mr. DORNAN. You did not waste any time coming to continue your 
Federal service, you Bob Dole, you.
  Now look, here is the problem. When I came back, made a great 
comeback, I was a term-limit guy, 6 years, said good-bye, entered a 
Senate race a year late and a $1 million short, Pete Wilson beat me, 
and a Navy Cross winner McCloskey, short; and I come here in 1985. 
Reagan won a second term. It is kind of rare, second terms in American 
history. Roosevelt, Wilson on their side.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Can we stay on Bosnia, Bob?
  Mr. DORNAN. I am coming back to that. And now I come back in 1984-85 
and we start the battle of El Salvador.
  Here is my question for the night, Duke. The Democratic majority 
under Tip O'Neill and the majority leader Foley, without the U.S. 
Senate, it was still in Senate hands and had been so for 4 years, in 
the fifth year of Ronald Reagan delivering the Senate in January of 
1981 to the Republican Party without the Senate, Tip O'Neill held 
commander in chief Ronald Reagan, beloved by military men and women 
around the world, a beloved figure with his ratings high, held him in 
the struggle for freedom in El Salvador for 55, not 5,500 or 550, less 
than five dozen people. Fifty-five advisors in a country north of the 
Panama Canal, and Reagan could not break Tip O'Neill and Foley and 
Gephardt; he was held to 55.
  Now I am being told by a guy I admire, leader Bob Dole, by our best, 
one of our best fighters here, Newt Gingrich, and most of the 
leadership that we are neutered, impotent, that there is nothing we can 
do to stop Clinton, who avoided service three times and sent high 
school kids in his place; that he is going to put 55,000 people into 
what Churchill called the tinder box of the Balkans, disregarding two 
overwhelming House votes and a big Senate vote against it. He is going 
to get that done, and we are told we cannot do a thing about it; and 
Reagan could not get a 56th soldier or Green Beret into El Salvador.
  Here is what I am going to do later. See this book, Presidential War 
Power, by a Democrat scholar named Louis Fisher. Pretty nonpartisan 
actually, although he is a registered Democrat, and here is his article 
that I am going to put in the Record, because McCain has been 
misstating this.
  McCain said during Haiti that Thomas Jefferson sent naval forces to 
get the Barbary pirates along the Algerian coast without congressional 
approval; he said it over Haiti, and he said it again on Brinkley this 
Sunday.
  That is just not so. John had better come up with his history. He did 
not learn that at Annapolis. The Barbary wars are no legal precedent 
for Haiti.
  Do you know what? Ten public laws were passed by the Congress, 10 
went into law, demanding that Jefferson, the first one was passed the 
day before he was sworn in on March 3d, 1801; they demanded he go do 
something about the Barbary pirates. The President, Jefferson himself, 
actually that is who Buchanan was quoting, eternal vigilance is the 
price you pay for liberty, and then I will turn it back.
  Do you know what Jefferson said? I can do nothing as commander in 
chief except defend this country. If I am going to do anything 
offensive, particularly overseas, I must have the permission of 
Congress, just as every NATO nation has to get permission from their 
Knesset, their Parliament, the Bundestag; and we are not being listened 
to by Clinton.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let me comment and give you my opinion of a couple of 
the events. My friend knows the warm affection I feel for him.
  Mr. DORNAN. It is a manly affection.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. In a manly way. He has not only stuck up for me 
physically recently but in campaigns and everything else, and I 
consider him a very close friend.
  I am not running for President and I am looking at the presidential 
side of it. But I would not presuppose, and I would tell my friend from 
California, that the Frenchmen had been shot in the legs. I would hope 
that is not true.
  Mr. DORNAN. I am not accepting it, either. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. And I would not suppose that they have been murdered. 
I hope that is not the case also.
  Mr. DORNAN. They better not be.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. And I would not condone that. I would condemn it.
  I would also say that Senator Dole, when we came to Congress, stated 
that he, like most of us, would try and work with the President to find 
the best solutions.
  The biggest upset that I had in Vietnam, and I would tell my friend 
from California, I was shot down on the 10th of May, 1972. I can 
remember sitting on my knees and weeping on board the U.S.S. 
Constellation when I saw the Jane Fondas and the Tom Haydens, when I 
saw the rules and the regulations that were set forth in this Congress 
back during the 1970s. I can remember saying, who are those guys back 
in Washington, what country do they come from?
  We did not want to be there, I would say to my friend. But what we 
wanted was the support of the American people. We wanted the support of 
Congress. We wanted the best equipment. We wanted to be able to go 
through and fight with the best tactics, with the best machinery that 
we could, so that we could come back not in body bags but to our 
family.
  I talked to Senator Dole and that is his opinion. He knows that 
percentagewise the President is going to take our troops, regardless of 
what we do. Part of my pitch is the difference between George Bush and 
Bill Clinton and President Johnson, and also a friend of the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Dornan], Mr. McNamara.
  But in that decision the President made, knowing that we are going to 
go, he wants to give our troops the most support that we can. He will 
still fight for us not to go there in the first place. But yes, and you 
have seen the resistance that we have had even among both sides of the 
aisle here. We have already had two votes on not going to Bosnia.
  But after the peace accord was signed in Ohio, the inability for us 
to bring it up on the House floor, and I laud my friend from 
California, I supported and I signed your paper to bring it up even in 
our Republican Caucus. But I would say that the Senator is trying to 
work with the President as much as he can. He is against the position, 
but at the same time he wants to give maximum support to our troops.
  I would go into the same thing, and some of the weaknesses that I 
also see in this Ohio agreement.
  I look at a time when I was fighting in Vietnam, and I look at 
President Johnson, and he had McNamara. I think McNamara was not a bad 
Secretary of Defense, but I do not think he was placed in as Secretary 
of Defense at the proper time and in a wartime. I think during 
peacetime, as far as his politics, as far as his bean counting and his 
number crunching and what we actually needed machinery-wise was 
correct, and I think he served a pretty good position. But I do not 
think he was there as a tactician or could give the President the best 
information that he could have in the tactics and the policy in 
Vietnam. I think that is where the problem lies.

  Second is that President Johnson managed, micromanaged the war from 
the White House. Did not let the Secretary of Defense get into the real 
problems. Did not trust his generals to run the war, and in my opinion 
we got 

[[Page H 14159]]
58,000 people killed unnecessarily, not just from those two individuals 
but through a whole lot of blunders.
  Now I look at President Clinton. I think Shalikashvili is a pretty 
good general. I think he tries to do the job. I think if he was allowed 
to run this just like Colin Powell was under George Bush, I do not 
think he would do a bad job. But I also look at the President. When he 
says he will review the plan that comes out of NATO, I do not have much 
confidence in that from just the President's history.
  I also look at his advisers, and I said Secretary Perry, in my 
opinion very good when he was an assistant secretary. When he is now 
Secretary of Defense in peacetime, I think he is a good Secretary of 
Defense. I do not have the faith in Secretary Perry in a wartime 
situation from a lack of experience.
  At the same time I look at the President's Cabinet. Not historically 
a pro-military organization or group of individuals. When the President 
said he is going to make the decision, I take a look at the advisers 
that he has underneath him to give him good counsel and I am afraid of 
that.
  Another thing that I have real concern with, Mr. Speaker, is that the 
President and this Congress is going to be in a campaign mode over the 
next year. In our testimony it was said that, well, the President must 
be not looking at the polls because he is out there fighting this when 
the American people are against it.
  Republicans and Democrats across the board and in our Committee on 
National Security, Democrat after Democrat, and the gentleman from 
Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie] I believe was there during the time, said 
their polls and their people are telling them, Mr. President, do not 
send our troops to Bosnia. And I think that is pretty well across the 
board in most States and in most districts, Republican and Democrat. 
Maybe it is not, but the information that I have is overwhelming.
  The difference between George Bush and the President, one, George 
Bush said he would abide by what Congress said. President Clinton, on 
the other hand, we have had two votes on not sending the troops and he 
is bypassing Congress and sending them anyway. That is why Senator Dole 
has come on board and said, they are going, I need to get behind so 
that there are not any glitches, so that we do not get any Americans 
killed over there.
  I am still dead set against it, as my friend from California and I 
believe my friend from Hawaii, I do not think he is in support of this, 
I will not speak out of turn, but he can comment on it later if he 
likes. But I think if we look at the whole problem that we go over 
there, let me ask you some real basic questions.
  It is been identified that it would cost about $2.2 billion, Mr. 
Speaker. Testimony before the Committee on National Security said no, 
we are not sending 20,000, we are sending 32,000 people to Bosnia. Some 
are already there, some are already budgeted for. But the overall 
operation is going to cost this country, its share of NATO, $3 billion 
to $6 billion. Where is the President going to find the money to pay 
for it?

  After we leave in one year, NATO is going to take over, and a long-
term commitment. And we are trying to balance a budget in 7 years, we 
are trying to protect Medicare, we are trying to do some of the things 
that Members on the other side of the aisle are trying to do. NATO is 
billions of dollars broke. Who is going to pay for that extension in 
Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Bosnia? I think it is a fair question to ask 
the President.
  The President in his speech also, I would say, said that the 
principal funding for nation-building of roads and bridges and 
elections is going to come from Europe. But that leaves an awful lot of 
room for the United States to also pick up the tab there.
  There is something else that bothers me. The President and many of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, not many on this side, 
wanted to go into Haiti. We said there is no national significance or 
interest in going into Haiti.
  And at a time when Aristide has killed two of his predecessors, when 
the boat people from Haiti have already started coming out of there, 
the tortures, the neckties, and President Aristide has said that he is 
not going to abide by the elections, and he has reversed himself and 
countered that with a lot of pressure from the United States, but all 
the problems that are going on, and Haiti is just about to erupt again. 
Are we going to totally ignore Haiti?
  That is of great national interest, according to many of my friends 
on the other side of the aisle that outvoted us when they were in the 
majority. And I would say no. If it is of great national interest, and 
we are going to get into Bosnia. I think it also has a problem, that if 
we look at the Islamic fundamentalists, their greatest aim is to have a 
Moslem state in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to hurt the United States.
  If that is the case, how could they do that? They could tie up the 
United States, knowing that Haiti is a problem, and at the same time 
here comes Saddam Hussein and rears his ugly head. I would predict, Mr. 
Speaker, that within 1 year we are going to see Mr. Hussein again in a 
very violent way.
  I have gone on for a while. I would yield to my friend again to go 
through, and I have got some other points that I would like to bring 
out, but I would also yield to my friend.
  Mr. DORNAN. We have got time and I think this is super important, 
equal to the budget, and everybody in Hawaii is waiting for Mr. 
Abercrombie and it is only 5 o'clock in the afternoon there, so we are 
in good shape.
  Here is a press release by our good friend who uses this well so 
effectively, this floor, in special orders, Dan Burton.
  I did not know, following Bosnia so closely and fighting the budget 
battle, that Clinton had thrown his support behind the Spanish Foreign 
Minister Javier Salano for Secretary General of the North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization. This gentleman is not only a Marxist and whose 
only slogan when they took over in September 1979 was the platform of 
``We are a Marxist party,'' and that is it, big friend of Castro, 
constantly hammering on us to take the sanctions off that Communist 
killer, and he says he has openly admitted opposing Spain's membership 
in NATO, now he runs the thing and Spain is not a full member in full 
standing to NATO, although on my chart here Spain is going to send into 
that area--oh, that is great--1,000 people. Wonderful. They will 
probably all go to Zagreb or someplace that is safe.

  He says he has never distinguished himself as an ally of the United 
States. Again all the friendships with Fidel ``Killer'' Castro.
  It says Spain is not a full member. It is preposterous to even think 
about considering someone to run an organization who is from a 
government that is not fully integrated into the military structure of 
NATO.
  Clinton is making a monumental blunder of sending these troops into 
Bosnia under the guise of NATO.
  I found out in briefings today, I do not remember whether you were 
there or not, Duke, that when we pull out in a year, and Britain and 
France have threatened to pull out and so did Germany if we pull out, 
it goes back to U.N. control.
  So the U.N. is kind of going like under a rock. Their 14,000 people 
are going to go back to New York or wherever until a year goes by. Then 
they are all going to come back to the biggest U.N. operation ever.
  I read about the corruption, put it in the Record, but neglected to 
give the whole Readers Digest article to the Official Reporters, so I 
will do that tonight.
  I now have part 2 in front of me by Dale Van Atta that is simply 
titled The United Nations Is Out of Control. So we won that battle. For 
a year it will be a NATO operation, but with the United Nations in the 
wings hovering around there in the wings. Listen to this.
  Here is the brand new Time magazine, page 56, this week. Michael 
Kramer. Not a bad thinker for a liberal. The art of selling Bosnia. 
Listen to these mistakes.
  It says,

       The vote the administration hopes to win will be taken in 
     the Senate soon, and the outcome remains uncertain.

  I repeat, it exploded today in Dole's face.

       In the Senate, the support of Majority Leader Bob Dole will 
     probably win the backing that Bill Clinton desires.


[[Page H 14160]]

  Wrong. Issue in doubt.

       Dole's courage should not be minimized. With the exception 
     of Lugar, all the other GOP presidential candidates oppose 
     Clinton on Bosnia, the most vocal being Phil Gramm, who, in 
     declaring his position even before the President made his 
     case, showed again that he seems never to have encountered a 
     principle he won't rise above.

  Now let me defend Senator Gramm. Who is Mike Kramer to say that he 
has not taken a consistent position here? That may go all the way back 
to Vietnam for all I know with Gramm, that he wants the Presidential 
power curtailed the way Jefferson did, Thomas Jefferson, by a House 
vote.
  It gets worse.
  Dole says,

       I'll take some hits for this.
       But he, more than most, respects presidential prerogatives 
     and would like to enjoy them himself in 1997.

  Well, let me tell my friend Bob Dole that if he ends up as the 43d 
President of the United States----
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let me tell my friend that I control this hour. If it 
is going to continue to be----


                announcement by the speaker pro tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). Will the gentleman suspend. I 
need to caution, Members must avoid references to Members of the 
Senate.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I agree. If it is going to be a continuing of this 
kind of dialogue, I will reclaim my time.
  Mr. DORNAN. Sure. What I am saying is that if people running for 
President think the President, to restate what I said earlier, can send 
any number of troops, unless it is Reagan and it is a Senate Democratic 
majority--then he is limited to 55 human beings--but whether it is 
Woodrow Wilson, he got a declaration of war; Roosevelt got a 
declaration of war. But whether it is Harry Truman in Korea, Kennedy or 
Johnson in Vietnam, Nixon claimed he had a secret plan which he did 
not, Presidents cannot, unless it is an emergency like Grenada, an 
American officer like Roberto Paz killed by a war criminal Turillos in 
Panama, unless there is an emergency nature, and I am for repealing the 
War Powers Act to give the President that emergency power, but 
Presidents do not arbitrarily have the raw, naked power alone, whether 
it is a future President or Clinton, to say, no matter what the House 
does, I want a vote but I want it to be a positive vote.

                              {time}  2000

  I was against Mr. Bush when he took that attitude. I noticed in 
today's paper Bush and Ford and Colin Powell endorse this unlimited raw 
executive power to send any number of troops they want anywhere in the 
world under a whim, which is the way Clinton started in this 2 years 
ago, to commit 25,000 people without a hearing, without talking to 
Congress, not to go to Bosnia, to only go in as hired guns to withdraw 
the U.N. Force which was being kidnapped, chained to tactical targets, 
having their boots stolen, slapped around, abused and degraded in the 
name of this tri-cornered civil war.
  Now, listen to this, it says the troops are on the way; we cannot 
stop their deployment; and they deserve our support. This is what 
Bosnia, listen to this paragraph from Time, the administration will 
clearly take any resolution it can get, even a weak one, that says, in 
effect, ``The President is sending the troops. We support the troops.'' 
Here is my patch again tonight, pull it out of my pocket, First Armored 
Division. I have got one I am going to give you as a gift. Everybody 
else is going to pay $3. I support the First Armored Division. They are 
not there yet.
  I did a show with Chris Mathews, who was Tip O'Neill's, while he was 
Speaker, main political consultant for, I think, 6 or 8 of Tip's 10 
years. Chris said to me, ``I think you do have the power to stop this. 
I think if you are against it, you should use your vote,'' and he is 
the one who reminded me how Tip stopped Reagan dead in the water, so if 
the troops are not there yet, we do not even sign the treaty until 
December 14, today is the 6th, 8 days from now, and the first Armored 
man will not be there for several weeks right before Christmas, why can 
we not have a vote expressing our displeasure?
  Now, going over this with scholars from Congressional Research 
Service, I am told disapproval cannot be vetoed by the President under 
separation of powers, because we control the appropriations process, 
and if we were a little bit earlier and there were not so much 
contention about a 7-year balanced budget plan, we could have stood up 
with a negative amendment on the defense appropriations bill and simply 
said, ``Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk. The amendment 
will be read. No moneys appropriated under this bill shall be used to 
send or fund any ground,'' I would have put the word ``ground'' in, 
``ground troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina.'' That means the people can go 
to Macedonia, they can go to Croatia, they can go into Serbia and hold 
Milosevic's war criminal hand, they can go all up and the Dalmatian 
Coast, fill the Adriatic, the entire Mediterranean Sixth Fleet, no 
money for ground troops in Bosnia, because it is a European job.

  Before you continue your history lecture there, let me tell you what 
one of the guards who served in Desert Storm, one of our great 
policemen who protects us here said in the elevator tonight to me. He 
said, ``When I last looked, I don't think there were three nations in 
NATO, so three people each put up 20,000 troops.'' He said, ``What is 
there, 15?'' I said Iceland, 16. They have no forces. They are very 
lucky. They give us good air bases and seaports in Iceland. I said, 
that is right, there are 15 nations. It is not all according to 
population or to military forces that we flesh this thing out.
  I question whether the French sector in Sarajevo is tougher than the 
Tuzla area. I put on 3-D goggles today and looked at these excellent 
maps of the Tuzla area. You know, I have been calling your office to 
get you to go there with me. I want veterans, I want the gentleman from 
Texas, Mr. Laughlin, you, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson, 
the gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter, tiger fight, 1992. I want us 
to go there so we can talk to these men, if we cannot stop them from 
going there, and assess this scene.
  Tuzla is a bowl. You do not see this in your Atlas or geography 
books. It is a pneumonia bowl. Up the road about 4 kilometers is all 
Yugoslavia's, all provinces before it fell apart under Tito, it is the 
largest chloride chemical plant in the whole country of what was 
Yugoslavia, 4 klicks west up in Lukovac. If one missile out of Belgrade 
hit that place, they admitted to me in intel, 10, 15, 30 thousand 
people, thousands of our troops die from chloride poisoning. They make 
phosgene there. Theoretically, it is for everything that happens in 
that country, fertilizer, you name it, but the Muslims told a Green 
Beret acquaintance of mine that I picked up as a friend this last week, 
it has been verified that was their doomsday weapon if they got 
overrun, just as Golda Meir said, if Israel was overrun in the Yom 
Kippur War, they would use the 13 nuclear weapons they had sitting at 
Demona. You have flown with the Israeli air force. You have a lot of 
friends there. You know they meant business. It was biblical. They were 
not going to be slaughtered and driven into the sea. They would go out 
in a blaze.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Reclaiming my time, first of all, and I have the 
utmost respect for both Senator Dole, for Senator Gramm, and I know 
that the decisions they make are very difficult, and I believe, with 
all of our efforts, and I will do anything I can to support the 
gentleman to keep our troops from going to Bosnia, I truly believe in 
that initiative, and you know that I have supported you in every 
initiative forward that has come in that. I will speak against it. If 
there was a vote on the floor, I would pledge I would vote against our 
troops going to Bosnia, with the knowledge that I have now.
  I also believe that I think it is a done deal, and with that, I would 
take a look at some of the things that we have got to ask and ask 
questions and ask that they be taken care of.
  First of all, and first, I repeat, I am against our troops going to 
Bosnia. I think they are going, and I think these are minimums of what 
we should do.
  All troops, regular or otherwise, which are not associated with NATO 
or Russia, must be removed. That includes the freedom fighters from 
other countries, the 4,000 mujaheddin radical Middle East Muslims. They 
pose an imminent threat to our troops, and much of what my friend from 
California has just said; all mercenaries must be extracted from that 
portion of the world. They are uncontrollable, and that they 

[[Page H 14161]]
would also pose a threat to our U.S. troops.

  I think there needs to be identification of short- and long-range 
terms; by terms of cost by the President, and how we are going to get 
there, not with 20,000 but 32,000 troops. Where does the President plan 
to gain the funding from Bosnia-related operations and post-operations?
  Shalikashvili testified, and so did Secretary Perry, that they plan 
on taking it out of the defense budget. The defense budget, and which 
the President cut $177 billion when he said in his campaign that $50 
billion, along with Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, would put us into a 
hollow force. According to GAO, an independent agency, not Republican, 
not Democrat, we are $200 billion below the bottoms-up review which is 
the bare-bones minimum to fight two conflicts at the same time.
  I asked the general today, I said, do we have the troops to fight, if 
we get tied down in Bosnia, to fight in Bosnia and North Korea? The 
answer is ``no.'' Can we sustain a Desert Storm type of operation in 
Bosnia? The answer is ``no.'' Could we support Haiti somewhat? Yes, 
somewhat smaller.
  I think the President needs to ask these questions.
  The President has recently signed a commitment to balance the budget 
in 7 years. Where are we going to get the short- and long-term billions 
of dollars that it is going to take in this commitment, away from some 
of the same things my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
fighting for?
  I would look at nation-building and how much and what is the limit. I 
would look at something that the President said that we need to look 
equally at all three sides. We are going into a peace agreement, not a 
conflict, peacekeeping. But yet at the same time in this accord we are 
going to arm and train the Muslims and the Croatians.
  If I was a Serb, I would consider that an act of war.
  And we take a look at the training. They are going to take in from 
Iraq, Iran, Russia, France, all the arms nations, and probably the 
United States, weapons of mass destruction into that portion of the 
area now that the embargo; I think the President needs to say ``nyet,'' 
that we are not going to allow an infusion of arms into that portion of 
the world, causing a potential powder keg for the rest of the world.
  Even more important, right now, the contingencies with Saddam 
Hussein, North Korea, Turkey's expansion into Greece, China and Taiwan, 
unknown and unexpected contingencies, there are over 20 years going on 
as we speak today in the world, Mr. Speaker, and Haiti.
  I have already spoken to Haiti as far as we spent billions of dollars 
there. Aristide is still there, and it is about to blow up again.
  I look at Somalia. We spent billions of dollars in Somalia. We had to 
leave with our tails between our legs under guard. And guess what, 
General Aideed is still there in Somalia. And that has cost us.
  I would take a look, and there is a statement that I think my friend 
knows, and it is a fighter pilot rules in the area allotted to him in 
any manner he sees fit. When he sees the enemy, he attacks and kills. 
Anything else is rubbish. That was Baron von Richthoven in 1916. Baron 
von Richthoven never met Che Guevara in guerrilla warfare. He never met 
the Vietnamese in Vietnam. He never met Mesashi on the fields of the 
great Japanese wars. I take a look when the President says we will be 
the meanest dog in town. Well, in all of those cases, the dog was 
killed by fleas, because they are not going to fight in head-to-head 
confrontations. They are going to send a weapon into the chemical 
plant, as my friend just brought out. They are going to hit and run. 
They are going to cause the United States to go after one side or 
another for political, religious, and economic experiences and values.

  I think that it is a travesty. I think that it is wrong to send our 
troops into a portion of the world in which I do not believe that we 
have a direct interest.
  I look at the road running between Goradze and Sarajevo. Milosevic 
conceded it is a Bosnian Muslim focal point between Bosnia-Hercegovina 
and Sarajevo. I look at Izethbetovic, who was happy with the split 
between Serbia and Croatia. I take the Pottsylvania quarter. It is a 
northern Bosnia, I say to my friend, connects Serb-controlled areas 
with the northwest Serb territory in the east when the Croatians did 
not want to give it up. I look at the Croatian demand for Broko, which 
now is in Serb control, and it is a pivot for the same quarter up 
above, and if you look, neither side in the Ohio agreement could come 
to terms, but they agreed to put it before an international arbitration 
board.
  Now, do you think that is really what these groups are going to be 
arbitrated with an international board? All of these areas are 
potential, and I believe will become, trouble spots.
  General David Mattocks, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, 
believes it is wrong to send in U.S. troops in the dead of winter with 
no replacement troops, I would say to my friend from California, no 
replacement troops. We are calling up reservists. We are sending our 
kids for 1 year.
  Do you know what that does to families? Do you know what that does to 
businesses? You know what that does at a time when we are destroying 
our military with defense cuts and base enclosures and other 
initiatives from this administration?
  Mr. DORNAN. Let us stop it before this happens.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I agree with my friend. Let us stop it.
  You know, I made a statement that this is Afghanistan with trees. 
Afghanistan broke Russia. It cost them economically. It cost them with 
lives. And when they left, they accomplished nothing.
  The same thing in Somalia, the same thing in Haiti, and, in my 
opinion, the same thing there. Afghanistan, unlike Bosnia, is 
mountainous. But Bosnia is a land of many, many trees, and it is very 
hard to pick out those targets and very hard to maneuver, and I know 
some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have talked about even 
the main threat that exists there today.
  So I believe it is an Afghanistan with trees. It is going to break 
this Nation. It is going to stop us from some of the things both my 
liberal colleagues and conservative colleagues on this side of the 
aisle want to do, and that is focus on the problems that we have in 
this country right here. And I think if we shy away from that 
responsibility, Mr. Speaker, I think it is wrong for the American 
people. I think it is wrong for the kids.
  Mr. DORNAN. Let us get out at this point because somebody may have 
joined the debate, Mr. Speaker, that did not hear any of this 
discussion last night or the night before.
  I know that you believe it is worth a lot of our tax dollars to be 
involved. Now we are doing most of the airlift, 95 percent. Nobody else 
has big enough----
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. With the C-17, by the way.
  Mr. DORNAN. The C-17 is a success story going in there with fields in 
there a C-5 cannot get into.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Cannot operate out of the taxi ways. They have to 
stop down the runway, shut it down. Only the C-17, which is very 
controversial in the defense bill, but it has proven out for its worth.
  Mr. DORNAN. How about sealift? Who has as much sealift as we do, 
going into the Dalmation Coast ports along Croatia up in Slovenia? The 
United States. What about sea power? Who constitutes the majority of 
most of the squadrons and the carrier battle groups out in the 
Adriatic?

                              {time}  2215

  As we speak, the America just came out of the Suez Canal this 
afternoon and it is steaming up into the Adriatic. That is another 
6,000 people of your Navy friends. We have Marines in hot bunks, five 
or six deep, sitting on an LPA or an LPH or an LPD waiting off the 
coast there for vertical envelopment and force reinforcement if U.N. 
people, until they get out of there, are being overrun, and now air 
power.
  I just found out, with you sitting right there today, that Aviano and 
our other bases, Fort Disey, Vicenza suddenly went from 1,700 to 2,600. 
There is another increment. I will bet it will be 3,000 before we are 
through. That does not include that air bridge of the air lift. We are 
now doing airlift, sealift, air power, sea power.
  Now, what about the hospitals? Wait until you see them at Zagreb. 
They are 

[[Page H 14162]]
ready for a big catastrophe: a lot of body bags, casualties, and MASH 
operations. What about the food? Most of it is coming from here. The 
fuel? Most of it is coming through the courtesy of the United States 
Navy, bringing it up in that area. What about intelligence? Good grief, 
nobody has our super satellite architecture or our unmanned aerial 
vehicles.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Remember when some of our colleagues wanted to cut 
the intelligence budget? If anything, we need to increase, whether we 
go in there with troops or not, we need to increase our intelligence 
folks in that portion of the world and in other portions of the world.
  Mr. DORNAN. Absolutely. When the chairman, the gentleman from Texas, 
Larry Combest, took his subcommittee chairmen, me, three or 4 other 
Members, the gentleman from Florida, Porter Goss, and we went into a 
new intelligence operation, moved into a new unit inside the Pentagon. 
I said, ``What is your principal duty of intelligence in a peacemaking, 
peacekeeping, nation-building operation?'' ``To protect our men and 
women in the field.'' So they are dedicated to not losing a single 
person.
  Then after they gave us the 3-D view of Tuzla and that whole area, I 
say, let us see an overlap of the mines. Duke, the biggest hill around 
Tuzla has so many mines around it indicated in red that it is a giant 
solid red horseshoe. Then they gave us an intelligence weather 
briefing, all declassified. Do you know what is coming there? If it is 
the mildest winter in the last 50 years above the 1,500 foot level 
where the mortar men and the snipers sit, it goes below freezing and 
stays there for 3 or 4 months.

  That is where the mines are, and any division commander, and I have 
the general's bio here from the First Armored, and I will put it in 
after the special order of the gentleman from Hawaii, Neal Abercrombie, 
what would you do there, if you were ground commander? You would say, I 
need my anti-sniper teams up in the hills. You are living in tents 
here. If you think it is freezing here with these little tent heaters 
and with this floor, single floor we put in, you are going to have fun 
up there in the hills below zero, so take all your Arctic clothing. 
Maybe that is why they sent the First Armored division.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. You are going to be vulnerable.
  Mr. DORNAN. You go up there, thread your way through the mine fields, 
dig a foxhole, hunker down and wait for the snipers. Then if the troops 
have to use Clinton's rules of engagement, they can shoot even if they 
suspect somebody is coming at them, they had better pray it is not a 
Moslem woman, a Serbian woman, or a Croatian woman ever with a plate of 
cookies or with hot tea, because if they blow her away, as I read last 
night from a top Marine gunney, you will live with that psychological 
scar, you will live with that for the rest of your life. So the 
commanders in the field, do not think you are going to get court 
martialed for killing innocent people, and you are going to go quoting 
quote Bill Clinton, you can fire if you are being assaulted, but you 
had better be afraid of ghosts in the night that are friendly people or 
people trying to infiltrate back from one side to the other.
  Here is something that was handed to me today. You have been tracking 
Chechnya, English Chechnya. Colonel General--what is a Colonel General, 
three-star, yes, three-star, Colonel General, Leonty Shevtsov, Chief of 
Staff of the Russian forces in Chechnya from December 1994 to April of 
1995, has now become the commander of the Russian peacekeeping forces 
to be placed in the American sector in Bosnia.
  How ironic, the Russian military acting as peacekeepers in Bosnia 
when they themselves are still committing atrocities in Chechnya 
against the Muslims. Some 40,000 civilians died in Chechnya on 
Shevtsov's watch, and the killing goes on. Russian bombs continue to 
fall on Chechnyan villages. Women and children continue to die. 
American silence is unconscionable.
  I am going to ask permission to put this whole article in, from the 
Washington Post. What are we going to do with the Russians in our 
sector? What I read in last night, and I will continue it out of these 
Readers Digests, outrageously revealing reports; they have been so 
partial to the Serbs, they have been letting people who did commit 
atrocities go back and forth across the lines. They opened up a bridge 
with the greatest mass movement of Bosnian Serb tank power in the whole 
3-year conflict.
  We have got one overlapping problem, and now today, in Sarajevo, for 
the third day in a row, 100,000 Serbian Sarajevo citizens are saying, 
``We don't want the French and we are not giving up our 
neighborhoods.''
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I think I only have a couple of minutes left. I would 
like to kind of wind it up.
  Mr. Speaker, this Member, the position that I would like to take, and 
I hope the House, and the House has on two separate occasions taken, is 
first of all we not send our troops to Bosnia. All three sides in this 
have said they want peace. Belgrade does not have all the cards like it 
had before. Both the Moslems and the Croatians got pretty much of a 
stinger from the infusion of arms that have gone in there and the 
training under the Mujaheddin. If they really want peace, I think they 
can achieve it.
  It does not mean we cannot help with intel and some of our SATCOM 
communication type systems, and AWACs in other areas, or even with 
communications or even with humanitarian food. But I want to at all 
costs keep us out of Bosnia-Herzegovina with our troops.
  Mr. Speaker, I do believe we are going in, even after that. I do not 
think it is unfair to ask the President, what is it going to cost 
short- and long-term? How is he really going to protect our troops? And 
how do we get out, and what are the costs? Because I truly believe with 
all my heart that after we pull out of there, we are not going to have 
solved very much, just like we have in Haiti, just like we have in 
Somalia; billions of dollars, with very little to show for it, with 
personnel killed, and most of them from the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friends and I would like to 
thank my friend, the gentleman from California, for joining this 
special order. I think it is in the great interest of the American 
people. I know in our Caucus and on the Committee on National Security, 
Republicans and Democrats alike said they are getting phone calls 13 to 
1 against us going into Bosnia.
  I hope that the American people would focus on that, that they would 
write their Senators, their Congressmen, and do everything that they 
can to keep us out of there, because, Mr. Speaker, I think it is a 
travesty.

                          ____________________